HerrBaron Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 Hi folks, In all the time I've been playing TES4 and FO3 and dabbled in modding them, I've never found a lucid discussion of the Pros, cons, do's, don'ts and capabilities of ESM's versus plugins(ESP's). I know that an ESP can use and override the contents of ESM's, but you can do this with just plain ESP's. Anyone know where I can find this kind of information? I've been all over the wikis, forums and tutorials, and master files are only mentioned in passing. Thanks!HerrBaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsmanners Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 Pros and Cons are not well-known. There were some infamous bugs introduced in 1.5 that exposed the fact that ESMs are not handled the same as ESPs internally. That's about all we know, but I'll try to give a run-down for 1.7 (AFAIK): ESM Pros: allows further modification (via ESPs that reference them), can define new NPCs without the skin glitch (1.5+)ESM Cons: cannot be edited in GECK, cannot be given priority over ESPs in the load order, no warning when you uninstall ESP Pros and Cons are the opposite of the ESM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HerrBaron Posted September 18, 2009 Author Share Posted September 18, 2009 Pros and Cons are not well-known. There were some infamous bugs introduced in 1.5 that exposed the fact that ESMs are not handled the same as ESPs internally. That's about all we know, but I'll try to give a run-down for 1.7 (AFAIK): ESM Pros: allows further modification (via ESPs that reference them), can define new NPCs without the skin glitch (1.5+)ESM Cons: cannot be edited in GECK, cannot be given priority over ESPs in the load order, no warning when you uninstall ESP Pros and Cons are the opposite of the ESM. Thank you! Are you sure about the inability to prioritize esms over esps in load order? Everything I've been given to understand lead me to the idea that .esms are loaded before .esps...? For instance, if you arrange load order in FOMM such that .esm's are loaded first, doesn't that kind of contradict that? Again, thanks very much!HerrBaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skotte Posted September 18, 2009 Share Posted September 18, 2009 Pros and Cons are not well-known. There were some infamous bugs introduced in 1.5 that exposed the fact that ESMs are not handled the same as ESPs internally. That's about all we know, but I'll try to give a run-down for 1.7 (AFAIK): ESM Pros: allows further modification (via ESPs that reference them), can define new NPCs without the skin glitch (1.5+)ESM Cons: cannot be edited in GECK, cannot be given priority over ESPs in the load order, no warning when you uninstall ESP Pros and Cons are the opposite of the ESM. Thank you! Are you sure about the inability to prioritize esms over esps in load order? Everything I've been given to understand lead me to the idea that .esms are loaded before .esps...? For instance, if you arrange load order in FOMM such that .esm's are loaded first, doesn't that kind of contradict that? Again, thanks very much!HerrBaron Actually, no it doesn't contradict that, even if you put the esms at the bottom of a load order list they are loaded before the esp files so the humble esp has priority over the mighty ESM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsmanners Posted September 18, 2009 Share Posted September 18, 2009 What you see in FOMM is the order in which the game loads mods. So, something lower on the list will override whatever is above it. That is, if you have the "bInvalidateOlderFiles=1" in your Fallout.ini (which you should). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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