Fallout 3 Limited Savings

[Hanker109]

Hi! I've been playing this game for a while with many mods and hardly any crashes, yet at a certain point the game won't save any more and there is no ways to go back to an earlier saving and starting anew again. This limitation is more prominent when using CASM. I don't know if there is a solution to that and the reason why I'm posting here. I will be very grateful if someone does have knowledge on how to work this out.

[Purr4me]

what level are you @?

[Hanker109]

Hi again Purr! My level is 28, I did the Pitt, Anchorage, and most of the quests. I've not done Mothership, Broken Steel, and the main quest. I'm using CASM so the list of savings were short and none of the allow me to do a later saving. I reinstalled the game instead of starting new because I wanted to add new mods to my collection.Now CASM's saving option is only every ten minutes and all other were cancelled. I taking advantage to get in to another subject because I know you are very knowledgeable. I've been merging files from various mods, and example: Wanderers Edition had three files, I place all in a folder, with WinRAR I "extracted here" first Part 1, Part 2 and last the fix. I'm using FOMM now as you suggested,(works much better than the other), and FOMM installed it without any problem. So far the game is behaving very well. Do you think this type of merging could be a problem later on? Please let me know and thank you again.

[Purr4me]

The things I do were taught to me + some of my own discoveries too, but, modding in general for every user is an adventure , a learning curve as some put it...it part of the experience in the games, some do get pleasure in the discoveries they make.

I can lay things out for you to show the correct way things need to be, but this ruins the fun for others too.

Do I think this type of merging is cool? well yes, but, it goes a lot further than just that., What I can lay down here is just an example , a simple guide to help you out some. you need tools, tools to see what data is what, and the tool needs to show you with out you knowing a bunch of egg head stuff , (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/1334/?) , use of that program and study of it ,can teach you on your own how things actually work in any games it supports. the basic's the games load order is just a small part of it, the games DLC Content dates, the point in time, real time of production Dictates, should control how and what gets overwritten in any merging you do.

 

For those that have the GOTY Edition, this is the most important thing to know. To cut down on the amount of clutter and increase games stability, you need to remove excessive data, over writes to a point where there is no overwriting at all.

 

this is not to be confused with the plug in's them selves, I am talking about all the files, hidden in BSA archives. The tool listed here above can show all of this if you Elect to extract the bsa archives. but the methods used to obtain this level of use is along the lines you have just described, only a lot of steps further are required.

 

there is NO tool made , ALL in one so wishful wanting is out. raw fallout 3 and NO DLC content installed, you inspect the data folder, in there you will find the bare basics of the games stricture. with that kept in mind, you have a map, a way to control what goes where.

 

Another tool is windows OS, yes, that is correct, windows can show you what gets overwritten and you can isolate these things using windows too, AKA...skip the over writes during a moving stage. it is the folder names in windows, your work Environment, your choice of words used for the folders and their contents.

 

the first thing to know is this, all sound items/bsa archives are to be left out of editing. why? because it takes for ever to process that many sound files in a windows OS that loves to categorizes every piece of music. Windows gets involved, very deeply in the games files structure ,and it is sneaky too, the media player is top Dog here, in windows, if you open up any content controlled folders, you will notice a method the system uses to show what it is, media typos ,authors, and so on, you see this in the users main folder ,User /documents/ pictures/video/musics. etc....

 

windows is always in charge. Programs used to control data for the games rely on this fact, only you are not aware of this, things do seem to be isolated, some more than others. at the top of every folder you open, along the seam, there are column types, different folders show different things. Merging files for the games are all involved in this too ,so you can not dismiss this, it must be in your mind, as windows does in fact control what a tool will do and show.

 

Fo3 ,name of the bsa If you use windows control to get the exact name of a BSA archive, you right click it, get the name, and make your work folder on the desktop for that archive. Now, use fomms internal bsa archive browser to extract all it's contents into your work folder.

 

here you will see how windows controls the files structure as laid out internally in the bsa. you do this same thing with each archive except the sound bsa's leave them alone. as you progress , you will find out ,Bethesda dd a End Run with packaging, a sort of sloppy way to copy protect the work, or just plain sloppy, the DLC contents bsa archives contain lip sync *.ogg files in main folders, all just crammed into a bsa, so now, the data is all mixed up. on the desk top, you have your main games folders, now it's times to set them aside so you can do the DLC's and do them as they were made, I mean in real time, not alphabetically but actual production release dates .this is why,

 

when they added on to the game, some textures and mess files were replaced, some for the better, and some just plain broke the

game. You do what we discussed here with each DLC ,leave out any content sound items found .

 

now, when you have extracted all bsa archives to work desktop folders ,and these folder names reflect the exact names of the bsa archives, you have a source to draw from . creating a merged content "Default" bsa is now much easier but better controlled.

 

your bsa content will only contain sound and vice files ,Full compression is used in fomm's utility for bsa creations, in there ,you will "NOT" place any other type of file. no mesh files, no texture files, just sound files.

 

when you see what takes place, you will notice all files listed within the archives you make,l fall right in line with the plugin's data, and your work folders are empty of sound files. now, the original games bsa re-placers have no texture or mesh files in them to get overwritten. NO duplicates.

 

you want to Eliminate all types of duplicating that takes place, these are the stages to recompile the game structure and remove the corporate methods used all the while maintain them too. it's a lot to take in, and a lot to remember.

 

the next thing is , once you have mad all your main games sound and DLC bsa archives completed, you move out the main games default bsa archive's from the data folder, placed in an out side folder, here is where you grab the files names and create empty "Fake" bsa archives to put back into the main Data folder. why? because, loose files rule the game, and archive inventory does no longer present any possible way to cause duplication errors to form during game run time.

 

Now ,you decide how to maker your own custom controlled "merged" archives to install. But before that, you make a zipped up highly compressed archive of the games reaming files. use the tool above to install what you now make, all of this is work, but all of this has a great reward too, now, you will have a tool that will show what files named the same , over write what other files with the same name but contained in other packages, this is not always duplication's, as the name of the file can be the same but now, we have dived even deeper into the content part of the files structures , a file name *.yellow -brick- road.nif in one main folder" can also be in another package, with the same name but it's internal data is not the same ,could be larger, or could be fixed, or even could be wrong, but now before you start to merge a bunch of files, yo have the opportunity to find out for sure ,"do you want to overwrite the main games files with these? or not. now you can decide what you have in the game ,or you can simply leave these in place an enable them in MO.

 

Now a mod that Enhance further game play is available, your at the games limit, this is built in so yes, it will not allow much further game play. you need level 99 or 100 type of plugin to get rid of the limiting thing, this is not any way a guarantee you will still be able to progress beyond where your at now. But I do maintain some one else s mod here that might help.

 

all stuff i support is listed in my profile. I can talk more about this later if required of me to do so.

kitty

[Hanker109]

Hello there Purr! On "Limited Game Savings", I adjusted CASM to save every ten minutes instead of five and create twenty savings instead of five. Let see now if I don't get castrated before I finish the game. :confused:

On Tools, I downloaded MO and "Side Dishes" (videos & tutorials) as you suggested. Once installed, not in the game's folder, MO recognized Fallout 3 immediately. It looks I need to reinstall the game before using this tool. I will play and learn with it, it looks great!

On Learning, Is good to experiment, which I do so often with mistakes, headaches and all but it is better if you can learn from a knowledgeable person. As you said "The things I do were taught to me + some of my own discoveries". Let me tell you that I'm not bashful and will not mind if someone will spoil or ruin my fun by teaching this all dog with new tricks. On all beginnings, knowledge new to be acquired from someone. I delved in Windows OS and found that FOMM had its icon on all the .bass, just clicking on one will auto-extract its content which can the place in a new folder and on the Desktop, it looks cool,although I can't understand any of the content at this time.

Hey Purr! I hope you don't mind if I ask you about Fallout Remaster, will it come up again?

I want to thank you for all those super suggestions and whishes you the "Best of All".

[Purr4me]

With current tech and trial and error being performed on mods by all that use these editing tools, The tools them selves being in beta "Mode" have prevented any updates or forth coming of the Vanilla games repaired structured mod"Fallout3Remastered"

To explain this, you need to read all the mistakes that have been Endured by the members that create the tools in the first place, all while we use beta tools on the mods, they get uploaded and consumed, Remastered can not compete with fatalist, broken data.

To give you an outline of things that go bump in the night dealing with modding data, this will give you an idea of what has gone wrong and what is being done about all of it.

https://code.google.com/p/skyrim-plugin-decoding-project/issues/list

we can't hope to compete with mistakes or keep up the fight, the good fight against bugs created by us and every one.

This is what we were up against. There is no way for us to fix purposely broken data that is done purposely, do you understand this?

 

people do things and do not think about what they are doing, they just do it and follow blindly. We were not blind, now you are not.

It would require a rewrite of known fool proof tools to redue all the mods to fit each game, where this tool is for all games but causes many bugs in the process , such to an extent, impossible to cover all and stand behind anything we make.

 

All we can stand behind is what comes off that disc of the Original data source for each game and use only the tools made that have not changes in the years past from release dates and times. The CD has never changed, the tools do. I can make any patch for specific bugs using only the geck and it will work provided the data it is targeting is from only the raw game it's self. IF it is made from the tools listed on that link, we can not make things to cope with that.

 

what was once is available to any one that requests it according to the directions given by the author and only in that way.

kitty

[Hanker109]

Hi Purr! I'm very sorry to have touch Fallout Remastered theme, it seems I touched a delicate spot without wanting to do it. I know, by reading, that many people praised and wanted this mod for their game, myself was never able to even see it. One can get frustrated for things done by others but that doesn't mean quitting. There is always a way to improve things and you know this better than I. I see things this way, we started manual install, then OBMM/FOMM comes in, Wrye Bash (which I love for Oblivion), later NMM butts in, and now MO gets in the Arena to ring superior, tomorrow?

 

Talking about frustration, this has nothing to do with you but something very strange happened while downloading your mod "Anchorage Alive 2077 WareZone". As I was downloading, NMM popped up and notified me that it was uninstalling "Fallout 3 Redesigned Fixed version-6341-2-72". When I got off the internet, I checked and Redesigned was gone from my installed game. Isn't that weird? Best Wishes, Hanker109

[Purr4me]

that is so weird...I have used the older version of nmm to test things, but in the main.cs of nmm broken down, there was references too TTW and I do not approve of that process so I do not use the program. To my understanding TTW is two games rolled into 1 and uses the other engine, the 4.0a installer edits all master files including fallout3.esm , the iso I made OF THE RESULT, I KEEP. to be warned of it.

 

I see like 8 or 9 games this thing scans for, and I have to force it to stop scanning every byte of data it can find on my system. that was enough to not want to use it.

Trust not in automation, robots can't think, they just do, and if the doing is wrong? it's a robot, so who is to blame? not the program, the choice made to allow it to take place. I choose what I want scanned on my PC, I choose what gets seen. I choose what to install and remove. No robot is going to be allowed to alter that.

 

Vm's are virtual OS set up to use as test beds for all of these new toy's. I use them, VM ware, windows 8 has this built in now, so XP Pro comes in, 32bit, 64bit, anything at all I need to test things on, I can do so. it is just a single OS file, one button deletes the whole mess, 20 minutes a new one takes it's place and go again.

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PB redesigned? link please. I use only the original. I want Moria to have cloths on "properly"