LE Current best practice re: bsa or loose files

[mrpdean]

Hi,

 

I recently published my first mod and am now about to release the first update for it.

 

I've read a few threads on publishing with bsa's vs loose files but they were all quite old.

 

Wondering what the current recommended practice is regarding this.

 

I have noticed that when I pack my mod as a bsa (using the CK) a quest alias in one of the quests doesn't seem to get filled, whereas if I keep everything as loose files it does.

 

Are there still known issues with publishing mods with packed bsa's?

 

Many thanks for your time.

 

[Ceruulean]

I think the major advantage of .bsa is convenience, so you will have less complaints from modders. Don't use CK to pack .bsa because it can fail to detect important files. Your Skyrim Directory should have an Archive.exe, actually the CK Wiki has instructions for using it.

 

Also there seems to be a problem with voices in .bsa, so any voice files should be kept loose. A mod I was working on would CTD on shout when the voices were packed into a .bsa, but as loose files they worked fine. Even vanilla skyrim has a problem with Esbern's voice not loading, and there's an .ini tweak that fixes it but it's still problematic. I've also noticed Interesting NPCs has all loose voice files, which I suspect is because of this bug.

[mrpdean]

Thanks Ceruulean, that's very helpful. Will try packing with archive.exe and see if that solves the problem.

[GanXingba]

Voices can be packed into a BSA, but convert them to .fuz files first. I've experienced no issues with that myself.

 

Personally, as a mod author, I prefer BSAs because it makes it easy to test mod compatibility and keep my mod files separate from files I have downloaded. I think it's just cleaner.

[mrpdean]

Thanks GanXingba. BSA's it is then :smile:

 

I thought there were problems with scripts in BSA's, especially if they are modified vanilla quest scripts, but that might have just been because I packed it from the CK menu and didn't use archive.exe.

 

I'll try again with archive.exe and see if that works.

 

Cheers,

[Ceruulean]

I've got an update: compressing the .bsa causes voices to not work, but .bsas without compression work fine. A compressed .bsa caused my CTDs with shouts.

[skyrimlazz]

Thanks for this, I had no idea about Archive.exe. Here's the wiki page is anyone's interested:

http://www.creationkit.com/Archive.exe

[ndh]

Well. Mod Organizer keeps things clean anyways. If anybody isn't using it - their loss.

 

The only thing that I find interesting in that regard is the effect on load times. I find that mods increase my load times significantly. Do .bsa's offer good compression? Are there other technical advantages that could influence load times, like maybe providing a file list so TESV.exe doesn't need to walk the directory tree on load? I was always wondering if it isn't possible to select a number of mods, and just patch the existing vanilla .bsa's in order to improve load times.

Edited July 18, 2014 by ndh

[AaronOfMpls]

IIRC, files load faster when they're in BSAs. That said, I haven't really tested this myself.

[Ceruulean]

IIRC, files load faster when they're in BSAs. That said, I haven't really tested this myself.

 

I heard this too; if a mod has many loose files the game spends time looking for the individual assets, but when everything is packed into a .bsa the game has a smaller area to search, or something like that.