Better mod management.

[pob255]

I'm talking about all the files that comprise a mod here.

 

After my recent **** up which has ended up with me having to reinstall fallout3 I was wondering if there's any better way of manageing and seperateing out all the files that make up a mod instead of just having them all dumped into the same data sub folders?

 

I tried to put all the sandy shades files into a bsa with FO3Archive however it wouldn't let me put the textures into the same bsa

I made a seperate one for the textures, however when running FO3 I was missing lots of meshes as well as textures (the big red !) so it looks like it wasn't reading ether bsa correctly.

 

Any ideas?

 

And if a nif file was not in data/meshes/ but say data/modname/meshes/ even if the item was correctly linked to the mesh in GECK would fallout3 still be able to use it?

[pkleiss]

A good modding practice is to do what you stated, make your own folders for your mod. A good convention is:

 

\Data\Meshes\DeveloperName\ModName

 

So, for me and my nod it would be this:

 

\Data\meshes\pkleiss\UndCity

 

You can do the same for textures and sounds as well.

 

There are a few caveats though, like creature meshes must go into the proper Fallout folders, you can't create your own folder for those and voice files will have to go into a Geck made folder, you can't specify it your self, but it will be based on the mod name. Many sound files must be under the FX sub-folder, etc...

 

Its just that many a modder won't bother to do it this way. But you can.

[pob255]

Rats, I was hopeing for a simple way to sort out other peoples mods not just my own :confused:

 

Any idea on the feasibility of repackageing mods in .bsa files for better sorting/management? trying to sort out all the files a mod changes from all the rest can be a right pain when you have the original files extracted and 3 or 4 mods running let alone 10 or 20

[Pronam]

And if a nif file was not in data/meshes/ but say data/modname/meshes/ even if the item was correctly linked to the mesh in GECK would fallout3 still be able to use it?

No, it's hardcoded. Either Data/Meshes or a .bsa...no other way.

 

Why don't you try the package manager of FOMM? The only thing is that it'll leave the folders of the mods. BUT, it'll automatically install/delete files from archives.....That's probably one of the most efficient ways at the moment.

[pob255]

OK I've been using FOMM to run my mods, so I'll look at that.

 

BUT, it'll automatically install/delete files from archives

umm do you mean it'll make bsa files for the mods?

Or by "archives" do you just mean the files in the sub-folders within the /data folder?

[Pronam]

Maybe :biggrin:. With archives I mean the .zip, .7z, .rar files. You pick those and they'll install themselves if you hit activate, it'll remove the installed/placed files upon deactivation.

[pob255]

Ahh I see, it also works if you extract the files to a different folder then select create from folder :wink: