Is reinstalling my only shot?

[PsiComa]

Hello fellow adventurers. Perhaps you can come to my aid.

 

Today I carelessly extracted this animation package into my Skyrim Data-folder (and overvwrote files :sad: ). Now all animations are gone from my game, and I wonder what to do next. Unless someone has a good idea of why it happened, I guess I need to reinstall the game. If so, is it possible to keep my save files and proceed later, or do I have to start fresh?

 

 

This was the animation package, btw.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/21887/?tab=2&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D21887&pUp=1

 

 

Thank you for your help.

[bojanni]

You could try to let steam verify game cache

[JasmineMcCoy]

Have you run FNIS?

[Xelan255]

Since you've overwritten the original files your best bet is indeed to completly reinstall teh whole game, including every single mod you're using right now. Your savegames are lost! Just kidding, they're saved in "my documents" and you should be able to continue with your saves once your animations are back in place.

[JasmineMcCoy]

Sorry, how could they have overwritten the original ones, if those are stored in the animation .bsa file?

[Rabbit1251]

The animations are not lost and there is no need to reinstall anything. Just remove all traces of the mod and have Steam Verify your game files as bojanni suggests. Your installed mods and save files will not be harmed.

 

 

Rabbit

[Xelan255]

In my experience verifying the game cache just f*#@s up a modded game even more, at least in most cases. Depends on the installed mods though. I only use a few replacer mods, like CBBE and some for CBBE vanilla armors, but verifying my game cache to avoid a complete reinstall did mess with more than those replacer mods. To avoid that, one might as well make a complete re-install. Takes longer, but it makes sure the game and every mod is where it should be.

 

Edit says: The question about FNIS should be answered before proceeding with anything else. If you didn't generate proper FNIS setting with the included .exe, you've most likely found the source of your issue.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Xelan255

[bben46]

Verifying game cache only replaces any vanilla files that are either not there or corrupted. It does nothing to mods. and does not fix any changes made by mods - Overwriting by mods is usually a misnomer - What is referred to as overwriting does NOT make any changes in the actual vanilla game files stored on your hard drive. The overwriting referred to is done each time you start the game and is not permanent. As soon as you close the game, those 'overwrites' are gone until the next time you start and the mod is activated. If a mod is completely removed the vanilla resources will be back.

[PsiComa]

Thanks for your replies. It seems I didn't get FNIS to work. I will try to work it out and see if it alleviates the issue.

 

What is referred to as overwriting does NOT make any changes in the actual vanilla game files stored on your hard drive. The overwriting referred to is done each time you start the game and is not permanent. As soon as you close the game, those 'overwrites' are gone until the next time you start and the mod is activated. If a mod is completely removed the vanilla resources will be back.

 

 

So you're saying that if I go in and remove all the datafiles associated with the mod I'd get the vanilla functionality back?

 

I don't know if it's relevant, but Steam does not recognize the mod, so I cannot enable/disable it in the startup menu.

[Xelan255]

@bben46's post: Yeah, that might be true in theory, but unfortunately I experienced something else in the past. I don't recall the exact circumstances, but verifying the game cache definetly messed something up in my modded game (~100 at that time, mostly smaller mods, just a view bigger ones). At the end a had to re-install everything from scratch and did that again every time I ran into something not solvable by just un- or reinstalling mods.

 

 

I don't know if it's relevant, but Steam does not recognize the mod, so I cannot enable/disable it in the startup menu.

You can only enable/disable mods with a .esm or .esp file. Those replacing something like animations, textures, meshes etc. work without a .esp/.esm file.

 

And yes, if you remove every single file that belongs to the mod you should get back to a vanilla state. But since you used a FNIS mod, but didn't use the FNIS tool, I guess you already have your solution.