Itachi314 Posted August 20, 2010 Share Posted August 20, 2010 okay, im making a mod for Battle horn Castle, what i need to find out is how to make the mod show up while not overwriting the official plug-in, till now ive had to overwrite the existing file , i want to make it separate example (DLCBattlehornCastle.esp, Mymod.esp) however if i do so it does not show up in the game. ive read the isolation thing i don't understand it at all and wryebash is the most complicated program ive ever seen and its too hard to install. im getting quite frustrated and need some help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slygothmog Posted August 20, 2010 Share Posted August 20, 2010 Ok, open the CS, and find the .esp you wish to use.Place an X in the .esp box and hit OK, and when told you have not set a file as the active file selected, just hit the OK button........it will still be loaded in the CS, and you can save to a separate .esp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Brasher Posted August 20, 2010 Share Posted August 20, 2010 I am not sure what exactly it is your mod will do, so some of this advice may not apply: Maybe what you should do, if you don't want to modify the base mod and can't make a mastered patch is clone every single custom item you need for your castle into your new mod. So if there is a section of stone wall named "StoneTraverseLower," then you rename it to "AAStoneTraverseLower" or whatever you want. Answer that you want to create a new form rather than editing the existing form. Save your mod. If you open up your mod and not DLCBattlehornCastle.esp, then you should see that AAStoneTraverseLower is available and you can use it all you want in your mod. (Copywrite law dictates that if you upload your mod, you need to cripple it such that it will only work for people who have purchased DLCBattlehornCastle.esp. To do this you can simple leave out all the meshes and textures from that DLC so any pirate who tries to use it illegally will get a bunch of missing meshes and textures and hopefully even CTDs.) But you don't want to build a new castle with the pieces, you want to copy the castle into your mod. So what you will do is rename every custom item the castle uses so it appears in your mod with or without DLCBattlehornCastle.esp loaded. Then you can duplicate the castle cells so that they exist in your new mod. (Duplicated cells automatically have new names and show up in the mod that was active when the cell was duplicated. You will need to manually reconnect all the doors between your new castle cells. Then you will need to use the search and replace function in each of your new cells to replace every item such as StoneTraverseLower with AAStoneTraverseLower. (All the DLC items with your renamed items that exist in your independent mod.) If you have done everything right, you will have a clone of Battlehorn Castle that exists in your own mod without DLCBattlehornCastle.esp loaded. That is a whole lot of boring repetitive secretary work to have to do. Depending on the final form you want your mod to have, it might be easier for you to learn Wrye Bash and mastered patches. The option I describe is easy and boring. Brawn and drudgery. The mastered patch is horrible brain work. It is up to you which approach you wish to take, but I am confident that you will eventually succeed in making your mod if you stick with it. I just had a thought. To heck with my last suggestion. It would be a pain and there is an easier way. Go into File Manager and make a copy of DLCBattlehornCastle.esp. Rename it Mymod.esp. You now have all the items available and can use them however you want. Duplicate the interior cells you want and hook up the doors. Copy the exterior part of the castle you want and place it somewhere in Tamriel or wherever. Then go do an extensive round of deletions and mod-cleaning to remove all the parts of DLCBattlehornCastle.esp within Mymod.esp that you do not want. If you delete the original castle exterior from your mod, then it won't conflict with the identical castle in the DCL. If you duplicate the interior cells and delete the original ones, then they will not conflict. There is no way to place a throne from vanilla Oblivion in Battlehorn Castle without editing DLCBattlehornCastle.esp or creating a mastered patch. You could however place a door in Tamriel (Another castle exterior door) which hides the original door to the castle and teleports the gamer to your cloned interior castle cell that does have a throne instead of the throneless DCL version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itachi314 Posted August 20, 2010 Author Share Posted August 20, 2010 @ slygoth: im not retarded i tryed it, it doesnt do anything but cause a HUGE problem, and makes two castles overlap, @ Dave: im not sure if that applys to my mod, in the forgotten grotto area i set up a dark brotherhood door, and linked it to a sanctuary that is the only thing i did in the castle itself (added a door) in the future when i get someone to make quests for me since i dont understand it. that chunk of welkynd stone or watever is gonna be made into something relating to sithis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Brasher Posted August 20, 2010 Share Posted August 20, 2010 You cannot put a Dark Brotherhood door into a cell in another mod or DLC that is not your mod. That is not your active file. When you go to load your mod again it won't be there. In fact the whole cell won't even be there. The preferred solutions are: (1) Create a mastered patch with Wrye Bash so that you can use DLCBattlehornCastle.esp content and change the contents of the cells from that DCL (such as placing a Dark Brotherhood door in the cave under the castle which sounds like it is part of DLCBattlehornCastle.esp.) (2) Modify DLCBattlehornCastle.esp itself and write in your readme file that your mod conflicts with the DCL and that gamers can only use one or the other, which will be made easier by the fact that your mod file will be named DLCBattlehornCastle.esp. An alternate solution: (3) Put an entrance to a custom cave in the Tamriel Worldspace at the base of the castle. In this cave would be your Dark Brotherhood door. This mod would not overwrite anything from DLCBattlehornCastle.esp. and would not use it as a master. By placing your content in Tamriel worldspace and in your custom interior cells, it will still be there when you load up your mod again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itachi314 Posted August 21, 2010 Author Share Posted August 21, 2010 thats a little disapointing,.... are there no other possibilities because i realy want it where it is now it ties into my story perfectly cant i only overwrite that one particular area and get it too work? without giving the DLC and can i have a little more detail with your first suggestion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Brasher Posted August 21, 2010 Share Posted August 21, 2010 You could try a bit harder to install Wrye Bash. It is absolutely essential for making a mastered patch. With a mastered patch you can do exactly what you wanted to do from the beginning and put the door within the mod exactly where you want it, without conflicting with the mod or overwriting the things you were concerned about. Wrye Bash can be a monster to install. Or it can be so easy that it is scarcely worth mentioning. You don't really know how it will work on your computer until you give it a shot. Once you have Wrye Bash up and running, you can ignore all of its complicated features and just learn to click esmify and espify at the appropriate times. Files with the .esm extension are masters. Files with the .esp extension are plug-ins. For a mod to refer to another mod, that mod must be an .esm. Or more precisely the computer must think it is an .esm. In your case, it will actually be an .esp. But it must be an .esp at the proper time and an .esm at the proper time. If it is in the wrong mode at the wrong time you can either ruin your mod and have to delete it and load up an old copy to rebuild, or it can make your game play really weird with things missing (like the ground under your feet) and it can ruin your savegames so they have to be deleted. So you must take precautions: (1) Have multiple backups of your new mod of various ages. Save often. When you ruin your mod, which you will, you will have a recent save to fall back on. In play-testing, if you see that the world has become weird, do not save. If you save, the savegame will be ruined and will have to be deleted. Once you have Wrye Bash up and running, you can read the de-isolation tutorial step by step as you work. It will then make more sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itachi314 Posted August 21, 2010 Author Share Posted August 21, 2010 You could try a bit harder to install Wrye Bash. It is absolutely essential for making a mastered patch. With a mastered patch you can do exactly what you wanted to do from the beginning and put the door within the mod exactly where you want it, without conflicting with the mod or overwriting the things you were concerned about. Wrye Bash can be a monster to install. Or it can be so easy that it is scarcely worth mentioning. You don't really know how it will work on your computer until you give it a shot. Once you have Wrye Bash up and running, you can ignore all of its complicated features and just learn to click esmify and espify at the appropriate times. Files with the .esm extension are masters. Files with the .esp extension are plug-ins. For a mod to refer to another mod, that mod must be an .esm. Or more precisely the computer must think it is an .esm. In your case, it will actually be an .esp. But it must be an .esp at the proper time and an .esm at the proper time. If it is in the wrong mode at the wrong time you can either ruin your mod and have to delete it and load up an old copy to rebuild, or it can make your game play really weird with things missing (like the ground under your feet) and it can ruin your savegames so they have to be deleted. So you must take precautions: (1) Have multiple backups of your new mod of various ages. Save often. When you ruin your mod, which you will, you will have a recent save to fall back on. In play-testing, if you see that the world has become weird, do not save. If you save, the savegame will be ruined and will have to be deleted. Once you have Wrye Bash up and running, you can read the de-isolation tutorial step by step as you work. It will then make more sense. whats wrong with TES4 Gecko ive made master files with that before, and im just gonna use something else since battlehorn is bringing up complications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Brasher Posted August 22, 2010 Share Posted August 22, 2010 TES4 Gecko or TES CS can easily make files have .esms as masters. However, they are no good at making .esps into masters. DLCBattlehornCastle.esp is an .esp, and herein lies the problem. That is why you cannot use TES4 Gecko for this application. I really don't blame you for redesigning your mod so that it will be easy to build, work on, and install. It can end up just as fun this way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itachi314 Posted August 22, 2010 Author Share Posted August 22, 2010 well thanks for all your help, and since im making a new castle i have a few more questions, 1. why cant i use the landscape editor i selected a texture to use but doesnt do anything. 2. why cant i place any npcs in interior places thats it for the time being Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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