Basic Mod Troubleshooting

[BlackCompany]

A few helpful tips for avoiding common problems in your game, including crashes and save game corruption:

 

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Know what the mods in your load order do, and understand how those changes affect your game:

 

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-Read the readme files

 

-Stick to one mod per change you wish to see. For instance, do not download one mod which lets you bottle water, and another which renames water to something else. These two mods will NOT work together, and no amount of patching or merging will change this. If two mods modify the same object in different ways, one has to win out. There are some exceptions to this, such as stats and inventories, but two mods which both change the basic functionality of an item are not compatible.

 

-Avoid mods without read-me files or detailed explanations of their changes. Period.

 

 

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Know what to merge and when

 

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-Someone told you that a merged patch will make your mods work together despite incompatibility? Great. Ask them how. Better yet, ask them EXACTLY how. If they cannot provide details, skip the merge and if necessary the mod.

 

 

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Be careful making mods

 

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-Ask yourself: Does this mod improve the game, or am I simply doing it because I can? If in doubt, skip it and move on

 

-Plan ahead. Don't just start moving things around and hope for the best. IT won't happen.

 

-Respect the integrity of the existing game. Many, many items in games such as New Vegas are Persistent References. This means they CANNOT BE SAFELY MOVED OR DELETED. Removing/moving/relocation this items RUINS save games through corruption and often crashes the game at seemingly random intervals which are not actually so random. Scripts, quests and NPC AI use these references often; removing or even moving one means the game no longer knows where to look for it. Thus, save game corruption and crashing.

 

-Know when to start over? Move or delete a persistent reference? DO NOT CLEAN YOUR MOD. Start it over. Period. There is no guarantee that cleaning will remove the reference to your changing things you should not have changed. Create frequent backups of your WIPS, and know when to restore from one.

 

 

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New to Moding? Do some legwork of your own

 

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-Learn what Admin rights on a PC mean. Know where your data folder is. This information is all over the web. Please do not ask busy modders to teach you Computing 101. They are very busy and this just slows them down even more.

 

 

-Make suggestions, NOT requests. Many, many things can be done using these toolsets, and brought to via mods. But some things are impossible, and many more are EXTREMELY difficult. Please understand that modders cannot do everything. And please be patient. A mod which takes you 10 hours to play takes a modder months, if not years, to create, troubleshoot, update and release.

 

 

-Use the read-me file. It bears repeating. More often than not, questions asked by players are answered in these things.

 

 

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Do not Clean other people's mods, or tell them they need cleaning

 

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-Modders change the game by modding. If they did not do so, then nothing would, well change. Claiming a change is "dirty" generally means it edits something another mod touches as well. This is common and is known as a mod conflict. Choose which mod you wish to use, and understand which conflicts crash games and which are harmless.

 

-Cleaning mods using a 3rd party app means making changes you cannot see to a file you do not understand using tools you do not know how to use for reasons you are not clear on. Doing this at work will get you fired; doing it in a car will get you maimed or killed; doing it with your wife will often get you divorced.

 

So tell me, why is it ok to do it here?

 

Need to change something in a mod, or let the author know of a change which needs to be fixed/removed? Tell them politely and let them do it the right way - by using the tool set.

 

 

 

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Understand Mod Conflicts

 

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I recently made a series of mod which conflict with each other. On purpose. And NVMM will tell you they conflict. I won't listen when YOU tell ME that, however, because I already know it. Its called a "harmless conflict" and it works like this:

 

-In one mod, I rename Magazines for easier inventory sorting. In the other, I both rename them, AND add weight.

 

-I load one mod after the other, letting it overwrite the first. No big deal. Except Mod managers think it is and it gets reported to me and since its stated in the read-me, subsequently and permanently ignored.

 

-Knowing what your mods do (see above) is key to understanding whether a conflict matters or not, and what its effect will be in your game. If you do not know EXACTLY what two mods do, do not use them together. Simple. Please do not report harmless mod conflicts to modders. We know.

 

 

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Summing Up

 

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-Know your mods

 

-Back up saves BEFORE installing mods

 

-Learn computing 101 on a computing forum, not from modders. Respectfully, please do this.

 

-Use your understanding of what mods do to recognize a harmless mod conflict.

 

-Plan your mods ahead, and respect existing items in the game

 

-Avoid merging/patching and cleaning. If two mods need a patch to work together find out why its needed, what the patch does and EXACTLY how it will help the mods work together. If this information does not exist then neither does the promised compatibility.

 

 

I hope this information will help both modders and those new to the modding scene. We can all avoid a ton of problems with our games, our load order and the way in which we affect one another if we just take some simple steps beforehand. Enjoy your holiday, and your gaming experience!

[secksegai]

Honestly, this deserves a sticky as it would probably help ease the load of people asking the same questions over again.

[davidlallen]

-Know when to start over? Move or delete a persistent reference? DO NOT CLEAN YOUR MOD. Start it over. Period. There is no guarantee that cleaning will remove the reference to your changing things you should not have changed. Create frequent backups of your WIPS, and know when to restore from one.

This is very helpful information. There is definitely a "niche" for an intermediate modders guide, once we have mastered the basics shown in the bethsoft wiki tutorials. However, I am a little confused by the advice I quoted above. Suppose I move a base game persistent reference by accident. I think it is sufficient to remove the changed record in a tool like fnvedit. Once it is removed, there is no way the game can tell I did anything to it. Starting over seems like way overkill. Can you say more about why removing the record is not sufficient?

[Ez0n3]

DO NOT CLEAN YOUR MOD. Start it over. Period. There is no guarantee that cleaning will remove the reference to your changing things you should not have changed.

As davidlallen noted, with FNVEdit, it's entirely possible to clean a mod. If you pull out the unwanted bits with FNVEdit, it's gone for sure.

 

Do not Clean other people's mods, or tell them they need cleaning

I would at least tell them. They may be unaware and willing to fix it.

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I always thought "dirty mod" meant it changed something unwittingly (seeing how easy that is).

The mod adds a container to the Lucky 38, but now there's a big black hole in the ground where Goodsprings was, because they were poking around Goodsprings looking for a container to put in the Lucky 38 and ended up deleting Goodsprings rather than deleting the changes they made to Goodsprings, etc.

Edited December 29, 2010 by Ez0n3

[BlackCompany]

DO NOT CLEAN YOUR MOD. Start it over. Period. There is no guarantee that cleaning will remove the reference to your changing things you should not have changed.

As davidlallen noted, with FNVEdit, it's entirely possible to clean a mod. If you pull out the unwanted bits with FNVEdit, it's gone for sure.

 

Do not Clean other people's mods, or tell them they need cleaning

I would at least tell them. They may be unaware and willing to fix it.

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I always thought "dirty mod" meant it changed something unwittingly (seeing how easy that is).

The mod adds a container to the Lucky 38, but now there's a big black hole in the ground where Goodsprings was, because they we're poking around Goodsprings looking for a container to put in the Lucky 38 and ended up deleting Goodsprings rather than deleting the changes they made to Goodsprings, etc.

 

So long as when a mod is cleaned its also tested and you can be 100% sure any record of the moved reference is removed, this might be sufficient to avoid problems. Its being 100% certain the record is removed that is the problem. I have seen examples wherein TES4/FNVEdit failed to entirely remove records of changes. That is, a change was made, the author claimed it was "cleaned and removed" and looking in GECK/CS revealed that the tool set still showed the recorded as change as being present. Cleaning works sometimes; other times it seems not to, and therefore, starting over is sometimes the best - and always the surest - method for avoiding trouble. Back up your work often to provide yourself this option without losing hours of work.

 

 

As for dirty edits, these are usually accidental. However, examples abound of referring to edits as "dirty" because conflict with popular mods. This is often not the case - the edits are intentional and others simply do not wish them to be present. Also, when you blindly clean a mod you are removing edits to cells more often than not. Some of these edits might be used by the mod you are cleaning, resulting in the very crashes you are trying to avoid. Always notify a mod author of any edits you believe are unneeded in a mod.

 

Likewise mod authors should avoid "poking around" in areas they do not need to edit. Helps to avoid trouble.

[Ez0n3]

However, examples abound of referring to edits as "dirty" because conflict with popular mods.

I wouldn't call that "dirty". It is impossible to make a mod that will, at no time ever have a conflict with any other mod. "Popular" is subjective. What does it matter if a mod is popular? If mod maker X and mod maker Y both want to change object Z, one of the mods wouldn't become "dirty" because the other becomes more popular.

[BlackCompany]

However, examples abound of referring to edits as "dirty" because conflict with popular mods.

I wouldn't call that "dirty". It is impossible to make a mod that will, at no time ever have a conflict with any other mod. "Popular" is subjective. What does it matter if a mod is popular? If mod maker X and mod maker Y both want to change object Z, one of the mods wouldn't become "dirty" because the other becomes more popular.

 

 

This is exactly my point. Yet many tool makers continually refer to mods as "dirty" simply because they edit something another popular mod has changed. Don't buy into this sort of lingo.