Those Pesky BSA's...

[YinYang577]

I want to have everything in folders, with the BSA's not even existing anymore, because it is SO much harder to mod with those god damn things... Does anyone know of a way to do this? I've tried using BSA Commander but I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. Is it possible to just delete the stupid BSA when you're done so that I never have to deal with it again? I hope so... Any help would be much appreciated.

[Megatarius]

First, back up your BSA files, and your oblivion.ini file.

 

Use BSA Unpacker to take every file out of each BSA. Place them into your Data Folder, as the BSA's are organized the same way.

 

Then delete your BSA files, or at least move them to another folder.

 

Then go into your oblivion.ini file in your My Games folder, not your Data Folder, and find the lines at the end with the BSA's listed. Delete them from that line.

 

I haven't tried this, however. Do at your own risk.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Megatarius

[LFact]

The con: If a replacer does not work well, you can solve the problem simply deleting the replacer when you have BSA. But if you don't have BSA in \data, you'll have to delete the replacer, unpack BSA again if you have backup. If you don't have backup, then you're screwed. In worst case, you'll have to reinatall whole game just because of one replacer that is not working properly. Edited January 8, 2011 by LFact

[YinYang577]

First, back up your BSA files, and your oblivion.ini file.

 

Use BSA Unpacker to take every file out of each BSA. Place them into your Data Folder, as the BSA's are organized the same way.

 

Then delete your BSA files, or at least move them to another folder.

 

Then go into your oblivion.ini file in your My Games folder, not your Data Folder, and find the lines at the end with the BSA's listed. Delete them from that line.

 

I haven't tried this, however. Do at your own risk.

 

Thanks a bunch! This worked like a charm, now I am ready to mod with ease! I didn't do the .ini tweak though, but it still works.

 

 

The con: If a replacer does not work well, you can solve the problem simply deleting the replacer when you have BSA. But if you don't have BSA in \data, you'll have to delete the replacer, unpack BSA again if you have backup. If you don't have backup, then you're screwed. In worst case, you'll have to reinatall whole game just because of one replacer that is not working properly.

 

Good thing my computer is too crappy for me to have to worry about replacers too much! XD

[LFact]

Good thing my computer is too crappy for me to have to worry about replacers too much! XD

 

You will, eventually. Some clothing/armor mods require you to replace default skeleton. Some cosmetic mods will replace your default eye meshes and textures. Body replacers, of course, will replace default body meshes/textures and need clothing/armor mesh replacers(and sometimes skeletons, too). If any one of them goes wrong, you will start to worry about that(like corrupted shaders giving people problems; they're not packed in BSA, so if anyone has corrupted shaders, he/she will need to replace them).

Edited January 9, 2011 by LFact

[Smooth613]

I just don't understand why one would want to do this, at all. I see nothing but disadvantages in 99% of all situations.

 

You also say your "crappy computer", well BSA's are better for performance. Especially when uncompressed.

 

What exactly do you consider the Pros of this procedure? I'm curious.