Adding Mods, I'm missing information

[DanielLINY]

I tried to search and just find bits and pieces of info on how to add mods. I know the people that responded to the questions are doing their best to help out the newbies like me. It is really appreciated, but sometimes the responses direct you to places you may not know how to get to even though they seem obvious. I have played through the vanilla Oblivion but want to replay with some of the very cool sounding mods. Just need to figure out how to get all of the ones I want to use installed. I'm looking at running Better Cites, most of the HGEC mods, most of the Colorwheel mods, Robert's male mod, Niben Bay and the Horse ranch, a companion mod, Seph dual weild, Werewolf Ledgends of the North, Golden Crest, Companion friendly Inns, Sexlivion, and a copule of other minor ones. I have Shivering Isles installed along with Oblivion IV, pathed with the latest official patch. My game is saved on my F drive in Games\Oblivion. Using Vista64 Premium.

So:

Do you have to use / need all of the following? Oblivion Mod Manager, Wyre Bash, OBSE, BOSS (I think that is all I have seen referenced but might have missed one or two)

I do have some mods installed with the Mod Manager that look like they are going to work.

Some folks say to use Wyre Bash (which I have installed) and extract the file to the "BAIN INSTALlATION Folder" which I can't find. (I did a search on the Wyre Bash site and it did not return any results)

Is there a thread for newbies that goes through installation?

How do you determine if you need to use OBMM, or Wyre Bash? Can you use both, or is it one or the other?

Where is the Bain Installation Folder?

Any constructive replies and direction will be greatly appreciated.

[Hickory]

First of all, OBMM has two useful uses, and no other:

1, To create and install OMODs

2. To extract and create .bsa files.

 

It should be used for no other purpose.

 

Wrye Bash, though it can seem daunting to newcomers, is THE most useful tool, with BOSS being the second, in your arsenal. if you are going to add lots of mods -- some even require a Bashed Patch.

 

BAIN is Wrye Bash's version of OBMM's OMOD installer, but is nothing like it. The folder you are looking for is in the root of your Oblivion installation, and is called 'Oblivion Mods'. For instance, if your game is installed to C:\Games\Oblivion', the BAIN folder will be C:\Games\Oblivion Mods' Inside that folder is another one called 'Bash Installers'. This is where you place your downloaded BAIN ready archives. To use BAIN, you click on the 'Installers' tab in Wrye Bash. You should familiarise yourself with Wrye Bash via the help file -- click on the Help question mark at the bottom of Wrye Bash.

 

You need to run BOSS (first) and then build a Bashed Patch if you want maximum compatibility and conflict reduction.

 

Edit: I forgot OBSE. You only need OBSE if any mods you have require it. This is up to you to read the instructions of mods to determine whether you need it (and any plugins) or not.

[DanielLINY]

Thanks for the quick reply:

So, if the mod is an OMOD mod then I need to use that to install it?

If a mode is OMOD can it be installed using Wyre Bash? Will Wyre Bash recognize mods that are installed using OMOD?

 

I am going to go read more on Wyre Bash now.

[Hickory]

No. For OMODs you must use OBMM. You must place the OMOD file in \Oblivion\obmm\mods\ .

[LFact]

First of all, OBMM has two useful uses, and no other:

1, To create and install OMODs

2. To extract and create .bsa files.

 

It should be used for no other purpose.

 

 

Drag and drop is easier than Wrye Bash's Ctrl+arrow when you have to adjust loading order manually. (BOSS is good, but you cannot apply it to your private mod or almost unknown mod unless you added them to masterlist) And both can save your current load order, and restore it if you need.

[Hickory]

First of all, OBMM has two useful uses, and no other:

1, To create and install OMODs

2. To extract and create .bsa files.

 

It should be used for no other purpose.

 

 

Drag and drop is easier than Wrye Bash's Ctrl+arrow when you have to adjust loading order manually. (BOSS is good, but you cannot apply it to your private mod or almost unknown mod unless you added them to masterlist) And both can save your current load order, and restore it if you need.

 

Wrong on both counts. The latest Wrye Bash has full support for drag/drop. You can apply (or override the masterlist) your own sorting rules in BOSS via the userlist.txt file.

[whalecakes]

OBMM is only useful for OMODs; BSACommander is much better for .bsa files. OBMM also likes to hang up and crash when I close it.

Wrye Bash is great, just make sure you disable BAIN completely because it's terrible (20 minutes scanning everything in your install folder OH HELLO UNICODE TEXT *crash*)

BOSS works as a decent guideline for your load order but you'll likely have to rearrange a few things after it's done.

You also need to disable (and ghost) all your mods when you open OBMM because it doesn't recognize Bash's ghosted or merged mods and will rearrange everything and completely mess up your load order.

[Hickory]

just make sure you disable BAIN completely because it's terrible

That's just scare mongering nonsense.

 

(20 minutes scanning everything in your install folder

I use BAIN and it takes about a couple of minutes to scan my files (I have 227 installed mods, not counting the ghosted ones). I also use OBMM, which takes about the same time to load up.

 

OH HELLO UNICODE TEXT *crash*)

 

Wrye Bash was not designed for unicode, but the team are working on implementing it, if they haven't already through an SVN.

[whalecakes]

BAIN takes an excessive amount of time to load up, needlessly scans every single file in the install directory, fails catastrophically if it runs into any file or folder with a unicode character in the name, and is essentially 7zip with a bad UI and a conflict detector slapped on. It's not even doing anything with unicode; it just runs into it while scanning everything and dies, which means you'll need to manually remove all such files to even start it up. It is not a fast, easy, or practical way to install mods, under any circumstances. Whether you have 10 mods or 600 mods, it will always be slower and more difficult than the other installation methods. It is undeniably terrible no matter how you look at it, and if you don't disable it completely and you accidentally or absentmindedly click the 'installers' tab (which I have done on several occasions), you will have to either sit it out or kill pythonw while it eats all your system resources.

As for OBMM... The startup is no problem, it's the closing that is a problem. It takes a very long time to close, assuming it doesn't hang up completely and have to be killed. I'm not sure what the cause is in this case, but it takes at least a full minute to close and doesn't appear to be related to how many mods there are as it happens even while ghosts. In any case, aside from the OMOD installer, it is also inferior in every way to Wrye Bash.

 

I'm not just making things up here and I'm not saying things without good reason.

 

All that aside, what is 'scare mongering' supposed to be and to what purpose would I have to be doing it?

What could I possibly gain from other people not using these methods?

Edited February 7, 2011 by whalecakes

[Smooth613]

I'm not just making things up here and I'm not saying things without good reason.

You could have fooled me.

 

A BAIN installation is far superior to an OMOD installation in every single way. You obviously have very little to no experience with BAIN.

 

• 
   
  
• Can you alter your installation order via OBMM? Nope. At least not without completely uninstalling and reinstalling mods, otherwise it's last installed wins. Also you'd have to remember exactly which order you installed the mods in originally, since OBMM sorts packages alphabetically. With BAIN, shuffle them around how you like and click anneal, you're done in a matter of seconds.
  
• What happens when you uninstall a mod that shares resources with other mods via OBMM? It deletes the file completely, rendering any mod that relies on that file to cause an error, including the possibility of CTDs if meshes are involved. BAIN however, "rewinds" or replaces the previous file from the other winning mod.
  
• Does OBMM show accurate resource conflicts and which mod is the winning mod? Nope, but BAIN does.
  

 

The few minor things you bring up are irrelevant. With over 300 packages present, consisting of even more mods within those packages, Wrye Bash and BAIN load within a matter of minutes. Only when you select to do a full refresh of the Installers tab will you experience longer times. This does not happen every time you open Wrye Bash or select the Installers Tab. This time is also dependent on system specs and amount of mods, so a rather invalid argument for a "con". As far as Unicode goes, yes it will currently cause problems, but the amount of mods that you need worry about this are minimal. I have personally never ran across a Unicode error, although I have seen a handful of reports, far from many reports. But soon this will not be an issue. I could go on and on and on, but I won't. No user with a decent amount of modding experience could honestly say OMOD is the better installation method. Easier? Maybe. Better? Definitely not. Easier does not mean better.

 

This is a topic that's been beat to death and for some unfathomable reason, certain folks will always say OMODs are better. Again, they are at first easier due to their scripted nature, but easier does not mean better. By the way, BAIN has capabilities (with easier and simpler scripting options) for scripted installs as well. Anyway, use what you will, but don't spread false information just because you prefer one method over the other, whether it's the superior method or not.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Smooth613