Merging Lists

[Telyn]

Heya, not new to mods but very new to Oblivion and just getting my toes wet with basic tweaking here. I have installed several mods which I have discovered add to shop inventories, loot lists, etc. I have made them work well enough through load ordering, but now that I am certain these mods are going to be a permanent addition for me, I would like to merge the lists so that ideally nothing overrules other list additions. I am pretty sure there is a way to do this, but I haven't found it. I am also rather overwhelmed with so many new tools I am learning, and don't know which tool to use for this, much less how to do it. am concerned that as I add more armors and such to the game, a lot of them dump their new items into the same stores in IC and the dungeon loot lists.

 

My game setup: Game of the Year Edition. I have BASH, BOSS, TES4Edit 3.0.15 Experimental (seems rock solid so far) and OblivionModManager. I am fairly comfortable with the easy stuff like invalidation, changing load order, and cleaning mods in TES4Edit. I am running Cobl and OBSE (without addon extensions). Latest versions of all as far as I can tell. My game is updated with the unofficial updates, including the DLC unofficial updates. I also have the Construction Set but I admit I do not understand it, am still intimidated by it, and would prefer to use one of the other tools, since they tend to partially or fully automate this kind of thing as far as I have seen. I just don't feel ready for it. My game is pretty much vanilla with a lot of immersion mods, cosmetics, and new races. No OOO or FCOM, nothing that changes the levels of monsters, or how the PC levels because this is my first time through. sorry if that is more information than needed, but I was unsure which elements of my setup might change people's advice on how to merge lists, for example, whether having SI changes things or not. Of all of the tools I am most comfortable so far with OMM and TESEdit if I have really specific settings instructions, BASH is ok, but it has done a few weird things for me at times, like trying to apply the google eye fix to Autumn Leaves (!).

 

Also need some help with terminology. For example, several tutorials mention level lists, but none of them seem to explain exactly what that means. It can be difficult wandering into an old and established modding community without knowing the language. :) My person AI, BTW is not the best, lol. If I am given really specific instructions I can and do follow them conscientiously. If anything is vague I tend to make wrong assumptions based on my experience with the Sims II and other games which had very different environments. Sincerely appreciate any help. Once I understand the tools better, I hope to give something back to this community, maybe some quirky immersion mods and quests that won't overlap existing ones.

[Smooth613]

Wrye Bash does exactly what you're wanting through the Bashed Patch. Using BOSS alongside Wrye Bash will add the necessary Bash Tags, instructions for what to include in the Bashed Patch, and then the changes will be imported and/or merged into the Bashed Patch. This, somewhat, circumvents the Rule of One. Rule of One states: Only one mod can change any one item and have it's changes applied in game. But of course there are always exceptions to the rule and that's what Wrye Bash is for.

 

Example:

• 
   
  
• --Mod A adds UberSword to ThatNPC.
  
• --Mod B adds UberArmor to ThatNPC.
  

-- In the above example only the last mod loaded via your Load Order "wins", or is seen in game.

 

However with Wrye Bash both of those changes are pulled from those mods and added to the Bashed Patch via Bash Tags and selecting the mod when building your patch. This is a very simple example but it's the gist of how merging works. It can be applied in many ways, and include hundreds, or thousands, of items or NPCs. I strongly urge you to read and follow the Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide for Newbies and reference the Wrye Bash ReadMe included in the archive you downloaded. It's located in the Mopy folder, destination is Oblivion\Mopy.

 

I also encourage you to read over, bookmark, and reference TESIV:POSItive. It's an excellent resource site and covers nearly everything you could ever want to know about Oblivion and modding it.

 

Good luck!

 

**Below is some more additional information that is not exactly what you ask about but should be helpful for first time Oblivion players and modding suggestions. It's stuff I've saved from other posts I've made and some of it will be beneficial for you. If it seems like an overload don't worry, you're in no rush, just take your time and read bits at a time. We're all still learning new stuff on a regular basis, regardless of the fact we've been playing and modding Oblivion for years now. Enjoy.

 

Recommended mods for a first time player? None. And by none a mean a few. By a few I mean a handful. But none of these are mods that alter the core of Oblivion. Start with the Unofficial Patches, Unofficial Official Mods Patch, and Supplementals. Thousands of bug fixes are covered by these.

 

Next you might consider some small tweaks, but first you need to play the game for a while to see what you dislike and want to tweak. I suggest at least 20-30 hours before adding any mods that alter the core of the game. Graphic mods are your preference, many are available. I personally don't use one graphics overhaul package but mix and match many smaller replacers. However I will suggest one visual mod, Oblivion Graphics Extender (OBGE). Adds the ability to use many custom shaders ranging from cell-shading to color moods, depth-of-field, god-rays, and much more.

 

You're going to need Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE).

 

For tools; You'll need a mod manager and Better Oblivion Sorting Software (BOSS). BOSS automatically sorts your mods for best chances of compatibility and does so via an always updated masterlist. There are two mod managers available; Wrye Bash and Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM). I suggest you go ahead and get accustomed to Wrye Bash as it's leaps and bounds ahead of OBMM in every way imaginable. You will need Wrye Bash eventually anyway for certain mods to function and to ensure compatibility amongst other mods. OBMM is simpler but you really limit yourself to just an installer basically. While Wrye Bash is much much more than that, and not that difficult to learn either. If you've ever used Wrye Mash (Morrowind) or Wrye Flash (Fallout) then you'll be right at home. Think of it as about 20 or so tools wrapped in one. You may never need all of it's functions or simply choose not to use some of it's functions, but it's nice to have them available when needed. It also has it's own installer just as OBMM uses OMOD's, but again it's leaps and bounds ahead of the competition; if you can even call it competition. Instead of using special files (OMOD's) BAIN (BAsh INstaller) operates directly from archives such as .zip, .rar, .7z, etc... Take the time to read over The Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide for Newbies. It'll help you greatly. That section was a little long-winded but necessarily so. I could have elaborated much much more on the subject but for now that's as simple as I could break it down. Later you can dig deeper into the subject.

 

For stability and smoother gameplay I suggest the following.

 

Streamline - Only use the Purge function unless you really need the others. You shouldn't unless you're playing on a lower to bottom-mid-range system.

 

Oblivion Stutter Remover (OSR) - Increases performance and smoothness overall. Highly recommended.

 

Fast Exit 2 - Oblivion is known to crash on exit even in vanilla state. It's less likely but still happens. The frequency of crashes increases exponentially as you add more mods it seems. This simple mod fixes that.

 

You'll likely want a User Interface (UI) mod to get rid of the clunky console-ish vanilla one. For this I suggest DarNified UI or Dark UI'd DarN.

 

I will suggest you look at some of TheNiceOne's mods such as Enhanced Hotkeys (Easily the best Hotkey mod available),HUD Status Bars, Display Stats, Dynamic Map, Quest Log Manager, and Map Marker Overhaul. These are all excellent mods that only enhance but do not alter gameplay. Check his profile for the full list of mods. All are excellent, and the support for them is also top-notch.

 

 

 

 

In the future check out Posting Your Load Order - PYLO so that it's properly displaying the information. No need for screenshots.

 

For proper mod installation. It's actually rather simple. Start with a fresh installation on a newly defragmented drive or partition and install Oblivion and all the Official DLC's and Patches. Then follow with the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch, Unofficial Official Mods Patches, and the UOP Supplementals. This should be your base install and be completely stable. I recommend you test for a few hours to be certain. Then you should backup your Data folder so you have a stable Vanilla installation to fall back on when something goes haywire. Next is the addition of mods. Again rather simple but so many people neglect this next bit; Add mods one at a time and test thoroughly each area that specific mod touches. For example, if you install a combat mod go pick fights will all sorts of NPCs and creatures for a few hours to check for stability. If you install a texture mod, run around to as many diverse areas as possible to ensure there are no missing resources. Etcetera.

 

Another very important utility to ensure as few conflicts as possible and increase mod interaction which equates to stability; Use Wrye Bash and its' Bashed Patch feature. It's the single most important utility for modded Oblivion. Take the time to understand and learn it, the rewards are worth it. Next utility, more complex and powerful, is TES4Edit. It's possibly the best and most powerful tool to help with mod conflicts and resolution. You can also do many other things, such as Mod Cleaning to rid the mods of unnecessary records, or duplicate records.

 

 

I know this is going to seem like an overload of information but eventually you'll need to know most, if not all, of this stuff to seriously mod your game and have it working properly with minimal conflicts and crashes. Just take it slow and soak up as much information as you can. Don't try to move to quickly, take baby steps and you'll be much more successful in your modding adventures. It's much better to read the information first, and as you're installing mods, then to install mods and have issues then try to dig through mounds of information you're totally unfamiliar with. And remember K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid.

 

Below are some useful links to helpful resources and utilities,...

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Official BethSoft Oblivion Forums -- Exactly what it says.

 

Better Oblivion Sorting Software - BOSS -- Sorts your Load Order for you to help minimize conflicts related to LO positioning of mods.

 

Wrye Bash Download Page -- There is an updated form of the ReadMe included in the Mopy folder in the archive. There is also a slightly dated Online ReadMe.

 

Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide for Newbies -- Great "starter kit" to get your hands dirty with Wrye Bash.

 

BAIN Mod Installation Projects -- Comprehensive instructions from beginner to advanced.

 

OBMM - Oblivion Mod Manager -- A useful utility but not nearly as versitle and necessary as Wrye Bash. Once accustomed to Wrye Bash and BAIN you'll likely ditch OBMM all together. I know I have. I keep OBMM for one single purpose, BSA Extraction and Creation, nothing more.

 

LHammonds OBMM How-To -- Some great information to assist you with OBMM.

 

TES4Edit -- It's actually a handful of utilities compiled into one executable. TES4View, TES4Edit, TES4LODGen, FO3Edit, maybe more. You simply change the name of the executable and bam, different application. Useful for analyzing mods, finding and resolving conflicts, and much more.

 

TES4LODGen -- A One-Click DistantLOD Generator.

 

TES4Edit Training Manual -- It's worded for Fallout 3 but everything applies to Oblivion the same, since they run on the same engine.

 

RefScope -- Excellent utility mod to identify missing resources and produce other useful information that's usually "hidden" to the naked eye. Great when you run across those "Missing Mesh" icons in game and wonder where they are coming from.

 

FormID Finder -- Same type of utility mod as the above mentioned RefScope. Different style interface and not quite as in-depth in certain aspects, but still an excellent utility.

 

Conscribe -- A console logging utility mod to complement the above mentioned utility mods, RefScope and FormID Finder. Information is saved to logs for further review. Contains customization options for general or mod specific logging.

 

TES4Gecko -- Another great utility for cleaning and merging mods, plus more.

 

TESIV:POSItive -- Excellent, excellent, site loaded with information to assist anyone, from beginner to advanced.

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Welcome to Oblivion Modding and Good Luck!

 

 

[Telyn]

Thanks so much. I already had a working BASH patch I keep updating but I didn't understand some of the more advanced stuff, and am still trying to decipher the newbie pictorial you linked. My apologies for being dense. Again, I am having issues with basic terminology. It seems I need to make installers and redo it to do it properly? This confuses me, since I already ran BOSS each time I add something new and I redo my BASH patch after hand reordering, because alas, BOSS does not recognize about 1/3 to 1/2 of my mods. Most are obscure little immersion tweaks, some ancient, and all of them are the latest versions unless another author has taken over a defunct mod and made changes I don't want or can't use (like making it only OOO). A couple of my mods are so new that it seems BOSS hasn't heard of them, and also I perhaps unwisely took a chance on full BALO when I first got BASH. Everything works great, but now I think maybe I will be in a mess because although I did read tutorials and try to be concientious I may have needed more detailed instructions, and probably misunderstood the meaning of some everyday words in the Oblivion modding context.

 

So I guess my big questions now are, since I already have a working updated BASH patch, do I need to follow the pictorial tutorial from scratch, and what do I do about the BALO categories? The other is, how do I locate which records I need to find to copy over? I was hoping exactly what you describe is possible, but it seems I am too stupid still to understand from the tutorials you linked how to figure out a. what the records for the loot and shop inventory lists are called, and b. how I find them and where I need to copy them. Sorry to be such an idiot. Once I get the hang of things, I am less of a fool, if only slightly. I will work harder on understanding BASH. OMM and TES4Edit seem to be a bit easier and more idiot proof but from what you are saying if I am serious about modding specifcs or running more than a couple mods, it sounds like BASH is the main and preferred tool?

 

I do agree with your spoiler that a new player ideally should play vanilla awhile. I am cheating a bit here having altered some textures and added a couple modest Cobl houses because I felt the DLC ones were both too powerful and too expensive for a new character, but I don't like houses that are nothing more than storage and a bed either, might as well stay at an inn. There were a few things that really bothered me about the game which I have fixed with mods (like a horse psionically reporting me to psychic guards for merely peeking in an owned sack), and a couple of silly luxuries like rats and cats (which contrary to what people say works fine with other container mods if you adjust the load order as suggested). Other than that, I have tried to stay away from big mods that make many changes, because I will never know if I would have preferred vanilla if I don't try vanilla first. So far I am not really thrilled with the character levelling but I don't want to change that, or how challenging mosters are until I have at least tried it the way the designers intended. I suppose if a player hates the vanilla system so much it's a game breaker, I'd advise they might as well go ahead and use a massive overhaul pack if it's that or uninstall and waste the money spent on Oblivion entirely. But yes, I do think jumping into hardcore modding without playing first is probably a mistake. I may have crossed that line already, even though I have tried to avoid it. Thanks for that reminder. Also thank you for your patience with this newbie, and making me feel less afraid to ask for help here. So far this community feels very mature, generous, and supportive of new players. It's really great to be here.

[Smooth613]

By your questions you still need to read the Wrye Bash ReadMe, which describes how Bash Tags work and what each one does, and read through the Pictorial Guide more. You also need to use the previously linked TESIV:POSItive site, it's loaded with information. Reading guides, ReadMe's, and other various information along with some experimentation is the only true way to learn this stuff. Reading is the main thing, and there will be a lot of it involved when modding Oblivion. A lot.

 

As far as what records you need to include in your Bashed Patch to make the desired changes you wish, you must use Bash Tags. As previously mentioned in my first reply, Bash Tags are the instructions for what Wrye Bash will import and/or merge. BOSS automatically tags mods for you. If mods are not included in the current BOSS masterlist then you, the user, have to make the decision as to what tags will achieve the desired end result. In order to do this you first have to understand what each tag does, and to understand tags you have to read the information as I've previously mentioned.

[Telyn]

Thanks again. Well, I am doing my best to understand what I have read, but as I have said, I am very new to this modding community and reading and comprehending don't always match up at first. I am ashamed that I can't instantly understand it all, but I am trying. I do always run BOSS to get the suggested BASH tags but since BOSS does not recognize many of the mods I have to guess on the rest, so at present I have left some things unmerged since I wasn't sure how to tag them myself without a better understanding of what the mod is probably doing internally and it seemed safer to do so. Is that a mistake? I did read the links. I only wish I could understand them better. I am severely dyslexic, which probably increases my learning curve on these things a wee bit. I appreciate your help and suggestions.

 

I really do apologize if I asked dumb questions even after I read. Problem is comprehension of it. I can install mods, by hand, or with an OMOD and I don't mess that up. If I have a read me that says put this there, I do, and I can do that right. If I know what boxes to click and what to deselect, I am fine. I have learned how to do basic cleaning of files and was stunned how much cleaning some of the official DLCs needed. But that's pretty much where I am stuck. I think maybe I am just not bright enough to do this because these newbie guides are still sort of advanced for me at this point. Sorry if I have wasted your time. It's not that I am lazy and don't read. I am having trouble understanding the technical stuff and how to apply it to my game. If I experiment and have to reinstall, because I am a Steam user, I can't just reinstall. Steam forces a redownload if it thinks you are missing anything or your game is corrupted. Creepy, but I found this out the hard way. When I patched a DLC with the unofficial patch, Steam somehow decided I had not downloaded the DLC or it was corrupted and it forced a redownload. A full reinstall forced by Steam would take 8-10 hours for me with the connection available here. I was warned by another Steam user not to try to reinstall anything in the original game from a backup. Apparently that may cause Steam to think you are doing something bad. Amazon not an option for me. I bought GOTYE twice already, first time was Impulse, but Impulse has encrypted it, so I was entirely unable to use any scripting as reported on the OBSE page. I can't afford to experiment too much without being pretty confident. Normally I would just do my best to understand, give it a shot, and reinstall if I mess up.

 

Oh well, I guess I can live with skeletons only having bone meal now (Cobl) and IC vendors with conflicting merchandise lists. I'll just have to change load orders a lot I think so the inventory will show items from the lists that didn't "win?" Thought about doing that but was concerned it might corrupt saves after viewing some of my saves in BASH and noticing the color changes in them when I change anything, Thanks for trying. I feel pretty stupid for not picking it up better. :/ I wish there were an Oblivion Recipe Book. I'd be set. LOL.

[Smooth613]

No reason to feel stupid, or slow, or to apologize. This stuff can be complicated and it takes time to learn it. It took us all time, lots of it. No one learned this stuff overnight, or the first time around. Most of us have screwed our installations up so many times it's ridiculous. As for having a STEAM install, well so do I, and it does not create or cause any problems with any mods or modding utilities. It works exactly like the disk version. STEAM never has been, nor ever will be, the reason for modding troubles. I've used both the retail (disc) version and the STEAM version extensively and never once had a problem that was directly related to which version I was using.

 

In order to avoid having to download your STEAM games every time you want to install or uninstall you should make a backup of them either on a DVD disc or another drive. There is nothing wrong with doing this and has no adverse effects. I've used this method of backup for about 8 years now and never once had a problem.

 

Just keep at it, keep reading, keep experimenting, don't be afraid to make a mistake, it's the best way to learn, and you'll get the hang of things.

 

Good luck!

[Telyn]

That's really interesting. You've never had Steam try to reinstall the game when you moved it, or reinstall DLCs when you added the unofficial patches? I have and have read reports by people who have had similar issues. Is there some setting I may not have found that would prevent that? I would love to be able to move Oblivion to games without Steam trying to initiate another 8 hour redownload I don't need or want. Everything in Oblivion works with the permission adjustments I have now but it still makes me unhappy to have Oblivion where Steam puts it. The UAC and I hate each other. Really, mortal enemies, but I don't want to disable it entirely and am tired of working around it.

 

Thanks for your kind words. I am rereading all of it again and the constuction set tutorials now. Maybe magic will happen, a lightbulb will go on, horses led to water will drink, we can hope. ;)

 

I was just reading this:

If formIDs were preserved in the merge, the patch's dependency can be changed from "mod XXX.esp" to the name of the merge containing "mod XXX.esp." However, formIDs are often not preserved that well and patching done by scripts (dynamic patching) does not allow for that name changing.

 

And I was thinking "Cap'n, the trilithium is fracturing! We're gonna blow the warp core!" It sounds good, it clearly means something, but like old Star Trek, it's hard to decipher if you're not familiar with the terminology. And there is lot of terminology. Most of it isn't explained anywhere near where it's used. That's one of the reasons this is so hard for me to pick up. It's kind of like learning a foreign language by watching movies. It works eventually, but the osmosis process is a lot slower than I would like.