Mass Mesh/Texture Errors with the Rhino

[Servalion]

WARNING: LONG READ INCOMING

 

This issue stems from a strange error that I probably somehow initiated when attempting to alter the Rhino revolver mod, found at http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35484

 

When I learned of this gun, I knew immediately that I had to have it in my game. And for a day, it was a wonder to behold. However, another mod I was using randomly plopped a Ranger Sequoia in my lap, far earlier than expected. Since both are chambered for 45-70s and I didn't want to give up either, I had the bright idea to edit the Rhino for 12.7mm. A quick trip into Geck, and I switched its ammo type, sped up firing rate a little, tweaked the damage a bit. Then I thought about editing it to use some existing in-game gun mods. At first I pondered if putting mods on it without instructing it to a model (set to NONE) would screw anything up. Then I remembered that since the gun can be deconstructed at a Workbench, I would lose any existing mods on it. I quickly decided to stop messing with it right there and play it as is.

 

It was this exact point where all the trouble started. Any and all attempts to run the mod brought back an old FO3 issue at times. Weapon Textures & Meshes would start screwing up and vanishing. Randomly switching between weapons would bring about random fits of both. When the Meshes screwed up, I'd be simply pulling out the notorious huge, red diamond "!"s. This commonly happened for the Rhino, Exciter's Sig 552 (which works flawlessly by itself otherwise), and the Riot Shotgun, oddly enough. Didn't think that'd happen with a vanilla weapon. When its the Textures turn to screw up, it affects mostly non-Vanilla weaponry. Rhino, when its mesh wants to render, appears in pure base form and appear entirely textureless. Various weapons and/or their visibly modded parts exhibit multiple graphical errors on their models which constantly change as I move around in game.

 

And thats when I'm away from Goodsprings, where the Rhino is found and placed within the game. Near and in Goodsprings, the game takes it further and throws a fit. In the vicinity of "Ground Zero", the Mesh errors are much more consistant, and while occuring, bring about worse issues - weaponry drawn/holstered/fired becomes entirely silent, the game has difficulty switching to different hotkeyed items from those exhibiting mesh errors, and the Pip-Boy & Main Menu become highly unresponsive. The game often crashes shortly thereafter, and I'd shudder to think how dead my saved games would be if I mistakenly quicksaved during such a catastrophe. This had happened a couple times over in FO3, and when I couldn't find the issue, I was forced to reinstall and start completely over.

 

But for once, I've found the source of the issue. Disabling the Rhino gun mod removes all these issues and all continues normally. I figured I somehow screwed up the .esp. Best thing to do is delete it and re-extract the mod from the zipped file, right?

 

Not quite. Here's where it gets wierd. Starting with a fresh version of the mod that I haven't meddled with changes nothing. All the issues come back. The issues persist with every attempt to play with the mod, and turning it off removes them all. Even after manually removing all the Rhino's textures and meshes, re-downloading the mod and installing it freshly, the issues still stick. What in the hell.

 

Do I have to completely nuke my Meshes and Textures folder and reinstall most mods to fix this or what? I can't stand not knowing why this keeps happening.