LOOT (aka BOSS) for FO4?

[zilav]

 

 

Edit : proceeding to further testing, seems like explicit misordered masters are indeed not crashing the game on startup anymore. Dpending on the result, I might owe you a severe apology

 

I do. It indeed seems that masters order, explicits or erroneous, are irrelevant on FO4. I uninstalled other games to make room for all those 4k textures so I can't test since how long have this been going on. Even the formID index in-game match the apparently screwed-up load order.

 

Note that this is far from making LOOT completely irrelevant (still allow you for auto-sorting of the load order based on the masterlist, user-rules, and its guessing-algorithm). But yeah, this is an unexpected result.

 

They had to fix that before moving mods to consoles.

[Kesta]

 

 

 

Edit : proceeding to further testing, seems like explicit misordered masters are indeed not crashing the game on startup anymore. Dpending on the result, I might owe you a severe apology

 

I do. It indeed seems that masters order, explicits or erroneous, are irrelevant on FO4. I uninstalled other games to make room for all those 4k textures so I can't test since how long have this been going on. Even the formID index in-game match the apparently screwed-up load order.

 

Note that this is far from making LOOT completely irrelevant (still allow you for auto-sorting of the load order based on the masterlist, user-rules, and its guessing-algorithm). But yeah, this is an unexpected result.

 

They had to fix that before moving mods to consoles.

 

 

Make sense.

[Arthmoor]

Here's a set of test files for FO4: http://www.mediafire.com/download/58zjc8jy56j9wix/10MM.zip Inside are 3 .esp files named 10MMA, 10MMB, and 10MMC. C has B as a master, B has A as a master. The magazine capacity has been doubled with each mod with C at 96. Install those 3 .esp files in a random order and not alphabetical and see how the game treats them. Tell me that's the same as Skyrim when it was first released. Because I just tested it with C at the very top of my load order with B at the very bottom and my magazine capacity for the 10mm pistol was indeed 96. The game doesn't give a rip if the master is lower in the load order, that is fact. Those 3 .esp files prove that is fact.

Was pointed here by someone else. Going to skip over the bulk of this thread because your assertion is basically right here in this paragraph with 3 easy to validate test mods.

 

Well, it just so happens I have a 10mm pistol in my inventory. So I loaded your mods in this order:

 

10MMC.esp

10MMB.esp

10MMA.esp

 

Magazine capacity is 24, as expected because 10MMA.esp sets it to 24 and is the one the game is obviously using. Since vanilla capacity is 12 I can rule out baked data in the save.

 

In this order:

 

10MMC.esp

10MMA.esp

10MMB.esp

 

Magazine capacity is 48, again as expected since B changed it to 48 and is on the bottom of the load list.

 

The only way I get a magazine capacity on the 10mm pistol is if 10MMC.esp is on the bottom of the load order list.

 

I'm not sure how you're testing this, but this is with Fallout 4 officially patched to 1.2.37. Your results are wrong.

 

The only thing you are correct in is that the game will load it, but nobody ever disputed that the game won't load with out of order masters etc, and it's never been something that crashed Oblivion.

 

Rule of One. It never lies, and has very few exceptions for Skyrim. This little test proves it's alive and well and behaving precisely as expected in Fallout 4 too.

[jet4571]

Zilav, I never said it wont do that, my point was based on preferences. If you want Change B over Change A specifically you order your mods so that B is the one the game uses and LOOT or BOSS cannot know that's what you want.

 

Another point was BOSS used to be to prevent your load order from crashing the game like Skyrim used to be when it was originally released. An esp master out of order would cause a CTD and if you didn't know the new mod you installed used it as a master you may not set the load order correct and then not know why you get a CTD when the game loads. BOSS worked wonders for that. It isn't needed for Skyrim or FO4 for that function anymore.

 

Khormin is correct we are arguing 2 sides of the same coin. Load order wont cause a CTD anymore which is good and one of my main points, but users need to know what's being changed in mods so they know how to set the load order. BOSS and LOOT make changes according to their programing which may be in contrast to the users preference. Is it needed to use so the game wont CTD? No. Is it helpful to get a basic load order? Sure. Is it required and absolutely needed to have a stable game with 200+ mods? No. Can it set a basic load order if the user is an idiot.. well that's half its job.

 

Fun thing you want to know what's bad advice? Telling people to use a mod manager to install without first telling them how to do it manually. Telling people to use BOSS or LOOT without first telling them why load order matters and what happens when a mod is lower or higher in the order. Telling people to just use the tools perpetuates the idiots between the keyboard and chair that routinely screw up mods and demand the authors figure out the problem. Teach them how it works and how to do it themselves first then use the tools for convenience later is good advice. "just use NMM" or "Run BOSS after installing" is terrible advice.

 

*Edit,

It was 96 in the earlier beta patch regardless of load order several days ago. If it isn't now then Bethesda made a change.

Edited December 9, 2015 by jet4571

[Arthmoor]

*Edit,

It was 96 in the earlier beta patch regardless of load order several days ago. If it isn't now then Bethesda made a change.

No.

 

Beta 1237 became the current version of the game. They made no further changes once that was done testing and Steam downloaded no files when it became live.

 

Your assertion can no longer be validated, which seems awfully convenient to me.

 

Plus, you keep saying things like "Skyrim would crash". No. That was never true. Skyrim would not crash with a scenario like your 3 test files. It would load the game just fine, but as with this FO4 test right now, the order in which you listed them determined what values were active in the game. Absolutely nothing has changed here since Oblivion.

[Freso]

LOOT or BOSS cannot know that's what you want.

But it can! You just need to tell it that's how you want it, which is little different from telling the game itself how you want it (ie., manually editing the load order). Heck, even BOSS had a way to override the masterlist-based sort order.

[wrinklyninja]

All these people talking about LOOT and nobody invited me to the party? For shame!

 

Though really everyone but jet4571 has done a pretty good job of explaining what LOOT does when trying to decide load order and why it does that, so it looks like some people do read what I write. :happy:

 

There are a few different issues intersecting, so I'll separate them out for clarity.

 

LOOT and Fallout 4 support

 

Recent development code supports Fallout 4, and snapshot (read: prerelease) builds are available. There will be a stable release at some point, but I don't have a date to give at this time. There's nothing in particular holding it back though.

 

*Edit*: In fact, I received an email earlier today from someone asking if they could open a thread for LOOT here, so I expect that will appear soon.

 

Out-of-order masters not crashing the game

 

This is news to me, because I haven't tested it since the early days of Skyrim. In general though, a load order that does not crash is not necessarily one that works well, and loading plugins after those they edit still makes sense, so I see no reason to claim LOOT's "irrelevance" or for me to change its behaviour here.

 

LOOT not being a mind reader

 

It's correct to say that LOOT cannot guess what your intent/desire is. As others have said, it assumes you want as many of the plugins that you have installed making as many of their changes as possible, and orders them according to that, subject to various constraints like loading plugins after those they depend on.

 

However, as others have again pointed out, you can tell LOOT what you want by supplying metadata. Anything more seamless would require, as Zilav alluded to, machine learning to refine its behaviour, which means collecting data from its users about the load orders they use and the changes they make, and even then that would only reduce, not eliminate, the need for you to supply metadata.

 

This has always been a limitation though, it's not some brand new problem and doesn't make LOOT any more "irrelevant".

 

"Use LOOT"

 

In the end, you can manage your load order however you like. Plenty of people do so manually, probably more use LOOT, perhaps because they find it quicker and easier. While knowing what you're doing is always beneficial, ideally we'd like to have a system which is effective enough that you don't need to, and in many cases LOOT gets close enough for that to be the case.

 

I don't consider the blanket recommendation to use a utility to hide the details from you to be a bad one, because not everyone has the time to spend hours learning before they install a couple of simple mods so they can better enjoy their free time. If relying on LOOT or any other such utility proves to not be enough for them in the future (because their game blows up or whatever), they can learn then, when it has become necessary for them. You can only lead a horse to water, not recommending LOOT isn't going to stop people who aren't interested in learning from trying to use mods.

 

LOOT isn't some pancea, it's just a utility most find useful. Also remember that LOOT does more than just sort your load order: its metadata, including the messages it displays, helps users identify mistakes they've made, and its reporting on dirty mods alone is worth the download, IMO.

Edited December 9, 2015 by wrinklyninja

[Khormin]

All these people talking about LOOT and nobody invited me to the party? For shame!

 

Welcome to the party, we can offer an equal share of the loot. /snigger.

 

Thank you for the lengthy, but informative post.

 

In case anyone is confused, or popping in for links, https://loot.github.io/ is the release page, https://github.com/loot is the development page if you know what you're doing.

[boxfreind]

I disagree on the topic of necessity, but it's a matter of viewpoint. Thanks however.

I have no idea what on earth you are talking about. Load order DOES matter for Skyrim, and I don't see why it would be any different for Fallout 4. There are even the very few cases where LOOT isn't enough and you have manually tweak the load order. VERY rare mind you. And of course, in addition to load order, sometimes the order in which you INSTALL them matters too. Maybe you wont crash without doing anything to the load order (although with 50+ mods, I'm betting you will) but you DEFINITELY will get some seriously f*#@ed up textures. Although, from the looks of your mods for FO4, over half of them are just simple object mods, no UI tweaks, or weather or water mods at all. For those object mods, yeah, load order probably will not have too much effect.

 

Also, you have less than 50 mods installed. Come back when you have 150.

 

The instructions for many of the mods specifically mention load order, like put this as high as possible, or put this at the bottom, or put this before any water mods. If your saying that the modders are a bunch of tools who don't know what their doing, I have take offense to that.