Will modifying NPC faces cause conflicts? (+SE NPCs in vanilla character list?)

[SnickerToodles]

I'm just curious how this would work... assuming I modified an NPC face, then a user installed a mod that changed that NPC but didn't touch the face, how would that work? Would it cause horrible crashes and conflicts, simply overwrite my mod and make the NPC's face look normal, or since they're changing two separate values, would both mods remain intact?

 

And another thing, why am I getting Shivering Isles characters in my list of NPCs when I only load the Oblivion master file and my mod file?

 

I basically have no idea what I'm doing and I'm making my first simple mod just to get the feel of things. My construction set achievements are successfully loading Oblivion and changing an NPC's face, so I don't have much idea about modding at all. So go easy on me. xD

[DrakeTheDragon]

It depends. Some records in Oblivion are independently mixable, some will overwrite just about everything else of the same object in one go. I don't remember what it was for NPC face data.

 

However, unlike what I heard of Skyrim, in Oblivion it is in general overly complicated to cause a game crash only by a simple mod conflict. The worst things that usually happen when two mods conflict in changing the same records is only the records of the mod loaded last surviving, and thus usually reverting/undoing everything the other mod introduced. Crashes caused by mere conflicting records would be a rather rare occurrence instead.

 

Wrye Bash's famous Bashed Patch specifically got a Bash Tag for NPC Faces, so chances are, like with races, anything touching a part of an NPC's data will change "all" of it as well, and only via use of the Bashed Patch and properly assigned Bash Tags on each mod's plugin one can preserve the vital changes from both in the end.

 

As for why there's Shivering Isles records inside your Oblivion.esm after installing the SI expansion... well, that's just the way it is. Bethesda didn't ship another masterfile with SI, nor does the DLCShiveringIsles.esp actually "contain" any records. It's just an empty placeholder the loading of which will trigger auto-loading of the BSA archives named accordingly to go along with it, a neat little trick to get those pesky BSAs loaded without any changes to the Oblivion.ini which usually won't survive for all too long anyways.

 

Installing the Shivering Isles expansion "replaces" your entire Oblivion.esm with a new version containing "both", the Vanilla game's and the SI expansion's, game records. That's why they are inside there as well now.

 

I hope it helps.

[Striker879]

Just changing NPC face won't cause crashes but there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

 

First, your changes will be load order dependent vs any other mod that also changes that same NPC. The lower a mod is in a load order the later the game loads it into memory. That's why almost every mod in the world wants to be last in your load order. Last time I looked there is only one "last" spot ... pretty hard for multiple mods to be last.

 

That situation can be ameliorated somewhat through the use of bashed tags and a bashed patch (a feature exclusive to Wrye Bash). Depending on how experienced you are with Wrye that could be an option, but be aware that the load order situation still applies for two mods changing the same thing and using the same bashed tags (an example of that potential would be your mod plus Oblivion Character Overhaul v2).

 

The other thing to keep in mind is how your mod will affect things like the Unofficial Oblivion Patch. The UOP makes many changes to correct problems with NPCs (primarily AI Package corrections, but not limited to just that). If you load the UOP and make it a master as well as Oblivion.esm you'll avoid the problem of your mod undoing all the UOP changes to NPCs, but your mod will now be dependent on the UOP (i.e. any of your users not using the UOP will get an instant missing master crash). Making your mod compatible with the UOP without having the UOP as a master can be done, but again by using bashed tags and a bashed patch. Note that you would need to either use Construction Set Extender or Wrye Bash to get around the mod deisolation problem (using an ESP as a master).

 

As to why you have all the SI NPCs when you start the CS with only Oblivion.esm checked ... it's because when you install Shivering Isles it replaces the original non-SI Oblivion.esm with a new Oblivion.esm that includes all of the SI assets.

 

- Edit - Plus one :ninja: for Drake ... :laugh:

Edited January 12, 2016 by Striker879

[SnickerToodles]

Okay, thanks to you both. If I publish this mod it will be entirely a sort of temporary joke mod, so I don't think anyone will want to bother with a bashed patch unfortunately. But at least the worst that will happen is that a handful of faces are reverted. xD