Some (prolly very stupid) Wrye Bash queries

[Flemming]

So added a few new mods to Oblivion this morning, Nothing big, just single-fancy-weapon mods. Start playing, take two steps, realize I forgot to rebuild bashed patch. So I get to this screen:

 

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j175/ecchi_rebirth/wryebash1.jpg

 

I noticed earlier, something that had never really occured to me. Only the first option was ever selected. So I hit the 'select all' button, and waited for it to rebuild the patch. I have a feeling that was the first mistake.

 

So, attempting to start the game, the screen would switch, then immediately close and return to desktop. this is occuring no matter what I do.

 

Now, according to some basic bashed patch tutorials I've read (these are aimed at basic users, which I am, most of the terminology in Bash is very confusing to me) only a few options really *need* to be selected ... however, when building the patch, I appear to only have the option of selecting all or selecting none.

 

I haven't done anything else to this point however, I want to make sure the next steps I take are correct. Help, please!!!

[MarkInMKUK]

My "first timer's" Build a Bashed Patch walkthrough:

 

Wrye Bash is not a totally "Stand alone" program, it uses another program (or set of programs) to work. The main bulk of the background work is done, currently, by "Python", which is what is called a scripting language interpreter. You write a series of instructions in a form Python can handle, and it uses those to automate various tasks. An example might be to tell Python to look through a list of files, and wherever the list told it to, change the file type from ".esp" to ".esp.ghost". You COULD go through several hundred files yourself to do that, but you'd be almost certain to make a mistake, whereas if you write the script it is to follow correctly, Python will not make any errors no matter how many times you do the job.

 

The upshot of this is, that running Wrye Bash at all relies on Python being correctly installed first.

 

OK, so, we will assume that you have a correct Python install, and have installed Wrye Bash, and BOSS as well. There SHOULD be a shortcut labelled "Wrye Bash Launcher" on your desktop if all went well. Double-click it as you would any other desktop shortcut, and Wrye Bash will pop up a small window while starting, then its main window.

 

At the top of the Wrye Bash window is a series of tabs labelled "Installers", "Mods", "Saves", etc. Make sure the one labelled "Mods" is selected - the others can be ignored for the moment.

 

Next, look right at the bottom of the window. You should see a series of icons, including a pale green and pale pink aquare, and the familiar Oblivion icon. Depending which other Oblivion-related programs you also have installed, you may see icons for paint.NET, Blender, Bink Video utilities, and plenty of programs which I also don't have installed. The one to look for is the word "Boss" in black lettering.

 

If you have both of those, you are well on your way to building a "Bashed Patch". Next - a little bit of setting up...

 

Firstly the second column on the screen currently shows something like "Lo...". In the same way you would if using a spreadsheet, hover your mouse next to that label until you find the vertical bar separating it from the next column (labelled "R"). Click and drag that to the right, until the header says "Load order". Once you can see that, release the mouse click, and then click ON the words "Load Order". The column below, and the associated mods, should organise themselves into numerical order, starting with "00" at the top, and increasing as you go down the column. With me so far?

 

Secondly, right-click anywhere on the bar with the "File" and "Load Order" labels in. A pop-up menu should appear. Remoce the tick from "Lock Times" if there is one, and make sure there are ticks in front of "BOSS disable lock times" and "Always update BOSS masterlist prior to running BOSS".

 

Now, click the BOSS icon at the bottom of the screen. There will be a small popup while the Masterlist updates, and BOSS runs, and then a window will open with the "Better Oblivion Sorting Software Log" in it. Read down it, and you should see familiar mod names, along with some arcane comments about "Bash tag suggestions". Check through the whole list for anything labelled "Error" or "Warning" - these need to be dealt with (or at the very least, understood) before trying to go further.

 

If you close the BOSS log and go back to the Wrye Bash window, you may well find that mods have changed order in the window. BOSS has used its Masterlist to determine what it thinks is the best load order, and adjusted the date and time stamps of the files so that they load in that order.

 

Now, left-click on ANY one of the mods, and press Ctrl+A to select all of the mods. They should all be highlighted. Right-click the highlight, and select "Mark Mergeable" from the Pop-up. After a few seconds, a window will pop up giving a list of the files that Wrye Bash believes can be merged, either partially or fully, into its Bashed Patch file. If they weren't alredy, you may now notice that the text has changed colour for some of the mod names, and the boxes to the left of the names may also have changed colour.

 

Scroll down towards the bottom of your mod list. Ideally right at the bottom, you should find a file marked "Bashed Patch, 0.esp". If this is not present, follow the instructions in the Wrye Bash readme to locate it and copy it (NOT move it) to the correct place, then re-run BOSS.

 

Once you have a "Bashed Patch" file, the next stage is to USE it. Right-click the file, and select "Rebuild patch". Another popup will appear (unless you, for some reason, have no mergeable mods)...

 

"The following mods are mergeable. While it is not important to Wrye Bash functionality or the end contents of the bashed patch, it is suggest that they be deactivated and merged into the patch; this (helps) avoid the Oblivion maximum esp/m limit."

 

There will then be a list of mod files, followed by

 

"Automatically deactivate those mods now?"

 

Click "Yes".

 

The next popup has DOZENS of options in the left-hand window. They should currently all be un-ticked (clear). The one we are interested in this first time through is the second item on the list, "Merge Patches". Put a tick in the box next to it, and then tick all of the files which appear in the right-hand window by selecting the "Select all" button. Now click the button marked "Build Patch". A popup will tell you that the program is working, and give you a progress bar.

 

Once completed, another popup will tell you what it did, so just hit "OK". It will probably prompt you to "Activate the Bashed patch" - do so by clicking the box next to it, and a tick will appear. The ticks in some of the other boxes will have disappeared now, or been replaced with + or dot marks. This tells you what their new status is.

 

You may now close Wrye Bash, and run Oblivion, and the whole things SHOULD work just as before, but with less files active, so a smaller load list.

 

There are lots of other options for building the Bashed patch, and there are myriad advanced functions in the program, but you have now performed the equivalent of turning the key in the ignition. The rest comes with practice and experimentation.

Edited July 23, 2011 by MarkInMKUK

[Flemming]

I did get things functioning again ... I think the overall lesson was, don't f*** with settings that you don't understand.

[MarkInMKUK]

The other lesson is "only change one thing at a time, and leep a list of what you did so that you can UNDO it"