Cleaning the Master Files for FO3 (Do, or Do Not?)

[Deleted21304489User]

I'm of the opinion now, that you shouldn't clean the master files for FO3. Here's why:

 

Whenever I've cleaned the master files for the game, it makes MMM do very strange things. Like spawning monsters inside the outside walls of Megaton, for instance. There's many other glitches, but the important thing to note... is that if I don't clean the master files, all of those many glitches go away. That being said, I'm wondering how it may affect other major mods that inject themselves massively into the game. Like say, FWE for instance.

 

Also, there are a few posts on the web concerning the so-called "Enclave Glitch". Said to be caused by the Broken Steel dlc in the GOTY edition. Where sometimes you'll find an enclave soldier roaming around the Megaton area, at the start of the game. Let me put this one to bed finally. It's not a glitch.

 

There is a tag line that will gen an enclave soldier, located between megaton and the Springvale school. Some players might not hit the tag line, or they may not ever notice the soldier if they walk off into the opposite direction. A common occurrence that can happen with any random encounter. I've tested it and the enclave soldier spawns every single time that I hit the tag line for it.

 

Again, it's not a glitch where he spawns only "sometimes" in the game. He may also roam off his spawn point after a certain time. This may also cause people to think it's a glitch as well. That being said... if you clean the Broken Steel dlc, you will remove the tag line and the enclave soldier will never spawn at the beginning or your game. Yet another reason not to clean the master files. You're actually breaking something that Bethesda intended... through a "dirty edit". I personally believe that the idea was to let the player get a taste of what the enclave is early off in the game. A teaser, if you will.

 

Further, I have never ever had a ctd during the Operation Anchorage dlc, whether I've cleaned the master file, or not. So why then clean it? Answer... don't clean it.

 

In the end, you may actually be doing more harm to your game if you clean the master files of their ITM and UDR records. I've personally never noticed any game stability increase when cleaning the master files. In fact, I find it makes my game more unstable when I'm using mods. Like with MMM, as stated above. My theory is that Mart designed his mod around the uncleaned master files, and by cleaning them... you are ruining the functionality of his mod. Here's my proof... that "enclave soldier glitch" in the beginning... will gen increased MMM spawns as well. Think about that for a moment. ^^

 

I am currently toying with cleaning and fixing the deleted navmesh records found in the Pitt and Broken Steel dlc master files. These edits being promoted by GamerPoets and Roy Batty, as the cause for many commonly reported ctd spots in the game. The one near Rivet City, for example. It's a tedious process making these edits, so be warned. I'm initially of the opinion that making these changes may affect older mods out there, but we shall see how it goes. Aside from this though... I no longer consider cleaning the master files a good idea at all. Enough said.

 

FYI: Yes, I do clean all of the user made mods that I employ... unless told not to, by the mod author specifically.

Edited December 30, 2017 by ejroberts49

[blackrat99]

I don't clean anything except where I see an obvious error. If I don't know what I'm correcting I don't do it. OTOH I bash mods about in FO3Edit all the time but at least there I think I know what I'm doing. Most of my problems come from late in the game when the game has too much to keep track of. A few freezes when out running. And then lots of crashes going between areas.

 

MMM does strange things anyway. Any mod that spawns things can cause stability issues, but you can reduce them by not using the optional modules. And not turning on iguanas.

 

I haven't seen this enclave soldier once and always roam Springvale at the start of the game. Maybe one of the patches kills it? Are you intending to play TTW when 3.0 comes out. Because I think that Roy Batty has done most of the navmesh fixing for that mod. Seems like doubling up on the work if you'll be playing TTW. Otherwise he should know where all the fixes need to be made. Just a thought.

[Deleted21304489User]

I've messed around with MMM extensively and I'm aware of all it quirks. Iguanas I already know about... they stack up in the game. I also disable the others (wanamingos, floaters) as they have bad nifs that cause ctd issues. The only one I keep on are the gheckos, as I've never noticed an issue with them. I also delete the ghoulvarient nif from the data folder, as it is corrupt and actually serves no purpose. This info. directly from Roy Batty.

 

I stand by my statements concerning the "enclave soldier glitch" as I've proven the issue to myself, without a doubt. Clean Broken Steel and it's gone. Whether this matters, or not... meh.

 

I'll also go as far to state that introducing any mod that injects it's own navmeshes, can cause issues with game crashing events. Unless the mod author knows exactly what they are doing. DC Interiors and BusWorld are two examples that come to mind. Not that I can say these two for sure cause issues, but it's a possibility. IE: introducing exterior edits to an already established environment can cause game engine issues. Just a theory I have.

 

Ultimately my goal is to maintain a stable game environment, as much as possible with Bethesda's Gambryo engine. Heh

 

Edit: As far as issues with saved game file corruption goes, later in the game... Turn off the 3 auto saves and make manual saves. Use CSAM, or Simple Saves... my preferred mod. Also, don't throw stuff out of your inventory on the ground. Throw it in a garbage can instead. That way you won't get a corrupted cell reset. Next, if you're using MMM, along with a body replacer... turn off Skeleton Decay, as it doesn't support external body mods. Finally, if you see things like experience transferring over when the game auto reloads after dying... quit the game and reload the save that the game was going to auto load. Most players think, "Hey, I just got experience for free." No, you just corrupted your next saved game file. ^^

 

Oh, you mentioned one of the "patches" removing the enclave soldier. Maybe, but I don't use the Unofficial FO3 patch, for a lot of reasons. That's just me though.

Edited December 30, 2017 by ejroberts49

[blackrat99]

Yes I use the UUFO3P. I think I already do everything you suggest except I'd forgotten about ghoulvariant.nif and didn't know about dropping things causing problems (probably I did once but have forgotten that as well). I'll stop doing that. I've had problems myself with Busworld but not so much with DC Interiors, though obviously there are lots of potential conflicts. In any case there aren't so many good extra content mods that I'd willingly discard it.

[Deleted21304489User]

Here's another thing a lot of people don't know, when it comes to saved game files: The longer you set your time for unvisited cell resets to spawn... the larger your saved files get. IE: setting them to spawn longer than default, say with FWE, or a bashed patch. Thus setting them to respawn in less time, can be beneficial. Just sayin'.

 

You may want to try "Another Interior" mod. Also, "Metro Interiors" by the same author. The first one is rather new and adds 40 new interiors to explore. It's clean too. Metro needs to be cleaned and the texture folder needs to be renamed to "Water" instead of "Metro Textures". Other than that... it works great. The plus side of these two mods, is that they don't rely on navmeshes, nor do they unbalance the game by adding safes and skill books to the game. I find these two mods alone make up for the lack of places to explore. In addition, they both don't conflict with DC Interiors. *shrugs

 

I've used DC Interiors and BusWorld and find them to be full of bloat. Junk, for lack of a better word. Just not my taste. I think part of BusWorld's problem are the exterior elements it adds to the game. There also seems to be a collision issue with it, since I've walked by a bus and then it goes flying through the air. I have in my collection a modified version, that is translated, cleaned, and edited to not conflict with DC Interiors. However, it still has issues after all that. Meh

 

After a few runs trying out all the big huge popular mods... I've found myself being more conservative now, with what I add to my game. Instead of FWE and all of it's bloat, misssing files, missing nifs, and glitches... I use my own modified version of Simple Realism. I've given up on MMM, because it just stresses me out too much with all it's issues. I really wish Mart would give over the rights to Roy Batty, so he could address the plethora of issues contained within it. One can only hope. Whenever I make a new visit to my favourite wasteland... I find now that less can be better. I focus mainly on making it look ominous now. Mainly employing great mods like NMC, UHQ, Ojo Bueno, Dynamic Weather, etc. Fog and sandstorms only... It looks so cool. My game is HD and my girl player is a hottie. Plus I have realism added. What more can you want? ^^

Edited January 1, 2018 by ejroberts49

[Deleted1205226User]

The time put in creating mods isn't put in making them playing nicely with other mods in my game. That's a downside of Modding.

 

That's also why informative thread like this one are so precious.

 

Thank you for sharing your experience!

[blackrat99]

Mart has gone or at least is unreachable for ordinary mortals. I have a small mod based on something in MMM but can't release it. DC Interiors is well-cluttered but I like collecting things and there are only a handful of those mods. Robco Collectibles and a comic collecting mod and the Drunken Gnomes. One or two others. I've started taking along a companion and giving them spare skillbooks (if they can use them) in order to reduce buffs and xp.

 

There are just too many mods treading on each other's toes and 90% of the conflicts are undocumented or just known to the few people who have noticed. MMM conflicts with Simple Realism and Seducing Women for example, but only in small ways. If you run Seducing Women and MMM you can on occasion - with certain modules and settings and the right load order - find everyone in Big Town dead. Because both mods change the same script. Modders have little desire or time to make their mods compatible with everything else because it's a never-ending process and so it falls to the community to fix things if it's important enough to them.

[Deleted21304489User]

Not familiar with Seducing Women, but like I said before I use my own modified version of Simple Realism and it doesn't conflict with MMM. Except for the trog stats from The Pitt and I just edit those stats with FO3Edit. When I have run MMM, in the past I've had up to four patches that I create myself to get it to play nice with my other mods. Simple enough. One thing I have found though, is that MMM doesn't like to share leveled lists with other mods. Even if you can successfully patch them together... Mart's tends to go all wonky when sharing these lists. MMM is rather unstable in that aspect. Out of the "major mods" I only ever run MMM and PB together. I could care less about FWE and EVE (EXE is good enough). That being said, there's even issues with that Blackened patch. I've reported the issues, but nobody seems to care, or listen. Meh... This is why I've become so adept at modding my own game.

Edited January 3, 2018 by ejroberts49

[blackrat99]

It isn't just Seducing Women, it's any mod (and there are a lot) that change the same scripts. Usually it's the places that have group scripts like Bigtown and Arefu. I assume Canterbury Commons though I haven't checked it, but a couple of bodies there would suggest that MMM's faction protection has been removed by another mod. Possibly Exotic Caravans but more likely Quo Vagis. The Bigtown and Arefu expansions probably do the same.

 

In my current game some ants and a radscorpion spawned right inside the Temple of the Union and killed Hannibal. I don't think anything there has been modded so I assume they didn't get any faction protection. In a way I quite like it, it makes the Wasteland a scarier and less predictable place. But there are too few people that you can afford to lose many. And of course it breaks quests.

[Deleted21304489User]

If you're getting weird spawns with MMM, like the one you stated above... again, I find this mostly happens with MMM sharing the leveled lists with other mods (scripts too). I'm currently running a game with MMM and for the first time, no WMK. It's the most stable that MMM has ever been in my game. Again, shared leveled list is my guess about some weird things that can be produced with MMM. Also, I completely stand by not cleaning the master files. Especially if you're using MMM. These mentioned issues may even have something to do with the way the merged patch is created in FO3Edit. I now currently only use a bashed patch. I find some of the logic with the merged patch to be broken, imo. In the end, the most unstable part of MMM is the wasteland spawns themselves. They seemed to be effected by other mods in use with it. Just be careful and know what's happening with the leveled lists (scripts too, of course). If it doesn't look right... it's probably not.

 

About Canturbury Commons. I recently noticed that it has quite a few NavMesh Edits to it. That's not a good thing. I don't like injecting mods into my game that add NavMeshes. I find that they cause crashing, no matter what. The only one I use is DCStreet... a modified version, created by Roy Batty. That guy knows what he's doing. That is probably the most extreme thing you can do to this game... add external structures and edits. If it's not done just right, your game becomes unstable, no matter where you are in it. A current example is that Fallout 4 garage mod. The author states on his mod page for it, that he had to move it across the wasted land. Due to it causing game crashes. That statement right there certifies what I'm saying about external structures, etc. IE: your added navmeshes are going to contact other establised navmeshes. *shrugs That's how I see it anyway.

 

@pixelhate - glad you like my ramblings. :smile:

Edited January 17, 2018 by ejroberts49