What kind of mods do I leave unchecked when creating bashed patch in Wrye Bash?

[jordangamer007]

I know that I don't check Bijin wives and some other followers, but I don't know why.

[Algabar]

I know that I don't check Bijin wives and some other followers, but I don't know why.

 

TBH, I never heard of that. In my current game, i got Bijin Warmaidens and another NPC replacer included in the Bashed Patch (like I did many times before). No problems at all..

 

But back to your question...

 

In this context, "checking" can mean two different things. In the "Plugins" tab, you basically check every mod you want to use in your current game. Uncheck only mods you don't want to be active. That's the general rule.

There are some exceptions though, like reproccer patches and maybe Dyndolod. You may have to uncheck these files in the "plugins/Mods" tab and reenable or rebuild them later, once the Bashed Patch is created. For mods, where things like these matter, always follow the instructions given by the mod author.

 

On a side note: Although Wrye Bash can do a lot more, for many people the main reason to create a Bashed Patch are leveled lists. A Bashed Patch is useful (and often even necessary), if you got multiple mods that add their stuff to leveled lists (loot from creatures and NPCs, contents of chests, the inventory of merchants...). A Bashed Patch ensures, that items from multiple mods are distributed properly. Therefore, you must at least leave everything checked, that touches leveled lists.TBH, I just leave my whole load order checked. But I don't have anything like DSR, SkyRe or the like installed...

 

After this fist roudn of checking and unchecking is done, you can rightclick the Bashed Patch and choose "Rebuild Patch" - giving you the oppotunity of checking or unchecking mods again. Wrye Bash probably wants to uncheck some plugins right away in order to incorporate them into the Bshed Patch. In addition to that, in the "Merge Plugins" tab, you'll find a list of mods that COULD be merged into the Bashed Patch.

That's the point where you have to make decisions based on your modding experience and your knowledge about your mods. If you're unsure, don't let Wrye Bash merge a mod into the bashed patch. This means unchecking this mod in the window at the beginning of the rebuilding process and/or in the "Merge" tab.

The safest solution is always unchecking everything. This way, the Bashed Patch takes care of the leveled lists and that's basically it.

Again, read the mod's description and maybe also the comments section. To give you an example: Some people report problems when including "Enhanced Blood Textures" into the Bashed Patch. So it might be a wise decision not to inlude parts of this mod.

[JohnnynRoger]

So you mean that WB disables plugins when creating Bashed Patch and you're wonder which ones you need to enable again?

[duckyduckyquackquack]

I've been wondering this myself these last few days. I've been playing a new playthrough of Skyrim Special Edition and have been adding mods throughout as I feel the need for something or want to change something in game. I then remember to go and do rebuild my bashed patch but have noticed some weird things in game, where some of the mods I've installed don't seem to have any effect or the changes they are supposed to make aren't being seen. So I've gone back to Wyre Basg and checked which mods it's supposedly merging to remove extra un-needed plugins and stuff and deselecting mods that don't seem to be getting implemented, and making sure those mods are still loaded as they should, but still I'm seeing errors. I've even re-installed mods and loaded their esps below Bashed Patch.esp to ensure it shouldn't interfere with their changes, but still I'm seeing issues.

 

So last night I decided to have a long sort out, re-installing a lot of mods and moving them to the bottom of my load order. Disabling and deleting the bashed patch and merged patches. Re-doing the merged patch with SSEEdit but only with select mods and not the full load order, then making sure to delete any levelled lists or levelled actor data from the merged patch plugin before saving. Then I went into Wrye Bash and made a new Bashed Patch, without disabling or merging any plugins, just using it to patch the levelled lists from the mods that need to play nice and using some of the bash patch tweak options to change some game settings you can't normally without using console commands such as the time scale and arrow recovery values. I then went and enabled all the mods in my load order, particularly the ones I kept disabled and away from the merged patch and bashed patch process and then made sure those mods load below the merged and bashed patch. Played last night on a test save and noticed this fixed a lot of issues I was experiencing. So today going to load up my main playthrough and test that out for an extended session.

[Algabar]

So last night I decided to have a long sort out, re-installing a lot of mods and moving them to the bottom of my load order. Disabling and deleting the bashed patch and merged patches. Re-doing the merged patch with SSEEdit but only with select mods and not the full load order, then making sure to delete any levelled lists or levelled actor data from the merged patch plugin before saving. Then I went into Wrye Bash and made a new Bashed Patch, without disabling or merging any plugins, just using it to patch the levelled lists from the mods that need to play nice and using some of the bash patch tweak options to change some game settings you can't normally without using console commands such as the time scale and arrow recovery values. I then went and enabled all the mods in my load order, particularly the ones I kept disabled and away from the merged patch and bashed patch process and then made sure those mods load below the merged and bashed patch. Played last night on a test save and noticed this fixed a lot of issues I was experiencing. So today going to load up my main playthrough and test that out for an extended session.

 

Using a merged patch and a bashed patch together was common practice and recommend by very experienced modders and guide authors (among them GamerPoets) for a long time. TBH, I've been doing it this way for years without major issues. Maybe I was just lucky...

 

Current recommendation however is NOT to use a merged patch, but only work with a Bashed Patch. I can confirm this works fine. TBH, I'm not using the latest build of Wrye (307 beta 2, but the one before - 307 beta 1). Seems to be very stable and reliable.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Algabar

[jeedge]

One slightly related question I've had is maybe closely resembling the original question enough to ask... I always wondered if there were any mods out there that don't have the bash tags set for delev, relev but would benefit from a modder manually adding those tags in LOOT prior to building the patch?