Can someone please explain what a bashed patch is?

[urthman]

Really I have tried to read through all the Wyre Bash docs I could find.

 

I've read the main Wyre Bash page.

 

I've read the tes4mod wiki Bashed Patch FAQ.

 

I've read the FCOM pages at devnull.

 

The only reason I know the bashed patch exists at all is FiveFries's awesome step-by-step cookbook for installing the daunting list of FCOM mods. Which is so carefully detailed and well done I was able to get FCOM working smoothly without really understanding what I was doing. (Thanks FiveFries!)

 

They all seem to assume I already know what the bashed patch is for and which mods I'd want to include in it and get on to telling me how to do it.

 

I know that it's somehow necessary to make the FCOM mods work together, but I don't understand what it does. I don't know why I would need to rebuild the Bashed Patch (Tes4Mod says every time you add a new mod but doesn't say why). I don't know which (if any) of the other mods that Wyre Bash lists as "mergable" I ought to include in the Bashed Patch. There's probably other stuff that I don't even know that I don't know :wacko:

 

If any of you likes to edit the Tes4Mod wiki, then surely the first item on the Bashed Patch page should not be "What's the difference between Import and Merge?" but rather "What exactly is a Bashed Patch, why do I need it and what does it do?"