How to manually enable Ba2 files in MO2 archives tab

[SoldinPG]

I'm using MO2 v2.1.5, and I thought it high time I merged some plugins. Having done everything right, as far as I knew, I discovered many of the merged mods didn't function properly, with the ol' invisible stuff problem cropping up. The ones that did work were the ones that did not use Ba2 archives, so I checked the archives tab in MO, and lo and behold, it hasn't checked the archives. Do believe that is because archive and esp names don't match. I would like to manually enable these archives, but everythig is grayed out and I cannot interact with them. What do I do to solve these problems?

[SoldinPG]

Well, I got around my issue by just unpacking the ba2 files, but I'd still like some input so I can learn more stuff and possibly have this thread be relevant to someone else

[bbiller]

Well, while I can't confirm this it may be worth looking at the records in your combined file. If it's pointing to the needed ba2 file for each of the mods then so long as those archives are where they should be there should not be any issue. If however it's dead set on seeing the same name, then you have some work to do, though it will just be time consuming. Steps below in general:

 

0. It goes without saying do all this on a standard spinning disk hard drive to save reads and writes on that SSD you have in your system for the games. You'll thank me later.

1. Get a ba2 file extractor/creator. This will let you grab all the files you need though I suspect there will be some file structure that needs created.

2. Extract each ba2 archive to it's own directory with structure and files intact (ex. C:\temp directory\Acchive A\files and directories from there; C:\temp directory\Archive B\files and directories for B). This will help to find some duplicated files, which while they should likely not be an issue could crop up. Deal with those as needed, how needed.

3. Now that you have all that sorted, make a new directory for your combined ba2 archive and copy things from step 2 with structure intact (and yes Windows will ask about moving in files with the same directory path, say yes as needed or check the do for all and click yes to allow).

4. Have the archive program make your combined file from the new directory in step 3. You can, before doing this hopefully, get rid of the original extractions at this point to save space.

5. Make sure the main file for the combined mod points to your new ba2 file.

 

That should do it. A Google search or check of the nexus should get you the extractor and remember ESL files have been expanded so you may be able to turn some files into that and I have seen some projects already shift their file to ESL already, so a little save editing and using the ESL version may free mod slots for you, then it's a matter of can the game handle all the ESL files (may be hardware dependant).

[StormWolf01]

BAE is very commonly used for extracting BA/BA2's. https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/78

If you can't get it to install properly, there is also BSA Browser https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/17061/

The CK itself can also pack/unpack BSA files.

 

Hope this helps.

But yeah, as long as you get your folder structure set up correctly, and have archive invalidation set up in your .ini file, regular mods will work with loose assets. Tho I dunno about a merged mod. Trying that, is generally considered to be a bad idea.