Flawed Fallout3 launcher program leading to "corruption"

[Andysaurus]

I downloaded FO3Edit from Tes Nexus as it appeared to be a way of safely alterng the settings of armor etc, by making new esp's. I created an esp file with some duplicated entries (no documentation on how to do it) , and altered properties

 

Most of my saved games then failed to load !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I now know what happened - and need assistance from people who know about the game format.

 

The fault lies in the Official Fallout3 loader / launcher program.

 

When I downloaded TESnip, I created a copy of Fallout3.esm to protect against esm corruption. This has caused the problem.

 

The loader has picked up the duplicated esm - and gives no indication that it did it, unlike in Morrowind and Oblivion. Thus most of my saved files now require a "Copy of Fallout3.esm" to load. Ugg.

After I created the trial esp, I decided to tidy up redundant files - so causing this problem

 

The solution is to restore "Copy of Fallout3.esm". This is worying, incase it causes trouble when the TES is finally relased - when Oblivions was released they altered the ESP. Also, in Morrowind and Oblivion you could usually cut out a plugin unless it created new clothing items that were being worn at the time. So cutting out the unneeded esm aught to make no difference, unless plugins work in a different way

 

Does anyone know how to doctor the save files ? I tried by simple text edit, but it didnt work

 

Can someone help please !!!!!