OCO v2 not loading properly

[InternalOrcness]

I don't know what's causing it, but it will not stop breaking. Orc and beast heads are unchanged from vanilla and no amount of screwing around with my load order does anything other than make more mod conflicts. I use Wrye Bash for mods and organize my plugins with BOSS. Here's my current load order for installers and plugins (in Pastebin for the sake of brevity):

 

https://pastebin.com/BBwgKyVD

 

 

Thanks to anyone who can organize this into a functional state for me; listening to Rec from System Shock 2 takes its toll on the brain after 2 hours.

[Striker879]

First some info on your Installers tab ...

 

The order from top to bottom is the install order. Think of it as Wrye Bash starts at the top of the list and works it's way to the bottom. Some things I notice there is you are installing patches before you are installing the mod that is patched (e.g. Oblivion Character Overhaul - Unoffical Patch and OCOv2 - DLC Faces are both installing before Oblivion Character Overhaul v203). That order should be OCO v203, compatibility addons and then DLC and Unofficial OCO patch (not certain what order the DLC and Unofficial OCO patches should be installed in ... just that they need to be after OCO v203 base).

 

Next your Plugins ...

 

I notice that MaleBodyReplacerV5.esp is merged into your bashed patch and deactivated. That is exactly the same as if you put it below your bashed patch as far as the effect that it is having (it is winning all of it's conflicts). It has always been recommended that MaleBodyReplacerV5.esp be not used at all when you use Oblivion_Character_Overhaul.esp as the OCOv2 ESP does everything that Robert Male requires to work but MaleBodyReplacerV5.esp does things that break stuff in OCOv2.

 

To successfully purge MaleBodyReplacerV5.esp from your bashed patch you'll first need to rebuild your bashed patch but before you hit Build Patch you need to untick MaleBodyReplacerV5.esp from the list of mods included in the bashed patch. After your bashed patch is done rebuilding then deactivate MaleBodyReplacer.esp and you can either leave it in your Data folder but not activated or delete it altogether. After deactivating it (and deleting it if you choose to) rebuild your bashed patch and then see how things look in-game.

 

- Edit - Perhaps a partial :ninja: for me but Drakes input is always both welcome and often required.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Striker879

[DrakeTheDragon]

Hmm, I can't identify the source of this "Oblivion_Character_Overhaul_UP.esp" that loads after your bashed patch, as it isn't from the "Oblivion Character Overhaul - Unofficial Patch" in your installers, at least not the one I could find on the site, which contains an ESP meant to "replace" OCOv2's, not patch it. But this is also rather unlikely to be the culprit here.

 

We're talking of something undoing the head mesh NIF file replacements OCOv2 does, and there's nothing like that coming in your installers after it. OCOv2 replaced the Vanilla Argonian, Khajiit and Orc head NIFs, so how can they be Vanilla again now?

 

It is only those 2-3 races and not others, especially not all as well? (No replacements working at all I could explain, but only a few not working, and in this set of installers and order, is hard to find a reason for.)

 

There is a bunch of plugins loading after your bashed patch, so they can mess up your perfectly mixed and made compatible setup afterwards, but even if the race settings were messed up, this would still not undo the physical replacement of the head NIF files. And there's nothing loading which looks like it'd "redirect" the races' heads to meshes of its own, or even have meshes of its own.

 

 

Did you try disabling all other race changing plugins but OCOv2 already and see what it does? If I recall the install instructions correctly still, you were to not use the body mods's plugins ("MaleBodyReplacerV5.esp" and "RTFemaleReplacerV12.esp") anymore either when using OCOv2, and they're still at least merged into your bashed patch it seems. But again this can only mess up race settings, and race settings shouldn't really be the reason for mesh replacements to not work.

 

"OCO DLC Faces.esp" and "Reworked Race Relations.esp" shouldn't be affecting the head meshes either. My "ScriptedArgonianFeet.esp" certainly doesn't, though why is it loading that late? It's only scripts after all. Oh, well. But for the sake of completeness you can try running your game with my plugin disabled, too, if just to confirm it's really not it causing this. It shouldn't, and doesn't in my installation of OCOv2, but you never know in this game.

 

My Argonian Beautification doesn't contain heads or faces, and you have OCOv2 installed all over it later anyways, going by the install order I see. Why you have certain patches to OCOv2 installed before OCOv2 is beyond me, but they're only additional plugins (apart from the unofficial one, if it's the one I found) so it won't make a change. And none of it is in any way related to the issues at hand.

 

You have OCOv2 pretty late in your installers. Can you check if its files are really all installed and there are no conflicts/overwrites other than by the "texture compatibility add-ons" installed thereafter? Otherwise there should be a means to just re-install it as well I'm sure. To make absolutely sure none of OCOv2's files have been overwritten/replaced by something else later and all are installed correctly. You will have to only reinstall the texture compatibility add-ons later.

 

 

edit: Partly ninja'd again by Striker, while I was still typing my reply and looking into all those mods' archives. :sweat:

[InternalOrcness]

 

Hmm, I can't identify the source of this "Oblivion_Character_Overhaul_UP.esp" that loads after your bashed patch, as it isn't from the "Oblivion Character Overhaul - Unofficial Patch" in your installers, at least not the one I could find on the site, which contains an ESP meant to "replace" OCOv2's, not patch it. But this is also rather unlikely to be the culprit here.

 

That'd be the .esp for OCO Unofficial Patch. They both used the same name for their .esp, so I added the "_UP" thinking it wasn't meant to replace anything. It doesn't seem to matter that much though, since taking Striker's load order and plugin suggestions fixed the head problem. Probably my fault for assuming Scripted Argonian Feet wasn't working even though I never tested past character creation. Thanks for the help!

[Striker879]

A tip for determining more info regarding things like the OCOv2 vs OCO-UP type situations.

 

I use file size a lot when doing a quick figuring out if something is meant to replace something else or not. I have Windows Explorer set up to show me details but even I sometimes need to resort to the right click Properties dialogue to see the true story. The number you look for there is the Size not Size On Disk.

 

If something is a simple patch (meaning it requires the original ESP and then loads after it to make it's changes) it will be smaller in size than the original. If the patch ESP is the same size or larger then chances are it replaces the original.

 

Of course mod install instructions are the first place to look.

 

Using my first test shows that both are reported as 1070 KB in Windows Explorer with details turned on. The Properties dialogue shows the original Oblivion_Character_Overhaul.esp is 1,095,368 bytes while the Unofficial version is 1,095,649 bytes (which tells me that it must include all of the original plus a bit more).

 

The mod description confirms this ... "Replaces the Oblivion Character Overhaul v2 esp, with a version compatible with the Unofficial Patches."