Help me install FCOM mod plz...

[babidibidi]

I just installed Oblivion for the first time on my pc and im new at this modding thing... Can someone please tell me where to start if I want to run oblivion with the FCOM mod???

[thebigba]

I just installed Oblivion for the first time on my pc and im new at this modding thing... Can someone please tell me where to start if I want to run oblivion with the FCOM mod???

 

First If you Have Oblivion but not the shivering isles expansion then you may want to install the official patch if its not already installed. You can find it here scroll down until you see the patch for oblivion, don't get the shivering isles patch unless you have the shivering isle expansion.

 

http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_patches.htm

 

Next you might want the unofficial oblivion patch found here

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5296

 

If you have the shivering Isles expansion then grab this also

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10739

 

after this I suggest you read this article on Fcom It tells you the requirements you need and what Fcom is for and how to install it.

 

http://devnull.devakm.googlepages.com/convergence

 

Further more, I can tell you Fcom is a merge for 4 other large oblivion mods, You Must install these other mods first. Fcom is a mod that merges these other four mods to allow you to play all four mods at once in oblivion. The other four mods are

 

1. OOO(obscuros-Oblivion_Overhaul) http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15256

 

2. MMM(Martigen's Monster Mod) http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12205

 

3. Oblivion warcry

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZV5VTR1I

 

and

4. Francesco's Leveled Creatures-Items http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2518

 

I should also suggest that before installing these mods read the readme if the come with one if they do it will almost always have instructions on install. and possibly a list of required mods.

 

You should download obse and install it ,read the read me some mods require it best to go ahead and get it

http://obse.silverlock.org/

 

also a helpful thing to have is OBMM it manages your mods and lets you choose load order for them also it opens oblivion usinf obse loader if you have obse installed which is the only way obse really works by the way , is to use the obse loader to start oblivion.

 

obmm here http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2097

 

Other than that

 

most mods come in a .rar, .7zip, .zip., .acr file format compressed

you will need winrar or 7zip program one or the other if you dont already have it you can google it.

 

I suggest you extract the folder to a temporary folder on your desktop so you can examine the contents, also take this time to view the mods read me if it has one, most do.

 

installation of most mods is easy if it comes in a folder called Data place the data folder in your oblivion installation folder .likely it will be mycomputer/C:/Program Files/bethesda softworks/oblivion

 

if the contents include a folder called meshes, textures or sounds they go in the Data folder that is located inside the oblivion folder c:/program files/bethesda/oblivion/Data

 

When asked to override click yes.

 

Sometimes mods conflict with other mods... This should be noted in the read me if the mod has known conflicts.

 

I hope this helped :-)

[bben46]

Starting off with FCOM is like jumping in the deep end before learning to swim. I recommend starting with some simpler mods, just load & test each one. Then work your way up. FCOM is a very complex mod and changes so many things that starting with it is very likely to cause problems. Even people experienced with mods have problems with this one.

 

It's not really a mod in the normal sense of making changes in the game, it is a mod that changes a specific set of other very large complex mods to work together. Without FCOM trying to run these at the same time is nearly impossible. Using any one of the 4 mods it adjusts completely changes the game experience.

 

I wish you luck though. If you can get this one working on your first try, you should have no problems with any of the other mods you install.

[babidibidi]

HEheh... I'm so tired, I've been trying to make it work for HOURS and it still crashes when I launch it :(

 

I tried to follow step by step the tutorial on http://fivefries.googlepages.com/fcominstallationguide but it still doesn't work

 

First of all, theres one thing I'm sure I didn't do correctly and it was this step : " Download the patch for MMM 3.6 BETA 2 and update Mart's Monster Mod.esm to fix the skeleton issues." The link they give to download the patch just didn't work so I looked around on this website for Martigen's stuff and i found this instead :http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17784, which is MMM 3.6 BETA 3, so I used that instead...

 

Furthermore, I'm not so sure how this "BOSS" program works or FCOM helper but I think i got it working... Finally, when I activate everything in Wrye Bash, a lot of it is RED and I suppose that it is not a good sign :unsure: ...

 

Should I just uninstall everything and start from scratch?

[babidibidi]

I almost forgot, thank you very very much for replying! :)

[thebigba]

HEheh... I'm so tired, I've been trying to make it work for HOURS and it still crashes when I launch it :(

 

I tried to follow step by step the tutorial on http://fivefries.googlepages.com/fcominstallationguide but it still doesn't work

 

First of all, theres one thing I'm sure I didn't do correctly and it was this step : " Download the patch for MMM 3.6 BETA 2 and update Mart's Monster Mod.esm to fix the skeleton issues." The link they give to download the patch just didn't work so I looked around on this website for Martigen's stuff and i found this instead :http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17784, which is MMM 3.6 BETA 3, so I used that instead...

 

Furthermore, I'm not so sure how this "BOSS" program works or FCOM helper but I think i got it working... Finally, when I activate everything in Wrye Bash, a lot of it is RED and I suppose that it is not a good sign :unsure: ...

 

Should I just uninstall everything and start from scratch?

 

If truly this is your first experience with mods on the pc version of oblivion, then you should take bens advice start off with smaller mods until you get used to the general installation and trouble shooting :-)

[babidibidi]

I want to start with FCOM because I want a completely new experience from what I had on my xbox360, that's why I got it for PC!

[Solaias]

HEheh... I'm so tired, I've been trying to make it work for HOURS and it still crashes when I launch it :(

 

I tried to follow step by step the tutorial on http://fivefries.googlepages.com/fcominstallationguide but it still doesn't work

 

First of all, theres one thing I'm sure I didn't do correctly and it was this step : " Download the patch for MMM 3.6 BETA 2 and update Mart's Monster Mod.esm to fix the skeleton issues." The link they give to download the patch just didn't work so I looked around on this website for Martigen's stuff and i found this instead :http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17784, which is MMM 3.6 BETA 3, so I used that instead...

 

Furthermore, I'm not so sure how this "BOSS" program works or FCOM helper but I think i got it working... Finally, when I activate everything in Wrye Bash, a lot of it is RED and I suppose that it is not a good sign :unsure: ...

 

Should I just uninstall everything and start from scratch?

*Crack knuckles*

 

MMM 3.6 Beta 3 works just fine. ;)

 

I am going to assume this is a fresh install with only FCOM files and their respective mods loaded. (If it isn't I suggest you set it up like this until you are used to dealing with mods and load orders :smile: )

 

Okay, first lets deal with FCOMHelper. Open the archive you downloaded, and navigate within the archive until you can see the .bat file. There should be two other files in there with it, one .exe file and one .txt file. Copy all three of these to your oblivion\data folder.

 

Second, open wrybash. In the mods tab click on the column header that says load order (you may not see the full name at first, only L... just drag the column divider across a bit. It is the second column.), this will sort everything into the order it will load in, the first is at the top (Oblivion.esm, if it isn't oblivion.esm, click it again to reverse the load order so it is ascending rather than descending. :thumbsup: ) and the second file to load will be second on the list etc. You will still see a lot of red, this is normal at first. Oblivion sorts the load order by the time and date the file was last modified, all the red is because a lot of files have the same date and time set as the last modified one, so wrybash (Wry) marks them as clashing. (This is what is causing your crashes when you try to load the game)

 

If you ran FCOM helper now it would reorder the files correctly, but as soon as you reopened Wry it would reset the times, and therefore the load order, back to the original times you have showing now. So we need to switch that function off. RIGHT click on the 'file' name column header and untick the 'Lock times' option. Close Wry again, and then in your oblivion\data folder you need to click on the fcomhelper.bat file. After a few seconds of work you will get a text document open, this is showing what load order your files have been shuffled into. As a noob to modding oblivion, and specifically FCOM, it would be wise to look down this list carefully. It has comment's about files, and will help you spot if any will clash with each other and/or won't work in an FCOM setup. ;)

 

If everything is A-OK, close the text file and the data folder, and launch Wry again. You will now see that all of the red has gone. Check the bottom of your load order list to make sure you have a bashed patch file. If you do then all is well, if you don't then you need to copy and paste one from 'oblivion\mopy\extras' to 'oblivion\data'. You will then need to either run the fcomhelper.bat again, or to move the bashed patch manually to the end of the load order. (Hilight it by clicking on it, then while holding the ctrl key, use the up and down cursor keys to move the file up and down the load order. This only works while the list is sorted by load order, which is one of the reasons for doing that earlier. :wink: )

 

Once that is done, click on the file immediately above the bashed patch file so that this file is hilighted instead. Then scroll to the top of your list. While holding the shift key down, click on the very top file, and then release the shift key. This will select all files above the bashed patch. This is important because we now have to tell Wry to check whether any files are delevellers/relevelers and/or can be merged into the bashed patch. On a new version of Wry (226 or later) you don't have to worry about the deleveller/releveller bit as it always does this with every load.

 

De/releveller check: Right click any of the files you have just hi-lighted, and choose the 'Mark levelers' option.

 

Once this has done (Very quick)

 

Mergeable check: Right click any of the files you have just hi-lighted, and choose the 'Mark mergeable' option.

 

Click on oblivion.esm to unselect all files except that one. Now slowly go down your list and activate any files that the name is still black on (Click the box beside the names to tick them.) (If the name is green, don't activate it as green ones will be merged into the bashed patch).

 

Once you have gone down the whole list and are back to your bashed patch, right click on it and choose 'Rebuild patch' (This option is greyed out if you right click on any file other than the bashed patch). This will bring a new menu up, there are a lot of options here, and I am not about to explain them all, read the manual for that. ^^ You will have a box with two panes. On the left are the main categories, and on the right are the sub categories. The sub categories will change when you click on a different main category.

 

On the left, click the box next to 'Alias Mod names' so that it's deactivated. Next click the box next to 'Merge Patches' to activate that option, then on the right tick all of the boxes to merge everything in there into the bashed patch.

 

Then on the left tick 'Tweak Assorted' and on the right tick 'Bow Reach Fix'. This will stop crashes from badly implemented bows. If you own an Nvidia GFX card, then also tick 'Nvidia Fog Fix'

 

Next, on the left, click the box next to 'Levelled lists'. Leave the right hand side set to auto.

 

Click OK and let Wry build the patch. When it has finished it will bring up a box that tells you exactly what it has done. Have a look if you are interested, otherwise just ignore it and click OK. If you didn't activate the bashed patch earlier Wry will now ask if you want to activate it. Say yes, otherwise everything you have just done is pointless. ;)

 

Lastly you need to swap to the replacers tab and click update, you will get a pop-up box warning that this will redirect the BSA's to load any texture replacers you have installed rather than using the files in the BSA's themselves. No-one has ever had a problem with this, and the coders of Wry are just covering their ass. Click yes to allow it to do it's thing. ;)

 

Close Wry and play the game, your done. :)

 

EDIT:

Above someone recommended OBMM. This is a good program, but not that good for an FCOM setup. Wry does just about everything OBMM does, and Wry is the only program that can set up FCOM correctly because of the bashed patch. Until you are more adept with modding oblivion, I would stick to Wry. It is slightly more complex, but it is better to learn one system before you look at others, and as I said, you MUST use Wry with FCOM. ;)

[bben46]

You have jumped straight into the advanced mods with this.

 

Note that Wrye Bash and OBMM are not incompatible. You can use both at the same time. OBMM is simpler for beginners, requires no other programs to work and is easy to install. Most users never get beyond the load ordering function to see what else it can do.

 

Wrye Bash is much more difficult to install, Requires another program to work (Python) Which also has special installation procedures and is much less intuitive for non programmers. Note: once Python is installed you will never see it. It is used by Wrye Bash behind the scenes. So you really don't need to know how it works or even what it does.

 

Wrye has some advanced features that make it indispensable for more advanced work. The load ordering in OBMM is simpler and you can set either to control your load order.

 

My recommendation: Get and use both. But be sure to read - yes really read the documentation for both to see which features you want to use from each. Skipping the documentation or not understanding it will lead to complications.