Bypassing a mod's required expansion?

[majikmonkee1975]

It's been a few months since I played Oblivion until recently, and while I was able to download a lot of the mods I used to use, I was basically S.O.L. when it came to the Official Plug-ins I downloaded from Beth's online store (since shut down). An individual I share my computer with uninstalled Oblivion with my permission, but also deleted Shivering Isles, Knights of the Nine, Fighter's Stronghold, Mage's Tower and Vile Lair, which can no longer be downloaded individually online.

 

My problem is, one of my favorite mods has a Shivering Isles requirement to run it, and I don't anticipate re-buying S.I. any time soon. The only uses of S.I. it had that I remember were a cave you explore for one part of the quest, and a creature near the end that uses a S.I. creature as a base. The mod is huge, though, and these are only very small parts of it. I actually enjoy the mod in question more than the Oblivion original main quest, and it seems a shame not to get to play it.

 

So, what happens if I try to run it without S.I.? Instant crash, or missing mesh message? Something worse? I think the S.I. meshes are still actually installed, but the .esp files and so forth are all gone, I don't know if that matters or not.

[Nephenee13]

Best case the mod won't work. Worse case is it won't work and screw up your game.

[KenJackson]

You can use Tes4Gecko to remove the dependency on SI

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/8665

 

If a new form for the creature was created within the mod, which is common procedure, and you still have SI's meshes, I'd think it should work, although you'd probably need to re-assign the sound files.

[Nephenee13]

You can use Tes4Gecko to remove the dependency on SI

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/8665

 

If a new form for the creature was created within the mod, which is common procedure, and you still have SI's meshes, I'd think it should work, although you'd probably need to re-assign the sound files.

Remember, SI is integrated into Oblivion.esm, Gecko can't fix that.

[phoneyLogic]

You can create a fake esp/esm.

Just create an empty plugin/master with the same name.

You may get errors, but you'll able to remove them with modding tools.

Edited March 30, 2013 by tortured Tomato

[bben46]

You can maybe remove the part that will not allow the game to start without the DLC with Tes4geko, but the first time something in that mod calls for something from that DLC it will crash.

 

You may try searching your HD to see if they were really deleted, or if the only the game data was deleted - usually when you downloaded a DLC from the old Beth site, it downloaded the zipped DLC, then you had to run the installer which installed the DLC, but left the download intact.

 

Paying for something twice sux, but if you threw something away, then later realized you shouldn't have and must go out and buy it again it's the same thing. Steam may have the DLCs separate, but I think they only offer them as part of the Game of the year package for US$25.

[DrakeTheDragon]

You can create a fake esp/esm.

Just create an empty plugin/master with the same name.

You may get errors, but you'll able to remove them with modding tools.

In case of Shivering Isles this will not help much. The ESP of Shivering Isles already 'is' a fake one. It's empty and only exists so the BSA files of SI get loaded without the need to add them into the Oblivion.ini.

 

All actual SI 'content' was incorporated into a new Oblivion.ESM by SI. If the friend didn't touch this one during the uninstall procedure, and it wasn't 'reverted' to the old non-SI version either, you should be good to go in regards to required plugins.

 

If the mod is dependant on Shivering Isles ESP, just create another empty one or remove the requirement from the plugin as told. However, if it actually requires some of the resource files, which are all found inside the BSA exclusively, which should be among the first things removed when you 'uninstall' SI, you'll run into a lot of missing meshes and/or textures errors ingame, or whatever else types of resource files are missing now. These, however, should not crash your game. But don't take my word for it, as Oblivion is very touchy and unreliable in this regard.

[KenJackson]

The problem lies in the "An individual I share my computer with uninstalled Oblivion with my permission," statement. An Uninstall means a re-install. which means unless there's a backup, the Oblivion.esm with all the SI data has been overwritten with the standard Oblivion.esm that does not have this information.

And DrakeTheDragon's right about the BSAs.

But if the BSAs are there, the mod could be reworked, without loss of content. It's just a matter of the extent that the mod uses SI material that determines how difficult that would be.

[majikmonkee1975]

Hmmm. Thanks for the info so far. It gets even stranger now that I've done some research. Looking at my available mods in the launcher (which I only use to enable or disable, I launch with OBSE), I find this file:

 

DLCShiveringIsles.esp (player file)

Created on: 9/3/2010

Last modified: 5/19/2006

 

I'm assuming this is not the main file required to run SI, because I never got the message about the mysterious island appearing in the bay. It looks like maybe it was added by a user mod, although I don't remember activating it. I'm just very confused. This is what I get though for giving someone permission to "uninstall" my program, when they had very little knowledge of how to do so.

[phoneyLogic]

 

You can create a fake esp/esm.

Just create an empty plugin/master with the same name.

You may get errors, but you'll able to remove them with modding tools.

In case of Shivering Isles this will not help much. The ESP of Shivering Isles already 'is' a fake one. It's empty and only exists so the BSA files of SI get loaded without the need to add them into the Oblivion.ini.

 

All actual SI 'content' was incorporated into a new Oblivion.ESM by SI. If the friend didn't touch this one during the uninstall procedure, and it wasn't 'reverted' to the old non-SI version either, you should be good to go in regards to required plugins.

 

If the mod is dependant on Shivering Isles ESP, just create another empty one or remove the requirement from the plugin as told. However, if it actually requires some of the resource files, which are all found inside the BSA exclusively, which should be among the first things removed when you 'uninstall' SI, you'll run into a lot of missing meshes and/or textures errors ingame, or whatever else types of resource files are missing now. These, however, should not crash your game. But don't take my word for it, as Oblivion is very touchy and unreliable in this regard.

 

Oh, thanks, I didnt know.