Confused about multiple things.

[Jeir]

Some times BOSS is wrong. I have Cloaks of Skyrim coming up as having 2 ITM, but I've cleaned it with TES5Edit and there are no issues.

As I said, they are backlogged, so it may be some time before they can deal with issues like this.

 

Really, you should be cleaning all mods BOSS warns you about, and any unrecognised files - both Identical to Master and Undelete and Disable References, not just one or the other. If you want to be sure, you can go through every mod and clean then. If you read through the cleaning guide, it becomes pretty clear that cleaning mods is better than leaving them dirty and potentially ruining your game.

[Coflash]

I did read that guide (and I watched the video) but it still seems dangerous. The guy in the video cleans his own mod, therefore he knows what he's doing.

 

I don't see which part of that guide actually points out what you should and shouldn't remove, which is pretty much the biggest (and only) issue I have left with any of this

[Coflash]

Here's an example in Vurt's Flora overhaul mod:

 

http://www.coflash.com/stuff/vurt.jpg

 

So I have the mod loaded in Skyrim with its dependencies... I've found the dirty edits, I can see them side by side, but how do I know what to do with it? In the guide video posted above the mod author knew what changes weren't needed so he deleted them. How do I know what to do here?

 

If I had to take a guess... I'd say that Vurt's mod should overwrite the Skyrim file as it's a change. Or, as I asked before, is it as easy at this? I also read you can just click 'Anneal' in Wrye Bash.

 

Also, are the 'Tweak settings' in a bashed patch values from a mod, or are they always there? I'm not sure if I should tick any of the check boxes there, nothing mentions this.

 

Thanks

[TRoaches]

I wouldn't even know where to start on the 'why'...

 

You already have started!

 

Your screenshot illustrates why you should focus on learning why you should edit things, as opposed to following a tutorial without considering the intention behind the steps.

 

I haven't used that mod, but from what I can see it doesn't look like those are dirty edits. In the right side pane the green lines are data that is the same as the original content. The yellow lines with green text are new data that the mod is adding to that record. In this case new types of grass are being assigned to that landscape texture. It doesn't look like you should change anything there, because I would assume that is a part of the purpose of that mod. Someone more familiar with the mod may be able to correct me on this.

 

 

One confusing thing was that Vurt (author of Flora Overhaul) said in a forum post I read that he did clean the file. One user had X amount of dirty edits, I had a different amount. Things like that make it all even more confusing.

 

This is why I shy away from following the specific recommendations of other users, including those given by BOSS. In your example either the mod author, the user who commented about x amount of dirty edits, or you are mistaken. When in doubt just follow the author's recommendations. The author is as likely to be correct as anyone, and by following the author's advice you can at least eliminate your own errors as a possible cause of problems, should you encounter any.

 

Even the guy who made the TES5edit tutorial warns at the end of the video that the stuff commonly referred to as "dirty edits" may be intentional and necessary, and therefore "fixing" them could in fact break the mod.

 

There are no universally correct answers when it comes to questions regarding mod cleaning. Just keep learning and tinkering and exploring and experimenting and discussing and it will eventually make sense.

[Coflash]

In that case, I think I'm done! I replaced UFO with another follower overhaul and now I have no (supposed) dirty edits.

 

The only thing left for me to do is rebuild the bashed patch, so if I could just get an answer to this question (as above) then I can finally get into the game

 

Are the 'Tweak settings' in a bashed patch values from a mod, or are they always there? I'm not sure if I should tick any of the check boxes there when I go to rebuild it, nothing mentions this. Where do they come from?

[IsharaMeradin]

Those tweak settings appeared in one of the more recent builds of WB. It isn't from a mod. I'm not too entirely sure what they are meant do. In my opinion if you aren't sure just leave it alone... that's what I do at any rate.

[Jeir]

Yup, cleaning really is that simple. When you go to save, you can also check the 'back up .esp' box if you really aren't sure.

 

You can see down in the bottom right of the right-most pane the number of records cleaned after steps 4 and 5 of that guide. I just had a look at SFO, and given Vurt hasn't said anything about not cleaning the mod...cleaning time!

 

As for what to clean...

 

--Do NOT clean Skyrim.esm

--Do NOT clean the unofficial patches (USKP, UDGP, UHFP). They have already been cleaned.

--Do clean the official DLC. (Update.esm, Dawnguard.esm, HearthFires.esm)

--Do clean just about everything else.*

 

*Unless the mod author explicitly states that the mod should not be cleaned.

 

~~~

'Tweak Settings' are settings I believe Bash edits into the .ini. Or something. You can ignore that completely unless you want one or several of the settings it offers.

[Coflash]

I think I'm all done, except (there's always an except) my load order. I read that the bashed patch should always go last, but if you look here, you can see BOSS/Reproccer+BOSS are putting some after it. Is this fine to ignore?

This is my install list, I'm guessing all those conflicting colours are what the bashed patch takes care of?

Thanks

[Jeir]

ReProccer goes after the Bashed Patch, yes. That's so it can affect the things that the patch effects.

Not sure about the 'SkyTest' ones. Never come across those before. Were those organised by BOSS, or were they 'unrecognised'? If organised, leave them there, if unrecognised, move them under the SkyTest .esp that's further up the list.

 

As for the colours...from this guide:

 

• yellow - mismatched files (some files within the package differ from files in the data folder) does not indicate a bad thing necessarily, expected if files overlap with another package, check "conflicts" section of package to see which packages overlap above and below
• red - missing files (some or all files contained in the package are not in the data folder)
• green - all files match (exact copies of all files contained in the package are in the data folder)
• orange - plugins in the data folder do not match those in the package (which is the case if you have another mod installed with higher priority override it)

[Coflash]

Again, thanks for the help, but in regards to those colours (I found the definitions earlier) do they matter since they're only coloured in the install area? Isn't that what the bashed patch takes care of in the load list?

 

Thanks