Advanced installation techniques

[syscrusher]

Good evening, all!

When we built our gaming system here, we installed Windows 7 32-bit because of reports that Oblivion didn't work in 64-bit systems. I have now debunked that, and actually have it and the CS running perfectly fine in Win7 64-bit for my modding environment (VMware on a high-end laptop). The latest info I have is that what doesn't work is adding on the DLC from a separately-purchased pack. That's not an issue for us as we bought the GOTY edition.

Skyrim, of course, wants lots of RAM for the texture upgrade pack from Bethesda. In fact, we discovered the hard way that the system crashes rapidly and repeatably if you try to use the HD texture pack on a 32-bit system.

So I plan in the next few days to rebuild the system, from scratch. I have a new hard drive so that I can install fresh without jeopardizing the old system as a fallback point. I'm looking for recommendations on two specific issues with regard to installing Skyrim and Oblivion:

1. My wife and I share this machine. We have separate Steam accounts. Is it possible to install Steam within the local user account, rather than globally, so that you don't have logout/login when switching from player to player, and so we can have two physically separate Skyrim copies (we have TWO fully licensed Skyrim copies, so legality is not a problem). Right now, we are sharing her Steam account for the sake of convenience. This works "okay" because neither of us cares a whit about the online achievement tracking and social networking stuff, but it would be better if we could localize the installations. This would also be better for the "Gaming Guest" account we use when friends come over and want to try the game.

2. Steam Workshop versus Nexus Mod Manager: What are people's opinions? We're leaning toward NMM for a couple of reasons: (A) it's Open Source, and we both work in the Open Source software industry, so there's a political motive; (B) general dislike of Steam's pushy marketing and poor diagnostic tools; © better UI for mod browsing on the Nexus sites, in our opinion, because Steam is very hard to read from across the room on a large-screen TV. However, I'm not 100% certain this is the right decision, just *leaning* that way. Are there compelling reasons to stay with Steam Workshop? Or, better yet, can Steam Workshop and Nexus Mod Manager play nice with one another?

I'm specifically asking #2 here rather than on the Nexus forums because I want unbiased opinions, and TESA doesn't have a dog in that fight.

Thanks for any suggestions and comments.

Edited March 29, 2012 by syscrusher

[lonewolf_kai]

I can't offer much in the way of advice since I use neither steam or NMM, but will tell you that I've avoided anything to do with Steam as much as possible. Now things might've changed with it, but in the past, it was too invasive imo. I also don't like the idea of having to be dependent on another company to play a game I paid for.

Edited March 29, 2012 by lonewolf_kai

[Khettienna]

Steam installations will keep application settings per-user, but it will still only recognize one set of game data, so the best way to handle that is to set up multiple Skyrim installs. It works the same way as multiple Oblivion installs.

As for Steamworks vs. NMM, honestly I don't like either one. They both assume every package is drag-and-drop, though NMM does allow for scripted installations just like OBMM did. My real beef with both of them is that it automates installation and updating so much that the user doesn't feel compelled to read the documentation to understand what needs to be done for you mod, for instance if they need to set load order a certain way or make a clean save, things like that. They're great for simple mods with no requirements, yes, but you don't know that about a mod till you've bothered to open it and read the docs, at which point you may as well just do your own dragging and dropping. I recommend to stick with BAIN (Wrye Bash) for everything, both as a modder and a user, because there's no proprietary format needed; you separate options into multiple mock Data folders, name them by what they are with preceeding numbers to put them in order, zip/rar/7z them up, and that's it. The UI lets users tick a box for which folders they want installed, and ones alphanumerically later in the list of folders will overwrite earlier ones to determine install order. You can script a wizard if you want to, but because of the folder structure thing, it would be a rare case that you would need to. It also means that people manually installing your stuff will have an easy enough time of it, because BAIN packages still instinctively make sense when unpacked to the drive. And of course, if you uninstall a BAIN package that overwrote anything from another package, Bash will restore the former copy. NMM and Steamworks won't do that. And you being the logically-minded guy that you are, I feel like using BAINS would come very naturally to you.

All that said, if you dislike Bash or the BAIN method, and you're really set on NMM or Steamworks, I would go with NMM just because it appears to offer a little more control from the modder side of things. I'm not even sure you can script installs for Steamworks. InsanitySorrow has also been toying with some mod manager stuff, and whatever he comes up with will likely be as cool as Bash's BAIN method, but with a more intuitive (and certainly prettier) UI and a more focused set of features.

[syscrusher]

Thanks, all.

I'm making a backup of our existing system as I write this (oink! oink! There's a LOT of data there!). I'm going to install the o.s. first, then I think I'll take a crack at getting Wrye Bash running. I've looked at a bit of its documentation, and it appeals to my Linux-using techie nature. I've just never really gotten around to digging into it, so maybe now is the time to try it.

If I can't get BAIN working, I'll drop back to NMM. Steam Workshop just feels too closed-architecture for my taste.

[Zaldir]

I'm probably a bit biased, but I'd say NMM.

I simply don't like going through Steam to do anything - I try to avoid it as best I can, so it is enough that I need it open to launch the game.

And besides, for Workshop to update my mods, I must open the Skyrim launcher, but I use SKSE, so I don't launch Skyrim through the launcher, but NMM has a SKSE launcher built-in, so it is an obvious choice when installing the "simple" mods. However, for the more complex mods, I always do it manually.

And I also like the fact that if you install a mod with NMM, then install another mod that overwrites files from the first, then, after overwriting and running the game, you decide that the older files (say, textures...) were better, you can just uninstall the newest one, and NMM will automatically place the files from the old mod back into your data folder. I generally don't like automation, but in this case, it seems to be doing good.

[syscrusher]

I dove into this mess over the weekend...what an experience.

I took Khettienna's suggestion and tried Wrye Bash. It has a great installation tutorial, and some really useful discussion for advanced users. The only thing I found to be difficult, due to a gap in the documentation, was simply using it to install mods. :-) It turns out the process is extremely simple, but probably so simple that the authors thought it would be obvious to anyone. I'm a dummy, I guess. Once I figured it out, though, Wrye Bash works really well.

We have a complex mod setup, with probably around 80 installed. I initially just tossed a bunch in and let Wrye order them, but that turned out to be a no-go, with lots of CTDs. I backed everything out -- which Wrye Bash did flawlessly -- and then noticed that I could order the installation packages. I tried again, in a more structured way, and eventually got everything working. In fact, a problem we had with Qarl's Texture Pack is now resolved, and we're able to enjoy that excellent mod even better than before. Also, its ability to interrogate game save files to show what mods they expect to find is exceptionally valuable. If you load a game save like that, you get the "this mod relies on missing content" message -- Wrye Bash lets you find out *what* content is missing, and then decide whether to reinstall the missing mod or to ignore the error.

I've still got a learning curve ahead; this is not a trivial tool to learn. But I'm impressed with its power and breadth of functionality. I like being able to (mostly) just drop in mod archive files. I like the fact that it will also work for Skyrim. And I *love* how cleanly it is able to uninstall a problematic or experimental mod. I'm going to continue using Wrye Bash, and I'm goint to recommend it to the beta testers for our upcoming mod.

I'm a Linux techie professionally, and in that environment we value tools that give us a lot of good information and then rely on us to make our own decisions, rather than trying to think for us. Wrye Bash does that, and I'd say I'm sold on it.

[Khettienna]

Some other neat stuff unique to Wrye Bash:

• Build a bashed patch, of course. This lets you import certain records from mods to make sure those records load last, which nulls a lot of load order management. It also can pull specific fields from multi-field records so that you can have eyes from one race mod and hairs from another race mod, and mesh paths from one armor mod and stats from another armor mod, etc... making many more things compatible with each other without merging. It will also merge leveled list edits, and has a huge selection of game tweaks you can build into it so you don't need a dozen little plugins for things like horse turn speed and cell respawn time.
  
  
• Split replacers into subfolders before zipping, so you can have Bash install them modularly (I love this for QTP3).
  
  
• Use the esp/m filter while installing to avoid having to repack mods where all the possible plugins are contained in one folder.
  
  
• Right-click on a plugin or master in the list of dependencies in any plugin, master, or save file. Click "Change to..." to switch that to a different file. Now you can rename plugins and masters or bait-and-switch masters with zero consequence, as long as the new file contains the needed records.
  
  
• Export player or NPC faces to a separate plugin. Import faces from a plugin to a save.
  
  
• Duplicate any .esp as an .esm, and vice-versa.
  
  
• Export scripts contained in a plugin to text files without having to open them in the CS (one of my favorite features). Just right-click on the plugin, you'll see it in the context menu.
  
  
• Group your installers any way you like with custom markers so it's always easy to find stuff.
  
  
• Projects: Add unpacked folders to your Bash Installers folder. They can be installed & uninstalled just like archives. This is great for mods you're working on, testing, or like to leave loose while not installed (such as resource packs).
  
  
• Batch convert your screenshots to lossless .png (for pretty stuff) or med-quality .jpg (for troubleshooting/testing/etc. stuff) from the Screenshots tab.
  
  
• Right-click on a save and Repair Abomb or Remove Bloat as needed.
  
  
• Right-click any .esp/m and do a quick scan for dirty edits to see if it needs cleaning in TES4Edit.
  
  
• Save .ini settings to text files you can then apply at will, both to Oblivion.ini and mod .ini's (like All Natural's .ini). This is a lot like using .reg files for Windows Registry Editor. It will even compare your manual changes to an .ini to the default copy and save them to a tweak file for you, so you don't have to guess at things. It comes with a lot of common tweaks for Oblivion.ini ready to go, such as enabling screenshots, disabling border regions, disabling music and intro movies, etc.
  
  
• Edit the file name, author, and description fields or adjust the master list of any .esp/m without opening the CS.

[syscrusher]

Some other neat stuff unique to Wrye Bash:

Thanks for a great list, Khettienna! I'm still learning WB, but am really impressed so far. My game is much more reliable than it ever has been before.

[*]Right-click on a plugin or master in the list of dependencies in any plugin, master, or save file. Click "Change to..." to switch that to a different file. Now you can rename plugins and masters or bait-and-switch masters with zero consequence, as long as the new file contains the needed records.

This one is saving my bacon. We made a local version of one of Korana's beautiful Clamshell Cottage, because we wanted to add COBL ingredient sorters and some other small changes (no intention to republish -- just made this for our own use). As I was reinstalling, I realized that I had misspelled the name of the cottage when typing the filename. So, without thinking, I fixed it. Oops! Broke all the game saves for my wife's character who was living there, and wiped out all her container inventory because the plugin changed. Wrye Bash is a lifesaver for that situation, avoiding the ugly workaround of temporarily reloading the old version, moving her stuff to a safe container elsewhere, then installing the new version.