*UPDATED ONCE MORE, FINAL CONFIGURATION FOR THE TIME BEING*
STILL SOME QUESTIONS REMAINING, INPUT WELCOME!

Mods which I chose not to use for this configuration:
TIE
Cobl
Tamriel Travellers
Open Cities
Deadly Reflex
Bank of Cyrodiil
Any economy overhauls
For now, any quest mods
Sound mods
Any additional loading screens
Any companion mods
Any survival mods (making eating, drinking, sleeping, etc. requirements and such)
----------------------------------------------------------


Hey everyone,

Inspired by Masterplan's topic, I decided to open up this thread, since you guys have been so helpful to him, and because I didn't want to hijack his topic.

I've been gathering info on what mods to download and install since last Friday and am really, really confused by now. The amount of mods and tools is just overwhelming. I played Oblivion for a while when it came out and things were so much simpler back then. But then again, modding was nowhere near the possibilities that it is blessed with today. The downside is just that's its become a bit of a soul-crushing task to find your way around this dazzling array of plug-ins and patches when you've been away for a long time

Anyway, I've assembled a list of mods that I've installed so far and another with mods I would like to use. I would be grateful if you could help me in weeding out out-of-date and redundant mods, or simply point out incompatibilities. I would also be happy about recommendations on great mods that I might have missed.

I'm not sure whether it's important, but I have the Steam GOTY Deluxe Edition (bought it because my original Oblivion was in German).

Thanks!


Installed so far:

List from Wrye Bash:

Active Mod Files:




Typed out List including non-esp stuff:

Patches:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5296 + http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27710
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10739
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9969 (I have all of them, if thise is of any importance)
http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php (takes a while to load)

Tools:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2097
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22368
http://obse.silverlock.org/
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516


Overhauls
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12249 + http://www.4shared.com/file/144608444/c47efc89/ufcom.htmll(with http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3953, http://pages.suddenlink.net/corepc/, http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=268, http://www.worldofelderscrolls.de/?go=dlfile&fileid=12) No crashes so far, seem to have got that correctly installed with help from showler (thanks!).
Wrye Bash list of .esps for FCOM only:


So far, everything seems to be in working order.



Mods I have downloaded so far and would like to use:

Tools:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28189
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21862
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16704
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23979

Tweaks:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23208
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10400
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12331

Overhauls:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5977 <--- Any problems with Cats and Rats 2.5b here? Readme is inconclusive.
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26389
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1059546-relz-race-balancing-project/

Magic:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9562
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20371
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12466


Atmosphere, Textures, Landscapes, and Cities:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1088137-the-unique-landscapes-project/ (all of them) + patches to make them work together and the LOD replacements
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16513
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18305
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8927
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19628
http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=255 <--- According to the readme, this may conflict with mods that alter guard behaviour. It also states that 2.5b works fine with FCOM now, but I'm not sure if Reneer's Guard Overhaul will conflict.
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=32071 (includes Phoenix Amon (Book Jackets: Oblivion); Grimbot (Shivering Isles books); jepeter (BookPlacementV2); Rob B. (Mysterium Xarxes Texture Replacer v1.0 and Knights of the Nine: Book Jackets v1.0)
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?id=3813&view=OblivionMods.Detail + Patch
http://www.elricm.com/nuke/html/mod_disclaimer.php?mod=4314
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8298
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9498
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3525
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.Detail&id=1928
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3392 (the 2048 version of the normal maps) <---Do this and BT2048 LOD work fine with the LOD replacements for Unique Landscapes? Do I have to install them in a particular order?
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.Detail&id=2584
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23064

Levelling Mods:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15619

Interface Mods:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11280
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16434
Maybe the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3002 and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16640

Misc.
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5701 When I installed this, I got orange boxes in Wrye Bash for it and the sub-esps for Mehrunes Razor, etc. When I merged them into the Bashed Patch, they became green again but the Bashed patch esp turned orange. Is this normal with this mod when used on an FCOM installation such as mine (details above)?


Bodies & Faces
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1059546-relz-race-balancing-project/ with the merged version of http://www.tesnexus.com/files/file.php?id=10874.
Robert's Male Body Replacer v4
The Girl Next Door Female Body Replacer
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14805
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1965

Well, that's the list. I hope you people can help me out a bit

Again, thanks!

You have a nice mod list there and some of them was new to me. Anyway here is my suggestions of mods and any information I've.

Before you are going to use the OSR in the game you might want to read http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1095643-melting-body-bug/page__view__findpost__p__16002030. :read:
I see that you have the major overhauls, but the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26389 mod (requires http://obse.silverlock.org/download/obse_0018.zip&http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23979) is missing and here is the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1085073-relz-map-marker-overhaul/.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28189
http://lovkullen.net/Emma/index.htm for Oblivion. (my personal favourites)
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4387
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22846
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28382 with teleportation feature
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2556, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29834

Search results for http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/search.php?name=COBL&scid=20&author=&mname=&desc=&size1=&size2=&downloads1=&downloads2=&udate1_day=&udate1_month=&udate1_year=&udate2_day=&udate2_month=&udate2_year=&ldate1_day=&ldate1_month=&ldate1_year=&ldate2_day=&ldate2_month=&ldate2_year=&endorsemants=&images=&readme=&advltonly=&page=2&orderby=name&order=ASC


EDIT - I use DarkUId DarN my self so why not and also read all the mod threads

Might get more help with more specific questions.

The bashed patch though is mostly about resolving leveled list conflicts, but is not necessarily going to help with other types of conflicts. See the pinned thread above on http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/775917-compatibility-and-you/.
It will not solve landscape conflicts.
It won't solve conflicts where two mods do the same thing to the same object. Well not without help it won't.


if you want a large load order to go with those heavy replacers (QTPIII) you better have a haunchy rig to pull all that.

Go slow - get your main overhauls and base mods up and going and test then play till you see stability consistently and recognize baseline behavior of the game then add only one or two mods at a time. Remember most mods do not need to be loaded right from the start and can be added as the game goes on. Not doing this will mean long threads of frustration and feeling overwhelmed.

For more advanced tweaking:
I'd recommend learning about using TE4Edit and http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/TES4Edit_Cleaning_Guide.
Learn about http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1091580-tesivpositive-performance-optimiation-stabilization-information/.
Learn about the most optimal way to install mods. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1084204-bain-mod-installation-projects/ - just read the first post if it grabs you then read on if not then try http://sites.google.com/site/oblivionpoinfo/installmods
Learn to read every readme and spot known conflicts in those readme's before posting.

best of luck

========================

[edit] then also to answer the SM versus LAME question - read the readmes of both you can combine them many do. http://www.gamesas.com/?showtopic=814477.

Before you tear off on 20 threads about what is the best mod for this or that need - check the repository of mod threads: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1010109-list-list-of-mod-lists/ and then a noble attempt to catalog such threads: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1072579 topic ... as well as the standard in http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1096133-mod-detectives-113/.

I have used nGCD + Progress for a while, and they're great together. I am only just now trying out Oblivion XP for the first time. It's also good! You can always switch out one for the other, or another altogether, at any time, provided (in some cases) you're not too attached to your current character(s).

As for Unique Landscape LOD files, I would (and do, actually) install them after the ones for vanilla.

LAME vs. SM? I prefer the former, and only partly because I've had issues with the latter. But yes, you can use the two together. Just pay attention to the readmes for each, in particular SM's. There are other interesting alternatives out there - as of today, I'm experimenting with Audacious Magery* (+ Midas Magic, in fact), for instance. Fun!

Quest Award Leveller was never "necessary", but it is (still, yes) used by many, myself included, fwiw.

Improved Trees and Flora (ITF) goes well with IDF on your list there. I think there are two parts to one of them, and a particular order is preferred (see the devakm TOTO site for details, IIRC).

For races and such things as eyes and hair, you might like the Race Balancing Project - goes especially well with LAME, and the combination allows the use of the Integration quest mod, if that tickles your fancy - or, for a lighter alternative, Cobl Races (an optional part of Cobl). Bodies-wise, you're spoilt for choices when it comes to the female form, but limited to pretty much vanilla or Robert's (though there are a few subtypes here, thankfully) for the male. Optimum FCOM compatibility in mind, you could do worse than EVE HGEC and Robert's Male v5 (+ replacers for clothing and armour for stock and each FCOM component).

For faces (these will affect both your character and NPCs), I'd suggest Natural Faces then New Face Textures, or Improved Facial Textures then NFT. But there are a number of alternative approaches too.


edit: As far as "pretty" goes, I also almost "have to" also have Cities Alive at Night, Really Almost Everything Viewable When Distant, Enhanced Vegetation (with hi res textures), Diverse Grasses, OBGE, and... I forget. Too many to remember, essentially.

edit2: A hundred times yes, to the suggestion of Refscope below. :thumbsup:


* Which, apparently, is compatible with both LAME and SM. Huh.

There's already some great advice in this thread but I will add a few comments...

It sounds like you already have a great start. As Psymon says, play-test the game as you add mods. It saves a lot of time in case you encounter a conflict after installing one or 2 mods rather than after installing a dozen. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21862 will let you know what mod a resource is from in game. Very useful and light-weight utility.

Tamriel's NPCs Revamped is a fantastic mod. If you use COBL, it has it's own version (COBL TNR). But TNR only changes the face construction.
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5643 adds much more detailed textures for the aging slider. It makes a fantastic improvement.
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9534 add more crisp textures for the, umm, faces themselves. Both mods should be used together for the best effect.

Body Replacers are a bit more more difficult as there are a lot of choices, and we can't link to any of them because of advlt content.
Roberts V4 is pretty much the only male body mod. It has a lot of support and is well done. Robert's V5 is also excellent. The only big difference is that you have to sort out the files itself, which requires some pre-existing familiarity with Oblivions data folder.

For female body mods...
HGEC EVE is currently the most popular and is configurable with a lot of options. It also has support for a lot of custom armor.
TGND is imho the best-looking body mod out there. It's pretty new, but already has quite a following.
F-INevOblivion Skin Replacer works well with both of the above.
Other bodies worth noting are Robert's Females and BAB. In the end it comes down to personal taste. There are some pretty wacky options out there.

Phew, that took a while to work through all of this
First of all, thanks again for the extensive answers so far! I really appreciate the effort! More recommendations are welcome, especially in the gameplay department. Will update first post later with more specific info on what I've previously come across and decided to not use.




Glad if you could gain something from the list

Thanks for the note on OSR.

The Map Marker Overhaul is indeed an excellent suggestion. I hadn't come across that before, strangely, even though it seems to be a popular mod! Will definitely use it!

The ini-tool and All-in-one Basemant are also very cool, downloaded them!

Cobl and Tamriel Travellers I've come across before and decided against using them. I can appreciate what they do, but they're just not quite what I'm looking for.

Christmas Peak and Abandoned Mountain Shack (I really like the whole idea about fixing it up) I will consider later on, when I've gone through a fair bit of the game's content. If I put too much extra content in now, I might get disinterested quick due to feeling overwhelmed. It's something that tends to happen to me.





I've read through that topic on compatibility, a large part of the Wrye bash homepage and some wiki page with lots of info on it before, but I still can't quite wrap my head around how it works. I'm really unsure about importing/merging and most other functions of the bashed patch. I understand the basics, I think, but not enough to be able to correctly apply the functions myself. Suppose I'm a bit dense in that regard

I think my rig will be able to pull off my current selection + some body/face replacers. If not...well, I'll just have to see. So far the game runs great without any stuttering.

As for your links: Wow, extremely useful info in all of them! Read through that first post of your topic, and I will definitely devote an appropriate amount of time to reading the rest of it once I have my desired mod setup figured out and want to start installing. Using BAIN seems like a damn good idea, what with all the advantages it has over omod installation!



I think I will go with nGCD. I was tempted by Oblivion XP because I'm much more used to this kind of XP system, but some change'll do me good, so nGCD it is.

Which version exactly of the Quest Award Leveller are you using? When I installed one I'd downloaded, I got orange boxes for it and the sub-esps for Mehrunes Razor, etc. When I merged them into the Bashed Patch, they became green again but the Bashed patch esp turned orange.

Will pass on mikal's Improved Trees and Flora 1 & 2 for now, since they may overwhelm my machine in forests due to the canopy shadows. If I still have a bunch of fps to burn after all is set up, I will add them! Downloaded his improved signs though, those look sweet and shouldn't be too heavy on my system. TOTO site is great!

After giving it some thought, I've decided on going with the Race Balancing Project. It sounds really good and having a bunch of cosmetic improvements bundled in one place is quite convenient.

Still leaves faces and bodies, however. Still not certain in the least about which to use. Will have to think about it some more.

Oh boy, more graphics improvements
I'm really tempted to use these, but as described above, I will first have to examine the strain my current selection of texture replacers will put on my system.

Audacious Magery is a bit too crazy for my tastes, hehe.




Will install refscope!

Concerning faces and bodies, again, still entirely undecided. But those are definitely some fine recommendations, from what my search on TESNexus has revealed!

For body mod you might want to try this.

http://www.gamesas.com/redirect.php?site=http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/download.php?id=42382
http://www.gamesas.com/redirect.php?site=http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15876
Robert's http://www.gamesas.com/redirect.php?site=http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15624 and http://www.gamesas.com/redirect.php?site=http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14942 body

If you want some extra fighter on your side the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21957 is for you.

Doesn't Race Balancing Project include TNR faces? I'm pretty sure it does, so in that case you can scratch TNR from your install list.

For Quest Mods I have a LOT in my thread.
You looks familiar with it, don't you?
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1097820-help-with-mod-configuration/ you can find the whole questlist and ll links
You can try http://knol.google.com/k/toql-the-oblivion-quest-list# from dev_akm, even if it is outdated it can lead you to great quest mods.

EDIT: Don't mind the firs part of this post... I misunderstood your *UPDATE* not reading the "not"

For Magic overhaul mods I have to say that LAME does not use OBSE, so it has not scripted spells like SM, but it is fully integrated with RBP, and both are required for the quest "Integration: The Stranded Light". I played for a long time SM and LAME both. Some spells are the same, but LAME has great mastery spells and SM is fully customizable in the INI for the stats (I load LAME first and SM after to make SM's stats prevail). I tweaked spell speed to make them really fast, damage from light to vampires, some caps in some spell effects and tweaked the maximum charge of each soulgem. The only annoying thing is that you get some spells replicated, but aside from this, both the mod are really funny to play.

For Levelling I used Oblivion XP and I say that it makes you level really too fast. You can even powerlevel with stolen items. First, you sleep for 8 hours. Second, you crouch near a "redhanded item" and press repeately the grab key. Done.
I relly don't like to be even tempted by something like this. Anyway it is fully customizable in his INI, so you can disable some ways you gain XPs.
I'll use nGCD when I'll finally make work this damned Shivering Isles

For environment you can try http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6914. Make sure you pick up the grasses fix.

Hope it will be useful

Having spent the last month or so going through a similar search to yours, I can't resist chiming in with some of what I've found so far.

Some little mods that I really like

Harvest [Flora]
Harvest [Containers]
Gather Ye Rosebuds
KeyChain
Toggleable Quantity Prompt
Enhanced Grabbing
Decorator Assistant
BookLooting
FormID Finder

One overhaul missing from your list:

Enhanced Economy

A few of the many, many quest mods out there (These are the ones I've played part of so far that I intend to finish).

The Lost Spires
Kragenir's Death Quest
Windfall
Barttholm
Blood & Mud (also a remake of Bravil)

It does (and better redguards), but really only if using wrye bash + bg2408 did not include the face changes of the animal people (I think those) because he did not like them, so TNR if more comprehensive.

He still recommended using his version though for better compatibility with his nexus of mods LAME+RBP+Integration. That discussion is in the last RBP thread or two.

I've played the Harvest Flora mods earlier, but not install it this time and I don't why probably forgot that mod I suppose.
The Keychain and the FormID Finder is active in my current game.

The only quest mods I really like is the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15412 which I will finish.
However I know the 100 Anvil Cottage is in direct conflict with one of the quest locations of the Kvatch Rebuilt mod.

Only once I do finish a few quests for the Windfall and I didn't decided yet when I'm gonna to start over with that mod again.

May I also suggest the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1090677-relz-camp-simplicity-complete-v10/page__view__findpost__p__15948931__hl__Camp%20Simplicity__fromsearch__1 by Ntom.

I've finally settled on Rober's Male Body Replacer v4, TGND for female bodies, New Face Textures and Natural Faces.




Yup, I included it in the list anyway since it's such a massive effort that I would feel bad not mentioning it



Yup, definitely useful. Good to know about the LAME/SM spell thing. As for Oblivion XP, I'm normally not prone to making use of exploits like the one you described, so I should be fine I guess. If I still level to fast, I will probably change mods then.




The function of the Harvest mods (or the actual mods themselves?) are integrated in one of them FCOM mods, AFAIK. At least containers change in appearance after they've been used.
FormID Finder sounds great, will use that. As for the other mods, they don't quite tickle my fancy, unfortunately!



Will update the first post soon. Should be my final list then.
Someone have any more info on my compatibility questions, perhaps?

Okay, I've updated the list once more. This should be my final list of mods I would like to use. There are still some questions open, however. I would appreciate it if someone could go over them and see if they can answer any of them, perhaps. That would really help me out.

edit: wrong thread srry