Lemme say first I'm no stranger to the modding scene, and don't worry this isn't a "recommend me mods" thread. I hate those just as much as you do.

I have had Oblivion for awhile now, but have only just gotten started with the modding aspect. I play a heavily modded Morrowind, but the transition is quite a big one. Obviously with Morrowind we don't have any mod managers and whatnot, so I'm rather lost there, and how to use them. I'm no stranger to Wrye Mash, so I assume Bash works similarly? And is installing using the OBMM necessary? Is there a way to just manually install?

I have the OBMM, BOSS, and Wrye Bash, am I all set?

And now, as for mods I'm not a fan of big overhauls, so I'm starting small, will these mods be able to work together?

Open Cities Reborn
Unique Landscapes
Hemingway's Capes
Reener's Guard Overhaul
Sutch Reborn
Tamriel Immersion Experience
Kvatch Rebuilt
Enhanced Daedric Invasion
Cryodiil Travel Service
Animated Window Lighting System and Chimneys

I'm not really looking to super mod out my game, I enjoy my Elder Scrolls games vanilla, but I just wanna get rid of leveled stuff and leveled quest reawards, will TIE solve all those problems?

Now is there a better heads/better bodies type of mod, like in Morrowind? What about a Book Jackets like mod?

I really appreciate any help you can provide, I was scared to post here at first because I'm much more comfortable in the Morrowind Mods Forum, but I needed some answers.

Thank you.

I know you said you hate mod reccomendation threads but I'd say get Streamline and Operation: Optimization. Big performance boost, easy installs

Wrye Bash is useful if you want to use many large overhaul mods at once. The mod list you've posted is very basic, and OBMM will be fine for installing it

OBMM isn't just about installing mods, it also makes handling your load order easier

BOSS is great for automatically creating your load order

From what I can tell they should all work together just fine. All those programs you have are just what you need to You might also want to get TES4Edit for conflict detection because the one in OBMM is crap.

There's no better heads or anything like Morrowind but you can get face textures to make them look MUCH better I suggest http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5643 and then http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9534 installed on top of that but there are others if that is not to your liking. (Tamriel NPCs Revamped or TNR is great to make NPCs look better to so I would get that you can get it on the nexus here http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16843)

There is a book jackets mod here http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5570 (there is also a high rez one on the nexus if you want that just do a search for book jackets)

edit: Just wanted to add in that while there are no head replacers you can get body replacers there's quite a few to choose from for either gender.

Thank you guys, I will take a look.

Yeah I wanted to keep things relatively basic, I just want to be rid of leveled quest rewards as well, does TIE do that too, or do I need a separate mod? Oh, and I see there is a couple body mods, which one is THE mod to have, like Better Bodies for Morrowind.

You *can* install mods manually, just (in simple terms) extract the necessary files to your Oblivion\Data folder and activate the appropriate esp(s). I strongly recommend though using Wrye Bash's BAIN feature to install. Primarily because it lets you set an install order, see file conflicts, and easily uninstall mods.

For example, if I have mods A and B, where B has a few files that need to overwrite the same files in mod A. With BAIN I can set B in the load order after A, to be sure that the files get installed appropriately. But then if I ever desire to uninstall mod B, BAIN will automatically restore the appropriate files from mod A (that B had previously overwritten).

I'd still install OBMM just to have it. There are a small handful of mods that can basically only be installed as OMODs via OBMM (unless you want to do a significant amount of manual work), for me that's only about 2 mods out of ~220.



For male bodies, the only real option it Robert's Male Body.

For females there are quite a few options. I think http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Body_Mods covers most of them though it's lacking Robert's Female Body. Personally I use HGEC. You can customize it to make the ladies in your game have just about any body look, and it has good support in terms of clothing mods/addons.

Take a look http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/obliviontextureoverhaul.html for some of the head/face texture options, under the character textures section.



Just search on TES Nexus for Book Jackets.

Depends entirely on what you want there's way too many to list and there are multiple varients or every one but popular ones that come to mind are Roberts Male Body and HGEC. I personally don't bother with them.

Okay, thank you, that helps to explain a lot about installation and whatnot. Im just used to the standard copy and paste to data files, but I gotta move with the times. I'll have to give this BAIN a shot. And I noticed Unique Landscapes was an OMOD file, so I can just use that with OBMM and it will install itself?

Is there like a clothing replacer to match the bodies?

Just open the omod in obmm and double click it and follow the instructions. OBMM is the easiest way to install and remove but BAIN has it's advantages too.

edit: if you are using a body replacer you will probably have to download clothing mods made specifically for that body.

Okay Thank you I'm getting this stuff figured out nicely.

Both OBMM and Wrye BAIN have their pros and cons for installation.

OBMM---

Pros:
-Very easy to learn.
-OMOD installations take care of almost all the hard work for you.
-ARCHIVE INVALIDATION!!!!

Cons:
-Conflict detection is very unreliable.
-You are not provided a window to see what OBMM is doing when it installs your OMOD.
-It is very difficult to set an install order.
-Requires a very specific file format to work.

BAIN:

Pros:
-Does not require a separate file format to work (supports .ZIP, .RAR, and .7Z)
-Extremely accurate conflict detector.
-Easy and quick configuration of an install order.
-Sub-package support allows for quick-and-easy config of optional files.

Cons:
-Cannot directly edit any file on its own
-BAIN tends to have hissy-fits when you edit a file it installed and disowns it, forcing a manual removal if required.
-Can sometimes skip installation of necessary files, forcing manual takeover.

My mods are installed to take full advantage of the pros for each program, most of my mods are installed through BAIN, but the ones that require a number of INI edits to work DarNUI, Realistic Fatigue) are installed in OBMM. OBMM is also a much better program for handling archive invalidation, as well.

Get both, and learn where they are good and where they are not so you can get the most out of your modding experience.

OBMM tends to be easier to use since most of the time it'll take you through installing a mod step by step just just a program installer. BAIN OTOH will require you to read the mod's readme and figure out which options to select, but it has those significant advantages in letting you see file conflicts and so on. One other advantage of BAIN is that it can work with just a normal zip/rar archive even when the modder didn't specifically prepare it for use with BAIN. To use those mods with OBMM you'll have to manually create an OMOD from them (not that it's difficult, just takes a couple minutes).

That really only applies with complex mods though - something like overhauls. For something fairly simple like UL, it's pretty much just click and install with either one. Just be sure with UL that you get the appropriate compatibility patches. Assuming you're using all of the currently released UL's, I think you'll need patches for Kvatch Rebuilt and Sutch.

And open cities (either version)

Hey guys, with Open Cities Reborn, I'm still seeing the regular old Leyawiin in the distance, but then it zaps to new leyawiin, do I need to update my distant land? How do I do this?

Run TES4LodGen

Thanks for the quick answer

Have fun with it! Open Cities Reborn is beautiful. If you picked out a body mod, most all of them has a conversion for the vanilla clothing to so it fits your character right. Usually the links for the clothing overhauls are mentioned in the body replacer read me. HGEC has one I think is called Eve? Been a while since I used that body mod.

Hope this helps!

I was looking for like a hairpack, and saw Beautiful People. Is that a good one, will it work with HGEC. I noticed the readme for BP said body mods weren't compatible with it...

And will it be compatible with New Face Textures?

Uhm *cringe* ... My own personal experience with Beautiful People was a bad one. So I steer clear of it. Others will probably disagree with me but I'm really not so sure how many use it. Most use either COBL Races, or like myself, Race Balance Project. Both of those are nice game additions and come with all available hair packs and don't screw with your game.

Will they work with New Face Textures?

If you mean Race Balance Project - Yes. I use face textures with that mod with no problem. I can't say about COBL Races. I don't use that one but I can't see why they wouldn't.

Okay thank you, next question, does the Animated Window Lighting System include interior windows as well? Like make the windows inside dark? I was looking at All Natural Weather, and that looks kinda like what I want, but it seems a bit complex, is there a mod that makes the windows dark inside?

What about something like Kirel's Interior Weathers for Morrowind? Does an OB equivalent exist?

AWLS only affects exterior windows and all natural makes the windows in interiors transparent which is really cool when you get something like immersive interiors which takes advantage of it. They don't conflict at all so you can use them together without any problems.

Yeah it looks cool as hell, but I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible. I'm not looking to use OBSE yet. Just wanna get used to Oblivion modding before I move to the more complex stuff.

Well if you're concerned about OBSE being complicated it's as easy as dropping the files into your install directory and making sure to open oblivion from the obse_loader.exe nothing to it

Yeah, I use MWSE, but I wanna hold on OBSE for now. No offense to the creators but I wanna reduce my chances of problems until I become more experienced with Oblivion.