Just a quick question regarding BSA dating for something I'm working on. I'm well aware of interaction between loading files from BSA files vs. loose files based on time stamps. However, is there any requirement that a BSA file that contains completely new resources be dated after the stock Oblivion BSA files, or doesn't it matter?

In other words, if I create a MyFiles.bsa file containing completely new resources, do I need to be sure it has a time stamp after Oblivion - meshes.bsa and so forth, or doesn't it matter? Based on some testing I'm guessing it doesn't matter as I'm able to load resources from the bsa, but I just wanted to confirm that. Thanks.

If the files don't exist in another BSA or in a loose folder, date doesn't matter at all.

Thanks.

No problem, you seemed to have basically answered your own question but I thought I would verify it for you! FYI, also, with the most modern tools, BSA issues can be fixed in an automated fashion. This is the primary thing I use OBMM for - BSA editing.

Just to throw something in here that may be relevant. If I recall correctly, some time ago someone did some bsa tests, where two bsa files had the same texture file, in the same path, in the bsa files. I think the bsa date played a role in which file was accessed. This was many many months ago. I could be off base here but it rings a bell. Take it for what its worth

Yes, the date does matter if the same texture is in two BSA's, but I think the OP was referring to resources that are unique to a particular BSA. I'm pretty sure that a BSA will also override loose files if the BSA has a newer date. I remember I was repacking a BSA and I had to back-date it because it started to override some loose files. Once again, only an issue when files overlap.

Yes, all of that is correct based on my experience, i.e. files in one BSA will take precedence over identical files in another BSA - latest date wins. A later dated BSA will also take precedence over identical loose files.

My original question was really more targeted at whether there was anything special about the base Oblivion BSA files, and whether there would be any issues if a BSA with different resources was dated earlier than them.

For example, if I have a custom BSA dated at 1/1/2006 via OBMM and someone has a vanilla Oblivion - meshes.bsa file dated 1/29/2006, which I believe is the default date if you don't do anything to redate it, would it cause any issues assuming there was no overlap in resources between the files. I didn't think it would, but was just looking for confirmation. Thanks everyone for the replies.

If you create all new resources, probably in a custom folder like some mods do, they will never be overwritten provided someone does not use the same folder name. In an automatic install I do not think anything gets automatically dated before the vanilla bsa files, so to have your bsa dated earlier would require some special script or interaction, if I am correct.

For what reason would you want to date the bsa before vanilla? Just curious as you may have a trick that may be usefull

I think it depends on how you install it. If installing via OBMM then the BSA will have the date the omod was installed. However, if you do a manual extraction from an archive it may retain the date on the BSA from the archive file based on some testing. That also seemed to be the case with BAIN when I tried a test with that.

Mostly I was just looking to see if there was an potential danger with dating a custom BSA to 1/1/2006 using the OBMM reset timestamps feature, and the BSA subsequently gets used by someone who hasn't used that feature (meaning their vanilla BSAs would be dated later than the custom BSA). It was really just a compatibility question.

Thanks for the answer. Makes sense.