You're an evil overlord indeed. But as long as you take responsibility for every bug that we bring to your attention, I guess everybody's happy. Personally I would *much* appreciate some kind of gold version instead of more new stuff being added to your mod, but I guess that's your idea, too.

About the Better Clothes issue:

There's a small chance Argonian females grow briasts when they shouldn't. Like when your Better Beast Bodies mod doesn't grant the poor lizard babes any, but the Better Clothes meshes do. That could be a problem for obsessive and neurotic people like yourself. So that's when you ought to use that dialogue topic. The inventory item is to fix your own character, or something.

Might have missed my post on page 2? :frog:

Watching the progress on this mod, I kinda view BTB as a mad alchemist furiously concocting his creations in his lab. Or kinda like a Dr. Frankenstein only one who has time to shove the monster back into its straps to keep perfecting it each time he runs electricity through its body.

Anyway, kidding aside, these updates have all coincided perfectly with my laborious building of my mod list for my first playthrough in almost a year. Its looking kinda like when I'm finished building, BTBGI will be ready to go for the most part. The only thing I have yet to decide on is whether to mix Piratelord's Trade Enhancements in there somehow. Last time I played I used GCD, Wakims, and PTE together in an attempt to achieve kinda what BTBGI is going for. This time I might try an order like

GCD
PTE
BTBGI
Merged Objects

and see what comes out the other end.

Thanks BTB. :celebration:


I don't know if you're aware of this, but you have actually made a perfect BAIN-archive with your improvements mod. :thumbsup:

I can confirm that because I've tested your mod (ver 8.2) in WMSA, so I can guarantee that your mod will work with the BAIN feature in the Installers tab. :yes:

Gold version?



I think what it is is that when the subject of lizard [censored] comes up, my brain systematically shuts down and refuses to process any new information >.>



IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!

MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

*Kills it and starts back over*



Bain? Isn't that the guy from the Simpsons who fights commie Nazis?

No it isn't that guy from Simpson. Just a http://wryemusings.com/Wrye%20Mash.html#InstallersTab to look at and that's BAIN nothing else.

Oh.

Is it sad that I've never used Wrye Mash because I've never made it far enough into the game to not just start over every time I update a mod?

Maybe you should start using Wrye Mash (my sign), so that you can repair your save files or http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/4509/mashedlistsmergedlists.png in Wrye Mash. :whistling:

Oh boy. Prepare yourself for a Carepost about Lizardjugs.


On Fictional Representations of Mammary-bearing Lacertilia in Interactive Media
or: "I don't think it quite works like that, boss."
a dissertation by Doosty
Bethesda Softworks Forums 2011


Chapter 1: The Problem
(or: How lizard get briast???)

For a few shirts in the vanilla game, there's only one "chest" body part for both male and female characters. It has a sort of lump in the upper chest area which could be seen as either a bountiful bosom or rippling pecs depending on the six of the character wearing it. In the original game, many (perhaps all) of these shirts are worn only by male characters or the beast races, so the androgynous torso isn't an issue. The problem is, Better Clothes adds female versions of these body parts and adjusts the shirts to use them when worn by a female character. Now if a female Khajiit or Argonian wears one of these shirts, it uses the female mesh and the character develops briasts.
In an attempt to rectify this most heinous error, Better Clothes also adds Argonian versions¹ of these shirts which only have a male mesh (i.e. briastless) for both sixes. Both plugins--Normal and NAC--have these special lizard shirts defined. There is also a script (two, actually) which replaces the normal shirt with these Argonian versions on 18 female Argonian NPCs.

Here's where it gets a bit messed up. The two scripts I mentioned just now - there's a Setup script and a Swap script. The Setup script calls the Swap script on the aforementioned 18 lizard babes, and the Swap script replaces the briasted shirts with the briastless lizard shirts. Oh but wait, the Swap script only exists in the Normal plugin. Put simply, the Argonians only change from vanilla Morrowind--i.e. they develop briasts--in the No Argonian Change plugin. Yes, this is a thing which makes sense.²

The name is probably meant to refer to the change (or lack thereof) from a beast body replacer which adds briasts, to the use of that beast replacer with Better Clothes. This really would've made more sense if they'd named it "Argonian Change" instead (as in: changed from vanilla), and the readme weren't so awkwardly worded. Alas...

Again for posterity: the lizards only have briasts in the NAC version.


There are also some other things only the Normal plugin adds: 2 conversation topics and a miscellaneous item - the Tailoring Kit. The topics are only added when you first talk to a Trader, Clothier or Pawnbroker, but as far as I can tell, they're then available with every NPC in the game - from Arrille to Dagoth Ur. (The Better Clothes readme does describe this, and they're right about it feeling out of place.)
One topic, "tailoring kit", is to add the Tailoring Kit to your inventory; the other topic, "clothing fit", get ready for this has the same function as the Tailoring Kit item, but whereas the Kit only works on your PC, the conversation topic only affects the NPC you're talking to--they do call the same script though. This script is in fact one I mentioned earlier: the Swap script. It's a simple piece of code, merely swapping any normal shirts in inventory with the Argonian versions, and vice versa. The issue is that, with minor exceptions, this script--and therefore the item and topics--is useless.

The exceptional situations are as follows:

1. You want the 18 vanilla Argonian NPCs to have briastless shirts.

2. You're using mods which add female Argonian NPCs to the game--wearing any manner of affected shirt. If not, you have one useless conversation topic crowding your already crowded and frequently seen topic list.

3. You're playing as a female Argonian yourself--again, only wearing an affected shirt. If not, you have a useless item in your inventory³, and a useless conversation topic.
3.1. This will likely only matter if you spend a great deal of time staring at your lovely Argonian avatar with the third person camera. Or perhaps if the mere concept of things being wrong, even if you can't see them, bothers you.⁴ The topic will always be there though.


Chapter 2: The Solutions
(or: Fix it or who cares.)

Situation 1 can be fixed silently without new conversation topics or items. It's a simple matter of adding only a Swap script to the Better Clothes plugin, modified slightly to incorporate the NPC references from the Startup script. It'll run once then stop itself. Essentially, this would be what (I believe) the NAC plugin should have been.

Situation 2 can probably only be solved the way Better Clothes originally did it.

Situation 3 can be done slightly differently, with it being less invasive in the gameworld, but possibly less user friendly. Add the Tailoring Kit as before, but only give it to the player via a one-run script, or not at all; they'll have to use the console to add it.

Obviously, these can be mixed and matched; 1 could be combined with 3 or use a similar activation method if people don't want it done automatically (if at all). I feel that 2 could be forgotten about, given the likely small impact it would have on the userbase⁵.

The Who Cares solution is pretty much what you'd expect: add the clothes and nothing else. Lizards get puppies; who gives a toss. I believe this is your current line of thinking. I may not agree, but I can't fault your reasoning.


Conclusion
good god what has become of me


Acknowledgements
Slof, LizTail, among many others: without your fine work we would never have dongs and jubblies on cats and lizards, and would not be in this most curious situation in the first place. Honestly, thank you. Really. ...
Psychodog Studios: for their effort in reducing the effect of such anatomical abominations.
BTB, and supporters: for caring about balance in a single-player game. What odd people you are.


Notes
¹ I don't know why there are only Argonian versions. Perhaps the makers assume everyone will be adding boobs to the cats, but realise boobs on a lizard is just too far for some people.
² no it isn't, gj better clothes team!!
³ To be fair, it is weightless and can be dropped, so it's of little consequence unless the concept itself bothers you.^4
4 It bothers me.
⁵ Better Clothes has a wide range of appeal; BTBGI not so much. Perhaps a similar percentage would be affected, but in comparison it would be a smaller number.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry... maybe both.

As you have pointed out, I take the "Who Cares" line of thinking, though I was incorrect about which of the two plugins was the correct one. Since the only time I ever plan on using the phrase "Lizard [censored]" again is as a new nickname for my little sister, I've just gone ahead and deleted the scripts, dialogue, tailor kit, global variable, and cell edits that for some odd reason were made (excepting the one that adds the thongs) out of my plugin. This is actually a good thing, since it seems a few of those cell edits were overriding Texture Fix 1.8. And, I shaved a whopping 35 kb off of the file size in the process. That's 35 kb of file space I *need*, dammit.

And then, I suppose I have until the next update of my mod to decide what I want to do about the compatibility plugin.

LOL, well I still have your 7.0 version. I'm assuming if I use the "Better Clothes Complete (BTB Edit).esp" from that, there are no compatibility issues with 8.3, right? I mean, I haven't seen any clothing edits since that version and the latest version and I think the esp in the 7.0 version has all the latest version of the Better Clothes mods included.

On a totally unrelated subject... I like Farrp's Weapon Compilation Mod 2.0 (a mod I recall linked on your site). What are your thoughts on whether or not it would unbalance a game using BTBGI? Of course, any mod that adds a huge number of items to a game with a nerfed economy poses that danger, however, I remember the Farrp's mod as being rather toned down as far as the value of the regular weapons, usually under 1000 gp. Then again, I don't think I have a grasp of how powerful the "legendary" weapons are. Anyway, thoughts?

No, I haven't edited the Better Clothes plugin since then.

You should upgrade the rest of the mod, though. I've made quite a few fixes in the last few updates.



Back when I was going through and editing literally every damn item in the game for my "Equipment" plugin, all I could think about was how much I never wanted to do anything like it again (notice that my commentary for it in the main readme is a *lot* angrier than the rest of it - there's a reason for that). I'd already been tossing around the idea of getting rid of FARRP's for awhile, and that was just the incentive I needed to go through with it.

It's not that I *mind* the extra variety, but it's moreso that my work with the "Equipment" plugin showed me how much variety was already in the game (and I didn't even know about it). And, again, there was not wanting to go through the mod and balance it - whether or not it claimed to be already was a moot point.

Thanks for the confirmation. Yeah, I already am updating the rest of your mod.

I hear you on the editing thing. Since I haven't actually played with your settings mods yet, I think what I'll do in the end is throw in the Farrp mod and if the weapons seem too out of place I'll just remove it. I didn't find it as that essential, but I did like finding random new weapons I've never seen before in all those monotonous bandit loot containers, even if I don't recall using the weapons all that much.

That was my line of thinking, as well. I didn't think there was a lot of variety in the game proper... and if you get rid of all the stuff that was utter crap with the default settings, that just leaves all of the overpowered stuff.

Although my equipment mod may not necessarily add new styles or types of equipment, the edits to generic magic stuff alone does a lot to help with the variety of actually useful stuff you run across, IMO.

I run BTBGI with Farrp's Mod, and haven't noticed any major unbalancing weapons. Bear in mind, i'm still only level 4.

I played hours with BTB GI and FARRP up to levels 15-20 for different PCs and I think the weapon damage is well balanced.
However, some FARRP's weapons are overpriced, particularly daggers, and as you find lots of them on NPCs and in containers, this is a bit unbalancing for MW's economy.

Yeah, isn't that what they call it? I mean a totally stable, thoroughly tested, truly final version of BTB's Game Improvements, because until now your mod has been in a permanent beta state. As long as you keep releasing updates at this rate, I don't think it will ever move on to the "gold" state, or whatever's the right term. You know, the opposite of "beta".

The term "release to manufacturing" or "release to marketing" (both abbreviated RTM)—also known as "going gold"—is a term used when software is ready for or has been delivered or provided to the customer.

Do http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7673 and http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7335 also conflict with BTB Game Improvements?

Unique Jewelry and Accesories conflicts with BTB GI on game balancing: it adds overpowered items like the shoes of blinding speed you can buy at a new merchant in Vivec, Foreign Quarter.

BTBGI and Unique Finery Replacer change different properties of the same items so they will conflict unless you merge objects. Ditto with UJA (in addition to the unbalancing items issue mentioned in the above post).

Thank you for the replies.

BTB, could you make in the future some patches for these mods pretty please? Including http://canadianice.moddersrealm.com/RobeReplacer.html. They seem pretty popular since they were included in the ToMorrowind mod list.

How I miss the bashed patch from wrye bash, these conflicts would be solved automatically if it existed in wrye mash too .

But concretely, how are these conflicts expressed in the game? Just overrides according to the load order or full blown errors and CTD's?

Load order. So, for any given conflicting item, if UFR loads last, you'll get the texture/mesh changes only; likewise, if BTBGI loads last you'll get the balancing changes only.

I would strongly suggest learning how to merge objects with TESTool when using such an all encompassing game balancing mod such is BTBGI. Since it changes so many items etc, there is a possibility of conflict with a huge variety of mods out there and it would be quite a lot of work to make compatibility patches with every one of even just the most popular mods.

It's good that the conflicts aren't so serious.

So, I guess I have to use Merge Objects for active plugins, right? Or should I press just fix it and let the program do its magic? Will this solve every conflict between BTBGI and other item adding mods? Just selecting the merged objects?

When TesTool reaches BTB Equipment it just crashes, any idea what might be wrong?

Yeah, when you said "gold", I thought you were asking for a copy of my "BTB Sings the Blues" album.

Anyway, as my 1.0 release notes might indicate, I make every release under the impression that it will hopefully be my last. That being said, I really, truly think that I'm finally done here. Yes, I'm sure there may be a small update or two in the future, but the vast bulk of the product is complete and ready to go.

I certainly don't think there's any major changes left to implement at this point, at any rate.



Just Fix It = Bad. It should be called "Just Break It".

As has been explained, all that's lost if my mod is overridden are, well, my edits. I deal with conflicts thusly:

Step 1: Download TESPCD
Step 2: Load my plugins and the conflicting plugin, run a conflict check, and make note of every conflicting item
Step 3: Open the conflicting plugin in the CS and make my edits (one of the many reasons I keep detailed changelogs) to every item that will conflict with my plugin(s)
Step 4: ???
Step 5: PROFIT!!!

Yes, true, it would be a fitting name :laugh: . It was exactly like that, one click and everything was broken.

I downloaded the tool, and when I will get the courage to use another Morrowind tool again I will follow your instructions. Thank you! :foodndrink:

Bear in mind that all you're getting TESPECD to do is tell you where the conflicts are - all actual editing/fixing will be done in the CS.

The CS may be the most user-unfriendly piece of [censored] that I have ever have the misfortune of using, but at least the damn thing does what it's supposed to do.