Hey guys and gals.

Ive started making a habit of using FOMM's package manager to install my mods.

Either going the install from archive or install from folder route.

From my observations (correct me if im wrong !) when you uninstall a mod via the package manager it removes all the textures,meshes, sounds etc the mod addded as well as the esp/esm files. So you dont have to worry about left over textures etc which is quite cool

My questions are

when is not appropriate to install via the package manager ?

Can installing via package manager do any harm ?

Is their any difference or negative consequence between the two package manage installation types ? ( installing via folder vs installing via archive)

If you manually edit a esp/esm or change texture paths of a mod that has been installed via package manager how does the package manager handle the changes or does it not know any changes were made ?

thanks for any info or tips

Nothing really bad I suppose. But I never use it at all. Its a question of keeping track of the stuff you install your head while you are modding. You want nothing to think about or you want to know what and where everything being installed is and going to.

Using a bunch of files in a zipped archive and fiddling with where they all go. I like doing it that way. Because you learn where everything should go. If any problems arose it would be something you could go into and look around hopefully being able to fix the problems.

Here is a tutorial by Zumb on FOMM and the Package Manager - http://zumbs.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/fomm-and-fomods-for-dummies-1/

Thanks to Huge Pinball for link and info.


There is also a thread devoted to FOMM which i missed when i started this topic :facepalm: (although i did search)
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1037768

I use the package manager for every one of my mods. If it isn't already packaged as a .fomod I extract the archive to temporary location and arrange the folder and files how I would want them in game (aka removing optional esp's etc...). Then I use FOMM to turn the folder into a .fomod and install. The only thing I could think that you would have to keep track of is overwriting files.

For example if you installed a mod that affected all ground textures, and then on top of that installed a mod that changed just one of the ground textures and decided you didnt like it and removed it, you would then be missing that specific texture from the first mod. You'd have to reinstall the first mod after uninstalling the latter in order to get the texture in game again.

I somehow feel I made that sound move confusing than it is...

eg.
Installed Textures A,B & C
Overwrote Texture B with new mod
Didnt like texture B and removed the new mod
Now only textures A & C from the original mod remain in game

(If I am wrong about this and FOMM is smart enough to reinstall the textures on its own, please let me know )

You are wrong about this and FOMM is smart enough to reinstall the textures on its own.

Slight caveat; to work properly it requires 0.11 or higher. (Since kaburke took over writing it.) 0.10 only reference counted, rather than paying attention to the actual file contents, so with 0.10 if you installed textures A, B and C, and then texture D which overwrote B, if you uninstalled D it simply wouldn't remove the texture until you uninstalled B too. It's only 0.11 onwards that fomm would automagically replace D with the old file from B.

Really? Awesome. Now I can stop being so paranoid about installing and removing textures! Excellent program btw, I've been using FOMM and OBMM since I first started playing Oblivion a long time ago. I still convert every single mod I install, which is in the hundreds for both game, into either fomod or omod. I couldn't imagine either Oblivion or Fallout 3 without it.