So I decided to try a new install of FO3 with some new mods today. FOOK and Weapon Mod Kits (plus FOSE for the first time) being the centerpiece of the install. (The other mods are Ling's Finer Things/Couture, Groovatron, Green Green Grass, Megaton Player House Expansion, and Clear Skies. With Type 3 body and a few clothing esp's that match clothes from Ling's.)

The question is this:

Weapon Mod Kits says pretty clearly to get everything set up, then use FO3Edit to make a Merged Patch.

When I ran FO3Edit, it tried to process all my mods, and failed while processing FOOK's "DLC Improvement Kit" modules (I forget if it was the ESM or the ESP). I believe the error said something about Operation Anchorage..... which makes sense, because the only DLC I have installed is Broken Steel.

In the end, I deactivated the DLC Improvement Kit ESM & ESP, ran FO3Edit, and made a merged patch without them.

But I'm confused about whether I'm doing this correctly. Questions:

1) Will having the FOOK DLC modules turned off cause problems in the future? (not entirely sure what they do....)

2) If so, can I turn them back on, even though they're not included in the merged patch?

(And one further, probably dumb, question - that Merged Patch.... should it be turned on in addition to all the ESPs? Or should it be the only thing turned on? I'm really not clear on what is in it/what it's doing/etc. Only reason I did it is because Weapon Mod Kits said I had to. :shrug: )


Thanks.

FOOK2 - [DIK] DLC Improvement Kit.ESM/.esp (v1.0) requires Operation:Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, and Point Lookout or it will not load in FO3Edit, nor will the game make it past the loading screen since it's missing three of its seven masters.

1) No, but I'd suggest turning 'em on if/when you get the remaining DLC content (FOOK2 v1.1's DLC file will require all five)
2) If/when you have the prerequisites taken care of for the DIK plugin, just rebuild the merged patch. Generally, you should rebuild it whenever you alter your load list.

Last question(s): Loading that merged patch means all of its masters will be loaded too, whether by FO3Edit, FOMM, the launcher, or Fallout3.exe. To check what masters it has, open FO3Edit, R-Click "Select none", then double click on your merged patch and everything it requires and 'merges' will also be loaded. What it's doing is taking particular record types and merging their subrecord data into unified versions of those records since the game engine only reads one version of any given record, the last one loaded (save NAVI).

If you are missing a DLC that FOOK's DLC improvement kid depends on, then you can't load it in FO3Edit. Just load all your other plugins and remake your merged patch. Load it last.

Thanks for the info.