Hello Fellow players, modders and random people roaming the forum unregistred

I've been taking some time going through the forums, looking at a bunch of mod lists. I've come to the conclusion that I ain't much of a mod guy.
Here's to changing that.

I've gone and bought the GOTY edition of Oblivion and now I want to get it set up with a proper amount of good mods.

My trip around the forums made me decided upon a few.

Essentials:
OOO
Quarls TextPack III
MMM

Beauty:
The Beauty Pack (I haven't found this one, but I've heard there's supposed to be this big mix of character enhancement mods all in one.
Roberts Male Body V5
Still looking for a female body replacer (suggestions appreciated)

Smaller mods:
Days_and_Months_changed
Elven_map_redux
Realistic_physics
Fast_Exit

Mods I haven't got the hang of (But I do have)
Steamline
Pluggy
OBSE
OBGE

My major problem with everything is that I don't know if my mods will be compatible with eachother, I've figured out OBMM and that works just fine. But how Do I tell if mods will work with one another without installing and trying them out?

I'm going to start up a whole new character, aimed towards the ranger/archer/hunter type of playstyle, anyone with experiance playing these sort of characters want to hint me in the direction of some mods I just can't go without, please let me know.

And If there are any other mods which I absolutly must have in my game, please share... I'll take the time to understand this, I'm really trying to haha.

Kind Regards

Crowgrim

My observations on what your planning:-

Essentials,

OOO absolutely, great mod. Get the version 1.33 omod installer version then top it up with 1.34 beta5.

MMM make sure you use the MMM for OOO versions. Use TheNiceOne's MMM Omod installer scripts to make the installation process much easier

QPT3. Make sure you use the Redimized version rather than the original.

You've already got ther basis for a much improved game with just those three mods.

Beauty

I like Race Balancing Project. You get a large package of beauty stuff along with the core function of tweaking races and birthsigns to make them more balanced. It's a great mod in iteself, but also one of the prerequisites for using Integration-The Stranded Light, see below. Get TheNiceOne's Omod installer.

Roberts Male body is pretty much your only choice here

For female body replacer I use http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24078 This is based on the Exnem eyecandy body, sdo has a huge range of clothing and armour available, plus it has the advantage of coming with all the vanilla clothing and armour adjusted to fit the new body. There is an OOO version that you'll want to use, so that the OOO armours pick up the changes as well.

Smaller mods,

Don't know anything about the Days and Months or the Realistic Physics mods. If they do what their names suggest I don't forsee any compatibility issues.

Use Fastexit 2. Elven Map Redux is nice. You'll probably also want a new Shivering Isles Map.


Mods you haven't got the hang of-

Streamline. Some people have problems getting much, if any benefit out of this. It seems to need careful tweaking. Most people would recommend Oblivion Stutter Remover over Streamline. If necessary use both.

Pluggy. You may not need this, not many mods require it. Note that you do not need Pluggy to use OBSE Plugins.

OBSE. In my opinion essential. You will need it for Fastexit 2 and Oblivion Stutter Remover anyway. Follow the installation instructions and forget about it. Get the latest version 18 beta. An increasing number of mods require version 18 even though it is not yet final.

OBGE. I would stay clear, at least initially, unless one of the mods you really want requires it. I believe that there were performance issues with the original version. The new version (there will be a thread floating around here somewhere) is still in its early days and it comes with lots of health warnings.


I think that your list is actually quite a solid starting line up (with the proviso that I don't know anything about two of the small mods you mention, and that you need to add the OUP) I see no reason why they won't work together.

Additional mods

Essential (IMO)

-Unofficial Oblivion Patch, and its SI and DLC equivalents. Get them.
-BOSS (better Oblivion Sorting Software) a great tool for automatically sorting your load order (or most of it anyway)
-WyreBash. You may just get away without this utility's Bashed Patch feature with your current list (not absolutely sure) but you will inevitably run into mod conflicts as you expand further, which can only be dealt with via the Bashed Patch. I suggest you get it early and learn to use at least the Bashed Patch.

Other mods/areas you may want to think about are-

Viewable distant objects. The Standout mod here is Really Almost Everything Viewable When Distant (RAEVWD). Can have a big performance hit, but worth it IMO. It's modular so the performance issue can be managed by only using certain components.

A magic overhaul. I use LAME. Again TheNiceOne has made an Omod installer.

Change the Cities. The big two here are Better Cities and Open Cities. Very different approaches, but both very high quality.

Change The User Interface DarN or Dark DarN are the market leaders.

More interesting wilderness, see the Unique Landscapes Series

Lit windows at night (and smoking Chimneys) Animated Window Lighting System

Quests Too many great quest mods to mention, but a few stand outs are The Ayleid Steps, Integration-The Stranded Light and Windfall.

Cobl. Don't know how to classify this mod, but it does a number of clever things, principally it takes items unique to mods in your load order, and where appropriate, distributes them to other places in game, eg to merchants or as random loot. It also has a number of useful smaller functions (denock arrow, spell delete, on the fly timescale adjustment, Salmo the Baker gets a shop, The Luggage). Lots more. In fact, this should be in the Essential bit.

Enhanced Economy by TheNiceOne (The guy's a hero), this is an improvement over Living Economy which comes bundled with the full version of OOO. Choose not to install Living Economy when your are given the option on installation of OOO, and use this instead. Better in many ways.

I'll stop now before I start ranting about survival mods and weather mods.

Good luck, and enjoy.

Edit. Typos.

Also get DarNified user interface, or the DarkUIDarned version (both on Tesnexus). For me this is THE single most important mod to get cuz' you'll be using the interface / inventory and stuff a million times in the game.

Thanks a bunch for clearing that up for me, i'd be trying some different mods out and I'll probably head back here for some debrief afterwards, because I promise you this ain't gonna be an easy ride.

Just starting up Wyre bash made me feel like i'm out on thin ice haha.

Crowgrim

Arwen's Instructions on creating a Bashed Patch http://amito.freehostia.com/Oblivion/OB-mods-Part1.htm#wrye_bash got me started. The official documentation can be intimidating.

Ah there's so much that can go wrong.

I installed QTP III before installing Oblivion unofficial patch, and now it's overwriting everything, it tells me to get a patch by Dev_akm will that simple fix that or do I need to delete Quarls and start off with The Unofficial Patch?

Being sure your hardware can support the texture packs, ect. that you are installing would be a good plan too.......

Im pretty sure this thing can work it out, it's taking care of the new games out on the market without any trouble.

That doesn't mean a whole lot. My laptop can do Crysis Warhead on the second highest settings OK, but Oblivion still brings it down sometimes - with vanilla highest settings, no mods installed, or texture packs. It's just because of the engine, and the fact that AI is horribly intensive, and I have a dual core CPU, which isn't clocked as high as the single core precursors were.

Im getting the feeling this is goin to be the toughest challange up to date.

I'm having a truckload of trouble just finding the update to get QUARls to work with UOP

I totally see the picture now, game does not run smooth...

Besides the mods that S'lider mentioned, there are also some other mods you might want to look at, since you are a ranger. There's Bab Biu Adventuress' Body, which is a body replaces which allows for Babarized Brash' Leather Armours. This mod adds numerous bows and ranger gear. Adonnay's Ranger's Coats adds ranger's coats to the game. Myself, I am also using Bor's Bedrolls, which allows you to pick up bedrolls in which you slept. Duke Patrick has many archery related mods, such as his most recent one: Duke Patrick's Combat Archery Mod. This mod requires OBSE version 18, which is still partially in development.

Besides this, I recommend you use Frans and WarCry and also FCOM Convergence. These mods add many new enemies and weapons to the world of Cyrodiil. You'll probably enjoy, although it is a pain in the backside to install.

There is a lovely alternative to using Quarl textures, it's the http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=982463 by Corepc. It's less hard on your system yet looks awfully good! I can totally recommend it, I use it myself, I actually came back from Quarl. But have a look at the screenshots for yourself...

Corepc recommends to first install Bomret's improved vanilla textures and then the Vibrants on top of that. It's explained in post #1, but you have to scroll down a long way ca. 80% to get to the installation section. Very easy install with OBMM.

Ah that looks really interesting Tommy, I'll check that out.

Now I've had some sleep and i've thrown myself into Wyre Bash. I intend to use Race Balancing Project instead of "beautiful people" because well, it seems more awesome.

Now everywhere I look and read about RBP They tell me I'm going to have to use Wyre Bash, I've read some tutorials about merging mods together but still not understanding the point of doing so.
Then I read about tagging and untagging, if anyone has decent guide on how to do so (preferably for RBP) I'd be happy as a something really...happy.

Well thanks

I'd suggest the following: Once you have collected and installed the mods you want, let the load order be sorted out by BOSS. When finished, READ THE BOSS LOG TXT FILE. READ THE NOTES it provides in there. Based upon what you read, apply what you can with Wrye Bash.

Then DO NOT TURN ON ALL MODS IMMEDIATELY, especially if your modlist is longer than say 15 mods. Go slow, see how it goes, do some play testing. It's better to trace for screw ups and errors then as if the list were already 50 or more mods long.

If you get stuck at some which is quite likely when you're new, go to the WB thread with the questions and what you did and stuff.

I did as you said, I think. Working with Wyre bash and BOSS along side... and now everything seems to run smoothly with the mods... except for one tiny problem.

And I guess this is probably only fixed by learning wyre bash on a much deeper scale.

Robert Body replacer and HECG( or maybe HEGC) Load great with the vanilla races but the new races that came along with the race balancing project they just get the body meshes without any color on them. Like their bodies are just white.

I cant't help you with this problem, I just have never used any race balancing races and have no exerience with that, sorry. Maybe it's a matter of importing certain tags into the Bashed Patch. But really, I'm only guessing.

Probably best would be to contact the authors of the RBP and ask for help. Roberts and HGEC are very popular mods, it's hard to imagine that there would not be a compatibility patch or something.

I've been thinking the same, and well I've been going through the wyre bash process with tagging up and rebuilding the bashed patch... but still their bodies are just the shell without color. It's not really a gameplay problem it just seems stupid, if you get what I mean.

Um are you using the HGEC and Roberts body meshes that came with the RBP installation files.... Speaking of which, do you even have thehttp://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=293?

I've got all the files, followed the installation guide to the very core of it.

used the correct ESPs from the ESP folders and installed the game using the insstallation folders.

THE bodies are there, but they ain't got any color.

Yes there are "extra" files for Both HGEC and Roberts male bodies in a folder... they are used as well.

EDIT: I just started the game up again, rotating the character during the creation phase I noticed that the inner thigh is vanilla colored, while the rest of the body is well Roberts male bodies.

I'm so sorry, I just realized the whole damn thing.

There ain't no fix for using Hidden Elves with Roberts bodies.

All the other races, male and female of the RBP that i've tried out have perfect bodies.

There ain't no textures or meshes for the hidden elves, apprently.

I've checked the files and found none either, would it be hard to fix that? Couldn't you just use the imperial version of roberts and put them along with the hidden elves heads.

I think it has to do with a naming convention that ren had, let me check....

ME( with all but one of my links gotten rid of... nudity, yah know.):


bg2408:


So basically my question to you is: Do your hidden elves kind of look like mine? and is there a ren in front of the hidden elf/ mystic elf files you have?

Personally I had the problem with female hidden elves and Hgec, never with males and Roberts... though I think I may have fixed the problem before ever installing roberts.

My elves looks exactly like you, both the male and the females... well without the tattoos...

I'll go check if the REN thing is correct.

However I'm not going to play a female, so problem remains.

should I rename all the files by hand, removing "ren" from each of them?

Personally, based on what you are already working with mod wise, I would just go hole hog...put a spear through your graphics card, so to speak and install FCOM.

Yes, it's about 3 days of 'why me' time to get it all playing nicely, but oooooh its soooo good.

Also, a few mods you might overlook that you really shouldn't:

COBL. Especially with FCOM. Can be balky at times, but a severe talking to usually fixes things Get the OMOD version, compile it together with OBMM, and install it with the races mods it includes.

SHADOW RANGER: Easily one of the best 'class specific' mods out there.

DRUID MOD. Combine it with Shadow Ranger and a 'mystic elf' race mod *part of COBL* and you have a tree-hugging, bow-shooting, Forest-striding paragon of all that is true, good and wholesome...err...well...or at least a darn good imitation of Legolas from the Lord of the Rings.

Supreme Magick. Just can't say enough good stuff about this...enchantable staffs that actually cast like...normal staffs...after enchanting them....skill based summon limits (imagine pooping out two Daedric monstrosities at 90 or so skill...nuff said).

Roberts muscular male body replacer (it has an underwear version) so you can 'get your hero poses on'.

Umpa or any other animation and/or dance mod, for screenshot goodness.

Enchant Skill. Lets you enchant items at no gold cost, with the type, number, and quality of effects you are capable of enchanting based on your mysticism skill (and yes, you can, and will, fail enchants quite often, losing a soul in the progress).

Any of the COBL based Mods for the DLC's.

All the unofficial patches from the nexus.

Bare minimum stuff to grab before adding mods to your game:

OBMM
OBSE
WRYE BASH
PYTHON FOR WRYE BASH (required)
PLUGGY
TES4 LOD GEN
STUTTER REDUCER
CRASH PREVENTER

In addition some stuff may prompt you (and give directions on finding) things like the Microsoft Visual C++ libraries, but it all comes free from Microsoft's site, so no big deal.

Do yourself a favor and OMOD as many of your mods as possible, once you have them set the way you want them. Installing FCOM may be a pain, especially if you custom OMOD it, but uninstalling mods added 'the old fashioned way' (dump to data folder) is much worse.

Could anyone confirm that there ain't no comp patch for roberts male bodies with the Hidden Elves.

Anyone with RBP and Roberts V5 that could check if it works?