Hi all,

I'm learning about Wrye Bash - even installed it and successfully created my first patch last night - but there's one thing I'm not clear about. Please share your insights...

I understand how the patch handles the level lists in a general sense: two mods are designed to make a change when the player reaches level 10, and without the bash patch, whichever mod is placed lower in the load order, takes effect. The patch allows both mods to make their changes. For example, one mod says bandits will carry more gold at level 10 and another mod says bandits will carry jewelry at level 10. With the patch, bandits will carry both more gold and jewelry. So far so good...

What does Wrye bash do if the mods alter the same thing? For example, one mod says bandits carry 50 more gold at level 10 and the other mod says bandits carry 100 more gold at level 10. Now what happens?

Thanks for your help - much appreciated!

I could be wrong, but if they both change the same item, I believe the last one loaded into the bashed patch wins.

If two modded entries directly conflict, the "last one wins" rule is still in effect.

What a Bashed Patch does, is e.g. harmonise levelled lists:

In the list "random loot from sabrecats", Skyrim has their pelt and teeth (example, didn't check).

Mod A adds eyes.

Mod B adds pumpkins (because, why not?).

Now originally, you'd only get pelts, teeth, and pumpkins, because both mods alter the same list, and Mod B wins.

The Bashed Patch merges both changes to the list, resulting in getting all of the above.

Obviously, that only works with things you can add to (like lists), or different records in the same thing (Mod A doubles bandits' health, Mod B gives every bandit a pumpkin).

Thank Nowena and Varana - this is very helpful.

So, I've got my bash patch, it's at the bottom of my load order and all the other plugins listed in NMM are orange (I guess that indicates that they are covered by the patch?).

Here's my question (kinda rhetorical, but it's best not to make assumptions, right?): From now on, when I install a new mod, I need to delete the current bash patch and build a new one, right? If I don't build a new patch, adding the new plugin would cause some sort of problem, right?

Thanks in advance for your help.

They should be green. Orange indicates masters are out of order. Edit: Wait that's in Wrye Bash. I've no idea what color scheme NMM uses. But when you look at your plugins in Wrye bash after rebuilding your patch, they should all be green, not orange.

Yes, you should rebuild your bashed patch any time you add (or remove) a mod or change their order. You don't need to delete the patch before rebuilding, but I sometimes do it just to make sure everythign from the old patch is cleaned out. But the new patch should just replace the old one, so deleting is not really necessary.

Thanks Turija - so the process I'm going to follow from now on will be to download a mod, clean it with TESVedit, run LOOT, then rebuild the bash patch. Whew!

NMM has a feature to check for updates and I use it regularly so I don't think my mod files are out of date. The orange is probably a NMM-specific convention but I'll look into to be sure.

Yes, that is the process. Just don't clean patches for ITMs (or other mods that contain intentional ITM records). Patches often contain intentional ITM records. You can clean UDRs from any mod. Deleted references are always bad and should always be cleaned. ITMs are sometimes intentional and needed.

Cool, thanks - I'll have to look up the meaning for an ITM, don't know what those are. I hope I haven't fiddled with any out of ignorance! I've been following the procedure Gopher demonstrates in his video for scrubbing plugins - only applying a filter for cleaning and then choosing the 'Identical to Master' command followed by 'Undeleting and Disabling References'.

Most of the explanations online are written by technogeeks and the explanations of ITM records are nearly incomprehensible when you are first getting into modding, or at least they were to me. As a former console player, I may be able to explain better, or at least I will try. ITM stands for "identical to master". An ITM is a record in a mod that is identical to the same record in one of its masters (frequently Skyrim.esm). The Creation Kit will unintentionally create these ITM records, which is why they are fairly common and need to be cleaned.

Unintentional ITMs are bad because of the "rule of one" and the way load orders work, when two mods alter the same record, only the record from the last mod loaded will appear in game. If no other mod alters these same records, then ITM records are harmless, since an ITM record does not actually change anything in the master file.

The problem with ITM records is that you may have a mod that loads in between the master and the mod with the ITM record that intentionally alters the record, but it will be overwritten by the later loading ITM record. This can cause problems with the functionality of the mod that intentionally alters the record, since that mod's changes won't be appearing in your game, having been replaced by the ITM record.

But (and this is a big but) sometimes you want ITM records to overwrite a portion of the intervening mod with the original content contained in the same record contained in the master file. Many patches work this way. For example, assume Mod A adds new functionality to horses and moves the stable outside Whiterun to a new location where the author of mod A thought it looked better. Now assume Mod B adds a new inn outside Whiterun that overlaps with the new stable location for Mod A. You could make a patch that moves the stable to a third location but the easiest way to patch these two mods is to restore the stable to its original location, so you get the horse functionality of mod A without the changes to the stable location. That will also be the more compatible with other mods than moving the stable to yet another location.

To do that you create a patch with a bunch of identical to master records (ITMs) for the various components that make up the stable building outside of whiterun. (It is pretty quick and easy to do something like in xEdit this once you get the hang of it. The only hard part is figuring out the formid of the various components of the stable, but with a mod called MFG console, it is pretty easy to do that in game.)

So now you have your patch with the ITM records that restores the stable to its original location. If you clean the patch in xEdit and remove the ITM records, it will no longer work and the stable will be back to where Mod A put it. That's why you never want to clean patches of ITMs. They are often there for a purpose which will be broken if you clean them.

An intentional ITM is a valid modding tool. Its only the uinintentional ITMs that are inadvertently introduced into a mod by the Creation Kit that need to be cleaned. Responsible mod authors should be cleaning their mods manually in xEdit, but unfortunately many don't. xEdits automatic cleaning can clean ITM records but not "wild edits".

A wild edit is a record that was unintentionally created by the author in the CK but are not quite identical to the master record. For example, say you move the location of a rock but then decide you want it back in its original location. If you put it back "exactly" in its original location you will have created an ITM in your mod, but if you put it back a smidge off, it will be a "wild edit." Wild edits cause the same problems as ITMs but they cannot be cleaned by automated cleaning since the record has been changed ever so slightly and xEdit cannot distinguish between intentional changes and unintentional ones. Only the original author can do that (although experienced modders can look at it in xEdit and decide whether the minor change is necessary for the mods functionality or whether it should be removed).

Any, hope you find the tutorial useful!

Do you mean in the Wyre Bash list? Cause, Green is good...Orange mean's something is out of kilter...red is bad and the game may not even load. Now if you've used LOOT, TES5Edit and then bash patched...and it's still orange it could be reading something as "wrong" that the mod actually need's to function. ( or a conflict in two mods)