Hi guys, I recently moved from Oblivion Mod Manager to Wrye Bash: can someone tell me what I have to do to use the BSA alteration function of Mod Manager with Wrye Bash?

I need a way to use my texture replacer (the one without esp files...)

Can you help me?


EDIT: the installers tab it's empty: is this right?

i use both obmm and wrye bash. but as for the installers tab yes nothing would be in that field unless you put an archive into bash installers directory then it will go ahead and open the zip file and you can install it from there as long as it has been packaged in the proper format. sorry cant help ya on the bsa alteration as ive not used it.

In the Installers tab, right-click the column headers, check BSA Redirection in the popup. The tab is empty if you haven't placed any packages in the Bash Installers folder. Checkout the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35230 to get up to speed on it, it's pretty good.

It's all I have to do? Just check BSA redirection and it will work?

Yep, that's all. Oblivion.ini would be modified accordingly and you never have to fiddle with it again.

I think I've a problem: I checked the BSA redirection and I put some audio files in the data folders (audio files to fix the missing voice problems). But I didn't solved the problem until I did a BSA Alteration with my old Mod Manager, can you explain me why?

BSA Alteration is an obsolete, hackish method that should never have existed and should not be used now. Redirection is the way to go. You're going to need to undo that on the OBMM side first before you can safely switch to Redirection since Alteration does exactly what it sounds like - it alters the files. That's not something you want done.

Once you've got that all straight and Reditection is set up, you'll need to get the file dates on the BSAs themselves. Fortunately that's easy enough. On the OBMM menu where you pick the invalidation method there's a button that says "reset BSA timestamps". Click that, and you're done.

From OBMMex Documentation


Hopefully.


BSAs are like zips. Lots of the game original files in there.

Lets say one BSA contains ...

Texture 1
Texture 2
Texture 3

You have a mod with a replacer file for Texture 2

Alteration does the following to the BSA

Texture 1
Texture 2
Texture 3

So that it always uses your loose file texture 2.

Now delete your loose file Texture 2 (Un-Install a mod)

The game cannot refer to the BSA for the file because its been ALTERED to make it look like the file does not exist in the BSA

Result = Purple texture.

The same applies to alterations to the sounds BSAs, Meshes BSA etc.

Now times the above with hundreds/thousands of loose files that have replaced the files in the BSAs from all the mods you have had installed, every one of those files since you enabled Alteration have invalidated the same files in the BSAs (the hash table of the BSA has had each of those files struck through, not deleted, just imagine a zip file has a list of its contents, and you put a line through one of the items on the list - The file is still in the BSA, but it cant be referenced anymore by the game)

If you have started using Alteration, for EVERY mod you un-install with OBMM you have to use the quoted routine above to undo the alterations. Forget that just once among un-installing / re-installing loads of other mods you have a complicated puzzle to un-ravel

Or you can re-install the game with fresh (un-altered) BSAs and start again.

This time though - Just use BSA Redirection from the start and dont change it. No matter what old advice you come across saying "This mod needs BSA Alteration" dont use that method.

Redirection is the only method used by Wrye Bash for this reason, and no matter what mods I have thrown in and out and replaced in my bash installers folder .. Its worked perfectly 100%, and my BSAs remain un-altered.