Good afternoon!

I'm finishing up work on my first mod, and would like to get it as clean as possible. I've read in several places that the Data Files, File Details function of the CS will let you remove unintentional ref changes from your ESP file. The problem is, I can't seem to get it to WORK. I'm sure there's some simple step I'm failing to take, or I'm doing something out of order.

Here's what I'm doing:

1. Open up the CS
2. Click on File, Data Files
3. Click on mod file, then Details
4. Scroll, find an entry with a "." in the Delete Column.
5. Press the key, prompting a dialogue, "You have chosen to toggle the Ignore flag...Yes or No"
6. Click on Yes.

The problem is, nothing happens. the ".' stays in the Delete column, and NOTHING appears in the Ignore column. Upon proceeding to either load the ESP or exit the CS, NO changes are made. I'm sure there's something simple I'm overlooking, but I just can't seem to get this mechanism to DO anything. There are ref changes I'd like to strip from this mod, but I can't see any other way of doing so, unless I could hack out the ref changes with EE or something.

Does anyone with more experience have a suggestion?

Rochndil, sure he's missing something simple...

Hack out the ref changes with EE.. it's very easy. Just click the checkbox next to the things you want to delete and, when you're done, click the button to delete the marked items.

Trunksbomb is right, use EE to clean ref changes.

FYI: TESCS is fine for cleaning objects (including dialogue etc), but it won't clean refs selectively from a cell (you can only remove the whole cell from your mod).

Good morning!

Thanks for the replies. I'll use EE to do the cleanup on my mod, as suggested. I still would like to know why I can't get the ignore function in the CS working though. Is it something that gamesas broke in version 1.3 perhaps? Since I started with the GOTY edition, I've never run Morrowind by itself, and therefore I've never tried the 1.0 version of the CS.

Rochndil, pondering...

Sorry, are you saying that you can't get ignore to work at all (even for, e.g., BODY entries) - or are you saying that it used to work for refs?? I don't have GOTY but it's never worked for temp refs AFAIK...

Good morning.



I've read in several of the community-created guides that you can use the Ignore function to clean up dirty refs in a mod. If all it does is clean up object changes, it's usefulness is pretty limited. I've never tried to use it in that manner, since I always used EE to delete unnecessary object changes - those are easy to deal with. It's the ref changes that are hard to find and tricky to remove. EE does work, since that's what I ended up using, but it's very slow and tedious. Lesson learned: it's VASTLY easier to NOT make ref changes in the first place than to have to go back and clean them out afterward.

Rochndil, who probably spent most of two days combing through cells cleaning out dirty ref changes...

I thought TESTOOL cleans out dirty refs in cells easy. At least that was the advice given to me. :shrug:

EE is quick and easy though, Chachi. I wouldn't use anything else. Everything in the lists are presented in neat and orderly lists, and you can batch delete all of a certain type of reference (GMSTs for example), or expand the list and highlight each one you want to delete. I don't know what TESTool is like, but I've made it this far in my modding career without using it.

Good afternoon.



TESTOOL is a useful utility, but it has definite limits. Yes, it WILL clean certain types of dirty refs from a mod, namely references that are IDENTICAL to vanilla ones, as well as a couple other useful things. However, it will not properly clean accidentally applied reference changes, which are both very common and absurdly easy to add.

For example, when I was finishing up my mod yesterday, I was adding a lantern to a post. The problem is, that post had an NPC hovering over it, in almost the exact same position as the final resting point of the lantern. Even though I was very careful placing the lantern, at some point I made a tiny change to that NPC, and BOOM, dirty ref in the mod. If any OTHER mod tried to change that NPC for a legitimate reason, and my mod loaded after it, that legitimate change would be thrown out by my tiny, insignificant accidental contamination.

This is why proper and thorough mod cleaning is so essential. The changes may make no substantive difference in your mod, but when your mod is running along with others, maybe even HUNDREDS of others, the possibility for your dirty refs to screw up something else important becomes very great.

Using EE, you can load up a mod and see listed all the object changes made IN the mod. Cleaning these is quite easy, and very effective. What's more complicated is displaying and cleaning REFERENCE changes. To see them you have to load the cell(s) where the references live, and see what's included. If a given reference is included in your mod, either a change was made to that ref (NPC, object, etc), OR it was "touched" in some way during the mod process, and marked permanently as "changed." To delete these refs, you must find them each in the cell list, click their boxes to flag them for deletion, and then click on "delete checked." Make sure you have (in most cases) "safe edit" on, or you could end up making an even bigger mess if the relevant subrecords don't also get remove cleanly.

There are exceptions. For example, somehow I ended up making an OBJECT change to a very common door item. This added that changed object to the ESP file, which was NOT necessary or good. But, in this case, when I went to delete the door object, I had to DIS-able safe editing, because otherwise when I deleted the changed OBJECT it would have also tried to delete EVERY reference to that object in the entire mod. That would have left a lot of houses without doors!

EE is an extremely useful tool, but like any other it requires a certain degree of knowledge and care to be used to its full potential. That's one of the reasons TESTOOL remains popular. It cleans CERTAIN types of mod contamination quickly and AUTOMATICALLY, without requiring any knowledge on the user's part. Unfortunately, it can also quickly and automatically really screw up a mod. Again, it pays to be aware what your tools do, how they work, and to choose the right one for the job with care.

Rochndil, who now needs to address some unrelated inter-mod conflicts so he can PLAY THE GAME already...