There is no all in one FCOM install thing and there likely never will be.

If you read back in the FCOM thread you will see that some (probably I'm the loudest about it) find the install instructions lacking and needlessly complicated. Team FCOM does not want to create BAIN ready packages as well. If you are new to Oblivion - I recommend using only one overhaul for a while. Maybe one overhaul plus MMM. That will be a lot. Each of the FCOM components by themselves are a lot - they really are.

Someone tried to make an MSGO for Oblivion and received little to no support from modders and it fell flat with many permissions withheld. Then Kingpix himself tried to appeal to many if he could do it and again the answer was no. So don't expect anything like MSGO for Oblivion any time soon. All these threads are still there to be searched out if you want to read up on the responses.

Perhaps after everyone has migrated to Skyrim and mods go final and are left at final that folks will agree. Until then the more you learn about BAIN the easier installing any mod becomes.

On that note, the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35230 is perhaps the best place for people to start, with BAIN, and with Wrye Bash in general.

Install what exactly?
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough in post #11.
Apart from optional files for RealSwords, FCOM itself doesn't own any resource files of it's own and is completley dependant on other mods.
Not the other way around.

The mod is not and never will be available in any form of compilation.

Well, FCOM requires a lot of mods to be downloaded and installed, placed in a certain order, have parts deactivated, etc. The more steps it takes to install FCOM (as in, everything that needs to be done Prior to the install of the actual FCOM files) means more room for error from the user (me). I small utility that will take the FCOM-involved mods and install everything would avoid the majority of errors.

I am no longer considering FCOM a compilation, but the fact that you have to compile several mods to get FCOM to work properly is why I refer to it as a compilation, because the process requires me to install everything before I'm allowed to install FCOM.

FCOM is a series of compatibility patches - there is nothing to it by itself.

You will not see this in the FCOM thread, but http://tescosi.com/wiki/Oblivion/Mod_Installation has an http://tescosi.com/wiki/Oblivion:FCOM_Installation_Guide.

But updates do come along I don't think it covers the new Frans BAIN ready package.

Personally and again I mean personally, The only way I think the process of installing FCOM with all its necessary dependencies could be made easier. It would involve a program that strips out the extra .esp and .bsa that aren't needed. That way the users aren't nearly as overwhelmed by the options. They still have to learn how to use the necessary tools and and follow the correct procedures. They would install the core dependencies, run the program and then go from there. Speaking honestly I was very overwhelmed and it did take me a good while, but it was worth it. So don't be discouraged!

Now that I think about it boss already highlights what shouldn't belong, maybe that could be taken a step further. Just a rambling thought.

So I've got the whole thing installed, and it doesn't like to load (freezes as it starts to move the loading bar). I've figured out it was caused by the Bashed Patch. I looked at it, and it showed the esms out of order. I figured out that I could reorganize them in the little master's list on the right, and when I did that, the game worked ok. Any clue why the masters are jumbled up? I have everything in the order BOSS wants it, so it seems strange that the mod is wants it differently. I guess it's not a big deal, since I found my way around it, just curious to why I had to do that in the first place... :shrug:

But I got everything working

EDIT: close. The character creation people are just shadows, no textures. But they seem to be okay after I get through that and check my guy out in 3rd person....

That is curious - did you actually run BOSS or only refer to the masterlist.

Which masters don't match?

Just shadows? No that is not right.

Yeah, I ran boss after all the FCOM stuff, after my landscape/building texture mods, and after my people texture mods. All the masters were there, it just wasn't happy that they were in a different order than it expected. It was all the FCOM esms, and the Cobl esm.

Also, thanks to Bain for making this so easy, but I just uninstall all my texture mods and disabled every esp/esm except for Oblivion.esm and my character creation people are still just shadowy figures... so I messed something up along the way...

http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo351/Spiffyman777/2011-11-19_00001.jpg

Are you using OBGE? Looks like it.

If so remove that OBSE plugin.

I avoid lots of mods at character creation (except required like overhauls) as there are a lot of scripted events and not all game mechanics are in play yet.

Otherwise http://tescosi.com/wiki/Oblivion:How_to_Post_Your_Load_Order Preferably with bash.

Although the thread has moved on, please allow me to say something about the issues of compilations for Oblivion. Thing is, very early mod development for Oblivion and Morrowind did take entirely different routes. I'm not going to say one is better than the other. However Oblivion's made it a lot more unlikely to have anythink like compilations.


First: The rule of one. You didn't have that in Morrowind. True, there were a lot of strange conflicts and everything, however what people forget (as seen here) was that for the first six to nine months mods were entirely insular and screwing themselves over. Even using something like a scaling overhaul and a face enhancer together was impossible without sacrificing large parts of one mod. For using a multitude of mods in Oblivion we needed external tools, Wrye Bash is pretty much required to run more than a handful of basic mods. In Morrowind, back in its first years, I could run nearly a hundred mods until the need for Wrye Mash or leveled list mergers arose. In Oblivion running more than five mods likely causes one of them to be already destroying the functionality of another mod, even when they're about entirely different things. Such is the consequence of the rule of one.



Second: A whole lot of alternatives. Morrowind has a lot of "ands" and few "ors", which means we had a lot of mods that were about different things and could be used together. Oblivion has, especially concerning its core issues, a lot of mods about the same things, but doing them differently. Take scaling overhauls as an example: There are three different approaches, for different preferences. This was also in part caused by the rule of one - if you can only have a few selected mods running, you neither needed nor could keep other mods in mind. I confess, I missed the last years of Morrowind's mod development, however back when I left it was somewhat possible to reach a consensus about what the best mods were. In Oblivion you've got conflicting choices to make, which completely depends on taste. A lot harder to make reach a consensus intended for everyone then. (I've tried to outline that in my base mod list, which seems to be purged. Oh well, lucky that I backed it up http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=4zbasemodlistev.)


Third: More people involved. Take a look at the contribution list of most bigger mods, there are often dozens, if not more people mentioned. Not being a texturer or modeller myself I've merely heard that it takes a lot more time than it took for Morrowind. While a lot of bigger mods were still made by one or a few people (e.g. OOO), the resources they used were done by many more people. I've made a compilation of three of my own mods, and the result had a resource contribution list that was nearly five pages long. Modder rights should be respected, so that's a huge problem. A few months ago someone asked me if my mods could be used in a compilation, and my response was "you can use my stuff, but to use anything from other people, you need to ask them, too. And unfortunately I doubt you'll do that.", and just to prove my point the response was "oh, but I don't want to ask thirty different people! They surely won't care!"

http://wryemusings.com/Cathedral%20vs.%20Parlor.html. However the sheer volume of people involved in some important mod projects makes it impossible to grant complete permissions to use. While I can allow my stuff to be used in other mods, I can neither grant nor deny permission for many parts contributed by others. If you create a mod, then that's no problem, because you can specifically use those parts for which permissions can be given. If you do a compilation, then that is no option. The last compilation effort I've seen would have required thousands of permission requests. Needless to say, this wasn't even attempted.

In summary, while unfortunate, we have an entirely different situation with Oblivion. We need external tools, we have a lot more choices to make, and there are a lot more people involved. Not the best conditions for compilations.

Seems like a lot of discussion is about FCOM while this is indicative of the whole if it was only FCOM it wouldnt be an issue. There are literally thousands of mods which enhance the game in cumulative way (e.g. do not duplicate each other). But there are few people seen them


The point of getting into oblivion at this point (after skyrim release) would be for radically new and fresh experience compared to vanilla, not just a tweak here and there. The graphically and immersiveness on an entirely new level. With new content absent from vanilla (quests,areas, dungeons), with better in game systems (combat , economy ,magic ,etc). Anything else now is really not that worth even bothering. Because at this point every1 played vanilla to death

to this goal there needs to be a lot of things applied:

1) Texture packs and LODS ( dozens of things)
2) Unique landscapes mods (dozens of them , incompatible with tons of things)
3) Open cities and cities overhauls
4) Overhaul (fran,ooo or warcry)
5) new areas, quests and dungeons (the real meat and potatoes behind much of new experience) - there are almost hundred of those
6) Weather mod, immersive interiors
7) combat overhaul (deadly reflex or other), magic overhaul
8) Tweaks (UI,hotkeys)
9) sound mods


The biggest problem is solving compatibility and crashes between 2) , 3) ,4) and especially 5), and 6). Just selecting and listing the particular mods in those 8 categories would several hundred names. Let alone actually making them work together without crashes or major bugs.



This "asking for permissions" thing is a problem which has solution. In open source community at large it solved by GPL/BSD style licenses, which allow free usage under specific restrictions (e.g mentioning creator's name , not for sold for profit ,etc) . Thats how "compilations" of open source software works (such as OS distros -centos, fedora ,etc) , they involve thousands of packages from hundreds of sources .Contacting every author is impossible ,

The biggest problem is far from compatibility.
Forget your open sources.
One word - permission.
And I can absolutely guarantee that from OOO, WarCry and Francesco's perspective that isn't going to be given.
I'll let others voice their own opinions about if they would allow their mods to be included with any type of bundle pack.

Any form of compilation talk has been played to death with many previous threads.
Use the search engine if you want further details.

My advice - let the subject rest.

It's not going to happen.

I swear you are so easy to disagree with sometimes.

On the one hand you state that FCOM is only a compilation of packages and that there is nothing about it dealing with the original overhauls. Yet this same team has always been in charge of MMM, has taken control of OOO, and has released updated versions of Warcry. So they could be made to have more uniform packaging. Not that I'm trying open the debate over BAIN and all that again. Just pointing out the inconsistency.

As for Frans you are here again making a statement of control over that overhaul - as if that is yours to make. Digging back http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/921906-francescos-leveled-creature-item-mod/page__view__findpost__p__16063564 and then further http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1097809-relz-fcom-convergence-and-ufcom-relz/page__view__findpost__p__16063656 (in the FCOM thread no less) we see Francesco clearly stating:
So again this could imply that even a compilation would be acceptable.

I'm not posting this to say it should be in a compilation - just that your statements are not so blanket as you make it out to be.

I'm not getting into this with you again Psymon.

Honestly. :facepalm: :banghead:

Ask SomeWelshGuy who now has taken over Francesco's opinion of any mod under his development or control his views on compilations.

SWG has control over his repackaging and remastering of Frans.

It is not implied that he has control over the original Frans nor is it implied that you do either. What was implied was that FCOM could offer an FCOM variant that would include only the parts needed. But that was not done.

Yeah your emoticons do not fit my experience of your posts, but I do find your characterization of all my arguments as juvenile and wholly inappropriate to be amusing.

You sir, are the most confrontational individual that I've ever encountered.
As I spent 23 years of my life as a cop you may take that any way that you want.

Thanks - as you may have guessed I will do just that. I'm the most aggressive person you have met as a police officer :thumbsup: Must have been an easy ride.

Well I'm a shrink by trade - we don't pathologize as much as law enforcement does. What you call confrontation I might refer to as advocating or asserting. Yes I can be assertive, but I tend to not speak for others or lay claim to what is not mine.

Everyone has their agenda - I get that, but really what I see you doing above is laying claim to the rights of Frans when the author has stated that one could use it how they wished. Your agenda is to prevent compilations - I get that - I'm not a fan of them either. But I'm not aware that just because SWG did a repackage/edit of Frans that he nor team FCOM had the rights to the original mod and therefore cannot claim that it can't be used. Sorry.

[edit] since Francesco was recently spotted on the Skyrim forums - we could ask him to clarify his statements.

[edit] I just PM'd Francesco for clarification. Not holding my breath, but I did emphasize that compilations are an issue with above consents.

Soooo. I've taken the previous errors as a chance to reinstall steam in a new directory and un+reinstall Oblivion to start fresh. I'll hold off on installing OBGE to see if that was indeed the big issue. I'm also installing EVERYTHING through BAIN if I can manage it (I had some omods before). It's probably safer to use only one tool to install everything, unless something is only available as an omod.

Mods are like Linux; you'll never really understand them until you've broken them enough times and learned things the hard way

You can extract OMODs with OBMM (or rename the omod to 7zip or something) then repackage as BAIN.

However somethings are better with OBMM. I use OBMM for Enhanced Economy, Realistic Leveling and Fatigue.

Also BAIN cannot handle shader editing at all. So those too. OBGE is not shader editing, do BAIN is OK with that.

You assume that we mod for such parasites.

I do not, and would wager that most modders don't either. Modding is an enormous investiture of time. Every minute that goes into installing mods is the result of days of modding work. If you think I feel bad about the poor, ungrateful morons who can't be bothered to spend an hour reading readmes/guides, you've got another thing coming.


People are using them. People who are intelligent and have a little bit of patience and willingness to learn and understand how the system they are modifying works. It's really (really) not that hard. Those who can't be bothered to do even that much... are not people I'm interested in devoted as many hours of my life as I have to modding.


Morrowind had the rule of one, bg. I don't know what you're talking about. Morrowind just had a different crowd modding for it. There were few (if any) overhauls, but many more quest mods. Quest mods do not typically conflict with one another.


This is a result of the deficiencies with the base game that Oblivion did not have.


Yeah, this is very true.


I'm dubious about your claim that "many" modders take the cathedralist viewpoint. Otherwise, agreed.

I really don't get why so many modders have to take this extremely elitist view where everyone has to suffer through lots and lots of hours to get their mod working correctly so that they deserve to play it. Do you just write mods so that we shall bow before you and respect you, or do you make mods so that people can play them and have a good time? I have tremendous respect for the modders out there that have put so much time into making Oblivion one of the best games ever, but some of the posts I read here every time some of these threads comes up just makes me sad.

I'm a programmer by trade, and I'm glad the community there isn't stuck in the same ditch as here, or things would never get anywhere. And I don't think anyone here can claim they've used more time on Oblivion mods than the thousands upon thousands of great open source projects out there.

Not to rehash the past, but everybody has a different mod setup, which means several of the FCOM mods (OOO in particular) would have be tailored to fit the rest of their mod lineup. And even if we all ran exactly the same selection of additional mods, those four have enough variations to require all sorts of fine-tuning among them. It wouldn't result in one ESP, but dozens.

And then the teams working on one of the four would come out with a new version, and those several dozen merged ESPs would have to be re-released.

One of the great things about ES modding is that the userbase is so diverse. No two people want the same result. The time spent trying to create something like that could be better spent developing new mods, in my opinion.



Could you be a bit more specific? I've been hanging around the mod forums for both Oblivion and Morrowind since there was a Morrowind, and I don't recall any mods that deliberately set out to make things difficult for users. If anything, most mods are remarkably easy to set up, and the ones that aren't can usually be found in automated versions that include user choices, and make installation as painless as possible. Just my take, mind you, but still.

Can anyone explain the BCF files? I tried it for OOO, but all I got was a 1kb file that was white (which had nothing in it). It also didn't look like it changed the original ooo archive at all. Installing the archive didn't give the options that the omod before did, so I'm not sure what the bcf did. I think I'll stick with OOO being an omod and (hopefully) everything else being a bain install.

http://tescosi.com/wiki/Oblivion:OOO_Installation_Guide is a very good guide to installing OOO, including (see links at the bottom of the page) instructions for BAIN conversion. It is not a complicated procedure, in this case. There are worse out there! But even then, after going through the Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide, one should have no issues at any stage.

Before long, BAIN actually becomes by far the easier option, to use for Oblivion mod installation, configuration and uninstallation.