By replacing the mesh, I did not mean an actual mesh replacer. If the PLUGIN replaces the window meshes at all, it conflicts with AWLS. Windows are placed in the world through plugins. You can change the mesh file as much as you want without. That does not affect what a plugin does. If that window mod changes the original window meshes (in the worldspace) in some way, then those two mods conflict.

As for the leveling mod, it seems that you want what is referred to as a "smooth leveling" mod. For that, there are many options. My preference in nGCD, but Realistic Leveling is another good smooth leveling mods. There are others, but those are the two most popular current smooth leveling mods. You can search for them both easily enough on TESNexus. Read the descriptions. Realistic Leveling is less configurable, but it might be more to your tastes. Another mod to consider is Oblivion XP. It introduces the classic RPG experience points. I am not sure that it is still being worked on, as there are few bugs plaguing many users, but they all seem to feel that the modification is worth it.

Ok so I'll drop window entrances because of the mesh issue. I've looked at those smooth levelling mods and I'm dropping the 'KseAli' mod. I'm going to go with Realistic Levelling.

I'm thinking that I'll use OBMM to install the mods and just use BOSS & Wrye Bash for LO (and of course the bashed patch). Will this be OK? (I'm reading through tesivpositive preping for mods section at the mo, so I apologise if I'm asking questions that are ansewered in there!)

Cheers

You are fine. Those are good choices. That is certainly the easiest but most flexible route for new users. These questions are not specific to the site, so you are fine on that point to. If you do have feedback, criticisms or suggestions for the site, please post in the site's thread.

But I would really recommend FCOM, since its all better, than the "little" overhaul.

Would you mind giving me a small summary of what I'll be missing. OOO+MMM plus my other mods seems quite the overhaul to me but I digress I'm a lowly noob. So all other advice will be warmly received!

Thanks

Please, please stick to MMM+OOO for now. FCOM is not a friendly installation for newer users. Some try it and succeed, but I really think that that is not necessary at this point in a mod users life. As for MMM+OOO:

MMMforOOO Installation Guide - http://sites.google.com/site/oblivionpoinfo/walkthroughs/mmmooo <-- If you have questions, ask and do not assume. Messing up overhaul installations is not fun. I recommend sticking to the OBMM track. As much as I love BAIN, it is not friendly for new users to figure out on their own, and I feel that my site's guide needs to be developed much as it relates to introducing BAIN to new users, even savvy mod users new to BAIN. If you do decide to try out BAIN, please reference the gamesas thread linked at the bottom of this page, wherein I helped another newer mod user with the BAIN installation of MMMforOOO.

OK will do. I really don't more complexity at this point!

I'm now following the tesivpositive preparing for mods section and (surprise, surprise) I'm stumped! lol

# Go to Utilities>Archive invalidation
# Select "BSA Redirection

I'm sure I read that I should have it set to BSA alteration and select 'generate archiveinvalidation entries on hash collision'. I think this had something to do with replacement textures?

Also how much of the configuring bash section I should go through? As I've noticed the version I DL'd take some of these steps for you (eg creation of 'oblivion mods' folder in the bethesda softworks folder and the short cut for wrye bash already plonked itself on my desktop and the bashed patch.esp is already in my data folder). It would be great if you could explain this to me please. Also do I really need BOMM? Its just I don't have MS word on this rig (I have works on disk if I really do need it).

@ marshmallow thanks for the info but I'm just taking my baby steps in modblivion! So I'm following the 'kiss' principle as much as I can!

Please, follow the directions on that site. Those directions for BSA alteration are old. You only need BSA redirection. If you want to know why: http://sites.google.com/site/oblivionpoinfo/intro/archiveinvalidation.

If you do not have word, you cannot use BOMM. Forget about it. You installed the installer version of Bash. I mentioned that in those directions, I thought. If you did not install Wrye Python 02 before, you should just follow all of the instructions there. Grab the updated version of Wrye Bash and the Wrye Python 02 package and follow those instructions. If you do not want to move the Oblivion Mods folder, you can skip the INI configuration part. Do not rename the INI file for Bash, and do not change anything in it.

About leveling. I've been playing Oblivion since it came out and after a while I lost the desire to visit all the dungeones and ruins. What was the point of getting loot and making money if you could really do nothing with it. So I switched to Wrye Leveling.

With Wrye Leveling your skills and attributes do not advance with use. You need to pay gold to gain a level (at which time you choose where to add skill points and attribute points). The amount of gold to advance, the skill points and attrinute points is all configurable.

Gives you a reason to go to those dungeons to get items to sell. I set mine to the extreme, costs 500 gold per level to level up. First few levels are easy but going from level 1 to level 10 costs a total of 27K. Gets more extreme from there. Provides motivation to me. Lets me level WHEN I WANT.

XP Leveling is very good also as it goes on experience points gained by adveturing and killing. Very good.

Realistic leveling works if you just want to forget about managing leveling. Easy.

Since someone had to elaborate, I will put in my two cents for nGCD and add that it is the most configurable leveling mod. KCAS (its predecessor in spirit) is second in that category. Realistic Leveling, Oblivion XP, and nGCD are all excellent leveling mods, but one disadvantage of Oblivion XP (and other leveling mods in its position) is lack of current support (and a number of known bugs.) Also, because of its unique experience points system, it is not compatible with skill rate progression mods (understandably) and it requires patches to work with certain mods. That's part of the price of being so special (and left to hand somewhat...)

Wow 27k to get to level ten! erm (innocently whistles) ~player.additem 0000000c nah just kidding!

You see I want my character to be hard core (after a LOT of playing) but in vanilla I focus so much on maxing my character that I don't get immersed in the story(s).

That is why you get a smooth leveling mod. No level up menus, no worrying about maxing out certain skills early, etc. Maxing out your character with RL or nGCD will take plenty of time, no worries.


Edit: I guess you read the RL description, and note that the author mentioned that maxing out entirely is nearly impossible. It won't matter once you are playing either...

Same problem I had. With Wrye Leveling I have the level attributes set to 15 per level and skills points at 10 per level. This way I get the +5 attributes everyone aims for per level, and the skill points I would normaly get when gaining a level. But I control how to ditribute and when to level. You can play the whole game at level 1, but why would you

You can also set the costs lower and level from 1 to 30 in no time (to get at the good stuff). You can lso control how many training sessions and how many days to wait before leveling. That is hardcoe for me, set as hard or as easy as I want. I do so enjoy killing enemies with a few arrows at low levels than 50 arrows at level 20.

All personal preference

cool. with the above in mind I think I'm gonna look for a disable console & disable fast travel mod (its funny how I will do things because I can, even though I would have a better exp if I resisted temptation!)

I had the MMM + OOO option installed prior too.
Now I am glad to have tried FCOM. The 'small' installation misses all features of Warcry and Francescos,
both do change gameplay indeed. Also Armamentarium and Artifacts are must have mods.

Of course, you could say a small installation is the source of less bugs, and more likely to run,
But I wouldnt recommend it, since there are the FCOM omod installers out there (look in the Forum)
Its 4 OMODs all in all, and I really had no trouble at all, if you use wyre bash & the bashed patch.
I think you really should try, and leave the baby steps to babies. The horror stories were before the
well done installers. Of course, wyre bash is essential, thats why use it now. (One click starts OBMM, BOSS, etc.)

Another mod you were missing, or I didnt notice, which is very important, the Oblivion Stutter Remover.
This one made Oblivion for me just playable, like the way it should have been from the start.

The timestamp issue isnt really bothering me, BSA Redirection and ArchiveInvalidation... gives me the creeps.
If your file timestamp is before the Archive, or not up-to.-date, it wont load. thats the point, no matter what
ArchiveInvalidation does. Remind, even BSA's do contain redundant stuff.

Did experience trouble like this twice, and others too ( there are a lot of threads), perhaps Im too dumb for the OBMM method,
but I wouldnt know of a way that Oblivion tries to take the proper files, if its not the timestamp.
thats why I always update it on Tex, Sound, Mesh & Music after something went in. Just to be on the sure side.

PS: Another very important mod, not bloating your installation unnecessarily is Ambient Dungeon 1.3.

PS2:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/995334-mmm-and-fcom-omod-installers
You should use the latter anyway, why not use em both, since its not more complicated than installing only MMM

PS3:
I have to add, in general I am not the kind of player bloating his Oblivion installation in order to immediately run around
and kill everything but me, and say its the most fun part!
I do like the sophisticated touch, the more complex gameplay always giving you the choice.
Deadly Reflex & Co are great mods (hopefully the will improve further) and give a lot to combat action,
but its not all and everything. what I do like about FCOM is how they add unique stuff, like better enemies and npcs to oblivion.
just fyi.

FCOM: Fran does not change gameplay much, not in FCOM. FCOM is largely a blowing up (a major, explosive one) of OOO with more weapons from Fran, enemies from WarCry, more weapons from Bob's, and more creatures (and a number of other things) from MMM. Some people do not want WarCry's enemies, and the weapon additions are weapon additions. They can be added to your game through their separate mods (maybe excepting RealSwords) but the advantage is that they are nicely merged into leveled lists.

Once, wastedUK has comfortably setup his? first (rather complex) modified setup and tried it out, then he may want to try FCOM. A first-time mod user and a first-time FCOM user are, ideally, not at the same experience level. It can be and extremely frustrating process for the user and the helpers when the user lacks basic knowledge about installing mods. A little comfort with either OBMM, Wrye Bash or both, goes a long way when trying to take on the FCOM installation. There is not an equivalent installation process. It's actually kind of interesting to think about all of the mod usage knowledge the FCOM installation covers. It really requires the user to pay attention. There needs to be a big warning in bold lettering that says: "FOLLOW FCOM-SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS only WHEN TRYING TO INSTALL FCOM; otherwise, you will be confused by seemingly contradictory information."

#0 Prep: First (assuming you are on your way to installing FCOM without incident) you have to visit its main docs: the FCOM homepage and the latest thread. The latter is the only way to find out about the current updates. For the rest of the updated information, you have to visit MMM's thread as well. After getting updated, you need to go to the FCOM homepage and start reading the installation instructions. A first-time (FCOM) user, hopefully, reads the First-Time User Install Guide as well. Okay, so you've started. What new user knows how to do this, not to mention, efficiently? This already spawns the first post: "Where do I start?" (It does not matter that Shikishima took the time to explain this as explicitly as possible in the first post.) The first task, on the helpers' part, is to send the user to the FCOM thread after their first post in the Mods forum asking about it.

#1 Downloading: you have to download Fran (from PES), MMM and the latest updates (most easily from the links on the MMM thread opening post), OOO (1.33 and 1.34b5, most easily from PES) and then you have to follow the links on the FCOM homepage and/or the first post of the main thread for current links to the optional (but some strongly recommended) "other mods" (i.e., WarCry, Bobs, UOP, USIP, etc.) This requires following links on various types of pages, sites, whatever, paying attention to which version you download, downloading three different types of mod packaging (.exe, .omod and regular archives) and not being thrown off by page names (i.e., getting MOBS version of patches from the Fran page.) Oh, and I will not even go into the MOBS vs. OMOBS confusion, which largely results when users actually try to think about what they are doing, while assimilating information from various sources, current and dated. I think the number of pages and sites you have to visit to complete this task speaks for itself? This covers user in trouble questions from two to ten.

#2 Utilities: Let's see... You have to know how to use OBMM, well. Archive invalidation has to be set, and order matters. Wrye Bash is required, I, for one, do not think setting up this utility is hard at all, but this is another case of an outdated main source. I can give you five steps to get Wrye Bash setup correctly, but the user wandering off on their own will not see that, anywhere. Even more than Wrye Bash, the bashed patch requires its own books worth of instructions. I am so glad CorePC add that bash tag quick reference list to the first post. However, a new user would not even know what that was for. Next user questions: "How do I make OMODs?" (sometimes preceded by "How do I install OBMM?") AND, unfortunately, I am now sorely reminded that this part is where the (I am on Vista or Win7) nothing is launching or working or acting properly, "Why is this not working?" series of questions comes up. After that come (or should've come) the ten plus Wrye Bash related questions. If they do not ask, we ask them to post their load order after they post about issues, and see that their load order has not virtually-active plugins or something is misinstalled or the BSAs are not renamed (after another question or two).

#3 Installing and LO: FCOM users absolutely must pay attention to the importance of installation order, load order, archive invalidation, and compatibility issues. There are many long-time users that still trip over these topics. I will not even go into detail about this part, as the FCOM homepage is at least seven pages long, my guide is about seven steps (seven pages), and that no where near covers all of the preparatory reading and questions a new user would need to manage this cleanly.

#4 Testing and Running: A new user lacks any and all background to troubleshoot any issues while running the game, no matter how basic (i.e., mod content not showing up in game, common application closing errors, missing masters, etc.) Every single one of these problems becomes a new question, and a new reason to (unjustly) flame FCOM.

Moving on... I do not understand your comment about Ambient Dungeons. Let's not throw DR in yet. It is not hard to install, but troubleshooting the overhaul setup should be done before adding additional mods. Plus, we all know adding DR incompletely or in the wrong place in your load order is almost guaranteed to to cause some sort of...just forget about that for now. I don't want to rant more. DR is cool, but that's something to try later (if you like gore...)

"What I do like about FCOM is how they add unique stuff, like better enemies and npcs to oblivion." <-- This describes MMMforOOO and most other overhauls that come to mind... Yes, FCOM is the biggest of those overhauls that come to mind, but MMMforOOO comes to mind next for me. If you do not like the other parts of FCOM, MMMforOOO is a huge change on it own.


All right, whew, done... Now, I need to catch up on all the new posts I missed in the troubleshooting threads...

Sorry to keep bugging you mate. But I'm just looking the S1: Download Required MMMforOOO Mods page and was wondering are these files necessary to my install? :
OMOBS 1_0, USIP MOBS & UOMPS 1-5 MOBS

Many thanks for your support.

Yes. You need the "_FCOM" version of the USIP MOBS patch, however. Every file listed there is strongly recommended. Not installing those would break consistency with the stats.

Alright, I will keep quiet now. at least you are saving up something for next christmas.


PS:
Ambient Dungeons has a new release 1.3.1, only wth OBSE, and really you should get it!

thanks for your help and info mate! :goodjob: