Hi all,

About the ever cited cleaning of mods, there are already a list of mods for FO3 that can be safe cleaned? Or else, can someone pinpoint the obvious ones? Something like http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/TES4Edit_Cleaning_Guide is what we need but aimed to FO3.
Or else and simpler... just a list of mods that are known to be problematic if cleaned.

Now why I ask it? because for Oblivion there are mods that look like dirt edits, but they need to be that way, and a cleaning could break it - and my guess is that the same must apply for some mods of FO3.

And of course I know that overhaus still in development (like FWE) are exceptions, their modders they should know about their work and be asked/warned directly. But overhaus not supported anymore can be pointed/cleaned also, right?

And as a second question: there are someway to see if a dirt is needed (barred directly asking)?

Sorry if it was somewhat confusing.

Well, as the Oblivion guide points out, modders should be doing the cleaning not end users (though granted, that's a perfect world). Importantly, they often able to determine if changes from cleaning are correct.

You don't want to clean MMM. Records in the .esp that would show up as 'identical' to the .esm from cleaning are intentional and designed to be there.

What Mart says.
You don't want to clean FWE's files either, because what might seem like a "dirty" record are left there intentionally to prevent other mods from overwriting something necessary.

Overall the more well known mods for Fallout3 are in pretty good condition and definitly shouldnt be "cleaned" by a player .The process of "cleaning" mods is rather...finnicky and you run danger of doing more harm than good if you aren't halfways versed in modding yourself.

Tnx Martigen and Kai, just as I said earlier, overhauls up to date are better to leave them to the creators

But my question are because some dirts of Oblivion could break other mods located early in load order... and was wandering if the same occur in FO3 (and as a mod addicted, fixing some was the difference of a playable or bugged game in OB).

So... the small/medium popular ones KNOWN to be problematic are what I'm after... but if none are in that category, it's ok to me.

I agree with Martigin and Kai that overhaul cleaning is best left to the mod makers and that makes sense. That said I was warned of this in Oblivion and that there was no need to check but after doing so I indeed found edits that needed to be removed in the esm of Frans, MMM, and OOO and reported those to FCOM team. So, just be polite in reporting and it may be a big help. That said those edits were no more than a handful. With FWE I found like 12 identical to master records and I'd bet a few can be removed, but I'm not going to remove them as they don't seem that essential in my load order. They don't seem to touch things that may be sensitive to other mods. And certainly there are no deletions which are the bigger concern. No deletions in MMM either.

This can be a touchy subject and there are a few modders who have become well known for being offended that anyone would call their mods dirty. Important to remember that these edits can occur from just fiddling about in the CS/Geck and other than forgetting to clean rarely are they there due to purposeful neglect. So creating a list haphazardly is sure to step on a few toes and then comes the part about upkeep of the list - what if a modder then cleans for the next release?

So like I pointed out in the other thread - just like with Oblivion the types of mods that need it most are mods that alter the worldspace or cells. Mods that alter game settings and the like rarely have as much need for cleaning. They may though - if a mod is supposed to only address melee damage but also adjusts vats - that could be an issue. You have to be discriminating and think about mod design. So that means that house mods are high on the list, followed by quest mods, and mods that alter landscape.

The filter on FO3edit can be very informative and will help you catch conflicts if run correctly and examined thoroughly.

So like Oblivion there are a few pointers:
Clean top down (esm first down to esp high to low last).
Yes you can clean official DLC.
Do NOT clean esp that have other esp as masters.
Do NOT assume that every edit found is bad - check them out and save the backups for a time. If they are all rocks and plants then most likely you are good (the most common anyway)
If you are uncertain of whether to clean in relation to another esm (if FO3ditl oads another esm) then set the other one to hidden and it will then only clean in relation to the main F3 esm.

I cleaned all but the big 4 (FWE/MMM/WMK/EVE) with the auto-cleaner and what I can say is that it made mods that I had trouble running together more solid and stable. I mean no offense to anyone by posting that mods need to be cleaned but what I've taken away from Oblivion is that many mod makers mod their games with purely vanilla+their mods and so often can miss what effect the edits their mod has on other mods.

My load order is my responsibility and as such checking for conflicts is also mine. As is the result of altering a mod.

It would be a great help if it became conventional for mod-makers to state that a mod is clean, the same way it's conventional to give installation instructions or compatibility advice. That way it would become more widely appreciated by everyone, modders and users, that cleanliness is an issue that should be addressed. Maybe LHammonds would include that in his Readme Generator...

The FO3Edit tutorial (link in my sig) will show you the process of cleaning your own mod, it's really not difficult once you've run the process once or twice.

I agree on the cleanliness flag, but worry that people would check the box just because others like to see it.

Cheers,

Krsi

That might happen occasionally, but in the long run modders would get a pretty bad reputation if they did that: There's always someone who would discover it was faked. Ultimately awareness of the issue would result in more mods being clean, I reckon.

I tend to rely on comments at FO3Nexus. Granted, there are some absolute idiots out there, but it's generally easy enough to tell whether the issue was the fault of the user or the mod maker. Sometimes it's a bit of both. There generally doesn't end up being any astro-turfing going on at FO3Nexus either, as there's no profit in it (nobody is selling mods for money). So I read the most recent few pages of comments to get a feel for what the mod changes, what possible conflicts might arise, and how clean or well-written the mod is.

I do the same. I just think that it would be a way to raise awareness for everyone; mostly modders, really. I presume that for lots of people making mods, cleanliness is something they are unaware of. On top of that, because it's a tricky thing for users to get into, and therefore they don't, the issue rarely comes up when discussing problems with a mod. You rarely see discussions of mods where people ask 'is this mod clean?'; in fact, I've never seen that. If it were more conventional for readmes to state that the mod had been cleaned/checked in FO3Edit, it should eventually make it a process that modders automatically think of before releasing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting here thinking 'Jeez, modders are really irresponsible' or anything like that.

I was thinking of PyFFi optimisation as an example of something that is a bit daunting and very time consuming for mod-users, and seems to have been taken on quite willingly by modders, especially bigger/more poplular mods for Oblivion. It is now often flagged in the readmes, and that cuts out a lot of discussion and hand-wringing for everyone.

I agree some would lie or misinterpret what clean means.

The problem with commenting on Nexus that a mod needs to be cleaned is that the author can request the comment removed and petition the commenter banned.

I've seen it happen.

Really though Miaximus is right - it only takes a few minutes to even see if a mod needs to be cleaned and I run that even on modders mods that I know clean their mods. It is just good practice and goes with the motto that my load order is my responsibility.

Further since I repackage just about all mods for BAIN installing it is just part of the process.

Well, as with everything, there's a right way to leave a comment that gets the point across politely. And a wrong way... there's also a private message feature that can be used now to send feedback. If it's a really really dirty mod, I'd probably downrate it - and depending on whether the author seems intelligent and balanced in their replies to comments, would probably send a PM why it got downrated. Authors that don't handle criticism well, get downrated and don't get told why.

(The Nexus sites live/die based on user participation, it's not in their interests to be overly strict on banning people. So I'm generally not worried at all about that aspect.)

I think it will be an incredibly hard (daresay impossible) sell to the Nexus leaders to add such a voting feature. They have a Hell of a time with their rating systems in that they take a ton of crap no matter What system they choose for ratings. This was a big reason why they greatly simplified it in the last major overhaul to just Endorsing or not - with only comments available as places for specific criticisms.

That said, it will be nearly impossible to get the entire community to standardize on a method of mod cleaning, even with the amount of effort that Elminster puts into Fo3edit and a comprehensive manual - the Majority of mod authors aren't taking the time. The only real defense against dirty mods is for other folks like us to report problems to the authors of the good mods. If the mod is worthwhile and cool, enough people can convince a mod author to go through the cleaning process (or accept the outcome of another doing it on their behalf). Getting the mod author to fix their problems is the Best solution in the long run, and fortunatetly the really big mods like MMM, FOOK, FWE and the like are very rigorous about good mod cleaning practices. They set the example for all of us to follow, and Elminster provides the tool that allows us to clean mods right. The rest is really up to us to police. If a mod is worth it and belongs in everyone's mod list, I'm confident we can get them to clean en up.

For the rest or the modders who wont clean, I agree with Psymon - our mod lists are our responsibility, and if we want to clean our own local copies of a mod (if its dirty) and better yet make our own patch plug-ins, then that's what we need to do if we demand a mod be in our load order. I don't advocate cleaning other people's mods unless its Really necessary, but if you have a crash situation and need to do it - my recommendation is to make a good patch plug-in that weeds-out the bad and leaves you with the least conflicted mod list that we can reasonably achieve, and use MasterUpdate mode in Fo3Edit for final spit and polish.

Miax

This is the point that is always remade when this subject comes up. I'm not sure if it was clear, but I wasn't suggesting anything that the Nexus sites should do. I was suggesting that any mod-makers who are aware of the issue and who ensure that their mods are clean, or don't need cleaning for other reasons; that they could state clearly in their readmes that the mod did not need user-cleaning. That would have the immediate effect of answering any question on the part of the users, but would hopefully have the longer term effect of it becoming standard to make that statement and, by extension, to ensure mods are clean. It would follow that, if it were conventional to state that a mod is clean, mod-users would question the lack of such a statement: Cleaner mods all 'round; fewer discussion topics needed;- everyone's a winner!