Hello all. I have a quick basic question that I hope you can help with.

I did lots of research before finally resorting to the forum. After reinstalling Oblivion about 4-5 times because I screw things up I decided to seek help.

First off, I want to get back into modding. My problem is, when I install Oblivion all the files in the data folder:

Meshes
Misc
Sounds
Textures-Compressed
Voices 1
Voices 2

are in an unrecognizable .bsa (gamesas Archives) format. I remember that when I made mods before the folders were brows-able archives where you can scroll through and see every individual file. After downloading and installing Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) I realized the .bsa files are now opened through that. After extracting the files, though, there are many more files than I remember. After extracting the meshes alone I now go from 1 "meshes.bsa" folder to 2-3 file folders. Again, I don't remember having this mane files. And after extracting all the .bsa folder I have like 2 sound folders, a lot overlapping and a big mess. Basically my question is, how do I extract the .bsa files to an organized file browser mode where the game runs off them files and not the .bsas.

For the game to run off the decompressed folders do I have to delete the .bsa files after extracting?

I remember that when I installed mods I just copied and pasted the modded "meshes" folder the .../Data folder on Oblivion. Then I could go in and pick out and delete individual files. Other than the questions listed above I have a pretty solid understanding of what I'm doing.

If none of this ranting makes sense, let me know and I'll try to clear it up.

Thank you all for your help!!

~Guitar

Som

Something I forgot to add.

One time I decompressed all the .bsa files and moved a mod into the new meshes and textures folders and when I ran the game (after selecting the .esp from Data Files from the load screen) the mod wasn't there. So that tells me the game wasn't running off the decompressed files but instead the .bsa. So after deleting the .bsa files the problem persisted. Don't know if this helps but I thought I should add it. Thanks again.

Uh... choose one?

:P Just kiddin'.

Way to take everything out of context.

The game should be running through the Data subfolders first and then looking in the bsa files afterward. So anything that wasn't in the right place in the decompressed folders would still be found in the bsa, where you can't mess up the location. Usual glitches are folder structure ones, like Data inside Data, or meshes directly in the meshes folder and not the subfolder expected. When you pull a single file out of an archive with OBMM, it doesn't copy the folder structure, but when you do several at once it does. No idea why that inconsistency exists, but it does, and it makes it easy to get files in the wrong place.

That is only true if the dates of the loose files are newer than the bsa.

When extracting files from a bsa this is usually true, because the files gets the date/time of when they are extracted. But OBMM has a tendency to fiddle with the dates of files, so I would double check this.

That said, I think it is as you say, files placed in the wrong folders.

That's not the case with textures though, which is why you need to use some form of archive invalidation. You need to tell the game not to look into the BSA archive for a particular file but look elsewhere instead.

AHH I see.. What program would do that?

You can use OBMM for archive invalidation and extracting BSAs. What exactly are you trying to mod anyways?

I'm trying to continue a mod that I started a long time ago. That's not the only problem either. I'm also trying to install mods but I'm unable to because the mods are never .bsa format. Even if they are they can't be extracted to the other bsa folders until they're properly decompressed. Dropping them into the data folder only makes another sound.bsa or whatever. I have to extract them so they are browsable folders so I can add meshes and textures. But again, I can't figure out how to properly extract them.