the only time a mod would need a dirty reference is if it needs to purposely preserve the vanilla value from other mods changing it earlier in the loading order. otherwise, it just undoes another mod's changes to no benefit, and possibly break it if involving scripting.

a lot of people never did understood what TESTool actually did (or decipher it's reporting), and ghostwheel never really explained it fully either. TESTool is great, but it requires a modder to experiment to learn exactly what was affected. a combination of both of these is why TESTool had a bad rep -- modders using it didn't know what the report was telling them, and the end users of mods were using options that could cause issues (like 'JUST FIX IT!').

the most common dirt that TESTool corrects is removing object data from modders that keep hitting 'save' on references when tweaking stats like scale, ownership, etc, instead of just 'x'ing out. this is prevalent in a lot of mods, including GDR. using TESTool, many modders took the entries from the report of deleting those objects as deleting references in the world that they placed.

could TESTool break a mod? in rare circumstances i suppose. all of the mods listed "do not clean" i did clean with no ill effect. afterall, none of those mods ever explained why those dirt entries were essential. nor did those modders ever experiment with TESTool to figure out what was happening.

Still an interesting read about this: http://www.yacoby.net/es/forum/12/969031115780640.html#28
The only one that comes to my mind is that TESTool removes an intended GMST from Vampire Embrace. Other than that, a bunch of myths and mixing up things with the broken "merge dialog" function, methinks.

i always wondered, since i don't use vampire embrace, what the mod's GMST value was compared to each of the master files'. i know that tribunal and bloodmoon are filthy themselves -- just convert them to esp's and run them through TESTool. pretty hilarious that the devs were making the same mistakes. conflicting values between the master files is one reason for some anomalies.

Went through the edited esp, fog density looks good on everything mentioned except Dagoth Ur, Hall of Passage (that one was set to 0.00, the others to 0.01).

I just looked through the CS and realized that I have no idea how to edit the fog levels in a given cell.

World->Interior Cell...
then select the cell and change the fog parameters

This is a mod i never played or investigated. Checked the mentioned GMST:

sCompanionShare

VE Value: Companion Share
Morrowind Value: Companion Share
Tribunal Value: Share
Bloodmoon Value: Companion Share

As VE depends on all three master files, shouldn't the mods value be identical to the information loaded by the master files, as BM overwrites the Trib. Value, and therefor not needed? At least, in theorie?

yes, in theory, removing it shouldn't cause any issues. it looks like it's there to preserve the original value so that any other mod that changes this GMST wouldn't affect their hack for companion share with thralls from what i gathered, as long as it's loaded later. since i don't use the mod, i guess i don't know the exact reason how the hack works.
but it does bring up an interesting issue with how bloodmoon heavyhandedly broke some of tribunals intended GMST values, and that the master files can conflict with each other.

I support that. TESTool is a great tool - if you know what you're doing. Cleaning (in restricted mode) is not a problem, and the Merge Objects function is invaluable. One should avoid merging dialogue and the Leveled List tool (there are better options nowadays). I've come across exactly one justified warning against TESTool - not to merge objects on PirateLord's Creatures, as it has, for some reasons, unintended consequences on the scripts. I've not yet understood why that is the case, and I'm fairly sure that you can get around the issue some way or other, but I've actually experienced the problem. In all other cases, the two mentioned options of TESTool don't cause any difficulties. On the contrary, there are mods (some of them even in lists of "don't use TESTool"), where the Merge Objects function is actually almost required to experience their effects - many balance mods, for instance.

I can think of only a couple occasions, such as an item to do with an original quest which you probably shouldnt mess with to begin with, where this could possibly be necissary, otherwise this is just asking for trouble; otherwsie if a modder is so afraid something might change, they should create a new object.(I think you mean later in the load order though) The interesting thing this brings to mind is that when Darknut left those dirty refs in, perhaps he did it because he was afraid people would mod things and change them, so he left them there to try and prevent that.

I found the following issue:

Begin DN_ADK2

;if ( MenuMode == 1 )
;return
;endif

;if ( state == 10 )
;Enable
;else
;Disable
;endif

;if ( HeartDestroyed == 1 )
;Disable
;endif

end DN_ADK2

Are you sure that you wanted to change every line to a comment?

Yes. The script isn't actually being used by anything, so I commented it out.

Just posting on the "testool" subject....The only mod that I know should absolutely not be cleaned by TT is Solsthiem Castle, the manaquins in the castle will constantly make noises when the mod is cleaned due to having a gmst cleaned which breaks their script, I'm of the mold where I don't clean anything with testool, and rather self clean everything with enchanted editor.

No GMSTs i think, try cleaning with "Restricted dialog cleaning" as suggested or (better) put something ( a dot for instance ) instead of the EMPTY info in the Hit voices for mannequins, so you can clean the mod with restricted dialog cleaning off without TESTool nuking the empty dialog info entry

as one of the alpha/beta testers

AND BEING QUITE TROUGH IN MY TETSING

i take a lot of offense to this post. how about you make a mod that literally redefines dungeon crawling to a VERY respectable extent and have people piss all over your work because of A FEW BROKEN SCRIPTS.

so unappreciative. also just so you know i went through the entire mod on multiple occasions and never once had a problem...besides getting stuck because of the quality of dungeon crawling and the ingenuity of the traps/puzzles. serious, this got me heated bro.

I suppose I should probably update my list. I think I was planning on updating this at the same time as I took out the MPP update, which sort of ended up not happening.

But not tonight. I am le tired.

BTB:

If I install your fixed version after having already entered Odrossal, Vemynal and Dagoth Ur before (but obviously being out of the cell when I add your updated version and remove my old one) will it mess up my existing game? I'm curious because Darknut always said that you should start a new game before playing GDR....

Only if you use vista, even if you do I doubt youll have a problem, since it is mostly the same, the only edits btb's done is to make the scripts work properly, he hasn't actually edited the cells or anything.

What does Vista have to do with any of it?

Check the read-me, I dont know why.

BTB, did you end up changing the fog density in those 3 cells in your edited file?