Then yes, you don't have any of the other DLC.

I don't know anything about Wrye Bash or mod managers in general.


Yeah, that's what I figured. I purchased the wrong version. Oh well.

Then read this first: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/449239-oblivion-mods-faq/
Then, after that, here's the Bash thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1411667-relz-wrye-bash-thread-95/

Obviously. You've never used one. That doesn't mean you shouldn't learn.

If you are playing with only Knights of the Nine and the unofficial patches, simply:

Make certain that the unofficial patches are installed after Knights of the Nine.
Only check the boxes next to
- Oblivion.esm
- DLCShiveringIsles.esp
- Knights.esp
- Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp
- Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch.esp
- Knights - Unofficial Patch.esp

Optionally check
- UOPS Additional Changes.esp
- USIPS Additional Changes.esp

Edit: checking these will only load what you need, and allow the game to start up.

If you intend to add more mods, I highly recommend using Wrye Bash.
It may seem overwhelming at first, but using it as a load order manager is very easy. The other features can be learned as you go

@tbarmike

I have the following checked:

- DLCShiveringIsles.esp
- Knights - Unofficial Patch.esp
- Knights.esp
- Oblivion Citadel Door Fix.esp
- Oblivion.esm
- Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp
- Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch.esp
- UOP Vampire Aging and Face Fix.esp
- UOPS Additional Changes.esp
- USIPS Additional Changes.esp

I don't think I'll need more mods. Thank you.

How terrible of an idea is it to merge the dlc with it's patch? For example, taking DLCMehrunesRazor and DLC MehrunesRazor - Unofficial Patch and combining them. I know of nothing depending on the unofficial patches and if I rename the combined esp the same as the original dlc than mods depending on them shouldn't happy. I've always been bothered that I have around 20 esps for just dlc files so I'd be pleased if I could knock that down to 10 or so...

That wouldn't make any sense and be catastrophic, well maybe not catastrophic but no wouldn't recommend trying it. The idea of the patch is to overwrtie the original file. A good idea is to clean the official DLCs with TES4edit though. It's not recommended to merge any of the patches either, I get my information from the readme from UOMPs, just to justify this. hope that answers your question.

EDIT: Forgot to mention you can merge the file Vile Lair - SSSB (or whatever the full name is) with Vile lair's unofficial patch.

EDIT 2: Oopsy daisy, double post.

You could theoretically use TES4Edit to back-copy the changes into the original DLC esps.

I don't know how worthwhile a project it would be, and you wouldn't get support if you have issues, but you certainly could try.

TES4Edit integration might work but Gecko'ing it in won't work. I believe the Gecko fails to merge due to same referenced formID's, or something like this.

Oh yeah, a Gecko merge wouldn't work at all.

Actually Gecko merge works perfectly well. You have to do it as a "merge to master" though. A straight ESP merge won't work. Just remember to set the flag on the resulting file back to an ESP because merge to master changes it to an ESM along the way.

It's what I've done with my DLCs and it hasn't produced any problems yet.

What Arthmoor said.

I find it weird that a lot of users are giving definitive "yes/no" answers when they have not experienced it all. If you don't know for sure, best not to answer definitely and misguide.

Arthmoor: in Gecko, I turned Battlehorn into an esm then 'merge to master' the unofficial patch. Then I used Wrye bash to 'copy to esp.' The end result was a 632 filesize (originals were 580 and 61) so it looks like it worked fine. Is what I did fine?

EDIT: just saw that Gecko has a 'convert to plugin' button right next to the master one. So... Replace that bash part with gecko doing it.. only change is that it results in 633 instead of 632.

EDIT2: This must be a sloppy way of doing it, since this way doesn't retain the bash tags. Or is that how it works with your method as well, and I have to re-apply all the tags?

You'll have to reapply the tags.

If your referring to me I appreciate your stance but from experience merging and knowing what i know about merging I dont think it would be a great idea. I agree with Nephelee, updating the records in the DLCs using the patches is a good idea, might look at this myself.

Well I can assure you it works fine. TES4Edit will not be able to handle the job without a lot of wrangling and somewhat more advanced knowledge of how forms work. Merge to Master in Gecko takes care of everything for you, leaving only one flag to fix when it's done.

So it fully overwrites them? When i have done a lot of merging and such my biggest problem was FormIDs being the same and improper overrides, so I left it alone after fiddling around with. That probably comes down to not knowing all the parts of the mods i've merged. I know landscaping patches can be properly merged but, they come out wrong in game.

I'm not fully aware of all the inner records of the DLCs, I figured if you carried all the changes over to the DLC esp with TES4Edit manually that would be safer way. I have done this with some mods before and it works fine (of course), but if Gecko can overwrite them properly i'll try that myself and cross reference the ESPs to see if it works, (I say this as I would like to see it witth my own eyes, I'm one who needs to be convinced by seeing all the data.)

Thanks for the reply Arthmoor it's good to "hear it from the horses mouth" as they say.

The reason TES4Edit can't be used for this (easily anyway) is because the patch files contain new records that depend on each other and getting them into the DLC requires a lot of hoop jumping that just isn't worth it.

Gecko just handles it, provided you do so as a merge to master. I think it's this distinction between "merge" and "merge to master" that people aren't really getting.

When I merge to master without turning it into an esm beforehand, I get a merged file that has the right filesize and even keeps the old bash tags. Do I need to add tags that were on the unofficial patch as well (assuming they weren't already on the dlc)?

Yes, since you've merged the DLC and the Patch, it should have the tags from both.

I'm missing at least one step here... After it's all done, my new DLCFrostcrag.esp is dependent on DLCFrostcrag.esp. This has to be because I merged the unofficial patch (with that dep) into my master. But why does it stay when I convert the esm to esp (either via Bash or Gecko)?

That's usually what happens when doing a straight esp->esp merge. Are you sure you did "merge to master" correctly?

BTW, to pretty much anyone reading all this, merging is not something I'm officially endorsing. In fact, it's getting to where this topic really needs to split off and become its own thread.

Real nice to see Dwarven thingamajigs to have proper icons. Were those exported from Morrowind by you or some other modders or were just unused?