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FAQ status (2022/07): This post has not been maintained in a while. Thus some of the information and links are outdated. Please use List of Sexout Mods as a better starting point on how to get started with Sexout.

 

This FAQ is meant to give information for people new to Sexout.

Note that this thread is not meant to give technical support for any particular problem you might be experiencing, so don't ask for help in this thread. If your game is crashing or your graphics are all funny or you don't know how to use a mod manager, first read through this FAQ, then the guide How to get help with problems and as a final step continue to Technical Support.

If you think that some information should be added here, please tell me about it! If you think some answers are false or only contain a partial answer, mention it! If there's a typo or weirdly formed sentence (English is not my native language), be a good grammar Nazi and point it out! And admins feel free to edit this post as you wish so that it contains valid and current information.

--- Warning! ---

This FAQ is just a starting point. The actual mod files and their descriptions are updated in a fast pace, faster than the FAQ is. This means that the FAQ might not be 100% up to date. So you should actually take your time to read through the descriptions of everything that you're about to install, just to be sure.

--- Background ---
 

 


Q: What is Sexout?
A: Sexout is a collection of mods build around the SexoutNG framework, aimed to make Fallout New Vegas a more adult oriented experience. That means basically animated pixel sex and sexy dialogue.

Q: Any screenshots or video clips?
A: Check out Sex screenshots thread for pics. Unfortunately no video, at least for the moment.

Q: What kind of content can I expect?
A: This depends heavily on what particular mods you choose to install. Generally speaking, you can expect normal sex, romance, rape, sexual slavery, drug usage, pregnancy, bestiality and other kind of nastiness. It's definitely for adults only!

Q: Anything that's not allowed in these mods?
A: Pedo stuff. Zero tolerance for that, so don't even bother asking.

 

Q What kind of player character is Sexout suitable for?
A: You can play pretty much anything you want (man/woman, dominant/submissive, heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual, good/evil). Submissive woman is the one with the most content though. Individual mods might have certain restrictions, so be sure to read the descriptions.

 

Q: Is Sexout somehow related to Workgirl Tryout from NewVegasNexus?
A: Yes. Originally there was the mod Workgirl Tryout, which was then ported to Sexout framework and enhanced with additional content. It's now called "Sexout Tryout Plugins", and is one of the several mods made for SexoutNG. The original Workgirl Tryout is not updated or supported any longer. If you've tried it and liked it, you're going to *love* Sexout!

Q: Is Sexout somehow related to WSEX, Sexual Innuendo, Humping the Mojave or More Adult content from NewVegasNexus?
A: No, not directly. It's very much like them, but much, much larger and developed actively. There's actually even a WSEX (Sexual Innuendo) Override that allows you to play those things using Sexout, if you really want to.

Q: Is Sexout somehow related to Animated Prostitution?
A: No, not directly. It's a bit like AP, but much, much larger and more advanced.

 

Q: Where is Sexout being developed and by whom?
A: Here at Lovers Lab by various members. New developers are warmly welcome to create their own Sexout mods or even to help editing the existing ones.

Q What's is it's current status?
A: Very playable. Many of the mods are still under development, but most are already in a very good condition and ready to be played.

Q: How much does it cost?
A: Nothing. It's completely free.


--- Getting started ---
 

 

 

Q: Any detailed guide for installing Sexout?

A: You might want to check out this installation guide made by BruceWayne. There's also a tutorial from RitualClarity for installing Sexout SCR (Sexout Common Resources) succesfully, which is one of the requirements to get Sexout working.

 

Q: So what is required for the mods to work?
A: (Required) A genuine copy of Fallout New Vegas, patched to the latest version. Pirated copies are not supported by the community.

 (Not required) Any of the DLC, unless specifically stated so by an individual mod, and almost none do.

 (Required) Latest NVSE.

 (Required) Latest NVSE Extender.

 (Required) Mod Configuration Menu (MCM).

 (Required) SexoutNG framework (remember to install both Core and Data!).

 (Required) SCR (Sexout Common Resources) is needed by most plugins so you might just install it right away too.

 (Required) The actual Sexout plugins you want to use, because the things listed above don't do anything at all by themselves.

 

Q: Any handy list of available Sexout mods?
A: Currently no, not really.

 

Q: How do I install the mods?
A: Choose and download the mods you want yourself from the Downloads list (you might also want to check the new Downloads functionality).

 

Q: What mods should I use? There are dozens to choose from and I don't know where to start.
A: That depends on your taste. Sexout Tryout Plugins is one of the largest mods and worth considering. Sexout Consequences adds some nice sexual content to the quests. SexoutFadeToBlack replaces the fade to black sex scenes that are already in the original game with animated ones. SexoutNG NV Pregnancy gives you and your companions the ability to get pregnant. There are plenty of other good mods too, so you'll just have to read the descriptions.

Q: Are there any known incompatibilities?

A1: Body by Race is known to cause trouble with Sexout and is not supported.

A2: SexoutNG is incompatible with pretty much every other animation or pose mod (although Pinup Poses and Slave In Pose-mod should be ok). Some mods that are known to cause trouble are Groovatron and 7dancefnv.esp by Umpa and BodyExtender.esp. If you really want to use them, you could try this solution suggested by Astymma:

 

 

I use Groovatron and Sexout just fine and all the pose mods that go along with it as well as more pose mods on top of that.

 

What you have to do is the standard fix for any mod that inherited its codebase from an Umpa mod. Open in FNVEdit, find any vanilla top level animation blocks like KnockedDownIdles and remove them. Check that none of the mod's animations have the vanilla top level block as a parent and, if they do, change the parent entry to a null reference (id:00000000).

This will make the mod's animations top level animation blocks and as long as they use selection correctly, and all the ones I've seen do (using token possession and/or faction membership and/or idle markers and/or some other selection mechanism), they'll not interfere with Sexout. I've had no issues using them together after performing this fix.

 

A3: SexoutBreeder conflicts with Run the Lucky 38 due to conflicting worldspace additions.

Q: So I just drop the files into Data Folder of Fallout New Vegas?
A: Don't. Use a mod manager to handle all that stuff, so you can easily uninstall and reinstall the mods. Either use FOMM, NMM or Wrye Flash. Also use LOOT to automatically put the mods in a proper load order. These tools aren't something that Sexout absolutely requires, but they'll greatly reduce the risks of your installation getting fucked up. If you don't use any mod manager, you're asking for trouble and making it hard for us to help you.

 

Q: How about Fallout 3? Can I use Sexout with it?
A: No. There is an unofficial attempt to make this real, but it's in very early stages. If you're interested, check out this thread.


--- Making things pretty and bouncy ---
 

 


Q: My character and the NPCs look hideous. How can I make everything more cute and sexy? And how can I make breasts bounce?
A: You have a very wide list options available for bodies, skins etc. to install. This is just a suggestion for an average user how to get things working in a _relatively_ simple way and still look pretty good. You are of course free to customize everything yourself as you wish. Note that this whole guide is purely optional. You don't need to install any of this stuff to make Sexout work.

Note that a male body replacer (Breezes) and a female body replacer (T6M BnB) are already included in the SexoutNG, so you don't need to install another ones. You can of course, if you want to.

 

Note that a proper skeleton is already included in SexoutNG, so you will not need to (and should not!) install any extra skeleton files.

Install the following things in the order they are listed because some files need to be overwritten.

1) Female texture replacer
First we need a texture replacer so that females are properly naked when wearing no armor. Beware of Girl Type 3 HiRez HiDetailed Replacer is quite nice. When installing, choose CALI for body mesh (so that the texture options become choosable) and any of the textures that you like the most.

2) Making things bounce
Secondly we need a way to make our breasts bounce when we are naked. Get the file BNB_Body from Bouncing Natural Breasts. We don't want to install all that it contains, because the only thing we are interested in is the meshes folder. So unpack the archive to to somewhere, get the meshes folder and only install it. Overwrite everything when asked.
Warning! - The meshes folder contains two skeleton files that are NOT compatible with Sexout! So either remove them before installation or at least don't overwrite the existing skeleton files. If you managed to do the bad thing and overwrote them, don't worry. You can still fix it by installing Astymma's Compatibility Skeleton.

3) Clothes replacer
Our clothes won't have bouncing breasts effects unless we use a replacer for them. Get the file BB Armors Type 3 Replacer from Bouncing Breasts Type 3 Armors and install it. If you've installed Maternity Clothes mod, then some of the files already exist. Don't replace them, because we want to keep the maternity ones.

Warning! - Do not install anything from Body by Race even though it's listed as a requirement. You don't need it.

 

4) More hair and eye options
Get Beauty Pack PLUS -Project Mikoto- Hair - Eyes - Presets. It has tons of hairs and eyes to choose from.


--- Troubleshooting ---
 

 


Q: I installed the mods and now the game crashes at start up.
A1: You are missing a required esm or esp file or they are in wrong load order. So make sure that you've installed all the requirements and the load order is correct. You can run FNVEdit to look for troubles. If a file is in the wrong order or missing a master, FNVEdit will stop loading and tell you whats wrong. You can also untick mods one by one until you find the culprit. Most likely you're missing either Sexout.esm, SexoutCommonResources.esm, SexoutPregnancyV3.esm, SexoutSlavery.esm or SexoutLegion.esm, or they're not in the correct load order. But this all depends on what mods you have installed. Read through their descriptions to find out what is required!
A2: Another way to cause this problem is to have a huge amount of mods installed. The specific value varies from system to system, but we are talking something in the size of 150-200 esp and esm files. Get rid of some and see if the problem disappears.

A3: Do you have both the latest NVSE and NVSE Extender? Are you really, 100%, absolutely, totally sure that they are installed into correct folders?

Q: What is the correct load order?
A1: Correct load order is:
 Sexout.esm
 SexoutCommonResources.esm
 SexoutPregnancyV3.esm
 SexoutSlavery.esm
 SexoutLegion.esm.
Other Sexout mods go behind them in no particular order.
A2: You can also use LOOT to automatically sort them out. It might actually put SexoutPregnancyV3.esm last, but that's okay too as long as it's behind SexoutCommonResources.esm.

Q: I'm sure I unticked some or all of Sexout's esm files from the load order, but I think they are still loading. What kind of devil sorcery is this?
A: Simply unticking a mod in the load order will not actually prevent it from loading if another mod that requires it is still active. For example consider a situation where you have unticked sexout.esm, sexoutcommonresources.esm, sexoutslavery.esm and sexoutlegion.esm, but you've got ticked sexoutworkinggirl.esp. This will cause every one of those unticked ESMs to get loaded, since workinggirl needs legion, which needs slavery, which needs SCR, which needs sexout. If any one of those are actually missing, when you try to start the game it will crash to desktop. This is not particular to Sexout, it's how the game engine works.

Q: I have a ton of mods so I thought I'll combine some of the ESP and ESM files together. Or is that a bad idea?
A: That's a really bad idea! The odds that something gets fucked up are high. You shouldn't do that to Sexout mods, or more generally speaking to any mods.

Q: I'm using Wrye Flash and I'm about to do bashed patch. Anything I should know?
A: As a good rule of thumb for most users, all Sexout mods should be deactivated before you build your bashed patch, and nothing Sexout related ought to be imported or merged in. Sexout esp files should be placed after the bashed patch.

Q: Is creating a patch plugin / override patch ok?
A: Do it if you know what you're doing. Just be careful.

Q: I'm about to do an update for one or more of the mods. Anything I should be aware of before I do it?
A: Yes, updating should be done carefully. When updating, remember to check if the required files for the mod have gotten updates too. Also check that the esm files are still in the correct load order. Additionally if the mod's author tells you to do a clean save, do it.

Q: Clean save? What the heck is that?
A: Clean save means that you're going to do a save that contains no information about the Sexout mods. That means you're going to lose all information about current pregnancies, how many times you've had sex etc. Yes, it sucks but otherwise you might run into pretty strange bugs. To do a clean save follow these steps:
 1) Untick all your Sexout mods from the load order
 2) Load your current game and save it to a new slot
 3) Put in the new versions
 4) Put all the mods into the same spots in the load order they were previously and tick them
 5) Load the clean save you made in step 2.

Q: There's something wrong with my graphics. I'm seeing red exclamation points.
A1: you are missing meshes. Be sure that you have all the requirements of the mods you've already installed.

A2: Another way to cause this problem is to have a huge amount of mods installed. The specific value varies from system to system, but we are talking something in the size of 150-200 esp and esm files. Get rid of some and see if the problem disappears.

Q: There's something else wrong with my textures / graphics.
A1: You need to have turned on Archive Invalidation. Mod managers come equipped with an easy way to do that. If it's already turned on, you could try turning it off and then back on to see if that fixes anything. Even if it doesn't work, nothing bad can happen due to it.
A2: Another way to cause this problem is to have a huge amount of mods installed. The specific value varies from system to system, but we are talking something in the size of 150-200 esp and esm files. Get rid of some and see if the problem disappears.

Q: Why my animations aren't working?
A1: Do you have both the latest NVSE and NVSE Extender? Are you really, 100%, absolutely, totally sure that they are installed into correct folders?
A2: Do you have any animation or pose mods installed? Try taking them off, they're known to cause conflicts with Sexout. See question "Are there any known incompatibilities?" for more information and a possible workaround.

Q: Why does the game sometimes crash when sex animations are about to begin?

A: Do you have any custom skeleton installed? You need to use either the one that comes with SexoutNG or Astymma's Compatability Skeleton. Sexout needs a proper Bouncing Breasts skeleton for some of the animations, and no others will work.

 

Q: When having sex my breasts are doing the weirdest things, stretching to infinity or something?

A: Do you have any custom skeleton installed? You need to use either the one that comes with SexoutNG or Astymma's Compatability Skeleton. Sexout needs a proper Bouncing Breasts skeleton for some of the animations, and no others will work.

 

Q: I seem to be crashing when I enter a particular area every single time.
A1: Most likely reason is that there's a corrupt spawn point 2 cells beyond the cell you just wandered in. It's not necessarily caused by mods, and hardly ever a Sexout issue - can happen in vanilla even - although having a bunch of mods adding spawns or messing with leveled lists of spawns obviously increases the chance. The easiest way of dealing with it is backpedalling away from the place you crash at, get into an interior, and wait a few days - at least 3 - for everything to reset. Chances are the next time the cell is loaded, it'll all be fine.
A2: Another possibility is that your save file might have become corrupted. Have you tried with an earlier save file to see if it crashes with that too?
A3: Third possibility is that one of the mods you're using is causing the crash. Start unticking mods one by one and see if it helps.

Q: My character sometimes goes invisible when sex starts. Why?
A: You're playing in first person mode, right? Switch to third person mode, that should fix it. If you really want to play in first person, you could try to enable 'Telephoto' setting in the SexoutNG MCM configuration which tries to fix this problem.

Q: I'm having a weird "out of body" experience after having sex. It's like I'm stuck in a camera mode or something.
A1: You can fix this by opening the console and typing 'tfc'.
A2: You can also quit the game and then reload latest save. Everything should be okay again.

 

Q: Issues with overlapping breast with Breeder/Lactation when using BnB?
A: Solution: Use Half mesh included in BnB update files 2.5.

Q: All kinds of weird things are happening after I updated some Sexout mods.
A: You could try doing a clean save if nothing else seems to help.

Q: My game's still not working properly! I've already tried everything suggested in this FAQ. What now?
A: Read through the guide How to get help with problems. After that you can get more help at Technical Support.

 

Edited by annika
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Nice to have something like this here. Should probably be stickied. Now to cross fingers and hope people actually bother to read it...

 

Two things I would suggest you change.

Q: What mods should I use? There are dozens to choose from and I don't know where to start.

A: That depends on your taste. At the very minimum you're going to have SexoutNG framework. It does very little by itself' date=' so you're going to need something else too.[/quote']You might want to change that to "it does nothing at all by itself".

Q: What is the correct load order?

A: Sexout.esm' date=' SexoutSlavery.esm, SexoutLegion.esm. Other Sexout mods go behind them in no particular order. You could also use BOSS to sort them out.[/quote']You're missing SCR and Pregnancy. So it should be Sexout.esm, SexoutCommonResources.esm, SexoutPregnancyV3.esm, SexoutSlavery.esm, SexoutLegion.esm.

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Nice to have something like this here. Should probably be stickied. Now to cross fingers and hope people actually bother to read it...

 

Two things I would suggest you change.

Q: What mods should I use? There are dozens to choose from and I don't know where to start.

A: That depends on your taste. At the very minimum you're going to have SexoutNG framework. It does very little by itself' date=' so you're going to need something else too.[/quote']You might want to change that to "it does nothing at all by itself".

Q: What is the correct load order?

A: Sexout.esm' date=' SexoutSlavery.esm, SexoutLegion.esm. Other Sexout mods go behind them in no particular order. You could also use BOSS to sort them out.[/quote']You're missing SCR and Pregnancy. So it should be Sexout.esm, SexoutCommonResources.esm, SexoutPregnancyV3.esm, SexoutSlavery.esm, SexoutLegion.esm.

 

Thanks for the suggestions! I corrected both. For some reason I had SCR and Pregnancy later in my load order and completely missed those when looking for the esm files.

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You might want to mention that every time you update a mod you need to fix your load order?

 

All sorts of bad things happen if you switch mods' load order in an update. (Cleans saves of plugins -- esp files -- can be used to correct some of these problems, if you know which plugins need to be reset. This can be useful, for example, when a plugin you were overriding gets control and does bad things... but most people would probably prefer that these kind of technical inconsistencies not get incorporated into their save files.)

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Thanks for the suggestions! I corrected both. For some reason I had SCR and Pregnancy later in my load order and completely missed those when looking for the esm files.

SCR is esential to have 2nd because Legion references it and Legion references Slavery. pregnancy doesn't actually matter as long as it is after SCR, but it is possible Legion or Slavery might refer to it later, I can't see any reason Pregnancy would ever refer to Legion or Slavery.

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SCR is esential to have 2nd because Legion references it and Legion references Slavery. pregnancy doesn't actually matter as long as it is after SCR' date=' but it is possible Legion or Slavery might refer to it later, I can't see any reason Pregnancy would ever refer to Legion or Slavery.

[/quote']Halstrom, I took that load order directly from the OP of Pregnancy. :P

Pregnancy is now an ESM so other people will be able to write mods using it' date=' also remember when you update this it may change itself in your load order, use the following Load order or it will crash:

 

Sexout.esm

SexoutCommonResources.esm

SexoutPregnancyV3.esm

SexoutSlavery.esm

SexoutLegion.esm[/color']

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You might want to mention that every time you update a mod you need to fix your load order?

 

All sorts of bad things happen if you switch mods' load order in an update. (Cleans saves of plugins -- esp files -- can be used to correct some of these problems' date=' if you know which plugins need to be reset. This can be useful, for example, when a plugin you were overriding gets control and does bad things... but most people would probably prefer that these kind of technical inconsistencies not get incorporated into their save files.)

[/quote']

 

Good idea. I edited the part about updating your mods and divided it into two parts (how to do an update properly and how to do a clean save). If there's still something that isn't quite right, tell me about it and I'll fix it.

 

I also added a link to Prideslayer's handy tech support guide.

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Thanks for the effort you're putting into this! A few notes and corrections (some may be contentious!)

 

- The SexoutNG core incompatibility list is really every other animation or pose mod, until proved otherwise. There are non that work out of the box that I'm aware of.

 

- You don't need to clean save on every update, this is in fact somewhat counterproductive for Sexout itself and one or two others, that are 'smart' enough to detect changes in version and internally update themselves.

 

- Changing the mod order, at least for sexout mods, doesn't matter as long as you keep the ESMs in the right overall order. Stuff can come between the ESMs as well. I change my load order all the time with no ill effects, but I don't use very many mods beyond sexout -- others may be more fragile, especially if they use BuildRef.

 

- Not asked by anyone yet, but everyone should avoid making any kind of rollup patch (including a wrye 'bashed patch') unless absolutely necessary. This is more likely to break things with sexout than fix them, so use with extreme caution, and don't assume that it's safe on non-sexout mods either.

 

- Toggling archive invalidation off and then on is a waste of time in FO3 and FONV. If it's on, it's on. This has been the case ever since "Archive Invalidation Invalidated" was released, which coincided with beth changing how AI works. The new AI method causes the engine to always look in loose files (the data dir) first, before looking in any BSA files.

 

(WRT the last two.. in short it comes do to the fact that FO3 and FONV are just more advanced than Oblivion, engine wise. A lot of stuff that you had to fuss with in OBV you no longer do in FO, but old habits die hard for some.)

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All my voodoo magic for making FNV to obey me have been for nothing? Heresy I say! Dang! :(

 

I didn't add all of these yet, as I want to first see some debate over them.

 

- The SexoutNG core incompatibility list is really every other animation or pose mod' date=' until proved otherwise. There are non that work out of the box that I'm aware of.

[/quote']

I added more info about this to the incompatibilities section.

 

- You don't need to clean save on every update' date=' this is in fact somewhat counterproductive for Sexout itself and one or two others, that are 'smart' enough to detect changes in version and internally update themselves.

[/quote']

I remember that clean saves have been recommended plenty of times, especially in the Tryout thread. But I guess it might be true, that you should only do a clean save if there seems to be some kind of weird trouble. What kind of experiences other people have with this?

 

- Changing the mod order' date=' at least for sexout mods, doesn't matter as long as you keep the ESMs in the right overall order. Stuff can come between the ESMs as well. I change my load order all the time with no ill effects, but I don't use very many mods beyond sexout -- others may be more fragile, especially if they use BuildRef.

[/quote']

About this I have no personal experience really. Do we have actual proof to either way?

 

- Not asked by anyone yet' date=' but everyone should avoid making any kind of rollup patch (including a wrye 'bashed patch') unless absolutely necessary. This is more likely to break things with sexout than fix them, so use with extreme caution, and don't assume that it's safe on non-sexout mods either.

[/quote']

Do you mean patch plugin when you say rollup patch? As in a patch you create with FNVedit that resolves any conflicts that exist between mods? I added this to the FAQ, although I'm not quite sure if it's true. I've done patch plugins quite a few times, as you pretty much need those when for example two mods add something to the repair lists.

 

- Toggling archive invalidation off and then on is a waste of time in FO3 and FONV. If it's on' date=' it's [i']on[/i]. This has been the case ever since "Archive Invalidation Invalidated" was released, which coincided with beth changing how AI works. The new AI method causes the engine to always look in loose files (the data dir) first, before looking in any BSA files.

Really? I could swear I solved some texture problem this way. Or was it back in Oblivion? Damn, I can't remember.

 

(WRT the last two.. in short it comes do to the fact that FO3 and FONV are just more advanced than Oblivion' date=' engine wise. A lot of stuff that you had to fuss with in OBV you no longer do in FO, but old habits die hard for some.)

[/quote']

This rings true. I remember the many times when I managed to corrupt my Oblivion saves. Those kind of experiences tend to make one over cautious and even neurotic. :)

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- You don't need to clean save on every update' date=' this is in fact somewhat counterproductive for Sexout itself and one or two others, that are 'smart' enough to detect changes in version and internally update themselves.

[/quote']

I remember that clean saves have been recommended plenty of times, especially in the Tryout thread. But I guess it might be true, that you should only do a clean save if there seems to be some kind of weird trouble. What kind of experiences other people have with this?

You should do them when the mod author recommends it, otherwise, there's no generally no need. SexoutNG (the ESM) has only needed a clean save once or twice in 66 releases (and counting!)

 

- Changing the mod order' date=' at least for sexout mods, doesn't matter as long as you keep the ESMs in the right overall order. Stuff can come between the ESMs as well. I change my load order all the time with no ill effects, but I don't use very many mods beyond sexout -- others may be more fragile, especially if they use BuildRef.

[/quote']

About this I have no personal experience really. Do we have actual proof to either way?

 

The proof is in the pudding so to speak. None of the sexout mods use buildref on each other AFAIK, so they are immune to load order issues. As I said, I change my load order around quite often -- I do not pay attention to it, and I've never used BOSS. No problems here.

 

- Not asked by anyone yet' date=' but everyone should avoid making any kind of rollup patch (including a wrye 'bashed patch') unless absolutely necessary. This is more likely to break things with sexout than fix them, so use with extreme caution, and don't assume that it's safe on non-sexout mods either.

[/quote']

Do you mean patch plugin when you say rollup patch? As in a patch you create with FNVedit that resolves any conflicts that exist between mods? I added this to the FAQ, although I'm not quite sure if it's true. I've done patch plugins quite a few times, as you pretty much need those when for example two mods add something to the repair lists.

I meant more like some people combining a bunch of ESMs or ESPs into one to reduce the count in their load order, though patch plugins can also break things if you're not careful. Sexout, at least, should not need them.

 

- Toggling archive invalidation off and then on is a waste of time in FO3 and FONV. If it's on' date=' it's [i']on[/i]. This has been the case ever since "Archive Invalidation Invalidated" was released, which coincided with beth changing how AI works. The new AI method causes the engine to always look in loose files (the data dir) first, before looking in any BSA files.

Really? I could swear I solved some texture problem this way. Or was it back in Oblivion? Damn, I can't remember.

 

Oblivion definitely, and older versions of FO3 and FONV. Any version of FO3/FONV before Archive Invalidation Invalidated needed to have AI toggled at times. Since then though, it doesn't do anything in either of those games. FOMM uses the AII! system, as does wrye, so you never need to toggle it these days. Just set it and forget it.

 

(WRT the last two.. in short it comes do to the fact that FO3 and FONV are just more advanced than Oblivion' date=' engine wise. A lot of stuff that you had to fuss with in OBV you no longer do in FO, but old habits die hard for some.)

[/quote']

This rings true. I remember the many times when I managed to corrupt my Oblivion saves. Those kind of experiences tend to make one over cautious and even neurotic. :)

 

There's no harm in being cautious, just trying to save people from trying things that won't have any effect (like toggling AI) or doing things out of the gate (like merged patches etc) that they always needed to do in OBV, but that probably aren't needed (and may cause problems) in FO.

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- Toggling archive invalidation off and then on is a waste of time in FO3 and FONV. If it's on' date=' it's [i']on[/i]. This has been the case ever since "Archive Invalidation Invalidated" was released, which coincided with beth changing how AI works. The new AI method causes the engine to always look in loose files (the data dir) first, before looking in any BSA files.

 

I'm not so sure about that. I occasionally toggle it off/on when I'm having texture problems and it almost invariably fixes them. I can't explain why and I believe that you know what you're talking about, I'm just telling you that it does in fact work sometimes.

 

 

There's no harm in being cautious' date=' just trying to save people from trying things that won't have any effect (like toggling AI) or doing things out of the gate (like merged patches etc) that they always needed to do in OBV, but that probably aren't needed (and may cause problems) in FO.

[/quote']

 

Merged patches work great (if you know how to make them properly) and absolutely are needed if you have certain types of conflicts and/or goals.

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I'm not so sure about that. I occasionally toggle it off/on when I'm having texture problems and it almost invariably fixes them. I can't explain why and I believe that you know what you're talking about' date=' I'm just telling you that it does in fact work sometimes.

[/quote']

Are you sure that every time it's worked it's the only thing you've tried, and that this happened after the switch to the AII method?

 

It's possible that if something removed the AI BSA from the AI list that you'd need to toggle it back off and on to get there; I suppose this could happen when mixing/matching mod managers or doing "other stuff" (whatever that might be) that messes with the INI files, or if the AI BSA file was deleted somehow.

 

 

 

In all three games, prior to the update, the ai TXT file had to include a list of every texture/mesh/etc that was in a BSA that you wanted to override via the data directory. Toggling AI on and off regenerated this file based on the contents of the data dir.

 

There was a patch to FONV (maybe FO3 too? Now I forget.) that changed how the engine searches for files. Not long after that, a new AI method (AII!) was discovered that just puts an empty/invalid BSA in the BSA list. This caues the engine to always look in the data directory, and the AI txt file is now empty (if you even have one, you don't need it any more).

 

If:

- FONV is up to date.

- the files are physically present in the data dir with the right names.

- nothing else has messed with your .ini file

- the AI BSA is present. (Fallout - AI!.bsa in FOMM, may have a different name in wrye)

 

There is technically no way for the engine to not search the entire data directory. Messing any one of the things in that list can break it though.

 

 

 

 

Merged patches work great (if you know how to make them properly) and absolutely are needed if you have certain types of conflicts and/or goals.

 

Are they needed for any sexout mods? This is a sexout FAQ after all. Merging sexout mods is a very bad idea.. ;)

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Long winded gibberish about rollups:

 

 

To be clear (for the geeks) the only sexout mods that are safe to be merged into each other or some other "rollup" esm/esp are those that are not used in ismodloaded (and, by extension, buildref) by any other mods.

 

This is probably true for most of them, but there are surprising cases where it's not. Sexout itself uses both commands on several important sexout mods (SCR, Legion, Slavery, Rapers, and BrutalRapers) as well as on the vanilla ESMs (including DLC) as a last ditch effort to ensure you have the correct load order for everything. It also checks for breezes bodysuits esp to add support for them, so if that's renamed or rolled up, that functionality will no longer work. Sexout checks for one or two of the dance/anim mods as well in an attempt to detect them and then work around their incompatibilities (by removing actors from their factions, etc.) so rolling up or renaming those will break that functionality.

 

These are things that none of the mod tools can detect and fix for you, and will blindly roll up any of those mods and break the functionality in question if you tell them to, without any sort of error or warning. Even if they could detect this scenario, you'd have to go through the process all over again every time you install a mod, because that mod might want to use another one that you previously determined was safe and rolled up.

 

This is why I recommend against them. You never know, without looking, if any mod is being used by another in this fashion. You don't have to look at just one mod, you have to look at every mod, because any mod you have could be doing an IsModLoaded (+Buildref perhaps) on any other, and the mod that breaks will not be the one that was rolled up -- it will be those trying to use it, even if they aren't rolled up.

 

tl;dr version: Not worth it unless you're prepared to invest the legwork ensuring that no present or future mod you want to use will not be impacted, or if you don't care if some functionality is broken.

 

 

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Long winded gibberish about rollups:

 

 

To be clear (for the geeks) the only sexout mods that are safe to be merged into each other or some other "rollup" esm/esp are those that are not used in ismodloaded (and' date=' by extension, buildref) by any other mods.

 

This is probably true for most of them, but there are surprising cases where it's not. Sexout itself uses both commands on several important sexout mods (SCR, Legion, Slavery, Rapers, and BrutalRapers) as well as on the vanilla ESMs (including DLC) as a last ditch effort to ensure you have the correct load order for everything. It also checks for breezes bodysuits esp to add support for them, so if that's renamed or rolled up, that functionality will no longer work. Sexout checks for one or two of the dance/anim mods as well in an attempt to detect them and then work around their incompatibilities (by removing actors from their factions, etc.) so rolling up or renaming those will break that functionality.

 

These are things that none of the mod tools can detect and fix for you, and will blindly roll up any of those mods and break the functionality in question if you tell them to, without any sort of error or warning. Even if they could detect this scenario, you'd have to go through the process all over again every time you install a mod, because that mod might want to use another one that you previously determined was safe and rolled up.

 

This is why I recommend against them. You never know, without looking, if any mod is being used by another in this fashion. You don't have to look at just one mod, you have to look at [i']every[/i] mod, because any mod you have could be doing an IsModLoaded (+Buildref perhaps) on any other, and the mod that breaks will not be the one that was rolled up -- it will be those trying to use it, even if they aren't rolled up.

 

tl;dr version: Not worth it unless you're prepared to invest the legwork ensuring that no present or future mod you want to use will not be impacted, or if you don't care if some functionality is broken.

 

 

 

I believe this depends on how the rollup is built?

 

I am currently using a rollup built by FNVEdit and it is an override rollup and not a replace rollup -- all of the .esp files it depends on are "masters" so they still have their original identities.

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Yes, but that's really a patch. When I say 'rollup' (as I explained) I mean taking several esms/esps and combining them into a single one. Some people (or a person, I cannot remember) here did this a month or three ago with some of the mods and caused a lot of problems.

 

Patches only fight with each other or other patches; e.g. a patch against wsex.esm will fight with my wsex converter esp if they modify the same records. At least one of the wsex mods does this itself (probably HtM), so my converter has to be loaded after HtM for it to have the desired effect. This (obviously) disables whatever it is that HtM is trying to do to the wsex esm. Not that it should matter, since whatever it's trying, sexout either can't do it or the converter already is.

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Are they needed for any sexout mods? This is a sexout FAQ after all. Merging sexout mods is a very bad idea.. ;)

 

No' date=' not for Sexout/Sexout relations, and I also missed the "rollup" part of the initial post I responded to as well. I was talking more about override patches*. You win this one. :P

 

Are you sure that every time it's worked it's the only thing you've tried

 

Yes. It never even occurred to me that it wouldn't be the solution, so it's as simple as "oh, that's not right," exiting the game, toggling AI with FOMM, and starting up again. Sometimes it doesn't fix it and it turns out I really did bork something up, but usually it's as simple as that.

 

Maybe it's not supposed to work like that with the new system in place, but I'm telling you, sometimes it does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*For the record, after our previous discussion of FNVEdit patches vs. Wrye patches, I actually took the time to learn how to use FNVEdit properly, and will now confess that I do find it superior.

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*For the record' date=' after our previous discussion of FNVEdit patches vs. Wrye patches, I actually took the time to learn how to use FNVEdit properly, and will now confess that I do find it superior.

[/quote']

 

All else aside, you're going to catch hell for this! ;)

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To be fair, though, as inscrutable as people claim Wrye Bash to be, to me it's a lot more intuitive than FNVEdit. It just doesn't have the fine-tuned control of the latter.

 

Also, concerning Bashed patches, you don't actually have to deactivate the mods it "rolls up", even though it recommends it - so I would think that'd mean IsModLoaded checks and such would work as intended, yeah?

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Yes, ismodloaded would work in that case. GetModIndex (needed for buildref) would return the wrong value though, if the reference you're looking for was modified by the patch.

 

01 a.esm
02 b.esp
03 c.esp
04 patch.esp

Say patch.esp overrides some records in b.esp. c.esp is looking for b.esp (ismodloaded) and when it finds it, calling getmodindex "b.esp" which returns 02, then calling ref = buildref 02 .....

 

'ref' is going to be set to the original reference from b.esp.

 

This will be 'wrong' if patch.esp has modified that record, since it will refer to the unmodified/old version.

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