As we talked about last time, tracing problem scripts takes a long time when you're running almost 1900 mods. So today we'll pick half a dozen errors and focus on those. Going into next week, I'll probably run some traces in the background during the day while I do other things, which should help plow through the list. Today, we're looking at the following (I trimmed the list for readbility - these all have matching "missing file?" prompts):

 

[09/02/2022 - 06:30:45PM] error: Unable to bind script PRKF_Aur_LordStone_Perk_2_Ab_03000A08 to  (FE0A4A08) because their base types do not match
[09/02/2022 - 06:30:51PM] error: Unable to bind script PF_TicSeeksWorksSandbox_05000A76 to  (FE108A76) because their base types do not match
[09/02/2022 - 06:30:51PM] error: Unable to bind script PF__ArtTrainingArchery10x4_07098A65 to  (FE10CA1D) because their base types do not match
[09/02/2022 - 06:30:52PM] error: Unable to bind script TacValt_MCMRegister to TacValt_LCORegister (77CCC090) because their base types do not match
[09/02/2022 - 06:30:54PM] error: Unable to bind script PF_018AuriRidePackage02_05332027 to  (7D332027) because their base types do not match
[09/02/2022 - 06:30:56PM] error: Unable to bind script QF_BladesArmorQuest_02034C63 to BladesArmorQuest (8E034C63) because their base types do not match
 

The reason I chose these ones is because they all have binding calls that will help me quickly find the relevant records without having to do scripted trace. Let's start by checking to see if any of these have source code or un-renamed files that might just need to be recompiled or renamed. We'll do that by typing the form ID part of each script (if present) into the search box in the MO2 data tab. As you can see below, the first one comes back as a dud.

 

 

No luck there, sadly. Next let's look up each one of the failed binding calls and see what mods they correlate with.

PRKF_Aur_LordStone_Perk_2_Ab_03000A08 to  (FE0A4A08) - Andromeda: Standing Stones of Skyrim

PF_TicSeeksWorksSandbox_05000A76 to  (FE108A76) - Argonian Hatchlings (out of print on the Nexus)
PF__ArtTrainingArchery10x4_07098A65 to  (FE10CA1D) - Restoring the Aretino Residence
TacValt_MCMRegister to TacValt_LCORegister (77CCC090) - Tactical Valtheim
PF_018AuriRidePackage02_05332027 to  (7D332027) - Song of the Green*
QF_BladesArmorQuest_02034C63 to BladesArmorQuest (8E034C63) - DMT's Blades Armor and Kimono

 

The asterisk on Song of the Green is there because I'm not running the latest version. I'll leave that error along until I have updated the mod and confirmed the author hasn't already fixed it. But the other five need more attention. Let's head over to xEdit and check them out. Here's the first one, from Andromeda. 

 

 

So this script is associated with a perk from the mod. However, if you look at the bottom you'll see something different from every other perk in this mod: there's no "referenced by" tab, like you can see in the example below.

 

This appears to be an unimplemented feature, which might be why the scripts are absent. As we learned last time, we can't just patch out the problem scripts, so we'll need to remove the VMAD section of this record. In the interests of maintaining version control, I'm not going to delete the perk entirely, just lobotomize it by taking out the script call. 

 

 

This should be sufficient to keep the game from trying to load the missing script and to clear the errors out of our log. This probably won't have any kind of positive performance impact, but it'll peel back a layer of the proverbial onion that might otherwise be camouflaging more problematic errors. 

 

Next up is the Argonian Hatchlings error. This one is attached to an AI package that is used by an actual character. 

 

 

We can see by looking at the mod contents that the scripts for this mod are completely missing. Moreover, I'm not convinced this package actually does anything with this script - it may be garbage added by the CK. While I don't profess to be a master of working with packages yet, I'm just going to rip out that VMAD record and leave the rest of the package as-is.

 

 

So what about the Arretino Residence mod? Incidentally, I should note that I've already confirmed I'm running the latest Nexus release of these mods. There's a newer version of the Argonian mod on Beth.net but I really don't want to deal with that hot mess right now. 

 

 

This one actually has a completely filled out VMAD record with properties, so let's take a closer look at it. This package connects up to alias properties for the main quest in this mod, and I'm hesitant to gut the VMAD while leaving a quest call against this package intact. However, I can see content in the quest that's duplicating content from the missing script, so I'm willing to try the "low impact" approach for now. If Aventus' behavior gets screwed up, then we can reach out to the mod author for a more comprehensive fix.

 

 

Valtheim has some scripts in its BSA, just not the one we want. However, I note that the binding record doesn't match the script name, so this might be one of those issues where the author changed the script name but left an old file in the distribution stream. Let's look a little deeper into what we've got here. 

 

 

Above you can see the scripts for this mod. Here we can see that the script props are filled in, so we can look at the source code and see if they're present under a different file name.

 

 

These properties are absent from the source code. More to the point, there are no references to this MCM registration quest. Since we know from past experience that this mod works, we'll go ahead and remove the VMAD from that quest. 

 

Finally, we've got DMT's mod. On review, this script appears to be tied to  quest VMAD data that is, in turn, a leftover of an old implementation of the mod's fetch quest. The new quests and their scripts control the stages on this older quest "from arm's length" so it doesn't appear that the old VMD data does anything anymore. I've also trimmed back this one.

It'll just be a couple of mods today, but let's knock out a few items from the to-do list. We'll start out by grabbing Iconic Statues. This one is mostly 'overcome by events,' but its possible there are some residual vanilla nifs and textures that we can knock out with this. While that downloads, let's grab the two patches for Solitude Men's Club. We may still need to do a little surgery on the exterior area, but my expectation is that I can merge it with the door that Groot's Solitude puts in a similar location with only minimal inconvenience.

 

While we got those, Iconic Statues finished its download and now we can see its conflict status. There are definitely a number of statues where I'm receiving vanilla versions, so let's move this into a position where only the vanilla overrides are winning.

 

 

 

Much better. That'll allows us to avoid the lower quality vanilla models without sacrificing the content we're getting from more focused/specialized content. This may also prove helpful later as we may have to back out some of the winning overrides for compatibility with some mods that rely on the vanilla shape of the statues.

 

With that done, let's take a look at the men's club. The asset conflicts here are benign - just common community files being redistributed - so we don't need to take any special action here. 

 

 

Likewise, both patches are already compacted. The main mod is probably too big to compact, but we'll look at that in xEdit in any event.

 

 

While it isn't huge, this mod is too large to compact without major surgery. More likely, when the time comes that I can't compact anything else, we'll start merging stable location mods (like this one, actually) into rollup files that allow us to take full advantage of the much higher form ID addressing capabilities of a full sized ESP. 

 

 

Lots of dirty edge links - no big surprise there  - but somewhat more concerning, we also have a bunch of errors. Let's take a closer look at them.

 

[00:00] [SPEL:EE05757C]
[00:00]     SPEL \ Effects \ Effect \ EFID - Base Effect -> Found a NULL reference, expected: MGEF
[00:00] [REFR:00090E58] (places SHouseDoor03 "Door" [DOOR:0005D7EA] in GRUP Cell Persistent Children of [CELL:00037EE6] (in SolitudeWorld "Solitude" [WRLD:00037EDF]) at -14,24)
[00:00]     REFR \ XNDP - Navigation Door Link \ Teleport Marker Triangle -> <Warning: Navmesh triangle not found in "[NAVM:000ECFFC] (in GRUP Cell Temporary Children of MuseumExterior [CELL:00037EE3] (in SolitudeWorld "Solitude" [WRLD:00037EDF] at -14,24))">
[00:00] SMCDoorExt [REFR:EE00AA48] (places SHouseDoor01 "Door" [DOOR:000368CE] in GRUP Cell Persistent Children of [CELL:00037EE6] (in SolitudeWorld "Solitude" [WRLD:00037EDF]) at -14,24)
[00:00]     REFR \ XNDP - Navigation Door Link \ Teleport Marker Triangle -> <Warning: Navmesh triangle not found in "[NAVM:000ECFFC] (in GRUP Cell Temporary Children of MuseumExterior [CELL:00037EE3] (in SolitudeWorld "Solitude" [WRLD:00037EDF] at -14,24))">
[00:01] Checking for Errors in [FE 60F] Mens Club Merged LUX Patch.esp
[00:01] Checking for Errors in [FE 610] Mens Clubs location Patch.esp
[00:01] SMCDoorExt [REFR:EE00AA48] (places SHouseDoor01 "Door" [DOOR:000368CE] in GRUP Cell Persistent Children of [CELL:00037EE6] (in SolitudeWorld "Solitude" [WRLD:00037EDF]) at -13,25)
[00:01]     REFR \ XNDP - Navigation Door Link \ Teleport Marker Triangle -> <Warning: Navmesh triangle not found in "[NAVM:000ECFFC] (in GRUP Cell Temporary Children of MuseumExterior [CELL:00037EE3] (in SolitudeWorld "Solitude" [WRLD:00037EDF] at -14,24))">
[00:01] Done: Checking for Errors, Processed Records: 4679, Errors found: 4, Elapsed Time: 00:01

 

The SPEL record is probably benign and we'll ignore that for now. However, let's take a closer look at these door links, which might be an actual problem. 

 

 

So what we've got here leads me to believe that we've got a deleted navmesh hiding out here that was merged with this mesh, and then that had door links populated on it. This is probably something we need to fix in the CK, but let's do the rest of the cleaning check to see if I'm right about navmesh deletions.

 

 

Nope, I was wrong there. This is actually a case of a genuine navmesh conflict. It may still be overcome by events since Groot's solitude and LOTD both edit this area. The original men's club had problematic edits in this area anyway that prompted the creation of the location patch, but as you probably noted the location patch also contains a bad door link. And indeed that's what's going on here. As you can see below, the patch moves the physical location of the door but doesn't move its navmesh link, which still tries to plop down the player within the expanded navmesh that the original mod created. 

 

 

Now, I'm not convinced that this is actually going to crash my game to boot into, so let's snoop around a bit to see what we're looking at. Based on the clock, I won't be able to finish this install tonight, but we ca get a feel for the scope of changes we need to make. 

 

 

The clubs for Riften and Windhelm don't appear to have major problems, though Windhelm has some ruins from... The Ruins that need to be moved slightly off to the side. Let's see how the Solitude location looks, now. 

 

 

Hmm, well that's not the men's club yet but that poster floating in mid-air definitely needs to move. Next time I have time for CK work we'll put it in the new avenue that Groot's Solitude (disappointingly out of print at the moment) adds. 

 

 

Need to investigate this rocky 'lip' too - it might be a landscape conflict, but either way it either needs to be smoothed out or it needs front steps added.

 

 

The Men's Club entrance almost fits in "as-is". I'm tempted to just slide the Groot's geometry over a little bit and leave the SMC frontage largely in place. Maybe put that floating poster against that brick wall by the door, in fact. I could have sworn there was a non-functional door from Groot's around here also, but I didn't see it, so this may be a less conflicted location than I first believed. If so, then just deleting the corner section you can see there with the stained glass second-story windows will be sufficient to deconflict the entrance (I'll still need to fix the door links though).

 

 

Hmm, the decor doesn't really leave much ambiguity about the target marker for this business. 

 

 

More Talos statues in inappropriate places. May need to do something about that. Sanguine statues maybe instead? 

 

 

Need to give the patrons the Exhibitionist trait so they don't cover up like that. Overall though, everything seems to be working pretty well. The one will require a little more assembly work to get it fully integrated, but it's going to be much less troublesome than I first imagined.