Vanilla Armor Replacer problem/question

[Nel]

I just began modding Oblivion a couple of days ago and while I can get Lovers and most other mods to work flawlessly, I am having a real head scratching problem with vanilla armor replacers. I downloaded the Break Armor framework (the one here, not the old Break undies which people say not to use) and wanted the vanilla replacers. The whole break armor thing works like a charm and when the armor breaks down to the next level it properly loads the meshes and textures.

 

The problem I am having is when the armor's are at 100% health (or before any BA script has taken over to break it to the next level). I downloaded the correct meshes and textures for all the replacers I am using and they show up how they are supposed to in nifskope. In game however, they simply show up as the normal vanilla armors. Only a couple of the replacers actually work, and those are the replacers that came with an .esp file like the Dwarven armor or Blackwood. I've tried using OBMM to update BSA redirection and I have also tried installing Archive Invalidaion Invalidated, but neither works. I've done everything short of creating my own .esp to add the meshes into the game, mainly because I don't know how, but also because the majority of the replacers don't come with an .esp so I figure I must be doing something wrong if you should just be able to drop the meshes and textures into your data folder and be good to go.

 

Is their something really obvious I am just missing, or do I have a bigger problem on my hands?

[gregathit]

Hey Nel,

 

Ok, to start with get rid of the archive invalidation invalidated deal.  That is old and doesn't work for crap (as you have discovered).  All you need is to use OBMM to archive invalidate via bsa redirection.  Once that is done you are set.

 

Now, to the larger scheme, what version of the game are you running?  Disc or steam?  Do you have either version installed in the program files directory?  If yes AND you are running Vista, Win7 or Win8 you need to stop and move the game out of there.  UAC and permission issues will jack with you until you give up in frustration.  To move your disc install is pretty straight forward.  Choose something like C:\Games\Oblivion or some such.  To move steam is also straightforward but depending on the number of games you have installed it can be a long affair.  To do so follow the directions in the link below (NOTE:  you will not have to redownload or reinstall any of your mods doing it by this method):

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

[Nel]

Hi Greg,

 

I figured the Archive invalidation invalidated was crap, but didn't want to delete yet in case I was mistaken. So by your word it is now off my computer. I tried the OBMM way to do bsa redirection before even downloading aii! and it did nothing for me either, but I will try again after I finish moving steam. Currently validating my caches for my games, so shouldn't be too long. I moved Steam like you suggested and I should be running the latest update of Oblivion because I always tell Steam to keep my games updated. I'll do a double check just to make sure I have the latest version, but I'm 99% sure I'm good there. I'll let you know more after I'm done updating Steam and if I'm still having problems.

[gregathit]

After moving steam just archive invalidate via bsa redirection with OBMM again and you should be set.

[Nel]

I tried that and it did nothing. I am still getting the vanilla armors. The .nif files still show up correctly in nifskope but they don't appear in game. I'll go ahead and post my load order

 

[spoiler=Load Order]Oblivion.esm
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed.esm
Lovers with PK.esm
LoversCreature.esm
LoversCalm.esp
DLCShiveringIsles.esp
DLCHorseArmor.esp
DLCOrrery.esp
DLCVileLair.esp
DLCMehrunesRazor.esp
DLCSpellTomes.esp
EVE_StockEquipmentReplacer.esp
EY_BM_Armory.esp
Queensarmory.esp
HGEC_SBVelvetRose.esp
Notused_Leather.esp
R18PN - Bs Bondage.esp
R18PN - Lingeries.esp
DLCThievesDen.esp
Apachii_Goddess_Store.esp
DLCBattlehornCastle.esp
DLCFrostcrag.esp
Knights.esp
EVE_KnightsoftheNine.esp
EVE_ShiveringIslesEasterEggs.esp
LoversFSE.esp
LoversAdultPlayPlus.esp
LoversAdultPlayPlusforSSP.esp
LoversVoiceSSPplus.esp
LoversRaperSGalgat.esp
LoversBed.esp
LoversPower.esp
LoversContraception.esp
Lovers with PK.esp
LoversBitch.esp
LoversCreature.esp
LoversHelpRapeVPlayer.esp
LoversBackup2.esp
LoversStopCombatEx.esp
LoversSpermSplashEx.esp
LoversEscapeRapeVPlayer.esp
LoversRapeSlave.esp
LoversMB2.esp
LoversHideMenus.esp
LoversSoundVolumeDown.esp
LoversIdleAnimsPriority.esp
LoversAnimObjectsPriority.esp
Alternative Start by Robert Evrae.esp
zzEstrus.esp
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed Disable BandBlindMask.esp
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed Vanilla Race.esp
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed Merged Hair Modules.esp
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed Merged Eye Modules.esp
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed MS Elves - NoSc.esp
EVE_KhajiitFix.esp
LoversMotionsNT.esp
zBUArmors.esp
BreakArmor.esp
LoversBreakArmor.esp
JUSTICE HGEC Steelarmor Replacer.esp
Replacer - Blackwood (mergeable).esp
Replacer - Dwarven (mergeable).esp
Dungeon Explorer.esp

 

 

My uneducated guess is that EVE_stockequipment replacer might be causing problems with it? I've tried it with it unchecked, checked, uninstalled, installed but with the meshes overwritten by the meshes I want, etc. The only replacers that work for me are Dwarven, Blackwood, and Steel because they have replacer .esp's that either came with the meshes or with the vanilla break armor omod. I'm seriously at a loss for what to do besides extracting all the problem armors from the Oblivion .bsa which I don't even know if that is safe/wise to do so I haven't touched it yet.

[movomo]

Then if you disable all the plugins, do those replacers work? all the replacers except dwarven/steel thingy should work if youve done archive invalidation correctly.

 

on a totally unrelated note, EVE_StockEquipmentReplacer.esp and ( JUSTICE HGEC Steelarmor Replacer.esp + Replacer - Blackwood (mergeable).esp + Replacer - Dwarven (mergeable).esp ) do the same thing. you can merge them into bashed patch or disable latter 3. maybe.

 

===

edit

nope. EVE and those 3 are little bit different. Use latter 3.

[Nel]

Disabling all pugins didn't work.

 

And now I've gone and done something that was probably really stupid and Oblivion CTD when trying to load my save. I used the BSA invalidation in Archive Invalidation for meshes and textures and I'm assuming that was a very bad thing to do considering I can't even load my saves now. Unless there is a way to fix whatever issue I just caused by poking around, it looks like I probably should re-install Oblivion and see if I can get everything back in working order.

 

edit: Is there more to BSA redirection then simply making sure it is selected and hitting update now? The BSA is in the obmm folder which is in the same directory as the data folder (so not directly in the data folder). I tried both leaving it where OBMM puts it and cutting and pasting it into the data folder, but neither worked. I could be missing something very simple on that front.

[movomo]

Well, usually you get crashes if some critical esms are missing. Don'w worry about that. Just create a new save and see if the armors show up normally. Use consoles to get armors.

 

As to Archive Invalidation, yes it's nothing more than checking BSA redirection and clicking update now. Don't mess with the BSARedirection.bsa. If you're sure you've done correctly and all the files are what you want and in the right place, armors should show up (at least in pure vanilla oblivion). My guess is that you did something wrong in this process or UAC issue as Greg mentioned above.

 

As a general advice - when you have absolutely no idea what mod(s) is causing the pain on you, try some brute attack. Let's say you have 200 mods, then disable bottom 100 plugins and see if it works. If it still doesn't work, the culprit is somewhere in the upper 100. If it works, it's in the lower 100. Then you disable 50, 25, ...and so on, til you find the criminal scum.

[gregathit]

These two need to be on the very bottom of your load order at all times:

LoversIdleAnimsPriority.esp
LoversAnimObjectsPriority.esp

 

 

Disable the below items:

LoversMotionsNT.esp  <--- this isn't need for anything.

LoversAdultPlayPlus.esp  <---you are running the SSP version so you can't run this version too.

 

 

Pick only one of the below:

LoversHelpRapeVPlayer.esp  <---your companions only can save you during rapes.
LoversEscapeRapeVPlayer.esp   <---you save yourself during rape by hitting the block key

 

 

Put this down somewhere under lovers with pk's esp file: LoversCalm.esp  - you had it too high up in your load order.

 

zzEstrus.esp  <---you may need to disable the bu\nudeshy deal in this as it may be causing problems.

 

 

[Nel]

I can't even load a new game, I get a CTD the second the cutscene with the Emperor is over. I think I royaly messed something up when trying to solve this. I'm gonna go ahead and un-install and then re-install oblivion and then work from there.

[gregathit]

Reinstalling may not solve your issue.  Try instead to disable all mods except the oblivion.esm and the official DLC.  If your game still crashes with that THEN reinstall.

[Nel]

I completely reinstalled Oblivion deleting the entire folder so that no loose mod files and scripts would be floating around. Loaded up Oblivion with no mods and it works, so CTD issue fixed so I can atleast play it again. I then installed the replacer armors I want to use, used bsa redistribution through obmm and added a couple of the armors to my inventory through the console. I have 0 mods installed other than the files for those armor replacers. They still will not show up in game. The original Oblivion meshes in the BSA keep on overwriting them even after I run the bsa redistribution.

[movomo]

Well, crap. then try giving OBMM admin authority. no, give admin to everything you can think of. Every executables in my oblivion folder run as administrator. Turn off the UAC of course.

[Nel]

Gave evrything I could admin authority, saw that the oblivion folder was marked as read-only so I unchecked that, turned off UAC (I think... Windows only let me turn the settings to never notify me and there was no toggle off or on like their guide said there should be). Still no go. I'm not even sure bsa redirector is doing anything. It is giving me that bsa redirector file in the obmm folder but beyond that nothing that I can see. The bsa file it creates is only 1kb and has nothing in it when I try to see what is inside. I'm pretty much at a loss here.

[Nel]

Got it working (sort of). I figured out how to add the meshes to my own esp (which was surprisingly easy) and now they are loading into my game. I have no idea why they wouldn't work normally like I assume they do for everyone else, but this can be a workaround for anyone else who has a similar problem as me in the future.

 

Thanks for the help you two, even though we couldn't solve the main issue I still appreciate the effort and even the helpful tips on load orders and other information.

[movomo]

BSARedirection.bsa is very small it's normal. In fact, it is a kind of fake bsa file that cheats oblivion to load loose files. So your Oblivion.ini should look like

sArchiveList=..\obmm\BSARedirection.bsa, Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa, Oblivion - Sounds.bsa, Oblivion - Voices1.bsa, Oblivion - Voices2.bsa, Oblivion - Misc.bsa

(if you use obmm of course. OBMM stores BSARedirection.bsa in data\obmm\ folder.

 

Anyways, try resetting the timestamp of your mesh BSA file. 2006-01-01 will do, but backup before you do anything.

[Nel]

It looked like that except it still had the archive invalidation invalidated.bsa in it so I removed that from it. So I guess it did do what it was supposed to although who knows how much archive invalidation invalidaed might have screwed it up. To be fair though I did run obmm's bsa redirector first. Oh well, like I said I managed to work around the issue by creating my own esp so I don't know if deleting that from the ini will help but I got my result I wanted one way or the other. Thanks for the help and your break armor models that are so good they made me want to go through all this just to have them!

[movomo]

Creating esp should be the last resort. And Archive Invalidation Invalidated indeed has become a crap, try to avoid it. You can just run BSA redirection and copy those sArchive thingy manually just to make sure they are in where they should be. Good luck!

[Nel]

I deactivated the esp I created and it is indeed working without it. So I think problem solved!