Wrye Bash

After you install Wrye Bash, you may find yourself a bit lost in the features. The rest of this manual describes the features in depth, but if you're looking to just do one or two things quickly, then you should consult the Wrye Bash Help Pages at UESP.

In particular, see:

• Wrye Bash Basic Usage for quick "how to" guides of most common bash uses.

• Wrye Bash Advanced FAQs: Oveviews of using advanced Bash features.

Quick Tour

• At the top are the main tabs: Replacers, Mods, Saves and Screenshots.

• The savegame list is the main feature of this Saves Tab. For each file, details are shown and general "health" of the savegame is indicated by the color of the savegame's checkbox. Purple is best – totally safe to play. Red is worst – meaning that one of the master mods files is missing.

• The file details for the currently selected savegame are shown to the right. File name, stats and savegame preview image are all shown.

• The masters list for the savegame is shown at the bottom of the details. The masters for the savegame are just the mods (esps and esms) that the savegame depends on.

• Most operations in Wrye Bash are accessed through context menus. In this case, I right clicked on a savegame, and so got the savegame menu. Here I'm selecting the Reweigh Potions command.

• Incidentally, you'll notice that the title of the window is "Wrye Bash: ELandra 4 SI [SI]". "ELandra 4 SI" is just the name of the currently selected savegame profile. The trailing [SI] indicates that I'm using the Shivering Isles (SI) version of Oblivion.esm.

• At the bottom is the launch bar, with buttons for launching Oblivion, OBMM, TESCS and options for launching OBSE and quitting Bash when launching Oblivion.

Credits and Contact

Author

• Wrye: Monkey God of Modding!

Additional Credits

• Translators:

• German: DWS

• Italian: Abot

• Portuguese: Hadoki

• Russian: DJ_Kovrik

• Mod and Save File Gurus

• GhostWheel

• Dave Humphreys

• ElminsterEU

• Rick

• Resetgun

• ScripterRon

• Wrye

• Python Kings:

• Guido van Rossum and many, many others.

• Special Thanks:

• dev_akm: Archive Invalidation, etc.

• ElminsterEU: Tes4View etc. Crucial for adding/checking new record types.

• Timeslip: BSA editing code, OBMM integration, etc.

• Veritas_Secreto: Tamriel NPCs Revamped

• Additional Thanks

• ElminsterEU: Bug catching, technical suggestions.

• Tom Suprgan: Several well researched suggestions.

• Sativarg: Proofreading

Homage Credits

Aka, ideas/stuff I stole from other people.

• Names Files

• Flak: Flak's Complete Names Project

• Bash Features

• Kyorisu: Tes IV Save Manager (Save Profiles)

• No Light Flicker: Crypton's No Light Flicker mods

• GMST Tweaks

• Aelius: Arrow Litter, Essential NPC Unconsciousness

• David Moyer: PC Death Camera

• dbolivar, Acleacius: Horse Turning Speed

• demuerte: Chameleon: No Refraction

• Ravida: Fatigue from Running/Encumbrance

• timmypod: Unlimited Amulets and Rings

• Woodman: Chase Camera

• KseAli: POI Visibility

• Tom Supergan: Chase Camera Distance

• ??: Compass Disable

• ??: Compass: POI Recognition

Contact

• If you have a question/comment about Wrye Bash, it's best to post it on the current RELZ topic on the Bethesda Game Studios (BGS) forums.

• If you need to contact me personally, PM me at the BGS forums. However, if it's a general help question, I may ignore it, since such questions are better posted on the forum topic.

• If I'm not available (offline or working on other projects), then the Elder Scrolls forums are the best place to go for help with Wrye Bash.

License

Wrye Bash is released under Version 2 of the GNU General Public License. See enclosed gpl.txt file for license details.

Installation

Get and Install

• Wrye Bash is written in python and uses the wxPython GUI library to provide the interface. So before you can run Wrye Bash, you'll need to download both of these.

• Download and Install Python 2.5

Download link: Python 2.5.2

• Download and Install wxPython 2.8.7.1 ANSI

Download link: wxPython 2.8.7.1 ANSI for python 2.5.

• Download and Unzip Wrye Bash XXX.zip:

Download link: Wrye Musings

Unzip the files into your Oblivion installation directory. If you've done this correctly, you'll find bash.py and other bash files under Oblivion\Mopy.

• Note: Bash will also run under Python 2.4, and should run with python/wxPython versions later than those linked to above. See Alternative Python/wxPython.

Windows Vista

• On Windows Vista, the UAC (User Account Control) protects the Program Files directory (usually c:\Program Files) against write by regular users. This can be a problem for Bash and other mod editing and management tools (TESCS, TES4View, OBMM).

• Best Solution: Install Oblivion to somewhere other than under the Program Files directory. (E.g, install to c:\Games\Oblivion). Such an alternate directory is not subject to UAC control and won't have the same access and virtualization problems that the default install will have.

• Alternate Solutions: Alternatively, you might always run as admin, or turn off UAC – but both of those approaches are ill-advised. For more advice, see the Unofficial Help page at UESP.

Starting Wrye Bash

• Double click the "Wrye Bash for Python 2.5" shortcut in the Mopy directory.

• If that doesn't work, try double clicking on "bash.py" in the Mopy directory.

This is not the best way to start Bash. However if it works, you can easily get the shortcut to work too with a little tweaking.

If Bash Won't Start

• If Bash refuses to start, or quits after quickly flashing up a window...

• Check your Bash Shortcut

• Most users who have problems with Bash simply need to tweak the Start In and/or Target fields of the shortcut. (See Tweak the Shortcut for more info.)

• If that's fine, then there may be a bug with Bash, or a problem with your setup. You can usually figure out the problem by getting the bug dump and reviewing it. And if you can't puzzle it out, someone on the Elder Scrolls forums may be able to help.

• Finding the Bugdump

• Sometimes the error will be written to a file in the Mopy directory called bash.log. If that file is there, then that's the bug dump. You can open it with any text editor.

• If it's not present, then you'll have to generate the bug dump yourself...

• Generating the Bugdump

• Open a command shell (Start: Programs: Accessories: Command Prompt).

• chdir to the Mopy directory. "chdir" means "change directory". E.g.: chdir C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Mopy

• Type: c:\python24\python.exe bash.py -d

• If you have a different version/location of python, adapt the first argument accordingly.

• Doing this will cause any error messages that Bash generates on start to spew to the command shell. This is the bugdump.

• Dealing with Bugdump

• First, look at it! – especially the last several lines – this will often give you a good clue as to what the problem is, and you may be able to resolve it on your own.

• Second, see following section for common problems and their solution.

Common Problems

• Can't find bash.py

• Make sure that you chdir to the Mopy directory first.

• Can't Find User Directory

• The problem here is that python is not very good at getting the user directories. There are two options here.

• First option is simple, but is a bit vague and may not work.

• Launch a windows program that likes to mess with your user directory. E.g. Adobe Reader might do it. Or maybe a media player.

• Then try running Bash again and see if it works. If Bash still has the same problem, try the next option.

• Second option is to install pywin32.

• Download pywin32 from: SourceForge pywin32.

• Be sure to install the version that matches the version of python you installed! E.g. if you installed python 2.5, then download/install pywinXXX-py2.5.exe.

• Can't Find wxversion

• I don't understand the source of the problem, but it has something to do with the way python is installed. The solution seems to be to reinstall python and wxpython in that order. (You may have to first uninstall both of them.)

• no module named wx

• You haven't installed wxPython or you haven't installed it in the right place.

• Be sure that you actually installed (not just downloaded) wxPython.

• If, when installing wxPython, you did not see the usual installation wizard dialog, then you almost certainly downloaded a corrupted version of wxPython. Re-download it. Make sure that the downloaded file is larger than a few kB (actually, it should be about 8 Mb).

• The NTVDM CPU has encountered an illegal instruction.

• If an error message like this pops up (very rare) the problem is with your OS installation. For some reason the Microsoft utility that handles the installation of installer files is messed up. As far as I know, the only solution is to fix (maybe reinstall) your OS (the utility is part of the Windows OS).

• UNCommon Problems

• If the problem is not listed above and thinking about it doesn't help, then go to the forums and post the whole bugdump. Preferably, you should post the dump in the Relz/Help topic (see Discussion link at top of page) or you can start a new topic. Be sure to mention "Wrye Bash" in the text of the post.

• Hint: Control-C does not work in the command line window, but you can still copy text from it by:

• Right click and select "Select All" to selecting the text,

• Hitting the Enter key.

Alternative Python/wxPython

Only for gearheads and/or people who need/want to use a different version of python/wxPython for some reason...

• Both python and wxPython release new versions on regular basis. Many of the recent ones should work with Bash. Some of the older ones are known not to. If you want/need to use a different installation, then here are some alternatives:

• Most Recent Python/wxPython

If you want to use the latest version of python and wxPython, get them from: Python downloads and wxPython downloads. When getting the wxPython download, be sure to get the ANSI version that matches the version of python you downloaded. (Note that Bash does not support the Unicode version of wxWindows.)

• OR... Python 2.4/wxPython 2.5.3.1

If you want to use the older well tested set of python and wxPython, download Python 2.4.4 and wxPython 2.5.3.1 ANSI for Python 2.4. Most development/testing of Bash is done with this set, however it's a little dated.

Tweak the Shortcut

• Do this if either Oblivion or Python is in a non-standard directory.

• Wrye Bash is not a regular program, but rather a script file. To run Bash, the Wrye Bash shortcut needs to tell Windows to: 1) find the Python script file interpreter (pythonw.exe), and 2) use it to run the bash.py script file that is located in the 3) Oblivion\Mopy directory.

• Ordinarily the Wrye Bash shortcut does this pretty easily, but if either Python or Oblivion is in a non-standard directory, then you need to alter it to point to the new directories. The rest of this section shows you how to do that.

• Copy the "Wrye Bash for Python 2.x" shortcut and give the copy a new name (e.g., "My Bash 2.x") – this protects your changes from being overwritten by future Bash releases.

• Right click on the new shortcut, select Properties. This will open the Properties window for the shortcut.

• Go to the Shortcut tab in the Properties window.

• If Oblivion is in a non-standard directory, then edit the Start In field to be

[Oblivion Directory Path]\Mopy (e.g. H:\Games\Oblivion\Mopy )

• If Python is in a non-standard place. then edit the Target field to be:

"[PythonPath]" bash.py (e.g. "C:\Python24\pythonw.exe" bash.py )

Help!

• Startup Problems: See If Bash Won't Start.

• Windows Are Off Screen:

• This may happen if you reduce your screen size or remove a second screen. Symptoms are that window shows up in taskbar, but doesn't appear. Also, you can use the taskbar to maximize the window, but once minimized it disappears again.

• As of v190, Bash's main window should autocorrect to be displayed when you start Bash.

• For other windows, see this tip.

• Other Tips/Help:

• First, Read this readme! Helps to use the search feature of your browser.

• Second, visit How To's and FAQs.

Launch Buttons

At the bottom left of Bash's main window you'll find launch buttons for Oblivion and other applications (if they're installed). You'll also find one or two toggle buttons.

Application Buttons

• Oblivion (Main Oblivion executable, not the launcher.)

• Oblivion Mod Manager

• TES Construction Set

• Tes4View

• Tes4Edit

• Tes4Trans

Bash Option Buttons

• OBSE

• When checked this will launch OBSE when either the Oblivion or TESCS buttons are clicked.

• Auto-Quit

• If checked this will cause Bash to quit when launching Oblivion. This is useful if you're concerned about memory usage.

• BashMon

• This launches bashmon.py in a command shell window. This is for use with Breeze582000's Seducers/Succubi mod and Wrye's Morph mod.

• For more info, see [WIPZ] Succubi Race.

• Help

• Show this help file in the default web browser.

• Doc Browser

• Show the Doc Browser. (You can also view the doc browser by double clicking on any mod file in the Mods tab.)

Replacers Tab

The replacers tab manages a limited installer facility that is geared towards installing and uninstalling replacer type mods. To use this, you'll need to add replacer mods to the Oblivion\Data\Replacers directory in specific way. Once that is done, you can quickly install/uninstall any replacer by checking or unchecking it in the list.

Setup

• Create a directory named "Replacers" in the Oblivion\Data directory.

• Unpack/unzip the replacer package that you want to use into the Replacers directory. The name of the directory will be the name of the replacer. The top level of replacer directory should mirror the top level of the Oblivion\Data directory.

• Example directory structure:

+ Oblivion\Data\Replacers

+ Dark UI Load Screens (Replacer)

+ menus

+ textures

+ Map, Elven Redux (Replacer)

+ textures

Usage

• Check/uncheck a replacer to install/uninstall it.

• Update Textures BSA (archive) if necessary.

Textures BSA

• Overview

Due to a bug in the Oblivion game engine, texture replacements often will not show up correctly unless the Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa file and/or the ArchiveInvalidation.txt file are updated. You can use Bash or another tool to manually or automatically do this updating.

• Usage

• Manual update: Click the Update button after adding/removing replacers.

• Automatic update: Check the Automatic checkbox. (Textures BSA will be automatically updated whenever you add or remove a replacer.)

• To remove Bash's changes to the Textures archive, click Restore.

• BSA Editing Conflicts

• Texture BSA editing controls are disabled if either Oblivion Mod Manager or BSA Patch appear to have active BSA edits.

• BSA Patch creates the file ConsoleBSAEditData2 in the Oblivion\Data directory when it's active. To remove it, run BSAPatch again.

• OBMM creates the file BSAEdits in Oblivion\obmm. To remove it, launch OBMM, go to Utilities: Archive Invalidation, and:

• Uncheck Autoupdate on exit

• Click Remove BSA Edits

• More Info:

• See Archive Invalidation Explained/Destroyed by dev_akm and others.

Replacers vs. File: Hide

Note that the Replacers feature is designed as a vanilla Oblivion resource replacer. While to some degree it can be used as a mod installer, this is rarely desirable since mod-uninstallation is likely to cause problems. If you're looking for a mod installer/uninstaller, the either use Timeslip's Oblivion Mod Manager, or Bash's File: Hide command (which only hides esps/esms instead of actually uninstalling the mod).

The problem with using Replacers as a mod uninstaller, is that it doesn't keep track of how many mods are using a given resource. Hence uninstalling one mod will cause problems if any other mod is using the same resources. (Common results would include seeing big yellow exclamation points and/or flat purple textures in game.) Since Bash is not good about uninstalling mods, it's not useful to use the replacers feature – which just doubles the amount of disk space needed.

However, if all you want to do is remove some clutter from your mod list, then the File: Hide command will do the job nicely. This leaves all the resources in place, but moves the selected esm/esp files to a "Hidden" directory. I you later decide you want the mod back in play, just use the Unhide command. (Right click on column header on Mods tab and select "Unhide...".)

Again, if you're using Replacer strictly to manage resource replacers, it will be fine for that. It's particularly useful if you expect to be switching between several such mods (e.g., switching between Map replacers, or body replacers). For more complicate tasks you OBMM or File: Hide.

Mods Tab

Mods List

• Sorting

• Sort Mod list items by (left) clicking on a column header, or by using the sort submenu of the column popup menu.

• Reverse a sort by redoing it. E.g., left click on the File column header twice in a row.

• "Load Order" is the exception – it will always appear in correct order.

• Force ESMS to the top of the list by selecting "Sort by Type" from the context menu.

• Force selected mods to the top of the list by selecting "Sort by Selection" from the context menu.

• Activating Mods

• Activate mods by clicking on the checkbox next to their name.

• Note: When a mod is activated, it's master mods will also be activated.

• Conversely, when a mod is deactivated, any mods that depend on it (its "children") will also be deactivated.

• Text Colors

• Blue: An esm file.

• Green: A mod marked as mergeable (see Merge Patches).

• Line Colors

• Pink: A file that shares a modification date/time with another file. Not a problem unless they're both activated, in which case, the lines turn...

• Orange: Exclusion group violation. See Exclusion Groups below.

• Red: A file that shares a modification date/time with another file – with both files being activated. This should definitely be corrected! Use details view to change the modification date of one of the files by a second or more.

• Checkbox Types

• Regular checkmark: mod is active.

• Plus sign (+) checkmark: mod is merged into an active Bashed Patch mod.

• No checkmark: Mod is neither active nor merged.

• Checkbox Colors

• Checkbox colors indicate the "health" of the mod file's master files.

• Blue or Green: Good.

• Orange: Some mods have changed order. Oblivion and TESCS will adjust for this when you load. However, if some of the mods that you depend made conflicting changes to the same item, a different mod may now dominate because of the reordering.

• Red: A master is missing. You should check to make sure that you have not inadvertently renamed or removed the mod.

• Exclusion Groups

• Oftentimes users will have different versions of the same mod, or different mods which do the same sort of thing in an incompatible way. Exclusion groups can be used to help flag these mods so that you don't accidentally activate more than one at once. When an exclusion group is violated, all violating mods will be highlighted in orange.

• Defining an exclusion group is easy – just change the name of the mod to include a comma. The part of the name before the comma is the exclusion group.

• Example:

• The "Drop Lit Torches in Combat" mod come in several variants with different messages and levels of brightness: plain, B (Brighter), NM (No messages) and BNM (Brighter, No Messages).

• Rename these to: "Combat Torch, A.esp" (plain), "Combat Torch B,esp", "Combat Torch, NM.esp" and "Combat Torch, BNM.esp"

• Other uses:

• Different versions of the same mod: "Yadda, v01.esp", "Yadda, v02.esp"

• Different mods of same type: "Overhaul, Oscuro.esp", "Overhaul, Adventurers.esp".

Mod Details

• Make changes to the file in the details view.

• File Name Change the file name.

• Note that changes to the file name are not automatically reflected in any mods that have the current mod as their master.

• Modification Time Change the file modification time.

• Note that this affects file order.

• Author Change the author name.

• Description and Doc Browser

• Edit the mod description.

• Click on the Document icon to show the Doc Browser.

• Masters List

• The masters list show the esm files that the current mod depends on, and the load order (modIndex) of that master.

• Renaming Masters: If a master has been renamed, you can adjust for that here by renaming the master. Either left-click the name and edit it in the column display, or right-click the name, select Change To... and then select the desired replacement esp/esm from the mods directory.

• Note that you should only do this if the new name is a new version of the same mod. Replacing a mod with an unrelated mod will cause file corruption.

Load Order

• Background

• In case of conflicts between mods (e.g., two mods changing the same race), the last mod to load "wins", i.e., overwrites any changes made by any previous mod.

• Since load order is determined largely by modified date, load ordering utilities (including Bash) allow you to configure load order by setting the modified date of mods.

• However, Bash goes further than load ordering – it maintains the load order of mods by resetting their modified dates as needed.

• Changing Load Order

• You can change the load order of any file by editing it's modified date in the details panel and saving the changes.

• You can alphabetically sort several mods at once by selecting them and then selecting "File: Sort" from the context menu.

• Maintaining Load Order

• First, make sure that the "Lock Times" option is selected on the column header context menu.

• Then, after making any changes to mod files, bring the main Bash window to the foreground, and Bash will reset times as needed.

• Notes

• If you want to use another load ordering utility (e.g., Oblivion Mod Manager), then be sure to turn off Lock Times first. When you're done using the other utility, you can turn Lock Times back to continue to maintain the new load order.

Mods Tab Commands

These are the commands for the context menu for the mods list. (You'll get this menu by right-clicking on the header of the mods list.)

Load Lists

• Aside from using checkboxes to select and unselect mods, you can also use load lists. These are accessed through the column context menu, and work in the same way at the Load Masters command.

• None: Deactivates all mods.

• Save List... Saves your currently activated mods to a new load list.

• Edit Lists... Allows you to delete and rename previously defined load lists.

• [Load List] Synchronizes activated mods to load list.

Oblivion.ini

• This opens the Oblivion.ini file in your preferred editor.

INI Tweaks

• This feature allows you to quickly modify Oblivion.ini by copying settings from an Ini Tweak file. Ini tweak files are just like Oblivion.ini, except they contain only the section/key settings that are to be changed.

• Warning: Incorrect Oblivion.ini settings can cause general weirdness, CTDs or even damage to your computer! (Or so I've heard.) Advanced graphics settings in particular tend to be card/computer specific and should not be casually copied from one computer to another.

• Note: The background load section of the ini file changed with the introduction of Patch 1.2. It would probably be a bad thing to apply pre 1.2 background settings to a 1.2 configuration and vice versa.

List Mods

• Displays list of currently active mods and copies that same list to the clipboard. Useful for posting your list of mods to forums for load debugging help.

• Note: Merged, imported and group header mods will also be shown.

Debug Mode

• This feature will activate debug printout. Note that there are few commands for which this will have an effect. (E.g. Update Save Levels... will be affected.)

• This feature is not sticky. I.e. it will default to "off" everytime you start Bash.

Mod File Commands

These are the commands found on context menu for mods...

File Commands

• File Operations

• Backup Create a backup of the file. Note that backups are also automatically created (see "Revert to Backup" below). If you want to be sure that you can late restore from a specific point, use Duplicate or Snapshot instead.

• Duplicate Creates a duplicate of the file in the mods directory.

• Snapshot... Creates a snapshot copy of the current mod in a subdirectory (Bash\Snapshots).

• Snapshots are indicated by appending to "-l.n.m" to the root of the file name. E.g., "My.esp" becomes "My-01.esp" or "My Mod v1.01.esp" becomes "My Mod v1.01-01.esp".

• Note that Bash will automatically generate the next available snapshot number. However, you are free to chose a different number if you like.

• Also, if there's an existing version line (e.g., "Version NN.MM-LL") in the description field of the mod, then it will updated with the new version plus snapshot number when the snapshot is saved.

• Delete Deletes the file... Permanently.

• Also deletes all backups and temp files, but not snapshots.

• Hide Moves the file to a subdirectory (Bash\Hidden).

• Use this on seldom used mods to keep them from cluttering the mods listing.

• This is especially useful when modding, since the TESCS Data list cannot be sorted.

• Note that there's a corresponding "Unhide..." command in the column context menu.

• If the file's group is defined (e.g. Heads), and if the Bash\Hidden directory has a subdirectory with the same name (e.g. Bash\Hidden\Heads), then the file will be hidden in it.

• Redate Redates the selected mods to specified date/time. First mod will be moved to the specified date/time, with other mods following at one minute intervals.

• Sort Reorders selected mods to make them sort in alphabetical order.

• Modified time of first mod is set to time of first selected mod. Other mods follow it at one minute increments.

• WARNING: Some mods must be loaded in a certain order (e.g., a patch mod must be loaded after the original). Sort may break that required ordering! Use sort with extreme caution! Note too that there is no "undo" command for sort!

• Revert to Backup Reverts the file to the last Backup made of it.

• Bash will make a backup of a file the first time it is significantly changed in an application session.

• E.g., if you make two or three changes to a file in a given application session, then only the first change will generate a backup.

• Revert to First Backup Same as Revert to Backup, only it reverts to the very first backup that Bash made of the file.

• The first backup is generated the first time that Bash alters a file, and is never overwritten. Hence it is guaranteed to be free of any problem that Bash might introduce.

• Of course, this also may mean that it's badly out of date!

• Revert to Snapshot Reverts the file to a selected snapshot.

Add Master

• Adds specified master to list of masters, thus ceding ownership of new content of this mod to the new master. Useful for splitting mods into esm/esp pairs.

• Warning: For advanced modders only. You should only use this if you know exactly what you're doing.

Copy to Esp/Esm

• Creates an esm copy of an esp or vice versa.

• Notes: For esps, the Espify/Esmify Self command will often be more desirable.

Espify/Esmify Self

• Background: The distinction between esps and esms is not determined by the file extension, but rather by an internal bit of the file. This command flips that bit, making an esp file behave as an esm and vice versa.

• Esp Mastering: Ordinarily, the construction set will not allow one esp to act as a master of another esp. However, the game engine (Oblivion.exe) does allow such mastering. Using this command on an esp will allow that esp to be used as master for other esps.

• Esm Editing: This command should allow esms to be edited, unfortunately, because of some bugginess in the CS, it will crash soon after you save an esm that's been flipped to an esp. Hence the command is disabled for esms. Use Copy to Esp/Esm instead.

• Warning: Leaving mods in an a flipped esm/esp state will likely cause confusion for users and for savegames. Keep in mind that the flipped esp/esm is treated by the game as what it's flipped to. Be sure to flip mods back to their normal state for normal game play and when releasing.

Espify/Esmify Masters

• Does the same thing as Espify/Esmify Self except it acts on the esp masters of a given mod. This is useful for editing mods that already have esp masters.

• Note: Command is disabled if mod has no esp masters.

Import Face

• See Face Import below.

Import Formids

• Systematically replace formids with alternates. This is for advanced modders only. Useful if a mod depends on elements from one master, and you want to replace those with equivalent elments from another master.

• Example: To shift a mod that depends on Tamrielic Ingredients to depend on Cobl instead, it's necessary to systematically replace TI elements with equivalent Cobl elements (e.g. replace TI's AdamantiumOre with Cobl's cobTiRawAdamantium). About 130 types of items need to be replaced, and they need to be replaced in leveled lists, containers, npcs, creatures, etc.

• What's Covered: Formids are replaced in: containers, leveled lists, NPCs, creatures and flora. (This can be broadened somewhat upon request.) However, cells and worldspaces will not be handled anytime soon (Bash doesn't handle those records yet).

• Process:

• While this feature automates quite a bit of the replacement, the modder will still have to do preparatory work as well as cleanup afterwards.

• First, create a formid translation file. This is a csv spreadsheet. You'll find an example at Oblivion\Data\Bash Patches\TI to Cobl_Formids.csv.

• The columns are:

• Record type: (ACTI, INGR, etc.). Actually, Bash ignores this column, but its a good idea to have it set the type of the old formid.

• Old Mod and Old Object: Together, these constitute the formid (long version) of the original object.

• Old Eid: The editor id of the old object.

• New Eid: The editor id of the new object.

• New Mod and New Object: Together, these constitute the formid (long version) of the replacement object.

• To build the file, use Export: Editor Ids on both the old and new mods (old mod is the one that defines the objects you'll be replacing, and the new mod is the one that defines the objects you'll be using as replacements). Open these csv files up, then use spreadsheet-fu to merge them into the desired format. You'll likely want to:

• Trim each spreadsheet before trying to combine them (i.e. chop each list down to just the relevant entries).

• Move the column of old eids so that it replaces the column of old record types.

• Sort rows by editor id.

• After merging the two csv files, you'll need to add and remove cells to make sure that the entries line up correctly.

• Note that it's okay if either the old side or the new side of a given row is empty. If bash sees that either the old or the new entry is missing, it will ignore the row.

• Note that the new type does not have to be the same as the old type. E.g. you might replace an old misc. item with a new leveled list. But of course, the types should be compatible. E.g., replacing a spell with a misc. object would be a bad idea.

• When saving, be sure that the file name ends in Formids.csv and is a csv format file!

• In Bash, select the file that you're about to modify and duplicate it. This is optional but highly advised. I'll assume that you do this and make your changes to the translated version.

• Make sure that the file you're modifying (translated version) has the correct masters. E.g. if you're replacing TI records with Cobl records, then the mod has to be dependent on both TI and Cobl. Usually you'll have to open the mod in TESCS, and resave it with the correct new dependency.

• Note: When doing replacements, Bash will ignore any replacement entries where either the old or the new master is unavailable.

• In Bash, select the file you want to modify (translated version) and run the Import: Formids command. You'll need to select the csv translation file. Bash will report replacement counts at the end. Now the file actually is translated. Woohoo!

• Now would be a good time to check in Tes4View. In bash, deactivate all mods (easy way is to deactivate Oblivion.esm), then reactivate the original and tweaked versions and then run Tes4View. This will show you very directly what has been changed. Hopefully that looks good.

• Probably you'll need to do some manual tweaking. Open the tweaked version in TESCS, and edit as necessary and save your changes.

• When done you may need to remove the original dependency.

• Now is a good time to make a backup copy. Trust the monkey. It is.

• In Bash by 1) creating a blank.esp file, 2) changing the dependency from the original master (e.g. Tamrielic Ingredients.esm) to blank.esp. (In list of masters on RHS of Bash screen, right click on the master, then select "Change To". Be sure to click the "Save" button when done!

• Open the tweaked version in TESCS. If you previously correctly removed all dependencies on the old file, you should not get any warnings. If you didn't, then you'll probably need to revert to the backup you just made and finish the job.

• Assuming no warnings, just resave the mod. When saving, the dependency on blank.esp will be discarded.

• Voila! You're done.

Export/Import Editor Ids

• Export and import editor ids. This is for advanced modders only. It allows you to export editor ids to a csv file, systematically modify them and then reimport them. I.e., it's only useful if you want to change the editor ids of a lot of items at once.

• Updating Scripts

• The import command will also update the text of regular scripts (but not quest stage scripts or dialog scripts) to adjust for any name changes.

• You may have to recompile the scripts after such edits. I don't have enough informaton to be sure of this, but it seems that I had to recompile some scripts (but not others that were also changed) after making this sort of change. If may be that you only have to change the scripts if you've changed the names of references (which you have to do manually).

• Suggestions:

• If no scripts were changed, then don't worry about it. (If any scripts were changed, they'll be reported at the end of the import.)

• If scripts were changed, then test the mod and recompile if necessary.

• If you want to change scripts after you've changed the base eids (or perhaps this was done in another mod), then in the spreadsheet add another column after the eid column and put the old eid in it before doing the import.

e.g. MISC Oblivion.esm 0x0123456 newEid oldEid

Export Factions

• Exports actor factions to an xx_Factions.csv file.

• To be used in conjunction with Import Factions.

Export/Import Groups

• Exports/Imports groups for selected mods to/from a xxx_Group.csv file.

• For use with Balo.

Export/Import Names

• Export Names exports object names from the mod to a tab delimited spreadsheet file. You can then edit this file and re-import it, import the file to another mod or use it with the Import Names.

• Import Names imports object names from either another mod or a spreadsheet file created by Export Object Names.

• Notes

• Exporting/importing is done on the basis of type (ARMO, BOOK, etc.) and formids.

• All records in the TESCS "Objects Window" with names are supported. Cells and dialog are not.

• On import, only the objects that already exist in the mod are affected.

• Uses

• Systematic name manipulation for mass renaming mods. Also, application of those names to other mods that tweak items. (E.g., applying Rational Names to OOO.)

• Mod translation. This automates some of the work in mod translation. E.g., if an English mod re-balances weapons, the re-balanced items will have the English names. But by importing names from a German version of Oblivion.esm, you'll quickly revert those items to the German names.

• For new items, export the names from the revised mod, edit the resulting spreadsheet and then re-import it.

• Of course, this is only part of the work in localization. Cells are not affected, nor are racial voices.

• Import Names Patcher

• The exported file can be distributed for use by other users with the Import Names Patcher. There are some advantages to this over using a renaming mod:

• Single file can cover multiple mods. Names for mods that aren't loaded will be ignored.

• One less esp in your mods directory!

Export/Import NPC Levels

• Export NPC Levels exports the NPC level info from a mod to a tab separated spreadsheet file. This file can then be edited and re-imported using Import NPC Levels.

• Notes

• This is an advanced function intended for modifying overhaul mods like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. Editing the level files takes a bit of thought and work, but once done the level files can be posted for other players to use.

• NPC leveling is only part of the leveling system. Leveled item lists also have a major impact, and there are creature levels as well – neither of which is addressed by this feature.

• NPC levels in existing saves will not be impacted by this, unless you then use the "Import NPC Levels" command on the save. (Note that while mods import levels from a csv file, saves import their levels from a mod.)

• File Format

• The file format is pretty straightforward – you should be able to read/edit it with most spreadsheet programs. When reading be sure to set the program to recognize tabs as separators. Also, be sure to save in the same tab separated format.

• The first column is the formid – do not edit these!

• The second column is the editor id. This is for convenience only and is ignored on import.

• The next three columns are the leveling info

• The last four columns are the original NPC levels from Oblivion.esm. If the NPCs are new to the mod, these columns will be blank. These are for convenience only and are ignored on import.

• Note that only NPCs that are dynamically leveled (i.e., offset from the player's level) are included in the export file. The "bOffset Oblivion" column indicates whether the NPC was also dynamically offset in Oblivion.esm.

Export/Import Stats

• These paired functions allow you to export ammo, armor and weapon stats to a spreadsheet file, edit the file and the reimport the stats. The exported file can also be used with the Import Stats.

• Uses

• Systematically editing weapon statistics to fit a weapon quality paradigm (e.g. Medieval Oblivion Balance System (MOBS)). The spreadsheet makes it easy to view and edit the stats in a systematic way.

• Patching miscellaneous mods to fit a balance system through Import Stats. Stats for weapons for multiple mods can all be covered in a single spreadsheet file. The stats patcher will then apply changes only for those mods that are active when the patch is updated.

• Spreadsheet Format

• The spreadsheet is written/read as a csv file. After making changes, be sure to save in this format. Also, stat values must be numbers, not formulas.

• Any line in which the entry in the third column does not begin with "0x" will be ignored when Bash reads the file, and so can be used for comments, etc.

Details

• Displays list of records in mod, similar to Details view in TESCS.

List Masters

• Displays list of masters for mod, and copies same list to the clipboard.

Mark Levelers

• Tags selected mods as Delevs and/or Relevs according to their listing in Bash Patches\Leveled Lists.csv and/or Bash Patches\My Leveled Lists.csv.

• Note: This will remove incorrect Delev/Relev tags.

• See als Leveled Lists.

Mark Mergeable

• Tests selected mods, and (if necessary) adds Merge tag.

• If it's desired for a mod to not be marked mergeable even it it is, then the mod should be tagged with NoMerge. This can be useful if the effects of the mod ares supposed to be incorporated by another feature. (E.g. TNR mods might be marked like this since they should be imported through by Import NPC Faces rather than merged.

• See also Merge Patches.

Nvidia Fog Fix

• Systems with Nvidia cards can suffer a black screen bug when the player enters interior cells where near fog, far fog and fog clipping distance are all equal to 0. To avoid this, this function scans the mod and sets near fog to 0.001 in problem cells.

• This feature is based on Quarn's Nvidia Black Screen Fix

• It is advised that modders run this function on their mods before releasing.

• Note: As of 4/6/08, this is a new function. Use with caution. (You might want to take a snapshot.)

Rebuild Patch

• See Bashed Patches.

Version 0.8

• Resets the file version number of a mod file back to an older version (0.8) so that the older construction set can edit it. The feature is somewhat dated now that the updated construction set is available, but is still useful for modders who prefer to work with the older CS. (Note that the newer CS has some bugs that the older CS does not.)

• Warning: It's possible that using this command on mods built under newer versions of the CS may result in loss of some data. Use with caution.

Balo

Bash Auto Load Ordering (aka Balo) will semi-automatically sort your mods into a few predefined groups. Currently its still necessary to specify for each mod which group it belongs to, but future versions of Balo may provide additional automation in this area.

Warning: If you already have an established load order, using this feature will likely substantially rearrange them! Use at your own discretion!

Full Balo

Full Balo enforces a number of rules on your mods:

• All mods must be assigned to a group. If no group is currently assigned, then the mod will be assigned to the special group "NONE".

• Group names can only have letters, spaces and underscores.

• Groups can have offset groups ranging from Group-10 up to Group+10.

• Groups do not interleave.

• All mods, except those within the NONE group, are automatically sorted.

• Mods within the NONE group may be moved up and down relative to each other, but cannot be interleaved with mods in other groups.

• Two special groups have additional limits:

• NONE is always next to last. It cannot have offset groups.

• Last is always last.

Full Balo Usage

• Turn on Full Balo

• On mods tab, right click on column header and select "Full Balo".

• This will bring up the Balo Groups dialog...

• Define Groups

• You'll get this dialog when you first activate Full Balo. You can also get it at any time that Full Balo is active by right clicking on a mod and selecting "Group: Edit..."

• On first usage, you'll probably get the Default Groups listed below.

• It is strongly advised that you not change the names or order of these groups. The default groups may later be used by mods to automatically specify their load order.

• The default groups will probably be sufficient for your needs. However, you may want to add some new groups as well.

• Add/rename/remove/reposition groups as desired. (But again, keep in mind the utility of the default groups.)

• Note: You cannot remove groups that are currently in-use.

• Usually, you'll only want to modify the allowed offsets for groups.

• Select any group and use the spin boxes to set the allowed offsets in either direction.

• Offsets can only be reduced when the offset are not in use. E.g. if you have mods assigned to Overhaul-1, then the minimum that you'll be able to set the lower offset for Overhaul to is -1.

• Click "Save" to save changes. This will create new groups, and group headers and set the relative loader order of all selected groups.

• Assign Mods to Groups

• Select one or more mods (you can use shift and control keys to select multiple mods).

• Right click one of selected mods and choose "Group: [Group Name]" to assign the selected mods to that group.

• As soon as the group is assigned, the selected mods will immediately be resorted in alphabetical order under the group header for that group.

• Automatic Grouping

• Balo will automatically assign groups to mods the first time it encounters them. This will happen either when you turn Full Balo on, or when you add new mods to your mods directory and then return to Bash's screen.

• If the mod is tagged with "Group: GroupName", then that mod will be assigned to group GroupName – if that's a valid balo group.

• If the mod is listed in Oblivion\Data\Bashed Patch\Bash_Groups.csv directory, then the group listed there will be used – if it's a valid balo group.

• Otherwise the mod will be assigned to group NONE.

• To turn off automatic grouping.

• Uncheck "Auto Groups" just above "Full Balo".

• With Auto Groups turned off, all unknown mods will be assigned to "NONE" group.

Default Groups

Balo provides a default "canonical" set of groups designed to reduce problems due to conflicts between mods.

• Base Groups

• Root: Oblivion.esm, TCs

• Library: Common library esms and their glue esps. E.g. Cobl, Partners

• Cosmetic: Cosmetic mods (Hair, Eyes, Races). Face replacers, Hair, Eyes. PC/NPC Animations

• Clothing: Clothes and armor.

• Weapon: Weapons.

• Tweak: Mods that tweak some aspect of Oblivion.

• Smaller than overhauls (which tend to be mega-tweaks).

• Tend to be included in/overridden by overhauls.

• Overhaul: OOO, MMM, FCOM, etc.

• Misc.: Misc. scattered additions. E.g. Clocks of Cyrodiil, Ambient sounds, Landmarks w wells.

• Magic: Magic additions.

• NPC: Companion mods.

• Home: House mods.

• Place: Towns, villages, Unique landscapes.

• Quest: Quest mods.

• NONE: Special group.

• Last: Mods that are supposed to load last(ish).

• It's a good idea to reserve the base "Last" group to Bashed patches, and then use Last-1, Last+1 offset groups for other late loading mods.

Semi-Balo

• Group Headers

• Group Headers are special empty mods that act as "anchors" for the mods in a sorting group. You'll find these mods at the top of their respective groups with names like "++ROOT========.esp".

• Full Balo automatically creates and removes headers as necessary. However, if you aren't using Full Balo, you can still take advantage of some special sorting rules associated with group headers.

• Full Balo users should skip the rest of this section.

• Manual Setting

• It's possible to define your own group headers and rearrange the relative order of existing group headers.

• A group header is defined by two things: 1) membership in the specific group, and 2) a mod name that begins with "++". Hence, you can define new groups and change the name of existing group headers so long as you follow these rules. However, it's usually best to follow existing scheme of "++[GROUP NAME]========.esp" since this is more consistent, and makes group headers stand out.

• You can change the relative position of group headers by changing their "Modified" time in the field to the right. But... Be sure that the modified times of header groups are at least 1 day apart. Otherwise, groups may end up overlapping.

• If you need to create a new header from scratch, click an existing mod and choose File: "New Mod..."

• Unsorted Group Headers

• It's possible to define an unsorted group header. Just use same procedure as above, but preface the group header name with '==' instead of '++'.

• However, unsorted group headers are purely cosmetic. They're mainly only useful since they're highlighted and appear in mods lists just like auto-sorted groups.)

Auto-Assigning Groups

• Modders can tag their mods so that they'll automatically be assigned to a group the first time Bash sees them. Note that this will only work the first time that Bash sees the mod.

• To tag a mod, include the line "Group: [Group Name]" in the description field of the mod. (E.g. "Group: Tweak+1".) The tag must be on a line by itself.

Bashed Patches

A Bashed Patch is a configurable, custom built patch. The patch can have multiple components, which you can choose and configure as you like. You can also have multiple patches (typically, you would have one patch per major set of load mods).

Patch Usage

• Select a Bashed Patch

• Probably Bash has automatically created one for you. If not, you can copy the blank one from Oblivion\Mopy\Extras to Oblivion\Data.

• Note that the author of the mod must be set to BASHED PATCH.

• Configure the Patch

• Right click on the Bashed Patch and select "Rebuild Patch..." This will bring up a dialog in which you can activate and configure various patcher components.

• To activate a component, just click its checkmark box.

• To configure a component, select it. Note that:

• Most components will try to automatically configure themselves, but you may still need to tweak their settings.

• Some components do not need to be configured (e.g., Alchemical Catalogs).

• Configuration of specific components is covered below.

• Build the Patch

• Once you have at least one component selected, the OK button will become enabled. Click on it to update the patch, or click Cancel quit without updating the patch mod.

Patch Notes

• Load Order

• Bashed Patches should be last or nearly last in the load order. Only mods that load before the patch will be processed in the update process.

• Unloading a Patch Master

• When you unload (remove from the load list) a mod that a bashed patch is dependent on, then the patch will also become unloaded. In this, case, you should update the patch before reloading it.

• If you reload the patch before updating, it will force reload of all its masters – including the one you just unloaded!

• Replacing a Previous Patch

• If you're creating a new patch to replace an existing patch, be sure that the older patch is unloaded!

• Otherwise the older patch may interfere with building the newer patch.

• One Patch per Loadset

• Do you typically switch between different sets of loaded mods? Then you should probably have one Bashed Patch for each set. I typically have a different Save Profile for each such loadset, and then name the corresponding patch after the set. E.g., for save profiles Elise 1 and Elise 2, I have Bashed Patches: Bashed Patch, Elise 1.esp and ~Bashed Patch, Elise 2.esp.

• Automatic Lists

• Several of the patch components (Leveled Lists, Import NPC Faces) have automatic lists. In these, the list is automatically generated based on Bash Tags.

• Bash Tags

• Several of Bash's features (e.g., automatic selection) of mods require that the source mods be tagged by adding text to their description field like so: {{BASH:Hair,Eyes}}. Here the tags are "Hair" and "Eyes".

• Hopefully most mods will be tagged when you download them. If not, you can add the tags yourself (edit the description field, click Save when done).

• Syntax: all tags should be in the same {{BASH:...}} field. Order of tags doesn't matter, but case does.

• Current Tags:

• Body-F: Mod modifies female body definition (Race Info).

• Body-M: Mod modifies male body definition (Race Info).

• Delev: Mod deletes items from (Leveled Lists).

• Eyes: Mod contributes eyes (Race Info).

• Eyes-D: [DEPRECATED]

• Eyes-E: [DEPRECATED]

• Eyes-R: [DEPRECATED]

• Filter: Filter a mergeable mod to currently active mods (Merge Filtering).

• Graphics: Mod is a graphics replacer (Import Graphics).

• Hair: Mod contributes hair styles (Race Info).

• Merge: Mod can be merged into bashed patch (Merge Patches).

• Names: Mod is a renamer (Import Names).

• NoMerge: Mod should not be marked Merge by Mark Mergeable.

• NpcFaces: Mod modifies faces (Import NPC Faces).

• Relev: Mod relevels items in (Leveled Lists).

• Stats: Mod modifies item stats (Import Stats).

• Voice-F: Mod modifies female voice definition (Race Info).

• Voice-M: Mod modifies male voice definition (Race Info).

• Examining/Editing

• It's slightly difficult to view the contents of a Bashed Patch, since it uses esp-mastering (i.e., it has esps as well as esms as masters).

• If you just want to examine the patch, you may want to use Tes4View which will allow you to browse the structure, and more importantly compare its data with other loaded mods.

• However, if you would like to open/edit in TESCS, then you'll need to use the Espify/Esmify Masters command. (Be sure to Espify Masters before playing.)

General Configuration: The first two patch "components" control the behavior of the patch generation in a general way.

Alias Mod Names

• Users sometimes rename mods in order to improve usability or allow different versions of the same mod (e.g., "Oscuros_Oblivion_Overhaul.esp" to "OOO.esp"). Naturally this will confuse bash when it tries to read an imported text file which uses the old "canonical" name. To compensate for this, this component can be used to alias the canonical name to the local name.

• Examples:

Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esp >> OOO.esp
Bob's Mod with a very, very long name.esp >> Bob's Mod.esp

Merge Patches

• This component causes Bash to fully merge the content of specified patch files into the bashed patcher, thus allowing you to remove the patch mod from the load order.

• Notes:

• Most mod files are not mergeable. To be mergeable by Bash, the mod must:

• Only contain record types that Bash recognizes (e.g., no game settings, cells, dialog, etc.)

• Not contain any new records – i.e., it must only patch records that already exist.

• Determining which mods fit the above two rules would be time consuming, so instead use the Mark Mergeable mergeable command. Mark Mergeable will automatically tag mods as mergeable if they fit the two rules above.

• If during construction of the patch, records in the mod are overridden by another mod that loads after it, then the later loading mod will win. In other words, the ordinary record shadowing rules are applied while merging. (Hence, it can be useful to think of a merged mod as being virtually active.)

• Do not remove merged mods from your mods directory! They need to be available for when you next rebuild the patch. (Every time you rebuild the patch, you rebuild it from scratch, hence the original mods need to be available to be re-merged.)

• Configuration:

• Source mods are automatically recognized if they have a Merge tag in the mod description.

• However, rather than adding the tag directly, it is best to use the Mark Mergeable command, which will automatically scan and mark the selected file(s).

Merge Filtering

• This is advanced option that allows filters in a merged mod to be selectively filtered according to the current load list. E.g., suppose a patch mod modifies records from MMM and OOO. This feature can be used to discard the changes to MMM if MMM is not currently loaded. The advantage of this is that, rather than having two separate patch mods (one for MMM and one for OOO), it's possible to have just one patch mod for both.

• Limitations

This is an advanced option that can be taken advantage of by advanced modders – but beware, it can be a little confusing.

• This will only work for mods that marked both Merge and , Filter.

• The mod being filtered must not be active at the time the patch is built.

• Filtering is mostly limited to the top level.

• E.g., if MMM is not loaded, then changes to MMM specific records will be skipped.

• However, if a record has been changed so that it refers to a record from a mod that is not loaded – then that reference will (usually) not be filtered out. Hence the bashed patch will end up dependent on that mod after all.

• Deep Filtering:

• Entries in leveled lists will be filtered. E.g. if a leveled list has items from MMM, but MMM is not active, then the MMM entries will be discarded.

• For creatures and NPCs, spells, factions and items will be filtered.

• Filtering is done according to the currently active mods. Hence, it is important when building the patch, to make sure that all desired mods are activate! It this isn't the case, then the patch is likely to end up not including changes from the filtered mod that it should include.

Importers are components that import specific information from selected mods and/or text files and incorporate that into the patch file.

Import Factions

• Allows factions to be imported from source mods and/or source csv files.

• Configuration:

• Source mods are automatically recognized if they have a Factions tag in the mod description.

• Source text files are automatically recognized if they are in the Oblivion\Data\Bash Patches directory and end with Factions.csv. Note that the Export Factions command will export files in this format.

• Source CSV Files

• To get source csv files, export factions from an existing mod. This can then be edited as desired.

• Editor ids are shown for convenience only. Internally, its the mod/object index pair that determines both the actor and the faction.

• Faction lists do not need to be complete for each actor. I.e. you only need to list the actor/faction pairs that you wish to add/change. If a mod has has an actor assigned to some faction, but the imported data doesn't address that rank, then the actor will retain that rank.

• To remove an actor from a faction, set their rank to -1. (You can only do this in a spreadsheet.)

• Limitation

• It should be kept in mind that changes to NPC factions will not have an effect in game for any NPCs that have had their faction ranks changed during gameplay. (This is typically fairly limited – usually only for some quest characters.)

Import Graphics

• Overview

Most graphics replacers work by replacing textures and meshes. However, sometimes such replacers are done by modifying the mod to point to different meshes and/or textures than the original mod. This is often done when vanilla Oblivion only offers a few simple meshes for a large number of objects, while the replacer aims to diversify the graphics for those objects (e.g. Phoenix Amon's Book Jackets mod). This patcher resolves this by extracting graphics components from specified mods and merging them into other changes to the same records.

• Configuration:

• Source mods are automatically recognized if they have a Graphics tag in the mod description.

• Graphics/Records Handled:

Only the following types of records are handled. Other types do not commonly require patching, or are not yet supported by Bash.

• Icons only: birthsigns, loadscreens

• Models only: activators, doors.

• Icons and Models: potions, ammo, apparatus, books, ingredients, keys, misc., sigil stones, soul gems, weapons, clothing, armor.

• Creatures: model, body parts, blood.

• Magic Effects: icon, model, shader, effects, light.

Import Names

• Overview

This component is intended to merge changes from a renamer mod (e.g., Rational Names) or file into other mods. It will also (to a small degree) handle localization of foreign language mods. An example of a renamer mod is Rational Names.

• Configuration:

• Source mods are automatically recognized if they have a Names tag in the mod description.

• Source text files are automatically recognized if they are in the Oblivion\Data\Bash Patches directory and end with Names.csv. Note that the Export/Import Names command will export files in this format.

• Limitations:

• Handles most named objects types (except lights). Does not handle GMSTs, cells, landmarks or dialogs. If source mods is fully covered (no GMSTs, cells, etc.) then it does not need to be loaded after merging.

• Guard Names

• A names patcher file that covers guards, legion soldiers, couriers, and a few other generically named characters and creatures from both Oblivion and Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul.

• This is based on Flak's Complete Names Project. However, ranks have been strongly tweaked from Flak's version and OOO names have been added.

• Rational Names

• A names patcher file for Rational Names is included. This includes all of the name changes of the Rational Names 2 mod (but not the GMST settings for soul gem strings). It also includes additional name changes to cover Shivering Isles, Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and a few more mods.

• Note that it is best not to edit this file directly since it is included in the Bash distribution. Instead, duplicate and edit as desired.

Import Inventory

• This option will merge changes to npc and creature inventories from the selected mods. Only mods marked with the Invent tag will appear in the list.

• Notes

• This feature is primarily concerned with removing, replacing and adding completely new items to inventories. If a mod only changes the number of items in an inventory, then this feature will ignore that change.

• Generally later loading source mods will dominate.

• If an early source adds two daedric arrows, while a later source adds three daedric arrows, then the patch will contain three daedric arrows.

• If an early source replaces a steel sword with steel dagger, but a later source replaces the steel sword with an daedric dagger; then the patch will have the daedric dagger but not the steel dagger.

• If a source tries to remove anything, but fails because that item is already present or a later mod has already removed it, then none of the changes from the source will be applied.

Import NPC Faces

• Overview

This patcher component will extract the face, hair and eyes data from an NPC face modifying mod (which is to say any/all of the Tamriel NPCs Revamped mods), and add it to the patch, merging it over any changes to those same NPCs from other mods.

• Configuration

• Source mods are automatically recognized if their mod name starts with TNR or the mod has a NpcFaces tag in the mod description.

• Note that since there is a now a TNR All Races mod, you may wish to discard (or at least uncheck) any previous TNR mods you have.

• Source Mods

• Since TNR contains only face patches, and since the faces are entirely copied to the patch file, you can unload the source TNR mods – but do keep them in your data directory, since Bash will need to find them when updating the patch.

Import Sound

• Overview

• There are not many mods that modify the sounds of existing records, but there are a few mods that tweak the sounds of magic effects (e.g. to silence them). Since magic effect records tend to modified for other reasons as well, other changes to the same records will wipe out the changes to sounds. This patcher component allows you to make sure that changes to the sounds of spells are included in the final version of the record.

• Configuration:

• Source mods are automatically recognized if they have a Sound tag in the mod description.

• Sound/Records Handled:

Only the following types of records are handled.

• Magic Effects: casting, bolt, area and hit sounds.

Import Stats

• Overview

• This patcher can be used to modify ammo, armor and weapon stats according to specified mods and/or spreadsheet files.

• One use for this is to make sure that weapon stats from one early loading mod are not overridden by a layer loading mod.

• Another use is patch random armor and weapon mods to fit the equipment balancing system specified by one of the overhaul mods. For this use the best approach is to supply a single spreadsheet which rebalances weapons of many mods to fit a given overhaul. When using such a file, Bash will only apply stats for mods that are currently active and ignore the rest.

• Source spreadsheets can be generated by using the Export/Import Stats command.

• Configuration:

• Source mods are automatically recognized if they have a Stats tag in the mod description.

• Source text files are automatically recognized if they are in the Oblivion\Data\Bash Patches directory and end with Stats.csv. Note that the Export/Import Stats command will export files in this format.

Tweakers tweak records in the currently active set of mods in specified ways. All tweakers have several specific features which can be individually turned off. Features whose name ends with bracketed text (e.g., "Max Potion Weight [0.1]) can be configured by right clicking on the feature and selecting an option from the pop up menu.

Tweak Assorted

• Assorted Tweaks...

• Armor Shows Amulets/Rings

• Modifies playable armor to prevent hiding of amulets/rings.

• Bow Reach Fix

• Some of the bows in Oblivion (and a few in user mods) have a reach of zero. Due to a bug in the Oblivion engine, if these bows are equipped by an NPC, the game will crash. This patch changes bows with zero reach to have reach == 1. (Note this is also fixed for vanilla Oblivion by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch. However, Shivering Isles introduces more bows with the same problem.)

• Darnified Books

• Tweak book coloring and font for use with Darnified UI.

• Max Weight Potions

• Potions in Oblivion are rather heavy by default. This changes the weight of potions to a specified value (0.1 up to 0.8). Note: this does not affect potions with script effects or with current weight >= 1.0. Thus it should not affect alcoholic beverages or scripted "potions" like HTS water skins.

Note that this is similar, but not the same as the Reweigh Potions command for savegames, which reweighs user created potions rather than mod created potions.

• Max Weight Staffs

• Like Max Weight Potions, but caps the weight of staffs.

• No Light Flicker

• Turns off flickering effects for lights. May help on machines with low end graphic cards.

• Right Hand Rings

• Makes rings behave more consistently by making all rings prefer to be on the right hand.

• With this tweak activated, rings will only equip to the left hand if the right hand has a ring, but the left hand does not. You can use this to make one ring permanently equipped – just equip it to the left hand and it will stay on until you specifically unequip it.

Tweak Clothes

• Overview: This allows you tweak clothes in several ways. Note that some of these have are not recommended for reasons stated – however your tastes may vary.

• Max Weight XXX: Many clothes items are too heavy in Oblivion. These options force them to lower weights (as specified). Right click on item to choose maximum weight allowed.

• Gloves Show Rings: Prevents gloves from hiding rings.

• Robes Show Amulets: Forces all robes to show amulets. Not totally realistic, but looks cooler!

• Robes Show Pants: Allows you to wear pants/skirts/greaves with robes. This is useful for armor and enchantment. Not recommended because graphics clipping is common.

• Unlimited Amulets: Allows you to wear an unlimited number of amulets. Not recommended because it is uber and it prevents amulets from displaying (i.e., they won't appear around your or NPC's necks).

• Unlimited Rings: Same thing for rings.

Tweak Names

• Tweaks names of items and spells to make them sort more easily in inventory. For each type of item you can select the format to be used.

• Body Part Codes: This determines what code will be used for tweaking armor and clothes covering various body parts. There are two versions.

• Each code letter is assigned in order to: Amulets, Rings, Gloves, Helmets, Tail items, Robes (upper+lower body), Chest, Pants/Greaves, Boots/Shoes, Shields.

• ARGHTCCPBS: Assigns codes to match part covered.

• ABGHINOPSL: Assigns codes to sort more usefully. Amulets, then Rings, etc.

• Armor: Choose format and whether you want armor rating to be shown.

• Clothes: Choose format.

• Notes and Scrolls: Choose format and whether you want enchanted scrolls at top (~) or botton (.) of list. (Note that "~" will not display in inventory.)

• Potions: Choose format.

• Spells: Chose format. You can choose whether you wish the school (e.g. D) and spell level (e.g. D2) to show.

• If you're already using Supreme Magicka or similar spell namer, their label will be overwritten.

• If you only want to remove existing labels, then use the No Label option ("Fire Ball").

• Weapons: Choose format and whether you want damage to be shown.

• Spells will show school and level (0/Novice – 4/Master).

Tweak Settings

• Overview

Allows you to tweak game behavior in miscellaneous ways. Item ending with a "[xxx]" will allow you to choose a different value. Right click on the item and choose the preferred value from the list.

• Arrow Litter Count/Time: Shot arrows will be automatically removed from the world after a certain period (Arrow Litter Time) or if their number exceeds the Arrow Litter Count.

• Arrow Recovery from Actor: Your chance of recovering an arrow shot into an actor (including arrows shot into player).

• Arrow Speed: Speed at which a full power arrow travels.

• Cell Respawn Time: Time that must pass after you've last visited a cell before the creatures, npcs and items in it respawn. Default is 3 days. Note that setting to longer durations will result in larger savegames.

• Chameleon: No Refraction: Turns off the refraction effect for chameleon, but leaves the incremental transparency effect on. (Transparency won't be very obvious until PC/NPC is at higher levels of Chameleon.)

• Chase Camera Distance: Changes the maximum distance the chase camera can be moved away from the player. Very useful for creating a birds eye view – but also a little bit uber for that reason.

• Chase Camera Tightness: Tightens up the 3rd person chase camera. Highest setting (x 3.0) essentially locks camera behind player.

• Combat: Recharge Weapons: By default, you can recharge weapons during combat. Disallowing that encourages you to be ready for battle ahead of time.

• Compass: Disable XXX: Disables POI's (Points of Interest), Quest Markers, or both on the compass.

• Warning: Some quests may be hard to complete when quest markers are turned off (e.g., an early stage of Knights of the Nine).

• Note: While this works with the vanilla interface, it appears to not work with some modifications of the UI. Problem might be changes to the marker icons, or it might be due to the POI recognition tweak.

• Compass: POI Recognition: Distance at which Points of Interest become visible on the compass. Default is 12,000 units. Lowest setting (x 0.25) is just a little farther than unvisited locations will be "found." I.e., about a rock's throw. (No affect if POI visibility is turned off.)

• Essential NPC Unconsciousness: Time for which an essential NPC stays unconscious after being knocked out.

• Horse Turning Speed: Default Horse turning speed is rather slow. This allows you to increase it by 1.5 or 2.0 times normal speed.

• Jump Higher: Increases the maximum allowed jump height. Note that this may allow you to jump over city walls and so end up with graphical strangeness. (Empty towns or empty countryside, depending on whether you jump into or out of the town.)

• Magic Bolt Speed: Speed at which at which magic bolts (projectiles) travel.

• PC Death Camera: This is now long the camera lingers on the player after player's death before the reload menu appears. (Even at "Unlimited", you can hit escape to force reload menu to appear.)

Special patch components don't fit into the categories above. Two of them (Alchemical Catalogs and Power Exhaustion) are for use with specific mods. The remaining component, Leveled Lists, is for general use.

Alchemical Catalogs

• Overview

This patcher component will update the alchemical catalogs found in the Common Oblivion. No configuration is required and the catalogs will not be produced unless Cobl Main.esm is in the load list. The original catalogs list all ingredients found in Oblivion.esm. The update will add ingredients from all selected mods. See COBL docs for more information on how to acquire the catalogs.

Leveled Lists

• Background

• When different mods alter the same leveled list, the last mod to load will "win" overriding any changes made by earlier loading mods. This is particularly a problem with creature and the various releveling mods which alter so many lists.

• To overcome this, it is necessary to merge the changes to the various leveled lists into a new "merged list" mod, and ensure that this new mod loads after all the mods whose lists it merges.

• List Merging

• During the scan process of the patch building, the list merger extracts leveled lists and merges them together. If mods only added items to leveled lists, this process would be simple. However, since mods often want to delete items from lists and/or relevel items in lists, it's often necessary to specify how the lister merger will handle changes from specific mods. This specification is done through Bash Tags and/or manually configuring mods in the list merger dialog.

• Untagged Mods: Mods that have no bash tags can only add new items to leveled lists. If a given item (e.g. an Iron Battle Axe is already present in the list (at any level or count), then no new entries for that item will be added. Also, if another mod has already marked that item as removed from the list, it will not be added.

• Delev Mods: Mods that are tagged or configured as Delev mods can remove items from lists. Bash will figure out what to remove by comparing items in the mods version of the list to items added by it's masters (Oblivion.esm, etc.). Any items that are present in the masters, but not in the Delev's list are marked as removed. Items marked this way will be removed from the list, and the removal will be remembered so that later mods won't re-add the item.

• Relev Mods: Mods that are tagged or configured as Relev mods can break the previous rules. They can relevel an item that already exists in the list ("relevel" means change the levels and/or counts for the item in the list). Relev mods can also overrule a previous deletion. (However, delevs that run after the Relev will overrule the relev mod for the items they delete.

• Delev+Relev Mods: A mod can be tagged/configured as both Delev and Relev. Doing this just combines the effects of the two separate tags.

• Simple Guide to Tagging

• Generally, if a mod only adds items, then it should not be tagged.

• If a mod needs to delete items from the original list, then it should be tagged as a Delev mod.

• If a mod needs to change the levels of items that already exist in the list or reverse a previous deletion, then it should be tagged as a Relev mod.

• Mark Levelers

• Ideally mods would be pre-tagged by mod makers. Unfortunately, many of the major releveling mods are not correctly tagged. However, you can use Bash's Mark Levelers command to automatically tag mods. Just select the mods that you're not sure about and run the command.

• Note that Mark Levelers can only mark mods that it knows about (i.e., that are listed in the Bash Patches\Leveled Lists.csv file).

• Configuration

• Generally it's best to set the bash tags correctly and leave the configuration on auto. However, it's also possible to manually configure delevelers/relevelers.

• To add/remove mods from the list, uncheck Automatic and use the Add/Remove buttons.

• To manually override the Delev/Relev tags for a given mod, right click on the mod name and check/uncheck states as necessary. To return to automatic setting, choose the "Auto" option instead.

• FCOM

• FCOM (aka Kaboom, aka FraBOOOMMM) is a mod by dev_akm and others that attempts to merge the changes from various major mods. While this might seem to be competitive with Bash's List Merger, it's actually complementary, since it's able to intelligently merge complicated list structures as well as correct and merge faction information.

• For further information on using FCOM with Bash, see the FCOM release notes/topics.

• Empty Sublist Cleaning

• Lists occasionally contain empty sublists, which will cause the list to produce nothing when it selects the sublist.

• As of Bash v 183, the leveled list merger will now remove any empty sublists from a leveled list.

Morph Factions

• This is only for users of the Wrye Morph mod 0.05 or higher. It requires Cobl 1.28 or higher.

Power Exhaustion

• Overview:

My Power Exhaustion mod changes the greater powers in Vanilla (non-Shivering Isles) into lesser powers, but imposes a (potentially fatal) penalty if they're used too frequently. This patcher extends coverage to the Orrery and Shivering Isles powers. It will also affect powers from other mods that have been flagged correctly.

• Other Mods:

• Modders can flag the powers defined in their mods for conversion by adding a 1 point Fortify Endurance effect to the power. The duration of the effect will set the duration (and thus strength) of its power exhaustion effect.

• 7 seconds is normal exhaustion (this is recommended)

• 9 seconds is maximum exhaustion that can be experienced without penalty. (Should be 10, but at the moment there's a problem with Powers Exhaustion magic effect script that will be fixed later).

Lesser durations might be used for "smaller" greater powers. Durations greater than ten are guaranteed to cause penalty – but this might be used as a particularly powerful power – which may kill a low to mid level NPC.

Race Records

• Overview

This patcher component will extract the eyes and hair from the loaded source mods and, if necessary, merge that data over changes from later loading mods that change the same races. (Note that if the source mods are not in the load list, they will not be used.)

• Configuration

• Source mods must contain one or more of the following bash tags.

• Hair: If contributing hair.

• Eyes: If mod contributes eyes.

• Eyes-D: If mod contributes eyes. [DEPRECATED]

• Eyes-E: If mod contributes eyes. [DEPRECATED]

• Eyes-R: If mod contributes eyes. [DEPRECATED]

• Body-M: If specifying male body textures, height, or weight.

• Body-F: If specifying female body textures, height, or weight.

• Voice-M: If specifying male voice.

• Voice-F: If specifying female voice.

E.g., for Beautiful People, the tag should be {{BASH:Hair,Eyes}}.

• Avoiding Googly Eyes

• "Googly eyes" happens when an eye texture built for one eye mesh is used in combination with a different eye mesh. In vanilla Oblivion, this never happens because all races use the same eye meshes. However, several of the cosmetics mods change the meshes for various races. When different cosmetics mods are mixed or (sometimes) when custom races are used, this can result in at least some eyes for a given race being mismatched to the eye mesh for that race.

• As of version 104, Bash will try to prevent this sort of eye texture/mesh mis-matching. Unfortunately, Bash cannot guarantee success in all cases.

• Some suggestions for modders:

• When adding a custom race, use either only vanilla eyes, or only custom eyes. I.e. do not mix custom eyes and vanilla eyes. If you mix vanill eyes and custom eyes, and if the race is playable, then bash will filter down to just the vanilla eyes.

• When creating a cosmetics mod, do not replace the vanilla eye resource with a different eye mesh resource. Instead, create a new eye mesh resource and use that. Note: If you're using one of the standard alternative eye resources (e.g. Rens) then use the standard path for that. When bash does its filtering, it determines what eye mesh each eye is using, and then filters the eyes for a given race to so that only eyes using the same mesh will be used. This is why it's important for mesh resources to be consistent.

• Unfortunately, one of the most popular race mods, Beautiful People, does replace the standard eye mesh resource. To resolve this, the Beautiful People installation will need to be patched. (Sorry, but I don't know if such a patch is available yet.)

• Notes

• Note that body texture, height and weight is treated as combined group of data (for each gender). If you have different mods that change different things (one changes weight, another changes textures), those will need to be combined.

SEWorld Tests

• Suspends Cyrodiil quests while in Shivering Isles.

• Overview:

• Shivering Isle modifies almost all existing quests in Oblivion.esm to add an additional test: GetPlayerInSEWorld == 0. The effect of this test is to suspend almost all Cyrodiilian quests while the player is in Shivering Isles.

• Unfortunately mods that are built on top of the original Oblivion.esm do not include this test. This can sometimes result in strange behavior: SI residents talking about Cyrodiilian topics, etc.

• This feature simply reinstates those tests where mods have removed them.

• Warning! This is a new feature, and the effect of fixing quests in this way is not known yet. It may be that some mods depend on the quest being "broken".

Doc Browser

• You can easily and quickly scan through your mods document files (read me's) from the Doc Browser window. Supported doc types: text files, html and mht (html archives).

• To show the Doc Browser window, go to the Mods Tab and double click on any mod in the main list.

Using the Doc Browser

• When you the Doc Browser is showing and you click on the name of a Mod in the Mods Tab, Bash will try to show the document for that mod in the Doc Browser window. If Bash does not know which document to associate with the mod, it will show a blank page.

• To associate a document with a mod:

• Select the mod in the Mods Tab.

• Switch to the Doc Browser and click on "Set Doc..." and use the file dialog to find the document.

• To disassociate a document with a mod:

• Use "Set Doc..." again to pick a different doc. Or...

• Use "Forget Doc..."

• To change the name of a document, click on the "Rename Doc..." button, and use the file dialog to pick a new name/location. The document will be renamed and/or moved to the new directory.

• To view a different document:

• Select the document on the Mods tab. Or...

• Use the mod name list box to select the desired mod.

• To make a text document editable, click the "Edit Doc..." button.

• Note that editable docs will stay editable until you unset "Edit Doc...".

• Also the Edit doc setting is remembered separately for each mod. As you switch between mods, the "Edit Doc..." button will return to the remembered state for that document.

• Any changes to the document will be automatically saved when the mod is changed, the document window is closed or the edit button is unclicked.

• To create a new document, just use "Set Doc..." and pick a file name that doesn't exist yet. Th