Installing a newly modded Oblivion

[lindazana]

So, after starting to have an interest in oblivion again, I started the game up, and had texture errors and googly eyes and CTDs all over. I've decided to just trash what I have, and want to make a new, cleaner install. I want this to be as smooth and nice as I can get it, and still be compatible with a handful of "must have" mods on my part.

 

Desired mods:

hentaimania (Modifies several dungeons and puts uniquely clothed and tough NPCs in them)

 

The Underdark (Does as it says; adds the underdark, a ridiculously large system of caverns, which sadly was never fully finished, but is still a blast)

 

Carcernus prison (Puts in a player-owned prison, allowing you to capture choice NPCs via spells, and teleport them into cells. Works extremely well with the slave mods out there.)

 

The Box (A somewhat silly mod, it adds in an extra-dimensional home-away-from-home you carry around in a placeable box.)

 

The Lost Spires (Large mod that adds in an archeology guild, with it's own quest line)

 

Multiple custom race mods (Draenei/kaleen, Aquamer, others)

 

Possibly martigan's Monster Mod

 

BU system armors of multiple types

 

And as many of the Lover's mods that I can cram in.

 

I'd like to see some mods that improve NPC appearance without causing random baldness or googly-eyes, or completely mis-matched head/body colors. Additionally, mods that cause enemy spawns such as bandits and raiders to be female-only, or mostly female, would be enjoyed. 

 

I'm aware this is a large wishlist, but I no longer have the free time that I used to to experiment and slowly build my game piece by piece, occasionally having to start over if I make a significant mistake in overriding something or installing in the wrong order. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

 

[myuhinny]

If you have any DLC's (except for shivering isle it's clean) they will need to be cleaned with TES4dit as they are very dirty *any* of the hentaimania mod series are also very very dirty and also need to be cleaned with TES4edit mods that are dirty and full of dirty edits can and will cause problems in your game all lovers mods are here.  http://www.loverslab.com/forum/16-downloads-lovers-with-pk/ You will need LAPF as that is the framework. You would have to check through the list and see which ones you want and which ones will conflict/not compatible with lovers mods or LAPF.

[lindazana]

Thank you for the information about cleaning them, shall do! Any idea about some of the appearance mods out there that don't cause (many) horrible deformities or color conflicts?

[Hyneria]

http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/44676/?

 

OCO v2 does a wonderful job for that. Unlike XEO and similar mods OCO v2 uses blockhead ( an OBSE plugin) for vanilla races, which means it will work with any and every NPC added by mods.

 

Instead of MMM I'd suggest FCOM. As crazy as it sounds FCOM is a lot more stable for me of what MMM was on its own. You can also try Waalx Animals and Creatures.

[lindazana]

http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/44676/?

 

OCO v2 does a wonderful job for that. Unlike XEO and similar mods OCO v2 uses blockhead ( an OBSE plugin) for vanilla races, which means it will work with any and every NPC added by mods.

 

Instead of MMM I'd suggest FCOM. As crazy as it sounds FCOM is a lot more stable for me of what MMM was on its own. You can also try Waalx Animals and Creatures.

 

Oooh...OCO sounds amazing. I'll take a look at FCOM as well, see what it offers. Just need to find a good mod or two that changes enemy NPC spawns to all be female, some good companions, and I think I'm all set. Any other fun-boosting mods that will compliment, or at least not conflict, with what's been said so far? 

[GermanDeathKittiez]

I wouldn't suggest FCOM, especially because of MMM. It really chokes FPS. Be careful what mods you install as they may kill FPS. The thing about FCOM is it adds new spawn points. Overhauls I use right now are Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (adds many epic, well-written quests across the wilderness, new creatures, little features like chests actually open), Creature Diversity (weirder creatures), Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul (very modular via ini and adds similar creatures as with Creature Diversity). These mods don't add new spawn points, as far as I know, they just edit the ones existing (I may be wrong). But I get better FPS this way. Of course, no matter what with many mods and overhauls you will experience an FPS hit. Make sure you install the unofficial patches (Oblivion, SI and mods patches) and definitely install some stability mods: Kuertee CleanUp http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/24606/? (this will improve stability by removing leftover objects. This also reduces save bloat), Streamline (only use Streampurge! Streamsave will corrupt your saves), http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/10400/? , Oblivion Stutter Remover (FPS smoothing not helpful in high end computers - Heap Replacement wonderful for high end computers) http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/23208/? , and Fast Exit 2 http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/22410/? . Your game should get better FPS and run nice and stable using these mods.

[Hyneria]

I wouldn't suggest FCOM, especially because of MMM. It really chokes FPS. Be careful what mods you install as they may kill FPS. The thing about FCOM is it adds new spawn points. Overhauls I use right now are Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (adds many epic, well-written quests across the wilderness, new creatures, little features like chests actually open), Creature Diversity (weirder creatures), Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul (very modular via ini and adds similar creatures as with Creature Diversity). These mods don't add new spawn points, as far as I know, they just edit the ones existing (I may be wrong). But I get better FPS this way. Of course, no matter what with many mods and overhauls you will experience an FPS hit. Make sure you install the unofficial patches (Oblivion, SI and mods patches) and definitely install some stability mods: Kuertee CleanUp http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/24606/? (this will improve stability by removing leftover objects. This also reduces save bloat), Streamline (only use Streampurge! Streamsave will corrupt your saves), http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/10400/? , Oblivion Stutter Remover (FPS smoothing not helpful in high end computers - Heap Replacement wonderful for high end computers) http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/23208/? , and Fast Exit 2 http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/22410/? . Your game should get better FPS and run nice and stable using these mods.

 

FCOM adds exactly the same spawn points OOO does, and it even has a couple esps that further reduce spaws by definition FCOM doesn't harm FPS rate any more of what OOO does, as all it adds are more items and a wider variety of enemies.

 

The main culprit of bad FPS in oblivion are high poly meshes (Better Cities will DESTROY your FPS no matter what) and scripts. Plugins like tamagoclub will cause a noticeable dent in your FPS, and it only gets worse if you add companion mods and the high heel system.

 

Interestly so, I -only- save via Streamsave, as that way it halts any save CTDs I had. I've done so for the longest time and I've never had any corrupt saves.

[Symon]

Nightwynd is spot on when she blames badly written scripts and uber-poly meshes.

I'd add that oversize textures are another culprit (bigger isn't better. Better is better and then as small as is still better).

 

I'd also endorse Oblivion Stutter Remover Heap Replacement as well worth it on ANY spec computer. Oblivion's heap is truly dreadful and really displays how rubbish it is with a modded game.

[lindazana]

Alrighty, hunted around and picked up several things, but I have a few questions. I'm going to assume that OCO is incompatible with MPB? Which in turn makes it so I cannot use mods that require MPB, XEO, and the like? Or by some lovely twist of fate do the graphics for OCO work for those?

[GermanDeathKittiez]

OCO says it's not compatible with other mods that alter NPCs cosmetically or in any way (but I'm probably already using mods that do that). By what the author says, it's not compatible with mods that add hair/eye packs to the game at all, so not even COBL or Demon Race or Sirens and Tritons would be compatible with it. But I use all three, and have noticed no issues with my characters or NPCs. The only problems I have is with Kahjiits in the race menu. I describe those problems in my comment on the mod... Basically this will probably overwrite some stuff like COBL or other race packs, so hopefully it shouldn't be too much to worry about as long as you install it after them. It overwrote my COBL eyes with new eyes that are better for my vampire. But MBP is huge and you would probably have lots of bugs, as that mod is buggy on its own. But who knows, OCO could make MBP races look beautiful, even fill in missing eye textures. OCO has made modded races look prettier for me (except the Kahjiits).

[Hyneria]

OCO says it's not compatible with other mods that alter NPCs cosmetically or in any way (but I'm probably already using mods that do that). By what the author says, it's not compatible with mods that add hair/eye packs to the game at all, so not even COBL or Demon Race or Sirens and Tritons would be compatible with it. But I use all three, and have noticed no issues with my characters or NPCs. The only problems I have is with Kahjiits in the race menu. I describe those problems in my comment on the mod... Basically this will probably overwrite some stuff like COBL or other race packs, so hopefully it shouldn't be too much to worry about as long as you install it after them. It overwrote my COBL eyes with new eyes that are better for my vampire. But MBP is huge and you would probably have lots of bugs, as that mod is buggy on its own. But who knows, OCO could make MBP races look beautiful, even fill in missing eye textures. OCO has made modded races look prettier for me (except the Kahjiits).

 

OCO has conflicts with anything that change NPCs or vanilla races because that is exactly what OCO does. This is kind of a rule in modding. When you install two mods that change the same thing one will overwrite the other. You can attempt to make them work with Wrye Bash, but I suggest to either have only OCO or put it as far below in your load order as you can, like, right before LoversIdleAnimsPriority and LoversAnimObjectsPriority.

 

However, I don't think MBP causes are trouble with OCOv2 as it doesn't really touches NPCs. Just adds a bunch of races. I have both running and I don't get any conflict. What -won't- won't is XEO. But IMO (and this comes from a former XEO supporter) OCOv2 is far better, as it changes the races instead of having a ton of different variations of a race. A problem with XEO was that NPCs from mods would look awful as they weren't changed. With OCOv2 you can install the oldest, most obscure village mod in the nexus and its NPCs will look great because OCOv2 changed the basic races, not individual NPCs.

[lindazana]

Hrm, alright. I can give a try then without. In particular, http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/39917/? requires all the MBP assortment, the resources, at least. (If the link doesn't work, It's Oblivion the L world). Shallow and silly a mod as it is, I enjoyed it on my last install. I'm still hunting and pecking around for mods, but once I'm satisfied I'll post my load order and see if I've made any fatal mistakes, or something that will eventually bloat my saves.