Resuming work on it now. Took some time off from coding to actually play the game

After taking some time off from the code, I've decided that my previous approach was over-engineered. While it completely decoupled the GUI from any actual code (which was my initial goal), the resulting framework was entirely too cumbersome for actual use. I've decided to go back and re-design it once again, but without the complete decoupling and without the data-driven approach. Should be much faster to code, and much more familiar for other devs (it'll be like the existing basher.py, but leaner). I have to re-do the design, but most of the code will be reusable in some form.

I don't have a timetable for the next release, but subsequent releases should be faster with the re-re-design.

Lojack, out of curiosity, have you looked at the save game format yet? We don't need it completely deciphered (heck, TES4's format was never completely deciphered), but we do need the ability to extract the used master list. There's no priority on this.

utumno, it's still a bit too early to look into most of your concerns. I'm not going to look at new features for Bash3k until it's up to speed with regular Bash. I will say that profiles will take a much more prominent place in Bash3k. Everything will be local to a profile (settings, installed mods, mod order, installer order, etc).

Actually, yes. We've got http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes5Mod:Save_File_Format decoded thus far. It's enough to extract the player name, locations, time in game, master list. Player race is a little harder, as the race is actually the EDID of the race, not the display name.

There's still a few unkown bits in the beginning I'm trying to figure out, I'm pretty sure in there somewhere is: the number of unused dragon souls, number of unspent perk points, number of unspent stat-level ups. I also want to find the spent perk points, and the skill progress and level progress, but I'm sure that will be somewhere else.

After the master list is some unknown, variable amount of bits, followed by the stats that are shown in the stats menu.

Any progress on this recently?

Not on bash3k, but I have been putting some quick and dirty changes to the main branch so it works with Skyrim's. When I'm done, I'll do a 296 release maybe. I won't be adding many safeguards in for Skyrim's mode. Things I have led to do: have it read save files, auto hide Update.esm in the mod list, make the ini edits tab also have SkyrimPrefs.ini. Bashed patches of any sort will be disabled of course, but loa ordering, BAIN, Ini edits, saves, and screenshots should be semi functional.

Cool thanks much Lojack.

Warrudar-

Will the location of the BAIN archive be relatively similar between Wrye Bash 296 and 3k?

Any consideration on having more localized profile/settings type dat files? ... as I've brought up on the Oblivion forums.

Save edits are what I am really waiting for right now. I have a "psb" saved on all of my game saves somehow.

Great news:

The SVN has initial Skyrim support!

What exactly does this mean?

• Mods Tab:
  • Mod order can be listed and changed (same as Bash3k)
    
  • Basic mod info is extracted: author, description, header version
    
  • All (hopefully) editing commands are disabled for Skyrim. If I missed any, and you happen to find it, it'll most likely cause an error either in Wrye Bash or Skyrim
    
  • Update.esm shows up in the mod list. You should leave this as unchecked (although, I don't thing there's any harm in activating it), as Skyrim treats this file specially
    
  • No Bashed patches.
• INI Edits Tab:
  • Edits are applied to Skyrim.ini as a default. SkyrimPrefs.ini isn't automatically added to the list yet, but you can do that manually.
    
  • All of the Oblivion ini tweaks are still there, but invalid (except for one or two). Later I'll segregate them so only the Skyrim ones are shown in Skyrim mode, and vice versa
• Saves Tab:
  • Basic save information: player name, play time, location, screenshot.
    
  • Play time might be off a little, had to do some math to convert it to the format that Oblivion uses, but I may have done it wrong
    
  • All (hopefully) editing commands are disabled for Skyrim. If I missed any, and you happen to find it, most likely it'll cause an error in Wrye Bash, or corrupt your save.
• Installers:
  • I didn't change much here. In fact, I left a few options that I probably shouldn't have. For example, 'BSA redirection' - we don't even know if we need this yet.
    
  • I haven't updated the "allowed" and "no allowed" directories, so you may have to set "has extra directories" on you mods to get them to install. This is where I'll need feedback, to make sure the right "allowed" and "not allowed" directories are set properly for Skyrim.
• Screens, PM Archive, People Tabs:
  • Simple, no changes, works fine.

Install instructions:

• Follow the Wrye Bash manual install instuctions (for Python) and the SVN instructions listed in the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1286667 -- only your Mopy folder would be inside the Skyrim folder, for example on my system it would be C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\skyrim\Mopy

If you don't know what this means, you probably don't want to mess with this just yet.

I wont be doing a beta release for a bit, until I verify that the SVN-ers don't run into any problems, and to make sure this doesn't screw with Oblivion support. Then I plan to merge these changes back into the 295 branch, and doing another 295 release (295.1), so the Oblivion users of Wrye Bash can have a stable release still (the 296 branch isn't fully stable for building Bashed Patches).

It seemed to create the BAIN folder prior to even clicking on the installers tab.
Edited these bash.ini lines like so:
sOblivionMods=F:\Bethesda Games\BAIN Archives\Skyrim Mods (to move near my other BAIN folders for the other games)
sInstallersData=http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1256835-wipz-wrye-smash/G:\STEAM Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim\Mopy\BAIN
sBashModData=http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1256835-wipz-wrye-smash/G:\STEAM Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\Skyrim\Mopy\BAIN (both to make this info local when MOM gets updated).

But no go these ini settings are not working and the defaulted Skyrim Mods next to Skyrim in my Steam folder is the only place I can get it to recongnize

I had two plugins (http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=49 and http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=89) in the data folder one active one not and this error showed up when I first started this version of bash:

  TES4: 00000000 - Unknown subType = 000f  Size = 17736  CurPos = 8050014TES4File::read: Error - Mod "skyrimespawn7.esp" contains an unknown record group (— Attempting to skip and continue loading.  TES4: 00000000 - Unknown subType = 000f  Size = 17736  CurPos = 8050014TES4File::read: Error - Mod "SlowerSkills_v1.esp" contains an unknown record group (O Attempting to skip and continue loading.

Restarting and it did not appear again. Restarting a third time and it did and now it doesn't again???

I've not really started using replacer mods or anything really other than those two plugins. But I did grab a few so my initial tests are this.

The first was http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1036. Here is the error given when I install it via BAIN:

  TES4: 00000000 - Unknown subType = 0028  Size = 17736  CurPos = 7f50014TES4File::read: Error - Mod "Lightweight Potions and Poisons.esp" contains an unknown record group (| Attempting to skip and continue loading.

It did install though.

The next was a simple darker snowflake replacer. it installed fine.

So it seems plugins are going to throw these kinds of errors due to being unknown or mismatched records in them.

Yep, it's always done that.

These should work just fine. Just looked over the code a second time, and there isn't anything that's game dependent there, it's all just relative paths. I'm sure you have already, but could you double check just to make sure those paths didn't get created?

These: most likely since they haven't been created with the CK (how could they?), they may be slightly "malformed". If they load find with the game, then maybe I'll change what Wrye Bash is expecting. Could you give me links to those so I could view rip them apart and see how they're built?

I re-edited the post with links - forgot them before posting.

They are all done with Hexcedecimal modding using TESSnip ... I think ... I'm not the guy to be clear on how that is done. I wouldn't even know how to describe what they do, but there were some threads on it here somewhere. I know Xodarap and JustinOther's works mostly through Fallout mod scene.

as for the bash.ini .. yes it seems that the two for installers and table get created., but this

sOblivionModsF:\Bethesda Games\BAIN Archives\Skyrim Mods

Doesn't get read.

By contrast I tried to match it very similar to what my other Oblivion bash.ini settings were .... here they are:
sOblivionMods=F:\Bethesda Games\BAIN Archives\Oblivion Main Mods (for the shared BAIN archive)
sOblivionMods=F:\Bethesda Games\BAIN Archives\SureAI\Oblivion Mods (for Nehrim).

I looked around and double checked file paths and did not see things being created or left outside or near what I was shooting for. according to that file path I made inside the final Skyrim Mods folder should be the bash installer and bash Mod data folders, but they don't get created and even if I move the ones created initially there they don't get recognized.

[edit] just tried a few more variants and still not getting it to read a moved BAIN directory (as in the actual packages). Though I do notice that when I try is when that first error comes up on reload about the two plugins.

Also if I rename the initially created Skyrim Mods folder it just makes it again.

Will check the mods out. I'm aware of how they're made. In fact, I'm looking at a different one I downloaded (that allows smithing more items), and looks like all the formId's are 00000000 - probably a bad idea.

Hate to be nitpicky here, but is that exactly what's in your bash.ini? What you've posted is missing the equals sign. I'm assuming that's just a typo in your posting, but I can never know for sure from my end. The only part of that code that I changed was the name of the folder, which due to the way Bash handles folders would have no effect. I'll experiment on my end a bit, to verify anyhow.

Yeah that was it I'm sufficiently embarrassed now.

Hey thanks for this - now I can start trying out replacers.

Not sure if you are going to continue support of this after 3k but if you are perhaps eventually looking at INI tweaks to add from http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1272621-ini-compendium/. Also people are finding a lot of ini tweaks can be added by adding lines to the ini files. Is there a way to support that being done with the INI Tab?

Thanks again - happy turkey day.

[edit] I can also verify that load order placement can be dragged and that save game profiles work and I can swap those out.

Glad to hear (well, not that you're embarrassed, but that it was an easy fix )

I checked out the mods you linked, and finally (this one was annoying) tracked down the location where it was still referencing the Oblivion file format. Lastest SVN should work with no error messages now (assuming properly created mods).

Plans as far as 3k/main trunk: I'll keep adding little bits here in there to main svn build as I find the need for them. Until we get the CK and maybe a TES5Edit, we probably wont be bashing (although we could do some very simple things, like most of the mods you linked me to - they just change GMST's, which is easy to do). I'm hoping War gets the Bash3k along nicely, and we can start moving everything over to there. What I'm doing here is mostly a hack-job to make it work with both Oblivion and Skyrim. The proper way to do it would be have it detect game type on startup, and reference different source files based on that. What it's currently doing is just having a bunch of "if the game is Skyrim, read an extra byte here" type statements.

tl;dr: in the long run Bash3k will be much easier to maintain, and even expand to further games (FO3, FNV, Morrowind) so every game can be managed and bashed from one program. I'm way more familiar with the current code base, so I'll keep working there until Bash3k is far enough along that we can make the switch without me pulling my hair out.


That was the motivation that finally gave me the kick in the butt to finish this much


Yes indeed, to you too.

Edit: saw your questions about INI Tweaks - we don't have a way right now to add new lines. Looks like with Skyrim we'll need it though.

The problem is that you cant select "has extra directories" if the file isnt detected as a mod in the first place.
Looking at the bsa structure these are the folders Skyrim/Data can contain by default:

• meshes
  
• interface
  
• strings
  
• lodsettings
  
• grass
  
• scripts
  
• shadersfx
  
• music
  
• sound
  
• textures
  
• video

Also usefull would be the SKSE folder.
Did you need subfolders too ? In case I have missed something please do tell.

Ok, that's what I had found as well, looking at the BSA's. Don't need subfolders. SKSE will be handled the same way that OBSE was handled - a special exemption with user prompting for those dlls.

One more minor thing. Some things like the SKSE itself or the FXAA injectors dont have any files recognized by BAIN. Because of this you cant even tick "override skips" and "has extra directories". Please make it possible to tick a file even if nothing is actually installed.

Haven't downloaded these myself, but don't they require files to be placed in the root of the game directory? As in, in ...\common\skyrim, as opposed to ...\common\skyrim\Data? BAIN only has ever handled files placed into the Data directory, and traditionally things like OBSE (SKSE) - the main install, not the plugins) would be installed manually. I don't see any reason to change this with Skyrim, as there are really only a couple things that would fall under that category (SKSE, 4GB loader, CSE equivalent - if we ever need one, etc).

Edit: just downlaoded them, and I can confirm that they install to the root directory, not the data directory.

Yes i just want to mark them as installed so i dont need to search for files to know which one of those i currently have installed. No matter it is very minor and coding such a thing takes you more time than it takes for me to repack them with a dummy txt

In no previous version of bash/flash/mash was it a feature to install at the level of the game directory - all installing is in the data folder only.

Wrye's position was that OBSE plugins should not be handled as they can be risky. That was later changed to be acceptable with warnings.

In the long run SKSE or post process injectors will amount to .5% of most peoples installed content.

Took a quick poke at this. I've got a grand total of one texture replacer right now, and BAIN sees it and processes it just fine. So, uh, I guess that's good

Mods tab seems ok so far, not that there's anything here to check yet. I have reservations about touching any pre-CK files since that turned into a disaster in FO3 because people got too impatient.

Saves tab. I know you've already mentioned it, but your maths are way off.

Example:

Save 132 - Sslaa Skyrim 94.24.32.ess should be listed as 94:24 hours played. It's only showing up as 38:00 which is obviously not correct. Who would have though one could get this far into the game and not have completed either of the two main quests

The screenshots tab works as expected.

All in all, not bad for a hack

Also so far as I can tell it hasn't disturbed Oblivion in the slightest and all the Oblivion functions appear to be fine using the same code.

I know all that. I dont want bash to actually install anything with this I just want it to put a "+" with white background on the installer tab with configured files:0. After poking around I did this by repacking those mods with a dummy.xml in Data. I hope i finally worded this in a not terrible way.
Sorry for all the confusion and thanks for all the hard work on this masterpiece tool.

Good news then. I've fixed up the play time calculation too, so that should display correctly now. I've made some decently major statup changes, so you don't have to install Wrye Bash to gameDir\Mopy anymore. Once I rewrite the installer script for these changes, I'll merge all these changes into the 295 branch and do a 295.1 release. I can't really call it a beta, since 295 is out of beta, but I'll treat it the same way in that any bugs that crop up I'll fix and then do a 295.2 release.

If it won't install to Mopy anymore - where will it install? Will you be able to switch to other games/installs?

... what was wrong with installing to Mopy?

Also then would that conflict with the what Warrudar is working on.

You can install to Mopy, and it will work fiine. You just don't have to anymore. If it's not installed to game\Mopy, then it will read the registry to find out what games you have installed that Wrye Bash supports. If you only have one supported game installed, Wrye Bash will startup and manage that game. If there is more than one supported game installed, and Wrye Bash isn't installed inside of one of those game directories, it will ask which game to manage. Alternatively, you can force Wrye Bash to manage a specific game at startup by passing the '-g' switch from the command line.

Example 1:
- I have both Oblivion and Skyrim.
- I install Wrye Bash to C:\Program Files\Wrye Bash
- I launch Wrye Bash for Oblivion with a shortcut that calls "C:\Program Files\Wrye Bash\Wrye Bash.exe -g oblivion"
- I launch Wrye Bash for Skyrim with a shortcut that calls "C:\Program Files\Wrye Bash\Wrye Bash.exe -g skyrim"

Example 2:
- I only have Skyrim
- I install Wrye Bash to C:\Program Files\Wrye Bash
- I launch Wrye Bash for Skryim by running Wrye Bash.exe - no special arguments necessary.

OK so like Fallout Mod Manager does.

Have you tested to see if it autodetects clones (mTES4manager) or Images (MOM)? Or is it purely based on file patch recognition.

If not then I'm sure I can report back if there are issues.

thanks