Big word of warning. If you're doing navmeshes, avoid using the "balance for optimization" button to optimize your navmesh. Using it will lead to deleted NAVM forms that will crash the game when it attempts to load the affected cells.

This isn't quite the same as the currently known navmesh bug either. It's far worse. Nothing like spending 2 days on navmeshing only to have this happen.

Blimey. I've used the "balance for optimization" on several occasions for my interiors but I never did it for the exteriors though. I've never had any problems with the interiors where I used it, and never any reports of problems either. Thanks for the warning though.

Good to know. Also good to know there are some of us who are still aware of the bug and battling it. Apparently the nav mesh bug has been upgraded to 2.0 in the recent release. offering even more issues. When meshing I tend to only make manual adjustments and archive every change I make because of the 100 hours in the can a few weeks ago.

Fortunately this particular instance is only an issue if you're optimizing a cell that contains a vanilla navmesh. It won't do any harm to your own additional interiors. Cleaning it up requires working knowledge of TESVSnip and form IDs though, so it's not at all easy to undo the damage, but it can be done.

How does one obtain "working knowledge of TESVSnip" I have searched a many times online and even on the authors page but nothing close to a how to. I tried ESM conversion and failed. Could you suggest a direction for me to look in that is comprehensive but also not something you would need a degree in computer science to understand?

Unfortunately no. TESVSnip is definitely a tool to be used by those who already have some idea of what they're doing. There's no guides or anything that I'm aware of unless the author has them socked away.

Hopefully TESVEdit will be out soon, because that does have a pretty good guide on how to use it.

Somebody did put together a http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=10208 for mod merging using TESVSnip. I haven't looked at it myself, but it might help with some stuff.

Thanks, I saw that a while back but it's about merging mods, I suppose even though it has nothing to do with what I am trying to get done it might say something. If I am super bored I may give a read. Thanks again.