The purpose of Overwrite is...?

[Seeker17281]

Hi

 

A sincere apology in advance to anyone who is going to wade through this post.  First let me say that I appreciate you taking the time to make sense of my babble and were we in each other's physical company I'd buy you a coffee and donut just for the effort.  Secondly I'm being thick here, I'm normally reasonably quick on the uptake, but this overwrite for some reason just doesn't click with me and is tossing all kinds of anxiety triggers my way.  I'm hoping some wise soul here can crack through my duncery and give me an aha.  

 

I'm new to MO2 and though I've come to see it's potential, there have been some growing pains I've clawed my way through.  I'm of middling modding experience, mostly with NMM, Wyre Bash and OBMM.  But while I like what I see in MO2,  I'm having a really tough time wrapping my head around this darn Overwrite folder.  I've read about an even dozen posts of what it does from various sites and I still don't understand how to properly use it.  In addition, many of the tuts and videos I've found pertain to MO1 and while there are no doubt similarities, because this unfamiliar ground if the dots aren't in a direct line I don't see the relevance.

 

I'm following the TUCO guide and so far I've gotten to the point where I have installed the utilities, cleaned the base esms, have SKSE running and up to the first 5 created  mods installed before creating my first bashed patch.  During all this in my MO2's window there are 4 greyed out  mods with red X's saying    These are the cleaned ESMs from Update->Dragonborn cleaned in SSEEdit.  When the first one landed in overwrite I went looking for what to do, finding a post that said to make a mod out of them, drag them into the mod list, done.  But the end result is they're faded and have big fat red Xs! 

 

According to Michael from Gamer Poet his video says a red X means the mod contains no recognizable data and can be safely deleted, but my burning questions are;

• This is what SEEEdit tossed into the Overwrite as the cleaned esms yes?
  • Aren't they supposed to replace the base ESM's?  If yes, it doesn't make sense to throw away what you just cleaned and keep the dirty base does it?
• Am I missing the obvious, the big fat red X is MO2 saying "Hey ya big Dummy, delete these and stop worrying because I already did my cyber-fu on those ESMs!"?

 

I left them in, but listened to Michael with no check mark in their boxes and did a test run of the game in Helgen till the prisoner gets his hands unbound; the game ran very smoothly.  I told myself  not activating them is probably the right thing to do and kept going.  So I installed a few more things and since nothing was landing in the overwrite I managed to ignore it.  I'm sure you can see what's coming.

 

I got to the point where TUCO says to download the Beyond Skyrim: Bruma files and clean one of them.  I hit one 'uh-oh' right away after the base and it's patch were being installing where I was asked if I wanted to replace the original with the update, merge it, or delete the original.  My cat gave me a firm meow when I asked if I should merge and so I chose merge.   Is that what one usually does with a base mod and then a patch? Then I went to clean the specified file and as you can guess, that landed it in the Overwrite again with an accompanying face-palm. 

 

Neither Google nor the search function on these boards yielded results that I could set my compass by.  So risking shame and embarrassment, I decided to post my journey thus far and having brought any reader up to speed on where I'm at, hoping I can finally 'get it' with someone's help;

 

So what is the standard thing to do with a file that lands in the Overwrite?

• Do I drop them into the original mod's folders that's installed on the left pane? 
• Do I create a brand new mod with the contents from the Overwrite, activate it instead and not use the already installed one of the same name?
  • If so do I delete the original and use the files from the Overwrite? 
  • If I leave both and activate just the one from Overwrite, doesn't that count against the total mod count?
• What is the thing(s) to fundamentally understand about the overwrite as a good general rule to live by with stuff that lands in it?

Hopefully my story and it's questions weren't too demanding of one's patience, I look forward to being educated and it allowing me once more to roam the land of Skyrim.

[Greg]

The general purpose of the Overwrite folder is to store new files that are created by external tools that need a human to determine where they should go.

 

It's been a long time since I've cleaned the vanilla DLC so the following explanation is from my perhaps faulty memory:

When you clean the vanilla Dawnguard.esm, the cleaned version of Dawnguard.esm may be stored directly in the game's Data folder. If you look in the Overwrite folder, you should see a "TESVEdit Backups" folder that contains the original unmodified Dawnguard.esm containing the date the file was backed up (e.g. Dawnguard.esm.backup.2018_05_25_19_17_05). You may also find other files that xEdit created during the cleaning process. The way I handle this is to clean Dawnguard.esm, right click on overwrite, Create Mod, and name it Dawnguard Cleaned. This is optional, but I also move the cleaned Dawnguard.esm from the game's Data folder into this mod and move the original unmodified Dawnguard.esm back into the game's Data folder. You don't have to do this, but this preserves the cleaned DLC in case Steam mysteriously and unknowingly updates the game files.

 

In general, creating new files in Overwrite is a good thing because most of these should be stored as separate mods. For example, when you run GenerateFNISForUsers, FNIS creates all of the animation files based on the animation mods you've installed, In this case, clean Overwrite to so it's empty, run GenerateFNISForUsers, wait for it to finish, right click Overwrite, Create Mod, and name it something like "FNIS Output". The same thing goes for the bashed batch, merge patches, merged mods, etc.

 

Sometimes you run an external tool and find there's only a log file or a txt file in Overwrite. In this case, I just delete the file since it isn't needed before I move on to the next step.

[Seeker17281]

Hi Dragonborn, thanks for answering.

 

First, the explanation of the role of the Overwrite folder finally makes sense, a holding spot that requires a human to make another decision with it's contents and putting said contents into the right place.  I bookmarked this so that I can copy your procedure for the cleaned master esms in the future and it led me to doing a experiment.  I loaded up MO2, used SSEEdit to clean the Update esm and noticed 2 things as I went through the process.

1. The ITMs weren't there this time.
2. After finishing, I looked in my Common\SSE\Data folder and the Update esm showed a timestamp of having been modified at the time I ran SSEEdit.

So basically, those are the cleaned versions and I can actually delete the mods with the red x's.  That was quite comforting and satisfying to know.  I should've thought of doing this sooner now that I look back, but ah well, use and learn.  Now my current understanding is that whatever is in Overwrite is the original mod being configured/adjusted for use in my build and now I have to make a mod tuned for my build and put it to use by adding it to my mod load.

 

If I may, I'd like to run by you a scenario to see if I'm understanding what you're saying and learned what to do going forward with a example:

 

I downloaded "Beyond Skyrim-Bruma SE" and  "Beyond Skyrim DLC Intergration Patch" installed the first, then the second and upon prompting merged the patch into the first, it's name in the mod panel is "Beyond Skyrim-Bruma SE". 

 

Then cleaning the "BSHeartland.esm" had the results land in my Overwrite, now I need to take those and specify where they go.  Upon opening it in Explorer I found 3 files in "SSEEdit Cache" folder that I'm assuming are the now cleaned "Beyond Skyrim-Bruma SE" with all the associations needed to be functional.

 

This set of 3 files are what I'm supposed to make a mod out of, so I right click the folder in Overwrite, select create mod, name it say "BS-Bruma-Clean" and when it finishes, I'm supposed to drop this "mod" into the installed mod folder "Beyond Skyrim-Bruma SE".  Is that correct?

Or do I in this case, take those 3 files and just move them without making a mod of them, into the folder of "Beyond Skyrim-Bruma SE"?

[Greg]

You can do whatever makes sense to you.  If you clean a mod, you can either create a new mod from Overwrite named "BSHeartland Cleaned" or you can double click Overwrite and drag the contents back into the original BSHeartland mod.

 

If you merge two mods, I generally just right click Overwrite, Create Mod, and name it something that makes sense like "Beyond Skyrim-Bruma Integration Patch Merged". The name of the mod isn't really important as long as you know what it is. The import aspect is that this makes it easier to delete and recreate the merge if you need to do so in the future.

[Shadriss]

Then cleaning the "BSHeartland.esm" had the results land in my Overwrite, now I need to take those and specify where they go.  Upon opening it in Explorer I found 3 files in "SSEEdit Cache" folder that I'm assuming are the now cleaned "Beyond Skyrim-Bruma SE" with all the associations needed to be functional.

 

This set of 3 files are what I'm supposed to make a mod out of, so I right click the folder in Overwrite, select create mod, name it say "BS-Bruma-Clean" and when it finishes, I'm supposed to drop this "mod" into the installed mod folder "Beyond Skyrim-Bruma SE".  Is that correct?

 

Or do I in this case, take those 3 files and just move them without making a mod of them, into the folder of "Beyond Skyrim-Bruma SE"?

The SSEEdit Cache is something else entirely. Those are files used by xEdit (SSEEdit) to speed up its load times. You can keep those if you wish to, but they are not the cleaned files. The cleaned ones (likely) straight up replaced the original ones. I know you are using the TUCOS guide, but let me recommend taking a look at the actual STEP 2.10 guide, as it has a portion that talks specifically about cleaning mods, where the files end up, and what to do with them: take a look here to see if this doesn't clear things up a bit.

 

Also, on a side note: His name isn't Dragonborn - that's his forum title. That's Greg.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Shadriss

[Seeker17281]

Hi Shadriss, thank's for the recommendation, going to take a look and study the STEP guide.  Also thanks for pointing out title/name difference, otherwise I'd have thought your name was 'High King'     Finally, big thank you for mentioning SSEEdit cache particulars, that lifted a big confuser for me.

 

@Greg, thanks for the clarification, definitely helping me make progress on how to use the Overwrite folder, between you and Shadriss my understanding leapt way further ahead than it has otherwise.

[Shadriss]

Here to support - all part of the service. Of course, if you had looked at your own name, you might have figured it out, 'Prisoner'. :) At any rate, just as more filler, the SSEEdit Cache thing is fairly recent... was added about four or five months ago in the newer versions of xEdit, so it hasn't really been mentioned in any guides yet. I may have to recommend it's addition to both the STEP Guide (You listening, Tech?) and Lexy's Guide as well, since it's going to be a thing now.

[Seeker17281]

So it's been a few/couple days and wanted to let you both know that after fair bit of study and practice, I am seeing the virtues of the Overwrite folder.  I'm sure I'm only grasping a portion of it's use, as I am continuing to discover new things as I use and experiment with MO2.  I have to say that my initial hunch that this would be worthy of my time to study and get past the growing pains of was spot on.  I've since come to absolutely love the profiles abilities and the fact that after I build my mod library that I can have test profiles, character profiles with specific mods enabled, and so on.

 

My next challenges will be to figure out how to make use of Mator Smash and merging mods.  I've tried to do a Mator Smash twice now, but I keep missing something as lighting modss were off or some other mods weren't working correctly like they did under a bashed patch.  Totally different topic of course but just wanted to say your assistance with clearing the topic of Overwrite had paid solid dividends.  So wanted to express another big thank you for the pointers and replies 

[Shadriss]

Welcome to the Dark Side. Your cookies are over there. :)