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Chorrol.com _ Oblivion Mods _ Steam!

Posted by: Rihanae Jan 15 2014, 01:33 PM

Just a quick question which can be deleted once it's answered haha.

Can you use mods if you've downloaded Oblivion from Steam?

Posted by: Acadian Jan 15 2014, 01:55 PM

I've moved this thread for you, Rihanae.

My modded OB game is disc, but my understanding is that you can certainly mod the Steam version. I would wait until someone with OB via Steam experience replies before you decide though. Specifically, I don't know enough about Steam to know if there are any considerations that it brings to the modding process for Oblivion.

Posted by: Rihanae Jan 15 2014, 03:13 PM

Thank you Acadian! Also could any body give me some advice on the OBMM? I've heard about it but not sure how to use it, if I download it.

Posted by: Acadian Jan 15 2014, 04:00 PM

You definitely want to use a mod manager utility of some sort. They make installing easier and, perhaps more importantly, make uninstalling easier.

Oblvion Mod Manager (OBMM) is such a utility. It has been around for a long time and does a nice job. But you have other options.

Bash Installer (BAIN) is the installation utility that comes with Wrye Bash. It can do quite a bit more than OBMM but has a steeper learning curve.

Although I know nothing about it, my understanding is that you can also use Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) as a mod manager utility.

I use Wrye Bash for some of its utility support (like easily repairing the A-Bomb), but I use OBMM instead of BAIN for managing mods. That is simply because I started with OBMM and am comfortable with it. Most avid mod users that I know that have taken the time to learn BAIN prefer it as the top choice of mod managers for Oblivion. If just starting out, I would absolutely focus on looking into BAIN.

Before you start, you want to find out from Steam users if there are any unique aspects of a steam installation that affect modding.

Assuming it is the same as a disc install, you want to install Oblivion in a place other than its default choice of 'Program Files'. This is because Windows gives programs installed there additional 'virus protection' type treatment that can interfere with installing mods.

Happily, Renee Gade IV is also learning the ins and outs of modding Oblivion and there is some good discussion of the process in her thread (RG4's PC Modding Crisis Thread) in this same sub forum. I recommend you review the sage advice therein. As you will see, there are several folks here who are much smarter when it comes to modding Oblivion than I.

Posted by: ghastley Jan 15 2014, 04:33 PM

There's a caveat on mods that use OBSE, but it's only that you make sure the OBSE install is aware of Steam. Once correctly installed, it works. There was some confusion when Oblivion first came out on Steam, because everyone expected it to break OBSE in the same way that D2D did, but it didn't. Mods work the same way as they do with Skyrim, which is Steam-only.

I use BAIN in Wrye Bash rather than OBMM for mod management, for two reasons: I'm going to be using Bash anyway, for all the other things it does; and BAIN understands how to handle shared forms when un-installing overlapping mods. OBMM breaks the game when you do that. The latter one may not be an issue for you, but since I publish my own mods, I often want to temporarily install another mod to check for compatibility with my own, and then take it out again. Wrye Bash is a much bigger and more complex thing than OBMM, which is just a mod manager, but I use it as my launch pad for the CS/CK, Tes4/5Edit, BOSS and everything else, as well as the games (both Oblivion and Skyrim). I particularly like the profile feature, which maintains separate folders for multiple characters' saves, and remembers what mods their games use.

And now I've mentioned BOSS - you need that to get your load order right. Once you have the "required" mods, like the unofficial patches etc., you'll need help keeping the load order straight, as fixes for things don't do anything if they're loaded at the wrong time.

Posted by: Nekhron May 14 2016, 12:07 PM

As a matter of fact, I just got OBLIVION GOTY edition as a gift from my wife on Steam. I cannot get OBSE to install on it. I have tried every suggestion and have yet to get it to work

Posted by: Acadian May 15 2016, 12:56 PM

Welcome to the forums, Nekhron!

Congrats on getting OB GOTY! I sure hope you can get things going properly. My OB install is via disc and I'm afraid I'm not very good with such things, so I can't address Steam vs OBSE.

Hopefully, someone smart about such things (ghastley, I'm looking at you) will pop in to help you.

Posted by: Nekhron May 15 2016, 06:47 PM

Thank you! I'm looking forward to getting this to working and having some mods on and having a blast

Posted by: ghastley May 16 2016, 02:02 AM

Well, I've avoided Steam for everything except Skyrim (no option there). But http://wiki.theassimilationlab.com/tescosi/Oblivion_Script_Extender is probably the definitive one on that setup.