Installation Procedure/order

[Gaz360GT]

Hi all,

I am planning a return to SH3 after about a year off, through no choice of my own, after uninstalling the game due to a lack of hard drive space.
My lack of disk space has now been sorted and i'm ready to take to the high seas again :arrgh!:
When I had SH3 installed before I had GWX3, SH3Commander and JSGME installed also along with a few mods; NoRingRingMod, LifeBoatsandDebris, Q-ShipMod, TorpedoDamageFinal, and a couple of the GWX mods. I still have all of the zip files still and I have also found SHCommanderConfigFilesGWX3 in my documents folder.
Now my question is what order should these be installed/enabled? As i'm sure I recall there being an order to which things should be installed and mods enabled for them to both work and not clash with one another. I have done a quick search on the forums but didn't find what I was looking for (I have always struggled to get results from forum search functions :damn:)

Any help would be much appreciated,

Gaz

[Herr-Berbunch]

I think

SH3 + relevant patches (up to 1.4b and poss the nocd/starfarce)
GWX3 and JSGME (come together)
Commander+GWX config file

Then all the other mods I don't think will have an issue.

Happy hunting, again. :yeah:

[Sailor Steve]

Herr-Berbunch is correct about the major mods installation. SH3 Commander is an external tool, not a mod, and really doesn't care when it's installed, except in the case of the GWX config files which should be installed last.

NoRingRingMod
A sound mod. Can be installed any time, even in mid-patrol.

LifeBoatsandDebris, Q-ShipMod, TorpedoDamageFinal, and a couple of the GWX mods.
It's probably a good idea to install the GWX-specific mods first. As for the others, JSGME will tell you if there's any conflict. In this case they change different parts of the game, so you will probably find no conflict and the order doesn't matter.

Also a good idea is to install them one at a time and test them yourself. I have dozens of mods installed, and I did just that, plus I keep a list of my mod order and a few separate items to make any reinstallation easy.

[Gaz360GT]

Thanks for the help, I am installing as we speak. I will do just that and try the mods one at a time to ensure they are OK.
I have also just found FMnew_interiorV1 on my computer, can this be enabled whenever also?

Thanks again.

[Fish In The Water]

Hi all,

I am planning a return to SH3 after about a year off...

Welcome back to the pack! :salute:

[Jimbuna]

Don't forget to upgrade JSGME to the latest version....the one in GWX is a bit dated now:

http://www.users.on.net/~jscones/software/products-jsgme.html

[Sailor Steve]

Thanks for the help, I am installing as we speak. I will do just that and try the mods one at a time to ensure they are OK.
I have also just found FMnew_interiorV1 on my computer, can this be enabled whenever also?

Thanks again.
The newest version of JSGME will tell you what files, if any, will be overwritten, so you can make the decision to either uninstall something first or go ahead and just put it in. If you have a specific question on a file to be overwritten, just make a note of what it says and ask here. We're always glad to help.

[Gaz360GT]

Current version of JSGME installed, thanks once again. :yeah:

Now the task of enabling mods and checking them one at a time :yawn:.

[Gaz360GT]

OK, first problem encountered.

I am trying to enable both FM_NewInteriorV1.0 and GWX-IntergratedOrders but when I do JSGME tells me;
"Commands_en.cfg" has already been altered by the "FM_NewInterior_V1.0" mod.
Also saying there could be adverse effects on the game. It flags this whatever order the mods are enabled?

Sorry for questions already, Thanks in advance.

Gaz

[frau kaleun]

Both mods use their own versions of the three commands_xx.cfg files. Whichever mod you enable last will overwrite the other mod's versions of those files - leaving you with files that will no longer work with the first mod you enabled.

In order to use those two mods together, you will need to manually edit the three commands_xx.cfg files in order to avoid this issue. Fortunately there are instructions for this included in the documentation that comes with FM New Interiors, which will tell you exactly what lines need to be added or changed to your existing commands_xx.cfg files in order to make it work with FMNI.

The easiest thing to do is to enable Integrated Orders first. Once you do that, its versions of those files will be the ones in your game folder. Copy those files to your desktop or wherever and then open them one by one in Notepad. Using the documentation included in FMNI, make the necessary changes and additions (IIRC there are only about half a dozen changes - it's not a huge job at all). Save your newly edited versions of those files.

Now you can do one of three things:

1) put those new files you just made into the appropriate place in your copy of the FMNI mod in place of the ones already there, so they will be the ones that get put into your game when you enable FMNI.

2) enable FMNI "as is," and then copy the new commands_xx.cfg files directly into the approprate place in your game folder, overwriting the versions of those files that FMNI just put there.

3) if you are familiar and comfortable with setting up your own mods in the required JSGME-ready format, make a "mini-mod" just for those three new commands_XX.cfg files you made using FMNI's instructions. Put it in your MODS folder and enable it after enabling Integrated Orders and FMNI, so that the manually edited files overwrite what's currently there.

[Gaz360GT]

Thankyou so much frau kaleun, I didn't even think about looking at the documents :oops:.

I will do tomorrow and hopefully be ready to set sail again,

Thanks again,

Gaz

[frau kaleun]

If you're anything like me, after a while you will get to where you go through a new (to you) mod's files before you ever think about enabling it, to see if there any that jump out at you as being problematic. There are some, like the commands_xx.cfg files, that are used by many different mods and so you end up getting used to checking for those first and working out what manual edits you'll have to do to get the mod combo you want.

And if nothing else, when JSGME reports that a mod is changing something another mod did, that's always a red flag. If it's not something you expected and already got sorted out beforehand, or something you know is okay because the mod's documentation already told you so, then that's where you want to stop and back out of the operation and start checking out what files are involved. :yep:

[Sailor Steve]

I carefully made my own copies of Commands.cfg, Dials.cfg and Menu.ini, and keep them in a special folder. The first time I started putting together the mod list I wanted it took months. Then it took hours. Now with everything in its place I install all the mods, then install my own versions of the text files. The whole process takes twenty minutes.

[Fish In The Water]

If you're anything like me, after a while you will get to where you go through a new (to you) mod's files before you ever think about enabling it, to see if there any that jump out at you as being problematic.

Good advice...

I've been doing this for a long time and I find it saves a lot of headaches down the road. :up: