Give Feedback
"BUVARP and WARP: Which one should I use?", "Isn't WARP/BUVARP used to replace BUVARP/WARP?", "What are the differences?", "Is BUVARP/WARP outdated?", "Can't you just make WARP work with BUVARP?"
I have been getting these questions a lot. Apparently there's a lot of confusion about this in the community. In this article, I'll try to explain the differences and how it affects both mods, to hopefully help you make an informative decision.
To start of: "Which one is better?" Neither is "better", both have pros and cons, and it comes down to personal taste.
The history of BUVARP and WARP
Disclaimer: Do not harass any of the mod authors mentioned in this. Their work has been invaluable and should be praised instead of discouraged. Without them, BUVARP/WARP would have died a long time ago. Thank you for understanding.
So how did this all start. Around 2015/2016ish, I made a mod to make Eisa Blackthorn and Kesh the Clean followers after their respective quests. As I found out there were many NPCs like that, that were unused after their quests, I decided to adress more of them, hence BUVARP (Barely Used Vanilla Actors Recycle Project) was born.
As I'm a mod author that prefers the "Cathedral approach" to modding, (read more in this article made back in the day by Wrye of The Cathedral and The Parlor: http://wryemusings.com/Cathedral%20vs.%20Parlor.html ) I use the Cathedral WML license on my mods permissions, including BUVARP.
People like the first iteration of BUVARP, and started sending requests to include more NPCs. At this point, I somewhat naiely believed that the majority of the mod users would be familiar with conflict resolution and making their own custom conflict resolution patches or at least encourage them to do so. This was the first mistake on my part.
The way I made BUVARP at this point, meant that NPCs had direct edits to their NPC records, meaning that any mod that made another edit to that NPC would have to have a patch. Many NPC overhauls, like Bijins, Pandorables, WICO, etc also make direct edits and for that reason are incompatible with BUVARP.
However, I was under the impression I could somehow incentivise people to create their own patches. I even linked to GamerPoets guides on how to do so. Unfortunately, the majority of mod users is unaware of the purpose of conflict resolution, let alone understands how to make them. As such, the requests to make patches started coming in.
I was able to answer some of them, but I got quickly overwhelmed and unable to cope with them. In addition, I also had a backlog of other NPCs to cover, which was growing exponentionally.
At this point, 2 other modders offered to help, namely SkyLover264 (which I will refer to as Skylover) and TheBxushis (which I will refer to as Edson), which I made into co-authors. Skylover helped me out with the patches and Edson implemented some other NPCs. I was and still am very grateful for their efforts.
Even with their help, we were struggling to keep up with the requests of patches and new NPCs. So, I found a workaround to conflict resolution issue, creating a clone of an NPC and using that for other content post quest. As the clone was a new record, it was unaffected by any conflicts. This worked pretty well and I used this as a prefered method as the NPC aren't used anymore after their quests anyways, I thought.
At this point, Edson had created a mod himself called Unique Uncommon NPCs (aka UUN). Impressed by his work, I contacted him and we decided to merge them into BUVARP.
There were some other problems for the project at this point though. BUVARP requires USLEEP/USSEP, RDO and CRF. Many people weren't happy with these requirements, but unfortunately, there wasn't a way to go without them:
- USLEEP/USSEP fixes quest script bugs that needed to be forwarded in BUVARP.
- CRF brings back many unused NPCs, that are used in BUVARP.
- RDO is needed for follower/marriage dialogue for voice types that don't have this in Vanilla, Female Khajiit voice for instance.
In addition, SE was out for several years at this point and as such the desire of the community for an SE version, which proved a bit more difficult, since the SE version of RDO did not match the one of LE, essentially requiring us to work on 2 different versions of BUVARP.
Another issue was with the world object placements, like Valdr's and Anska's houses for instance, which resulted in more requests for patches of city overhauls for these areas.
The feature creep started to become real with BUVARP, adding in things like quest overhauls and dialogue options, which looking back were another mistake, since they're out of scope of the mod and better for a seperate project.
I decided to take a break from the project at this point, as it was getting something I was unable to realistically handle.
Edson had been working very hard on some other changes, but unfortunately, while making these edits he had used the Merge Plugins tool, without making his changes in a seperate plugin, which resulted in all FormIDs of the ESP being renumbered.
Given he had already worked months on this, it would be a shame to have his hard work to be undone, so I decided to test his version of BUVARP. After weeks of testing, I was unable to make his changes work on my end, while he provided proof it did indeed work on his end.
The edits he had made were more akin to my early way of doing it (the none-cloning way), and as such, requiring tons of conflict resolution patches.
So, we talked about this and decided for him to release his version of BUVARP under a different name, called WARP. I would help him provide some initial support for the mod.
BUVARP would be kept up for people that preferred its implementation over WARP, as I don't like to take down mods, unless it's due to a gamebreaking reason. But as BUVARP was mostly functional, I decided to keep it up. Little updates happened to it, after this point.
We released it as a different mod, because 1. I was unable to get it to work on my end and that would proof hard to actually support and maintain and 2. Users would be unable to update midgame.
Then, after a few months, Edson had the misfortune of his PC crashing and took a break for several months. As I myself no longer provided any support for WARP, that mod was now basically in maintenance/dormant state.
He eventually returned and fixed some of the issues with WARP, but shortly after went on a break again and hid the SE version of WARP.
The SE version of WARP remained hidden for months, but the LE version of WARP was still up. As such, many users asked for an SE version again. Then, someone else named Featherstone ported the LE version of WARP back to SE.
This is now the current state, as of writing this article. (April 21th 2021)
FAQ
Q: So what's the difference between BUVARP and WARP?
A:
BUVARP: is a compilation of edits to NPCs, including my own edits, Edson's Unique Uncommon NPCs (UUN) and SkyLover's fixes. Since 2018, it hasn't received any significant updates. It is workable for the most part, but uses the cloning technique to work around potential conflict resolution issues, although this is not the case for all of its NPCs.
It has certain NPCs that were included by Edson's UUN, which I don't know the details about how they work and as such those NPCs remain unsupported for now, until I can figure out how they were done.
WARP: In 2018, Edson made his own edits to BUVARP, but unfortunately renumbered all the FormIDs. Due to this, and us not wanting his hard work go to waste, we decided to release this version of BUVARP as a new mod, called WARP.
Q: Can you make a patch to make WARP and BUVARP work together?
A: Due to the renumbering of FormIDs as mentioned above, that isn't a feasible thing to do. Also, because what they did is the same thing in many cases, but done through a different approach.
Q: Is WARP supposed to replace BUVARP?
A: That depends on how you look at it. WARP covers more NPCs, but follows Edson's philosophy/mechanics which differ from the ones I used in BUVARP (minus the edits from UUN). It's more matter of taste which ones way of modding you'd prefer.
Q: Is WARP/BUVARP outdated?
A: BUVARP has had little new updates since 2018. WARP is more up to date in that regard.
Q: So, which one should I use?
A:
BUVARP is, generally speaking, a little easier to get working, due the cloning technique I used. This technique is controversial and many people wouldn't like it as much, but it is generally easier to get working when you're using a lot of other mods. Keep in mind though, that this isn't the case for all NPCs in BUVARP and many might still cause issues. Conflict resolution is still needed though, albeit less than in WARP.
WARP is a bit harder to get working due to more of a need to perform conflict resolution, but doesn't use the controversial cloning technique and as such uses the original NPCs as much as possible. I would recommend smaller load orders to prevent conflicts, if you go for WARP and know little about conflict resolution.
Q: Conflict resolution can be solved by using LOOT?
A: In case of BUVARP/WARP, no. Following the rule of one, if you use a conflicting NPC appearance overhaul together with BUVARP/WARP, you'll either get an NPC with the blackface bug, or an NPC that looks fine, but doesn't have the correct AI packages, inventory, script properties, etc for them to function in WARP/BUVARPs new usage.
Q: So, conflict resolution, that's just making a Bashed Patch, right?
A:
Q: How can I make a conflict resolution patch, then?
A: There are 2 ways: automatic, or manually.
Automatic is much faster, but more prone to mistakes. You can use xEdit "merge patches" (which is a bit confusion to be honest, since Merged ESPs are something different from conflict resolution) or Mator Smash. (which is likely outdated and unable to handle ESLs).
Mator Smash tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l39VMssZmjE
Manually is very slow and tedious (up to several days of work depending on your load order), but provides much better control, if you know what you're doing. A guide on how to make one can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olEbW1Eqbus
Q: Going forward, what will happen?
A:
For WARP, I am not sure.
For BUVARP, I have some plans:
- Remove CRF and RDO as requirements and/or make them optional.
- Make the edits to NPCs by Edson, optional and/or make them work with the current version. This refers to the UUN NPCs and some others, namely Shahvee, Shavari, Malborn, Brelas, Selveni Nethri, J'datharr, From-Deepest-Fathoms, Deep-In-His-Cups, dunWatchRiverWolf aka Scruffy, Nubaree, Razita and all NPCs regarding the Ill Met By The Moonlight quest
- Make any worldspace edits, like new houses optional.
- Include some of the NPCs requested over the years.
Q: Okay, when will this happen?
A: I don't know. It could be next month, over 5 months, over a year or over a couple of years. I have a lot of projects running at the moment, but I'm hoping to adress these issues at some point.
Q: What about the existing patches on the BUVARP download page?
A: I was under the impression that they were out of date, but Skylover can probably tell you more about them.
Update August 13th 2021:
1. Skylover has left the Nexus, due the recent policy changes. He might still comment on some of the mods from time to time though.
2. I've slowly started working on BUVARP again. My first goal is to move the unsupported NPCs, requirements to CRF and RDO and all worldspace edits into a seperate file.
Update October/November 2021:
As the Anniversary Edition was approaching, I released a new version of BUVARP, which I dubbed "BUVARP SE RE", or "NewVARP": https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/56120
This mod adresses the things I had been working on:
- Getting rid of the USSEP, RDO and CRF requirements
- Removing unsupported NPCs
- Minimizing quest and quest script conflicts
- Minimizing world edits for compatibility
In addition, I'm starting to adress new NPCs, as well redoing the unsupported ones.
14 comments
I think Modding community is one the only few social community that has not been corrupted yet by the MTRX, makes you guys one of the last beacon of free will and spirit.
"May the gods watch over your battles, friend.",,,,,,,Skyrim Nord.
Also, I am very sorry to hear you guys had such a difficult time with the users demands. I will say that I personally found gamer poet's explanations very difficult, for all that he clearly knew what he was taking about, I was missing just enough information that I could never quite follow what he had to say. I've worked my issues out though, and come to understand how to patch my order and so-forth. those problems were mine to resolve, not to dump on others. My sympathies again.
Thanks for pointing it out. I wasn't aware it did that now. Back when I used it, as far as I know, it only resolved leveled list conflicts for Skyrim.
Maybe later I should more thoroughly go through the differences in individual NPCs between the two, I am too lazy at this very moment but I know some have differences and I think it might be helpful to have those laid out in a better format than Nexus pages.
A comment on CRF though, BUVARP only uses three hunter NPCs from it, and they are vanilla actors. CRF only adds them to Bloated Man's Grotto and tweaks the script to enable them--which BUVARP overwrites to add its own 3 hunters. So CRF requirement could be circumvented by simply placing the same 3 actors in the same worldspace and tweaking the script again to point to the new references.
For RDO--I think? It's safe to add NPCs to marriage/follower factions even if they need RDO for their voice type, the dialogue option just won't show up without it? So it may only be the changes to Nubaree and Razita which tie it to BUVARP, unless some post-quest idle comments rely on RDO voice lines.
This was a good read and my response is not very eloquent. I am tired, sorry.
Yes, if that NPC gets recycled by another mod after their Vanilla quest, it might. An example would be Amorous Adventures. However, those conflicts would be way less common, than any conflicts with the numerous appearances overhauls
That is correct. I actually slowly started working on BUVARP again and I've recently noticed that. These hunters were done by Edson though, so I didn't know how deep this went.
I'm torn about this. I was thinking of instead of using the full version of RDO, I'd switch over to the lite version. Only issue in that case, is that that would make it incompatible with the full version again.
Ideally, I would need to make my own follower dialogue and marriage dialogue, which might take a lot more time. I'm hoping to find a suitable resource for this purpose.
Overall, I think for mod authors to try and remove conflicts with other mods is both futile and counter intuitive. Anyone who knows how plugins are structured knows there will almost always be conflicts and in my opinion, it is important to educate more people about patching (as you have done in this article, kudos!). Give a man a fish, etc.