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OWL applies sublist mechanic (the Gear Framework) to normal unenchanted gears, which enable easy integration of modded weapons and armors.
There are 2 approach in creating integration patch for OWL.
1. Create separate patch for each weapon and armor mod. And then use Wrye Bash to create bashed patch that combine various OWL patches, or use custom patch to resolve conflicts between patches.
Pros: You can add and remove the gear mod and rebuild the bashed patch at will.
Cons: You need to have some basic understanding of Wrye Bash. (Most IMPORTANTLY, proper bash tags in the patches are needed. )
2. Create a mega custom patch that integrate all of the gear mods you use. (Not suitable for sharing the patch with other users. )
Pros: You don't need the knowledge to run Wrye Bash and you can control the occurrence chance of every items to your liking. Also no conflict issue between patches.
Cons: You can't easily remove any mastered gear mod. It is hard to track down all the changes you made.
Personally I will recommend approach 1 as I consider it to be the best practice. But YMMV.
OK now we go into the actual steps to create the patch (using SSEdit). Let's start with the simple one.
Weapon
If a weapon mod is craftable only, like some of the Billyro's weapon, you can simply just put the weapons into OWL's sublist.
The editorID of the designated sublist is like this: OWL_Weapon_(Category/Material Type)_(Weapon Type)
For example, a modded steel sword can be placed in OWL_Weapon_Steel_Sword.
You can browse through the the editorIDs and decide where you should place the modded sword in.
Armor and Outfit
If you want to integrate modded armor for OWL, similar to weapon, you can put the armor into OWL's sublit. Except there are two type of sublit for armor: armor pieces into separate armor parts sublist; and all armor set into OUTFIT sublist.
For armor pieces, the editorID of the designated armor pieces sublist is like this: OWL_Armor_(Category/Material Type)_(Armor Type)
For example, a modded Steel Helmet can be placed in OWL_Weapon_Steel_Helmet.
For armor set, the editorID of the designated armor OUTFIT sublist is like this: OWL_Outfit_(Category/Material Type)_(Full/NoHelmet/Simple)
However, you need to create a new record for the modded armor set first. You can copy the base game reference as new record into your patch plugin. See below image for reference:
For example, the steel set from Armor Variant Expansion is named like this: OWL_Outfit_IronSet_Full1_AVExpansion
Then you can put the modded armor pieces into the new armor set record.
After that, you can put the new armor set record into corresponding OUTFIT sublist.
A few note on the armor integration, some of the modded armor doesn't match the vanilla armor or other modded armor, either causing clipping or just visually mismatch. If you add those into separate armor pieces sublist, it may potentially look ridiculous on NPCs. This is especially true for the lower tier armor (hide/iron/steel) because many bandits outfit are draw from those sublists randomly. Higher tier armor sublist doesn't tend to have this problem because they mostly appear on loot only.
So it is important to pick your choice of armor mod, don't put your fancy armor into lower tier sublist. I suggest to do some testing with vanilla armor parts and see if there are any mismatch problem first.
On the other hand, armor set in OUTFIT does not have mismatch problem.
Other Suggestion when creating your patch
If the weapon and armor mod comes with level list changes that conflict with OWL, most of the case you need to forward and overwrite with OWL's changes in your patch. See below reference:
If the weapon and armor mod contains more then 5 items for 1 category, like "Reforging to the Masses" has 19 or 20 steel sword, I will suggest to put all of them in an extra sublist first instead of putting all 19 steel swords into the OWL sublist. This way it won't interfere with the occurrence chance for other potential weapon mods too much.
Finally, I highly recommended to add Bash Tags for the patch, it is really useful for Wrye Bash users.
Click on the patch plugin name in SSEdit, find "SNAM - Description" and add {{BASH:Delev,Relev}}.
You can see below image for reference.
That's it! Hope you can now have a basic understanding on how to integrate weapon and armor mods into OWL Gear Framework.
English is not my first language so please bear with my writing. :)
Have fun and happy modding!
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