WIP?

TR_Mainland

• Error Check Results should be run on the release candidate without saving the file for any errors not known to be false positives
• run tes3cmd clean to remove CS junk cells from the last stable TR_Mainland.ESP
• run tes3cmd common on Morrowind.esm, Tribunal.esm, Bloodmoon.esm to weed out any accidental junk edits. The only results should be LTEX, LAND, CELL and DIAL. DIAL: all topics, but there should be no INFO (except two in greeting 7): that would be dirty dialogue. Check and remove any of that with tes3cmd delete --type INFO --exact-id "..." - same for any other type of dirty objects.
• this is your last chance to fix wrong IDs! don't forget to recompile any scripts that use these IDs. tes3cmd example
• turn ESP into ESM (WryeMash or tes3cmd esm)
• copy file comment, eg. Main File v. 17.09 (CS file list or WryeMash)
• change the modified date to 01/01/2012 18:00:00 (WryeMash)
• OR: no large changes? make a hotfix ESP instead of a new ESM, which won't upset compatibility with saves and mods (probably not relevant for current releases, but was for a time when updates were released with little to no content changes)
  
   

  Every change to the master file requires WryeMash updates for saves and for TR mods, so many people will skip minor updates to avoid the hassle. If the differences aren't major (bugfixes, additional quest without cell instance edits), using a plugin for the update avoids the issue.

  Best case scenario: all changes are already available in separate plugins and final versions of claims. Just merge them together into a hotfix.

  Worst case scenario: you just have a different TR_Mainland file.
  How to create a patch from two versions of a file? By making a list of differences to export.

  - step 1: use tes3cmd diff. * Ideally you already know what the differences are and can narrow down the search, otherwise you have to make the diff between the whole files. TR_Mainland is too big, so depending on how much RAM you have, you'll probably have to divide the files and do it after removing all cells, or in several steps, or may not be able to do it at all with tes3cmd. The diff output tells you which records are new, identical, or different. Cells (CELL, LAND, PGRD) and dialogue (DIAL, INFO) are special cases, everything else that's new or different goes directly into your list of records to export.
  * unfortunately --ignore-type doesn't seem to work like documented for subfields (like CREA.AIDT, instead of only the subrecord the entire record is ignored?), so you can't use --ignore-type INFO.PNAM or INFO.PPAM to ignore useless neighbour dialogue edits. To compare NPC_ and CREA edits, you'll want to remove "Unknown_2:" and "Model:base_anim" data, junk differences, from dumped text files, or harmonize them in the plugins before using diff.

  - step 2: CELLS. If there are newly added cells that you want to include in the hotfix, as opposed to edits, add the CELL(/LAND/PGRD) to the list of records to export. Instance edits (ESP editing ESM) can't be procedurally extracted from a difference between two files with current tools. To check instance edits, make text dumps of the modified cells, remove ObjIdx: in the text dumps, and diff the texts. If there is an important edit to existing instances and you want to include this edit, you can't export it without creating doubling, instead do the edit again in the CS for the hotfix. If there are instance additions, and additions only, to an existing cell that you want to include, you can use --instance-match to export the instances separately.

  - step 3: DIALOGUE. Dialogue is made of DIAL and INFO records. Both record types need to be included and stay in the same order for dialogue to work. tes3cmd diff output gives you a list of modified INFO records but not DIAL. Two ways to do it from there:
  - either make a text dump of all the INFO, extract all the DIAL topic names, and add them with the INFO to the list of records to export;
  - or export all DIAL and INFO from the latest Mainland into a plugin, use tes3cmd delete to delete any INFO except those in your list of differences from that plugin, then use TESAME to delete all the DIAL that don't have any INFO after them, keep the plugin to merge later and remove INFO from the list of records you still need to export.

  - step 4: again, the list of differences is everything except CELL, LAND, PGRD (unless specifically included), and you either made a different file for dialogue (in which case remove all INFO) or added DIAL to the list in the previous step. Put each ID that is new or different inside --exact-id "" and export the differences from the newest Mainland file.
  tes3cmd dump --exact-id "..." --exact-id "..." --exact-id "..." --raw-with-header "TR_hotfix.esp" TR_Mainland.esm
  If the length with all IDs is too long for command line limitations, do it in several steps.

  - step 5: merge any plugins in the CS if they're in several parts and if any scripts were edited, recompile each of them.

TR_Preview

• cleaning the junk cells of each section file first can be easier. After using tes3cmd clean, tes3cmd dump --exterior --no-match "FRMR" will dump all remaining exteriors with no objects, but also including heightmap-only cells
• with the new TR_Mainland.ESM loaded, merge all other sections into a TR_Preview.esp
• for each merge, check a couple Greetings and generic topics (latest rumors) for any dialogue dropping at the bottom
• check cell borders between sections for holes
• clean as above
• remove TR_Mainland.ESM dependency (WryeMash)
• clean more: even with TR_Mainland.ESM as master, tes3cmd won't detect all junk cells, in particular it won't be able to automatically clean any exterior cells that have kept a name that isn't the one in Mainland. If you couldn't first clean each section file, you can check overlap between the merged Preview.ESP and Mainland.ESM:
  
   

  tes3cmd dump --exterior --raw-with-header "TR_Mainland_ExteriorsCheck.esp" TR_Mainland.esm
  tes3cmd dump --exterior --raw-with-header "TR_Preview_ExteriorsCheck.esp" TR_Preview.esp

  Use the CS to load both exported files, TR_Mainland_ExteriorsCheck.esp and with TR_Preview_ExteriorsCheck.esp ACTIVE. You will have to manually load Tamriel_Data.ESM and ignore all missing object errors. Merge them into TR_MainlandPreview_ExteriorsCheck.esp
  Then load them again in the opposite order in the CS, TR_Preview_ExteriorsCheck.esp and with TR_Mainland_ExteriorsCheck.esp ACTIVE, merge them into TR_PreviewMainland_ExteriorsCheck.esp

  tes3cmd dump --list TR_MainlandPreview_ExteriorsCheck.esp > TR_MainlandPreview_ExteriorsCheck.txt
  tes3cmd dump --list TR_PreviewMainland_ExteriorsCheck.esp > TR_PreviewMainland_ExteriorsCheck.txt

  Compare the two dump files

 
TR_Travels & TR_OldTravels

• check that their date comes after TR_Preview in the loading order

 
For each of these, copy any missing CS file comments, update dependences to the current versions of TR_Mainland.ESM and Tamriel_Data.ESM, change times, and make sure they are present in the optional files:

• TR_Preview.esp - 01/01/2012 18:00:02
• TR_Factions.esp - 01/01/2012 18:00:01
• TR_Travels.esp - 01/01/2012 18:00:03
• TR_Travels_(Preview_and_Mainland).esp - 01/01/2012 18:00:03
• TR_OldTravels.esp - 01/01/2012 19:00:00
• ?

Check the files’ Summaries (that is the little description text in the mod file) and author information (change the version as necessary):

• Author is always “Tamriel Rebuilt Team”
• TR_Mainland: Main File v. 18.07
• TR_Preview: Preview File v. 18.07 <2 line breaks> Adds unfinished, in-development content to the mainland
• TR_Factions: Faction File v. 18.07  <2 line breaks> Increases faction advancement requirements and extends Telvanni Hortator quests to mainland councilors
• TR_Travels: Travel File v. 18.07 <2 line breaks> Adds and edits travel connections to create an integrated travel network spanning the finished mainland and Vvardenfell
• TR_Travels_(Preview_and_Mainland): Preview Travel File v. 18.07 <2 line breaks>TR_Travels (P&M)<2 line breaks>Adds and edits travel connections to create an integrated travel network spanning the released mainland, the unfinished mainland, and Vvardenfell<2 line breaks>Do not use this together with TR_Travels.esp!
• TR_OldTravels: Old Travel File v18.07<2 line breaks>Adds Bal Oyra Silt Strider port and reactivates Tel Ouada Shipmaster<2 line breaks>Intended for use with mods that rely on these travel connections only!

 
TR_Readme

• change the BUILD version and date at the top of the file
• change the rev. version and date at the bottom of the file
• change the Tamriel_Data version in i. Requirements
• change the date and contents of VI. PROJECT STATUS
• credits: look at recent promoted showcases for new members
• credits: look at assets that have been merged since last release in the asset browser or in all (may be several) versions of Tamriel_Data TR Addon since last TR release, add any new contributors to credits
• credits: look at quest claims that have been merged since last release, add any non-promoted contributors (free writers) to credits
• try to update dead links, descriptions and remove anything outdated. Good luck.