Mod Merging each section

[JedahDemon]

So I'm pretty new at modding and all so this may be a fairly noobish question, but I'm trying to reduce my mod load count as I'm starting to get dangerously close to 255 (currently at 250). Is it safe to merge all the mods included in each section of STEP or will this cause major conflicts?

[Tiger]

When you say "mod load count", do you mean esp (plugin) count? The 255 limit is the number of plugins, not the number of mods. For example, the official high res DLC mods do not count as they simply overwrite textures in the data folder, they do not actually require a plugin to be enabled.

[JedahDemon]

When you say "mod load count"' date=' do you mean esp (plugin) count? The 255 limit is the number of plugins, not the number of mods. For example, the official high res DLC mods do not count as they simply overwrite textures in the data folder, they do not actually require a plugin to be enabled.[/quote']

Right, sorry I meant the esm/esp count, not mods in general. I've never had to merge mods before since I never used that many in the past but I've recently started playing again and a friend directed me to STEP and GEMS so I ended up downloading a lot of stuff between the two of them, on top of a lot of armor mods, a few followers, stuff like that. Now I'm sitting at around 250 ESPs. One of the things I saw online was combing mods into the Bash Plugin but that only worked for like three mods, everything else said it was unmergable.

 

I downloaded a plugin for TES5 and I have a general understanding of how to use it, but my main concern is I don't actually know how it works on the back end, so I'm not sure if merging everything from a single section (for example any ESP from the Fixes section) will cause conflicts or CTDs or anything like that. I read somewhere too about turning BSAs into loose files but I'm not that saavy yet on how to do all that.

[Tiger]

Wow that's a lot of mods! BSA are just a compressed archive of textures meshes etc. You can extract them to loose but some mods will still require the ESP as well so that probably won't reduce the plugin count much. I've no experience with merging plugins myself but in any case, I would suggest you're simply running too many mods. If you go through your mods I'm sure there is a lot you can do without. I suggest a cleanup before you start thinking about merging.

[deathneko11]

I am in agreement with Tiger. You mentioned that you are new to modding so I understand how you feel, you want all the best mods out there. I can tell you though that when it comes to modding skyrim for the best playthrough, less is more when it comes to mod count. put together as many texture and visual mods as you would like to achieve the look you want for skyrim, and try to go easy on the mod count in regard to game changing mods. Put together a core set of mods that you know you cannot play without (you would be surprised at how small this list can get when you really optimize your load order) and be cautious of which sort of mods may have conflicts with one another.

 

In general, something like plugin merging to reduce plugin count is usually handled by more advanced modders that have been around the block or two. A basic understanding of what sort of mods are mergeable and what mods just aren't meant to be merged is key, and such modders that do this sort of thing usually have a very stable load order with 100s of plugins when they are all loose and broken down, or they are merging plugins to make some mods more compatible with each other.

[JedahDemon]

Well I don't really have that many extra mods, after I installed the core mods from STEP and then most of the mods from STEP Extended it came out to well over 100 ESPs already (somewhere near 140). After that most of my stuff is immersion related, a few overhauls (that are often 5+ ESPs on their own), armors, followers, a few extra quests, some hairs, etc. Most of it I could get rid of, doesn't mean I want to though and it all starts to add up really quickly.

 

I do appreciate the responses, though it's a little off point from the question I asked. I'm not concerned with whether or not I should merge mods, or remove mods as the case may be, I'm merely asking if it is safe to merge the ESPs in each section into a single ESP per section, or at least a few ESPs per section that way it cuts my mods down from 150-ish before anything after STEP down to 10-30-ish.

[EssArrBee]

You aren't going to get 150 into 30 without hours and hours or carrying over records from one plugin to a another. There is no way any merge script will work for that type of complex operation. You'd spend longer getting mods into 30 plugins than you would actually playing Skyrim.

[JedahDemon]

the official high res DLC mods do not count

This is a bit off topic but regarding this, since the high res texture packs do have an ESP for them does that mean I don't actually need to load them for the textures to appear in game?

[Tiger]

the official high res DLC mods do not count

This is a bit off topic but regarding this, since the high res texture packs do have an ESP for them does that mean I don't actually need to load them for the textures to appear in game?

Sorry I was assuming you had extracted them to loose files. If you do that (recommended) with BSAopt, the ESP files are not needed. 

[JedahDemon]

 

the official high res DLC mods do not count

This is a bit off topic but regarding this, since the high res texture packs do have an ESP for them does that mean I don't actually need to load them for the textures to appear in game?

Sorry I was assuming you had extracted them to loose files. If you do that (recommended) with BSAopt, the ESP files are not needed. 

I feel like such a noob so I really appreciate all the help you've given me so far. For the high res textures, are they all contained in the Skyrim - Textures.bsa? Just wanting to make sure I do this correctly, once I do it, it's not hard to figure out what to do from there. I already had BSAopt downloaded but I was a little concerned using it, as far as I understand you just open the BSA with it, select *.*, click apply, then click Unpack?

[Tiger]

 

 

the official high res DLC mods do not count

This is a bit off topic but regarding this, since the high res texture packs do have an ESP for them does that mean I don't actually need to load them for the textures to appear in game?

Sorry I was assuming you had extracted them to loose files. If you do that (recommended) with BSAopt, the ESP files are not needed. 

I feel like such a noob so I really appreciate all the help you've given me so far. For the high res textures, are they all contained in the Skyrim - Textures.bsa? Just wanting to make sure I do this correctly, once I do it, it's not hard to figure out what to do from there. I already had BSAopt downloaded but I was a little concerned using it, as far as I understand you just open the BSA with it, select *.*, click apply, then click Unpack?

If you follow the guide here you can't go far wrong: https://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:BSA_Extraction_and_Optimization

 

The High Res DLC each come in their own BSA. HighResTexturePack01.bsa, HighResTexturePack02.bsa and HighResTexturePack03.bsa. You are correct in that you simply open the BSA and unpack it. If you just want to extract them, open each BSA in BSAopt, unpack to some folder. Repack it using winrar or 7zip and copy it back to your mod folder. You can then move the original BSA files out of Skyrim/Data to a safe place in case you want them in the future. Once repackaged, each DLC should just contain a "Textures" folder. When you reapply the mod with whatever mod manager you use, it simply copies the textures over. It doesn't require an ESP file.

[JedahDemon]

Tiger you have been a colossal help to someone trying to get their bearings and figure out the ropes for modding skyrim for the first time. I thank you a million times!