Staged Conflict Resolution?

[Muladhara86]

A facet of this post that I'm still curious about is staged conflict resolution.  I rarely have long periods to work on this.  I want to work on merge patches in stages, building smaller patches similar/overlapping mods, then carrying forward the changes into the next patch, etc., until I have one for my core group of stable mods.  

If I can get to a stable platform on which to mess around on, and if it'll be stable enough that I can do said modding while getting to finally experience DG/DB content I will be content.

 

I think this should end up being a reasonable approach, but I'm not sure about the grouping specifics.  Here are the mods and categories I will potentially be working with:

 

Patches/Fixes

 

+Cleaned Bethesda ESMs

+Unofficial Skyrim Patch

*Dawnguard

+Unofficial Dawnguard Patch

*HearthFires

+Unofficial Hearthfire Patch

*Dragonborn

+Unofficial Dragonborn Patch

+Skyrim Search Plugin

+Mfg Console

+AutoSave Manager

+Fuz Ro Doh

+Spell Eraser

+Improved Potion Recipes

+Smart Souls

+Traps Make Noise - More Dangerous Traps

+Wiseman303's Trap Fixes

+More Plants for Hearthfire w Dawnguard and Dragonborn plants

+Auto Unequip Ammo

 

UNLIKELY

 

-Dead Body Collision Fix (unnecessary; I've experienced CTDs w/ it)

-Skyrim Project Optimization (this has caused some weird issues with modded/added locations for me)

 

Models & Textures

 

+White Phial Replacer

+Finer Dust

+lockpick scratched by player

+Female Vampires Have Fangs

+Grimoas Vampire Lord Vanilla Armour

+Skill Interface Re-Texture

+EotW Mage Robes of Skyrim

+EotW Mage Equipment Overhaul - College Mage Robes

+EotW Mage Equipment Overhaul - Long Mage Robes

+Jewels of the Nord - HD rings and necklaces

+Improved Gemstone Dragon Claws

+Vampire Lord Collision Fix

+Book Covers Skyrim

+Radiant and Unique Potions and Poisons HD

 

UNSURE

 

+World Map - Skyrim Hold Borders (I've read that it can cause instability)

+Better Wyrmstooth Map With Roads (I'm not sure if the same applies, or if it's even necessary)

 

Animations

 

+XP32 Maximum Skeleton -XPMS

+Realistic Ragdolls and Force

+Running with your Bow Replacer

+Animated Dwemer Lift Load Doors

+D13 Faster GET UP STAND UP animation vanilla friendly

+Faster Transform - To Werewolf and VampireLord

+Immersive Animations

+360 Walk and Run Plus

+Better Turn Animation only One pose

+No Spinning Death Animation

+Fores New Idles in Skyrim - FNIS

+Belt-Fastened Quivers 1 2 Release - Animation Only (not sure if this is the right one)

+Dual Sheath Redux

 

UNSURE

 

(I'm not prepared to set these two up together)

-PC Exclusive Animation Path

-Unarmed Sounds and Animations for Vampires

 

 

Cosmetics

 

+More Realistic Hair

+Superior Lore-Friendly Hair - HD textures

+ApachiiSkyHair

+ApachiiSkyHair natural Retexture

+WSCO - Windsong Skyrim Chracter Overhaul

+Drachis Argonians Mod

+Coverkhajiits

+High Quality Eyes DD

+Weathered Warpaint and Improved Dirt

+Beards

 

Audio

 

+Sound of Barenziah

+Elder Scrolls Music

+Lore friendly Irish tavern music

+Delarics Conditional Combat Music

+MERGED AOS2

+Immersive Sounds - Compendium

 

 

UI

 

+Better MessageBox Controls

+Better Dialogue Controls

+KenMOD - Time on loading screen

+Sleep Menu Extender

+MERGED Descriptors

      -Unique Region Names - Dragonborn

      -Unique Region Names

      -Lore-Based Loading Screens 1 1 Release

      -Loadscreen Extensions

      -Disease Descriptions for the Immersive Adventurer

      -Informative Shrines

+Correct PS3 Button Icons

+SkyUI

+SkyUI PS3Buttons

+moreHUD

+RaceMenu

+Immersive HUD - iHUD

 

UNSURE

 

+Categorized Favorites Menu +CCFM 1.44 (the equip sets don't work and I've manually had to categorize a lot of stuff; may just self-customize original)

 

(I wanted these to open up my gamepad, but I can't get it to work)

+More HotKeys Please

+More Hotkeys Please And SKSE 1-7 Script Patch

 

UNLIKELY

 

-Main Font Replacement - Fertigo (causes text clipping)

-A Matter of Time (unnecessary, worried about load; still using)

-Take Notes - Journal of the Dragonborn (unnecessary, but I want to keep track of when certain cells reload and I can't guarentee I'll have a notepad available in this house)

 

Visuals

 

+Predator Vision v

+DYNAVISION Dynamic Depth of Field v

+BFS Effects 3 6 - Dragonborn Dawnguard

+Unread Books Glow

 

UNSURE

 

+Immersive Spells and Light - Spells emit light (very immersive, but buggy)

+Face to face conversation (very immersive, but controls strangely)

 

(their absence in vanilla is noticeable, but they're unnecessary)

-TK HitStop

-TK Recoil

 

Weather

 

+Solstheim Climate Overhaul for Dragonborn

+Climates Of Tamriel v3

+Supreme Storms for Climates of Tamriel

+Expanded Snow Systems

+Supreme and Volumetric Fog for Climates of Tamriel

 

UNLIKELY

 

-MERGED CoT Weather Patch (I'm not using an ENB, so I'm not sure if I should be using this)

 

Skills

 

+MERGED TTRSO (w/o the following skills)

+Smithing Perks Overhaul - Remade and Updated

+Stealth Skills Rebalanced - Sneak - Lockpicking - Pickpocket

+Less Tedious Alchemy

+Cooking for Alchemy

 

UNSURE

 

(I'm worried about script load during combat)

+Armored Sprint

+Armored Leap

 

(I don't like the vanilla tree, but it's incompatible with TTRSO)

-Thunderchild - Epic Shout Package - 29 shouts and immersion

 

Magic

 

+Warmer Magic Lights

+Extra screen effects for racial skills in -Thats Racist-

+Bat Travel Vampire Power for Dawnguard DLC

+Knock - An Open Lock Spell

 

UNSURE

 

+Apocalypse Spell Package (it's a grab bag for me)

+Dwemerverse - Dwemer Magic Package (just haven't experienced any of it)

 

(not sure which one fits better; even if it isn't lore or balance friendly, I'd really like to try these)

-Gifts of the Outsider - Dishonored in Skyrim

-Psijic Teleport Spells - Conjuration

 

Items

 

+Better Shaped Weapons - All in One Installer

+Nightingale Prime HD

+Clothing and Clutter Fixes

+Weapons and Armor Fixes - Remade with Dawnguard and Dragonborn support

+Sharlikran's JaySuS Swords for CCOR

+Bandolier - Bags and Pouches for CCOR

+WIC Cloaks for CCOR

+Complete Crafting Overhaul Remade

+Expanded Jewelry Crafting

+Actualize Apparel - Crafting Clothing

+Babette's Feast - Balanced

+MERGED Items

      -Unique Weapons Redone

      -Lore Weapon Expansion - 1k

      -Arrowsong A Bosmer Bow

      -Unique Uniques

      -Skyforge Weapons

      -Alchemy Tomes

+Nightingale Weapons Retexture - Carbon Fiber

+Crossbows Basic Collection

+Immersive Armors

+Skyrim Coin Replacer Redux

+Harvest Overhaul

+Oghma Infinium - A Training Station

 

UNSURE

(felt they were missing, but scripted, and incompatible with gamepads)

-Telescope

-Dwemer Goggles and Scouter

 

Landscape

 

+Real Ice

+Better Dynamic Snow

+MERGED Landscape

      -Red Mountain Erupts

      -Moss Rocks

      -Ash Rocks

      -Ice Floes

      -Hold Border Banners

+Gildergreen Regrown

+No Snow Under The Roof

+Realistic Boat Bobbing

+MERGED Realistic Water Two

+SkyFalls + SkyMills

+Point The Way

+Lanterns of Skyrim - All In One

+Skyrim Flora Overhaul

+Grass on Steroids - a grass mod that gives FPS BOOST and Dense Grass

 

Locations

 

+REGS - Cities (Lighthouse, Nernie's, Sewers)

+Expanded Winterhold Destruction Ruins 2.23

+MERGED ETaC for REGS (v12.1 w/o Inns, Morthal)

+Immersive College of Winterhold

+More Immersive Dawnguard Entrance

+Nightingale Hall Restored - Karliah as a Follower

+Realistic Room Rental - Enhanced

+Sky Haven Temple Merchants and More

+Better Fast Travel - Carriages and Ships - Overhauled

+Wyrmstooth

+Apple garden_Il giardino delle mele

+Daggercross Alley

+Granite Hall

+Inns and Taverns

+Laintar Dale

+Provincial Courier Service

+Snowbound Acres

+MERGED ETaC for REGS

+And the Realms of Daedra

+Adal Matar the Lost Stronghold - Fight Against the Thalmor I

+The Aldmeri Domain - Fight Against the Thalmor III

+SOUTH DRAGON BRIDGE - Fight Against the Thalmor IV

+The Secret of Dragonhead

+The Shadow of Meresis

+The Temple of Black Rock 

+MERGED Locations

      -Amber Guard

      -Immersive Settlements (Orcs)

      -High Hrothgar Overhaul

      -Understone Keep Fountains and Rubble

      -Raven Rock Expanded

      -Hearthfire Chimneys for ETaC

      -Better Docks for REGS

      -Better City Entrances

      -Unique Border Gates

      -Windcallers Pass

      -Ogmunds Tomb

      -Engelmanns Rest

+REGS - Patches

+Solstheim - The Lost Levels

 

UNSURE

 

(I may use certain modules from these when I have the time)

-Hidden Hideouts of Skyrim City Edition

-Hidden Hideouts of Skyrim

 

UNLIKELY

 

-The Lost Wonders of Mzark (heard about script spamming; also can't stand ambient lighting)

-Wet & Cold - Holidays (It requires Wet & Cold, which I'm not sure I can handle)

 

Abodes

 

+The Field Lab 2

+General Stores - storage resource for packrats

+All Homes Remodeled by Galadreal

 

UNSURE

 

(I haven't gotten around to trying this yet)

-Craftable Cloud Storage

 

(I may only activate specific homes in MO profiles for appropriate characters)

-Aemers Refuge Continued

-Darkwater Den - Argonian themed home

-Druids Den - Collectors Edition

-MERGED Elysium Estate

-Haven Bag

-Tel Nalta - Telvanni Home

 

Vanilla Quests

 

+The Choice is Yours - Fewer Forced Quests - Improved Dialogue Options

+Timing is Everything - Quest Delay and Timing Control

+MERGED Even Better Quest Objectives (w/ pertinent patches)

+Localized Thieves Guild Jobs

+Thieves Guild Requirements - No Auto Quest Start Brynjolf

+Enhanced Skyrim Factions - The Companions Guild

+The Paarthurnax Dilemma

+Cutting Room Floor

 

New Quests

 

+Sea of Ghosts

+Pit Fighter + DLC

+No Mercy

+Spectraverse - Magic of the Magna-Ge

 

UNSURE

 

-Moon and Star (Conflicts w/ Tel Nalta, which is fantastic)

-Helgen Reborn 

-Undeath (I've heard of and experienced CTDs w/ it)

-Lilarcor (i've experienced CTDs w/ it)

 

UNLIKELY

 

-Moonpath to Elsweyr (just lacks polish; linear.  I wish some of those mobs were incorporated into skyrim though, like the lizards and the pack animals)

 

Gameplay

 

+Skyrim -Community- Uncapper (I haven't configured this yet)

+White Phial Realignment

+Better White Phial Effects

+Trade and Barter

+Crossbow reloading

+Training Dummies Provide XP

+Better Vampires 6.6

+Royal Bloodline - Vampire Lord perk tree - abilities - and more

+Moonlight Tales - Werewolf and Werebear Overhaul

+Dragon Soul Relinquishment

+Smart Cast

+The Dance of Death 4-0 Beta - Ultimate Edition

 

UNSURE

 

+Deadly Combat (I've turned off locational damage, and I'm not sure timed wards are working, so I turned those off too; have hardly tested it)

+Immersive Potions (not sure if it'll play nicely w/ the above, if I use it)

 

UNLIKELY

 

+SkyTweak (not sure that I need it between Uncapper and Deadly Combat; hate resetting MCMs each time I restart a character for mod testing)

-Achieve That (I worry about power creep and stability)

-Sneak Tools (I feel like the game works without these features and that adding them may lead to stability issues)

-Sneak Tools Patch (^)

-SM Drop Lit Torches (I worry about the load)

-NPC Knockout Overhaul (The game works without it; also worried about the load)

-Alternate Start - Live Another Life (I can accomplish similar effects through custom vanilla saves and "coc"ing in and using custom batch files)

 

New Followers

 

+Ohmes Thief Nonara

+Slave Pack Riekling Porter

+ANSKA ENHANCED - UFO AFT

+Hoth

+Cerwiden -SMART Healer- AI Configurable Companion

+INIGO

+Arissa - The Wandering Rogue

+Vilja in Skyrim

+Vilja Custom Face

 

New NPCs

 

+Inconsequential NPCs

+MERGED TPoS

      -TPOS - WHITERUN MERGED APCS

      -TPOS - SOLITUDE

      -TPOS - DAWNSTAR FISHERY

      -THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF SKYRIM

+TPOS - WINDHELM

 

NPC Changes

 

+Bring Out Your Dead

+When Vampires Attack

+Run For Your Lives

+Guard Dialogue Overhaul

+No NPC Greetings (very close)

+Respectful Guard Animations

+Follower Commentary Overhaul - FCO

+Serana Secret

+Follower Trap Safety

+Better Stealth AI for Followers - No Torch while Sneaking

+Endgame NPC Overhaul

 

UNSURE

 

-Amazing Follower Tweaks

-My Home Is Your Home

-Followers can Relax

(I'm starting to feel that there's not much I need out of AFT/EFF/UFO, and that maybe I can lessen my system load by not using an overhaul)

 

New Creatures

 

+OBIS - Organized Bandits In Skyrim (no extra spawns, letting ASIS handle potions)

+OBIS Redone

+Skyrim Immersive Creatures (no extra spawns, random cell reset disabled)

+Rhinos of Skyrim

+Dawnguard Rewritten - Arvak

+Unicorn

 

Creature Changes

 

+High Level Enemies 1.6 SIC Edition

+Convenient Horses

+Dragon Combat Overhaul

+Deadly Dragons

 

A random REGS question: I don't care for EWDR v2+; can I use it, CWI, and ETaC - Winterhold w/o a patch, or is the ETaC Patch implying correctly that I must include the caverns if I want to get these three working together?

Edited July 3, 2014 by Muladhara86

[ElminsterAU]

With ModGroups, the way I envision it, the procedure to follow for resolving conflicts in a large and complex set of modules is the following:

 

• (a) Load all your active modules into TES5Edit, activating all ModGroups
• "Apply Filter to show Conflict Losers"
• Look through the reported conflicts and pick 2 modules that seem to be conflicting with each other
• Close TES5Edit
• (b) Load only the two modules you picked. (Plus appropiate DLCs and all applicable Unofficial Patches, activate all mod groups for the UPs.)
• "Apply Filter for Cleaning" (we aren't going to be cleaning, at this point it's assumed that all your mods are already clean, but this filter preset is appropiate to then look through the records and see if there are any problems that need to be resolved)
• Look through the records of the two modules check out how they interact with each other. Depending on what you find you might decide that:
• The modules, while touching the same records, do not actually conflict in their current load order -> Create a ModGroup listing these modules, then go back to (a) and repeat
• The conflicts between the two modules might be resolved (or at least reduced) if the load order is reversed -> Reorder the modules, then go back to (b) and repeat
• There are conflicts between the modules that can only be resolved by a compatibility patch ->
• If there already exists one for these modules and you didn't load it, go back to (b) and this time load it as well
• If not, create a new one by doing a "Copy as override" on one of the conflicting records (into a new file), then manually resolve the conflict. Do this for all conflicts. Then close TES5Edit (saving the new file) and go back to (b), making sure the load the new patch as well

 

Obviously, that's only a general guide, not a hard and fast rule. There are certainly many cases (mods that come in multiple modules, mods that have numerus compatibility patches already, a 3rd mod that conflicts with two mods for which you've already created a compatibility patch, and so on) where you will need common sense, and experience, to adjust the procedure as needed.

 

But the general goal remains unchanged: defeat in detail.

 

ModGroups, when used correctly, allow you to resolve conflicts between a small subset of all your mods, and then, when you are happy that all conflicts in this subset are resolved, hide any remaining (potential) conflicts that are detected away, so that you can concentrate on another subset.

 

The best way to do this would be to start with an empty data folder, then after installing each mod, resolve all conflicts and create appropiate mod groups until the "Filter to show Conflict Losers" just returns an empty list.

 

Long term, I hope that mod authors that create compatibility patches will include appropiate mod groups with their downloads.

 

To help with preventing the possibility that the promise of a ModGroup (loading all these modules in that order results in all winning records being correct for this set of modules) is broken (by updating one of the mods involved) without noticing it (so the mod group would then hide true conflicts), I've added the possibility to specify a list of valid CRCs, e.g.:

[Unofficial Skyrim Patch]Update.esm:E5B67BDA,1FDAB215         ;Original, CleanedUnofficial Skyrim Patch.esp:FB709557 ;2.0.4

[ElminsterAU]

Sounds like what you need is ModGroups. A feature that has been in xEdit going all the way back to when it was TES4View. To see what ModGroups are and also to get some enhancements I've implemented for them in the last few days, check out https://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/topic/3750-wipz-tes5edit/?p=151819 and the following post.

[Muladhara86]

That does sound like what I need!  I'm not sure I'm fully grasping it though; I'll have to read through it again when I'm more alert.  After reading that, I'm still not sure how I should go about grouping my mods.  It see,s as though ModGroups will need an entirely different grouping scheme than the makeshift one I used above.

[Barthanes]

Been playing with the latest Tes5edit, (you can find it here, xEdit svn1633 ) and I have to tell you I'm really loving it. I dowloaded this from the Tes5edit forum, https://www.dropbox....ch_ModGroups.7z as well. These files go in the data folder so just make an MO folder called Modgroups or something and activate. Recommend you install the r1633 version onto a separate file folder and make a second executable in MO to use it. Also copy any scripts like the merge one into this test version if you want to do any scripting with it.

 

Seriously makes conflict resolution much easier. I just did all my, lighting, weather, water height in about 1/3 of the time it usually takes. By "hiding" the conflicts between the DLC's and UP's it gives a much cleaer picture of what is actually conflicted. Haven't tried making any mod groups yet, but I think I will when I get to doing NPC's. The ability to hide conflicts that you don't really need to deal with is a big deal for me. 

It supposedly does a better job of finding ITM's as well so cleaning mods with it may be more complete. Haven't got that far though.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Barthanes

[Barthanes]

I see what you mean about loading smaller subets and then creating a modgroup. This is an enorrmous help in a heavily modded game. You can really drill down to resolve  conflicts and then not have to see them anymore once they're fixed. It makes finding all the conflicts much easier. And ultimately it will make a much more stable game.

[ElminsterAU]

I originally implemented ModGroups during the early days of TES4View/TES4Edit to deal with all the conflicts showing up in an FCOM setup. The only thing really new now is that you can defined ModGroups in module co-files instead of having to put them into TES5Edit.modgroups.

 

Back then I tried to create some excitement for the feature, but the reception was pretty lukewarm.

[Barthanes]

Well I for one heartily thank you. I use Tesedit a lot and modgroups are a huge benefit. If modders start to fully utilize the feature, as you said by including them in their mods, it will make for much smoother and more accurate conflict resolution.

 

Again thanks!