Wanting to merge plugins to free up load order, suggestions?

[Bishamonten]

https://pastebin.com/K0SceuQB

Above is my load order.  I was wondering if someone could help me out in merging some of my plugins as I need to run a merged patch, bashed patch, and the skyproc patches afterwards, and I was thinking this will be a perfect place to ask around.

Currently I'm looking at the ETaC patches, but so far, I haven't been able to merge them perfectly.  I haven't actually run the game testing it out, but I'm afraid of the errors that it produces, and not sure whether it was smart to renumber the formid's on them or not.  Some did not have all their records making the process despite the reports showing that they were good to go.  I'm also looking at the populated series and thinking about merging them too, especially since they have no scripts on them.

[hishutup]

I would wait until the next merging script release because there are some issue but first look into how to patch mods because you will likely need to make a sort of "merging patch"

SKSE mods are pretty great to merge, the only things you need to watch out for is if the mod has an skse plugin dll because one that do have a dll cannot be merged. Also make should you keep the translations folder with the merge plugin other wise you will get "$" all over the place, in this case it is a bad thing.

 

Merging patches are difficult because the renumbering FormIDs sometimes goes a little haywire.

 

I would stick with mods that do NOT modify Story quest nodes, any nav mesh stuff and something else that I am forgetting...

 

Don't leave a mod that is mastered mod that is NOT going to be merged inside a group of mods that you are merging because the renumber FormIDs will go haywire.

 

Before merging ALWAYS check for errors on the mods that you are trying to merge. If a mod has errors then don't merge it and if its free of any errors then you can have some confidence that it may merge fine.

 

After merging ALWAYS do this: close out of xEdit, save only the merged plugin, open xEdit and select only the merged mod and then check for errors on it. If you dont get errors then you can have some confidence but if you do get errors then there is a mod that is not happy with merging.

 

I think this is a pretty good rundown but if I missed something then someone will poke around the corner and mention the thing that I missed.

 

He is hopefully going to fix the renumbering FormID issues in the next one.

[Bishamonten]

There is 2 questions I do have, first, could you clarify this statement here?

 

 

 

Don't leave a mod that is mastered mod that is NOT going to be merged inside a group of mods that you are merging because the renumber FormIDs will go haywire.

Do you mean while in the merging process, don't leave out the master mods that aren't going to be merged inside a group of mods that I'm going to be merging, because the renumber formIDs option will go haywire?

Also what is the "group" that you're referring to?  When I load the mods I want to merge, TES5Edit loads up the masters along with it, but when I apply the script, I just select the specific esps I want merged.

My second question is, how best should I go about merging the ETaC Patches and the Populated Series together?  I've heard(including from the reports) that they merge fine, so there must be something on my end that's going wrong, and they're currently the mods on my list that use the biggest amount of esps, which would free up a significant part of the load order if they were merged instead, even in two esps instead of one.

When I try merging the ETaC patches, well there is at least one I found errors with, so I did not include it, however when I tried merging, one of two things happened, either certain records did not survive the merging(which I heard is a fixable process), or I found errors after the merging, and could those errors be because I chose to renumber the formIDs for patches?  Or am I missing something else entirely here?

 

[hishutup]

Its hard to explain but lets try it like this.

Mod you are merging

Mod that is not going to be merged

 

If you have a list like such:

 

A.esp

B.esp

C.esp

D.esp

E.esp (C.esp is a master)

 

This will have a ton of errors after you try to reload in xEdit but if you have a list this:

 

C.esp

A.esp

B.esp

D.esp

E.esp (C.esp is a master)

 

It should be fine

 

As for the second part, I cant give you a clear answer. Those are going to have to be something that you are going to have to try.

 

When it comes to merging, sometimes the craziest merges work just fine whereas the simplest ones can get messed up, so just try it and see.

Someone may poke in and say that they have done those specifically and tell you what they did but I cannot because I haven't tried them

[GrantSP]

According to @Mator who is the author of the Merge Plugin Script that @hishutup alluded to, pick mods that do similar things, like all your armour mods, place them contiguously as @hishutup mentions and you should be fine.

The thing to remember is, you have got nothing to lose, if the merge works you gain some plugin spots, if it doesn't, the game isn't broken and you have gained new skills.

[Bishamonten]

Alright.  Now can I merge a plugin that has a patch with it?  For example, I want to merge all the populated series mods, but one of them have a patch for it.  Do I just set it to NOT renumber formid's?

Mods can be found here:  https://erkeilmods.altervista.org/skyrim/populated-skyrim-civil-war-rs/

[hishutup]

when it comes to renumber FormIDs generally you need it on otherwise to can potentially get overlapping FormIDs. The script will complain when FormIDs begin to overlap.

I think those plugins are fine to merge with the default settings.

[Bishamonten]

when it comes to renumber FormIDs generally you need it on otherwise to can potentially get overlapping FormIDs. The script will complain when FormIDs begin to overlap.

I think those plugins are fine to merge with the default settings.

Alright, I'll go ahead and give them a go.  If they work out and I backup my mod(or actually, with the help of mod organizer I can do that easily), can I continue merging mods on top of it?  

 

Because last time I did that, the script was showing the merged esp itself and not the esps I merged it into the first time.  I figure constantly renumbering the formids won't do any harm due to the very nature of renumbering all of them.

 

And one last question, it's totally ok renumbering formid's for a patch and it's mod, whether you decide to include a patch's master in the merger or not?  Because I thought renumbering a patch's formids would screw up the idea of it being a patch.

 

EDIT: Also, do I have to manually copy down the assets myself?

Edited January 23, 2015 by Bishamonten

[cds20]

I have a quick question, could I merge my weapons and armor mods into the same merge esp, or should i keep armor and weapons seperate

[Kelmych]

The mods being merged should not be ones that have any conflicts with each other, and should not have any FormIDs that are the same. It's also not an especially good idea to merge mods that have previously been merged (some weapon and armor mods have been previously merged). How many mods do you want to merge, and how many weapon/armor items are included?

[cds20]

6 to 7 armor mods that are individual pieces and or sets. I use Armonizer and Immersive Weapons, but I didn't think merge those as well was a good idea because I use Perkus Maximus. I wanted to merge simple Haubreks too, but its a master for another guard overhaul. Would be a bad idea to merge the Skyforge Weapons and Shields by Neovalen, i believe was the author? He no longer has them listed on the nexus. I should say this is for PERSONAL use only.

Edited July 2, 2015 by cds20

[hishutup]

Its fine as long as it is a new save, if it is an old one then you'll have some invisible weapons and armor.

I dont believe that there are any issues with patchers unless there some settings that are reliant on the esp name, the blocklist is a good example.

[Kelmych]

You can try merging them with the Merge Plugins script; make sure you have the most recent development version of xEdit. I have done mod merging a lot, and as long as I am careful to not change any FormIDs the result has worked fine with existing save games.

[cds20]

Thanks, I appreciate the input.