Question about TES5Merged and MergePlugins....

[Awkward Nymph]

I know how to create the TES5Merged patch and a Bashed Patch, but how can I use both of these and also merge plugins with MergePlugins?  Is it possible, I'm confused on how to limit my plugins because they are past 255 now and TES5 doesn't limit that number.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I tend to over complicate often simple things.

[srayesmanll]

Definitely not a dumb question.  I wondered for a while about that, myself.  So I just tried it to see.  I create both the merged patch and bashed patch with merged files for each character.  I haven't had a need to use "Merge Plugins" yet with Skyrim but it's getting close.  Your best bet is to (in order):

 

1)  Use Merge Plugins to merge similar mods.  The best option is merging clothing/armors together, weapons mods together, etc.  I would avoid merging mods that contain quests, world space edits, etc.  There used to be link somewhere the had lists of merged mods results so you can see what others have run into (think it is a link off of the Merge Plugin page on Nexus).

 

2)  Merged Patch through tes5edit (xEdit, etc).  This will go through can create a single patch that will resolve conflicts by creating a patch that has the conflict.  You NEED to go through the records in the patch to possible resolve some of the resolved conflicts (it chooses the most logical or last changes, but sometime you watch to info from the other mod).  It is very important that you check records for NPCs, because if you have 2 mods the change something on an npc that could affect it's looks (or frankly - ANYTHING), you could end up with the dreaded grey -face bug.  2 things to delete from the patch:  Leveled Lists, and Leveled NPCs (the bashed patch seems to handle this better).  Read the info available for tes5Edit/xEdit.  To note, this merged patch will not save you esp space, in fact it adds ANOTHER esp (the merged patch).

 

3)  Build your bashed patch.  This will handle the leveled lists/npcs.  Also the bashed patch can merge mods as well.  If I remember correctly, it will only merge mods that are .esp only and specifically those that are marked as "mergable" (mergible, ??).  In other words, it should not merge mods that have assets (whether loose or ba2 files).  This works great for merging patch files (patch that already merges changes between mod a and mod x.  Again, like the Merged Patch above, this will not save you esp space, unless you use the "merge mods" capability (and only if you have "mergable" mods).

 

They work fairly independently (I have never see a mod in the Merged Patch get added to the Bashed Patch) but I guess it could happen.

[Varithina]

2)  Merged Patch through tes5edit (xEdit, etc).  This will go through can create a single patch that will resolve conflicts by creating a patch that has the conflict.  You NEED to go through the records in the patch to possible resolve some of the resolved conflicts (it chooses the most logical or last changes, but sometime you watch to info from the other mod).  It is very important that you check records for NPCs, because if you have 2 mods the change something on an npc that could affect it's looks (or frankly - ANYTHING), you could end up with the dreaded grey -face bug.  2 things to delete from the patch:  Leveled Lists, and Leveled NPCs (the bashed patch seems to handle this better).  Read the info available for tes5Edit/xEdit.  To note, this merged patch will not save you esp space, in fact it adds ANOTHER esp (the merged patch).

 

 

Doing this depending on how many mods you have that affect npc can be seriously tedious, mine takes about 5-6 hours to work through sorting out conflicts and getting different stuff from different mods to work with each other.

 

Depending on how often you build your bashed/merged patches it could be worth while making a npc overwrite mod, that only deals with the npc stuff and loading that at the very bottom of your load order. And making sure it does not get added to your merged/bash patch.

[srayesmanll]

 

Doing this depending on how many mods you have that affect npc can be seriously tedious, mine takes about 5-6 hours to work through sorting out conflicts and getting different stuff from different mods to work with each other.

 

Depending on how often you build your bashed/merged patches it could be worth while making a npc overwrite mod, that only deals with the npc stuff and loading that at the very bottom of your load order. And making sure it does not get added to your merged/bash patch.

 

 

For me, the NPC impact is minimal.  I only use one npc "overhaul" for the looks (NPCs of Dibella from here - the updated one) and the other mods that affect npcs only add new packages to them (ETAC adds some things because houses are added for certain NPC, new schedules, etc).  And since I put NoD low in my load order, the things that could cause the grey-face are nearly non-existent.  Frankly, I've only had 1 mod that cause a grey-face and that was an archery mod that edited a total of 5 npcs to give them special bows.  I looked at the changes and decided to just rip the npcs changes from that mod - problem solved.  In general I try to avoid using lots of mods that tend to overlap each other (much), so it only takes me about 30mins to adjust the merged patch.  It's actually taking me longer right now because I am resetting up Skyrim and mods.  I ripped out my installation because I was so sick to death of Skyrim, I went and played Dragon Age:  Inquisition, then bought and played FO4 (until the update fiasco annoyed me, and knowing there is another updating that will break things again - they have to fix the load order issue), so I redownloaded all of my mods (unfortunately I lost a few that aren't on Nexus or LL) and have been retinkering with the SKSE and the various "fix" mods to get it "up-to-snuff".

 

But I definitely agree that if you have to do a huge amount of "fixing" for NPCs, it's best to create you own merged patch.  I'd use tes5edit to create the initial patch using their merged patch then remove anything non-npc related, fix the issues once, then save that "merged patch" and make it a permanent patch in your load order.  As long as you aren't one of those "let's delete and add a whole bunch of npc mods in the middle of a game"-types, then this works great. 

[Varithina]

 

For me, the NPC impact is minimal.  I only use one npc "overhaul" for the looks (NPCs of Dibella from here - the updated one) and the other mods that affect npcs only add new packages to them (ETAC adds some things because houses are added for certain NPC, new schedules, etc).  And since I put NoD low in my load order, the things that could cause the grey-face are nearly non-existent.  Frankly, I've only had 1 mod that cause a grey-face and that was an archery mod that edited a total of 5 npcs to give them special bows.  I looked at the changes and decided to just rip the npcs changes from that mod - problem solved.  In general I try to avoid using lots of mods that tend to overlap each other (much), so it only takes me about 30mins to adjust the merged patch.  It's actually taking me longer right now because I am resetting up Skyrim and mods.  I ripped out my installation because I was so sick to death of Skyrim, I went and played Dragon Age:  Inquisition, then bought and played FO4 (until the update fiasco annoyed me, and knowing there is another updating that will break things again - they have to fix the load order issue), so I redownloaded all of my mods (unfortunately I lost a few that aren't on Nexus or LL) and have been retinkering with the SKSE and the various "fix" mods to get it "up-to-snuff".

 

But I definitely agree that if you have to do a huge amount of "fixing" for NPCs, it's best to create you own merged patch.  I'd use tes5edit to create the initial patch using their merged patch then remove anything non-npc related, fix the issues once, then save that "merged patch" and make it a permanent patch in your load order.  As long as you aren't one of those "let's delete and add a whole bunch of npc mods in the middle of a game"-types, then this works great. 

 

 

Where as I have

 

NPC Diabella

Better vampire npc

NPC merged kz style

Donyaakin

Sid panels leveled skyrim

Queen mirak

Chitama companions

Chitama serena valencia

Female Cicero

 

And 3 or 4 clothing armour and weapons mods that add them to specific npc's, tedious is the middle name in sorting that lot out, though donyaakin is kids only, though better vampire npc does affect a couple of kiddie vampires, sid panel affects everybody pretty much, making them level with the player upto about lv100 in most cases.

[srayesmanll]

 

Where as I have

 

NPC Diabella

Better vampire npc

NPC merged kz style

Donyaakin

Sid panels leveled skyrim

Queen mirak

Chitama companions

Chitama serena valencia

Female Cicero

 

And 3 or 4 clothing armour and weapons mods that add them to specific npc's, tedious is the middle name in sorting that lot out, though donyaakin is kids only, though better vampire npc does affect a couple of kiddie vampires, sid panel affects everybody pretty much, making them level with the player upto about lv100 in most cases.

 

 

The more the merrier...

 

I do actually have a couple other NPC mods (a couple of the HOTT series - Hott Vampires 2, Hott Witches) that have a minor amount of overlap (I put the Hotts after NoD).  And I don't have any general overhauls that change NPCs (like the sid panels you mention).  But yeah, the more you have, the more you have to adjust.

[Awkward Nymph]

Thank you.