ESL or ESP? Which way to go?

[Tron91]

Right now a few questions popping to my mind.

 

1. Which type of mods should opt for ESL release?

2. Is it easy enough to make ESL version of oldrim mods? Specially when actual source code is not available.

3. Can mods using scripts be released as ESL?

 

Lastly, How to make ESL version of mod?

[Guest]

ESL are mods that restrict the max number of identifiers of a mod to 16k (they use just 2 bytes and not 3.)

Technically scripts have no IDs, they are referenced by names, but keep in mind that when running the mod, if the mod creates dynamic items they will still get limited.

And Papyrus does not support well the short version of IDs from ESLs.

 

Mods that just add armors, weapons, and DO NOT replace existing items (and better if no scripts, or at least no heavy scripts) can be produced as ESLs.

To do it you have to save the file in this format from the CK.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

ESL files (reportedly) don't play nicely with third-party programs like LOOT. The format seems to be strictly for mods meant to run on consoles. So unless a mod is meant to be used on console systems, which still requires Bugthesda's approval, there's no point in using the ESL format.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Ernest Lemmingway said:

ESL files (reportedly) don't play nicely with third-party programs like LOOT. The format seems to be strictly for mods meant to run on consoles. So unless a mod is meant to be used on console systems, which still requires Bugthesda's approval, there's no point in using the ESL format.

Yes, there is.

They save one slot of mods.

 

The max (with them is)

1 for base game

1 for each ESL (max 255)

1 for each normal mod (but limited to 253)

 

DLCs will consume a normal mod slot.

 

So, with ESLs, the max is not 509 slots available.

 

[Ernest Lemmingway]

I don't use ESL-format mods. Hell, I still don't use SSE; Oldrim is how I swing for now. So I'm not up on how they work or even what they are.

[KoolHndLuke]

46 minutes ago, CPU said:

Yes, there is.

They save one slot of mods.

 

The max (with them is)

1 for base game

1 for each ESL (max 255)

1 for each normal mod (but limited to 253)

 

DLCs will consume a normal mod slot.

 

So, with ESLs, the max is not 509 slots available.

 

They save a slot. They load after ESM's and before all your esps, correct? The knock is that you can't move them around in your load order for compatibility. But, I suppose you can still patch them.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, KoolHndLuke said:

They save a slot. They load after ESM's and before all your esps, correct? The knock is that you can't move them around in your load order for compatibility. But, I suppose you can still patch them.

I have no clues about the load order, sorry. For sure they are "Light" mods.

[Di3sIrae]

1 hour ago, KoolHndLuke said:

They save a slot. They load after ESM's and before all your esps, correct? The knock is that you can't move them around in your load order for compatibility. But, I suppose you can still patch them.

That's right, ESL loads as master files, and after the masters, before normal esps.
Actually it is REALLY easy to just convert mods to esl format, and for small mods, yes, it is a good thing. Saving a slot is always a thing.

You only need to open CK, load the plugin, then go to the first option in the upper left part (archive?) and there are two options, one to convert it to light plugin and one above to compress the data of the plugin or something like this (i won't open CK just to read the names, sorry, it takes an eternity to open >:c). First use the option to optimize or compress the mod, then convert it to light file. Now you have an ESL.

 

I did this to a few mods i downloaded (armor mods mainly) and even made the last one i released with a ESL version, using the Leveled List Injector script, and it works well.

 

A note about the esl: two mods that i installed (Railroad Handmaiden and Course Strigidae) have plugins that are esl but named as esps. MO2 recognizes it and even have a note about that. You can move them around the load order like any esp, BUT they are still FE, so i guess that even renaming them to .esp the game will still read them before normal esps.

 

 

Heh Beth found a good way to release their mods. They are smart.

ESL files mean light files that will load before other esps... which means if you have any problem with their mods, they will just say "they should work, remove all other mods (esps)". xD



EDIT: " 2. Is it easy enough to make ESL version of oldrim mods? Specially when actual source code is not available. "

Oldrim reads ESL files??? I thought that it was an update only for FO4 and SSE

[Guest]

No, Oldrim cannot use them.

Now, ESLs have "masters" and their masters can be "ESPs"

For "load order" ESLs do not matter too much.

[Tron91]

12 minutes ago, Di3sIrae said:

EDIT: " 2. Is it easy enough to make ESL version of oldrim mods? Specially when actual source code is not available. "

Oldrim reads ESL files??? I thought that it was an update only for FO4 and SSE

 

We are basically porting oldrim mods now, thats why i am asking. There are some mods without source files. Is it a absolute necessary that you have to recompile the source files to make an ESL, or proceed the way you simply port an ESP.

[Tron91]

Found an ESL mod, having scripts and dlls called "Go to Bed" made by @andrelo1

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4224

[Guest]

No need to recompile the PSCs. But you may need to convert textures and animations (and the esp itself, of course.)

[Di3sIrae]

13 minutes ago, CPU said:

No, Oldrim cannot use them.

Now, ESLs have "masters" and their masters can be "ESPs"

For "load order" ESLs do not matter too much.

Oh, that's right then. Never saw about ESL having ESPs as masters, interesting to know, thanks.

 

I never made a conversion from one game to another and don't understand much about it, so i'll leave here no. Good luck

[General Neondaze]

The easiest way to use .esl is a flag. Use Xedit to change the plugins flag to .esl. The plugins will still stay a .esp. Loot will sort the plugins correctly. Make sure that you using MO2 as this recognises .esl files/flags correctly. I currently have 20 plugins that I have either flagged or converted through CK. I have 254 plugins loaded which together with the .esls gives me 274.

 

The plugins I have converted are empty .esps with a BSA or plugins that do not exceed the number of IDS recognised by CK, although they IDs can be compressed. 

 

SSE seems to be playing fine. I have tended to only flag patches with no textures or meshes included. A few modders on Nexus are beginning to do the same.

[Tron91]

2 minutes ago, General Neondaze said:

The easiest way to use .esl is a flag. Use Xedit to change the plugins flag to .esl. The plugins will still stay a .esp. Loot will sort the plugins correctly. Make sure that you using MO2 as this recognises .esl files/flags correctly. I currently have 20 plugins that I have either flagged or converted through CK. I have 254 plugins loaded which together with the .esls gives me 274.

 

The plugins I have converted are empty .esps with a BSA or plugins that do not exceed the number of IDS recognised by CK, although they IDs can be compressed. 

 

SSE seems to be playing fine. I have tended to only flag patches with no textures or meshes included. A few modders on Nexus are beginning to do the same.

Cool feature to save ESP space. Might help a lot with Armor mods which are ESP still.

[Varithina]

45 minutes ago, General Neondaze said:

The easiest way to use .esl is a flag. Use Xedit to change the plugins flag to .esl. The plugins will still stay a .esp. Loot will sort the plugins correctly. Make sure that you using MO2 as this recognises .esl files/flags correctly. I currently have 20 plugins that I have either flagged or converted through CK. I have 254 plugins loaded which together with the .esls gives me 274.

 

The plugins I have converted are empty .esps with a BSA or plugins that do not exceed the number of IDS recognised by CK, although they IDs can be compressed. 

 

SSE seems to be playing fine. I have tended to only flag patches with no textures or meshes included. A few modders on Nexus are beginning to do the same.

Some mods will not convert that way, well at least some of the fallout 4 ones anyway, I converted the swing baby radio station using this method and it did not work, but the ck conversion did.

 

As for which mods to make into esl, my first though would be any mods that are just archive loaders, big patches though that may well depend on where in the load order they should go.

 

Nothing that edits level lists or level npc, due to the fact that while esl load just under esm when sorted and such, when being loaded into the game the are actually the last thing loaded, due to them being in load slot FE.  Personally I always place them at the bottom of my load order, where their load number places them rather than just under the ems files.

[khumak]

ESLs are really only useful to save an ESP slot if you just need an empty plugin to load a BSA.  The format makes it impossible to make a mod of any significance with an ESL, hence the lack of any big CC mods (it's not possible with that format).

[lethiellightfoot]

16 hours ago, Tron91 said:

Found an ESL mod, having scripts and dlls called "Go to Bed" made by @andrelo1

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4224

And so far it works fine with SSE on my PC. The only unwanted effect I can see is that NMM thinks I have 256 plugins. SSE itself works perfectly.

 

Lethiel

[General Neondaze]

16 hours ago, Varithina said:

...

As for which mods to make into esl, my first though would be any mods that are just archive loaders, big patches though that may well depend on where in the load order they should go.

 

2

With respect to flagging esps as an esl, rather than converting in CK, Loot sorts them as if they were esps, so load order will be correct. Only those converted in CK, i.e. true esl files will be sorted under esms. When esps are only flagged as an esl, then they will still remain an esp.

 

As I said in my post above, I flag patches. These are alway sorted correctly.

 

I can't speak for NMM or Vortex, but MO2 handles true esls and flagged esls correctly.

[General Neondaze]

12 hours ago, khumak said:

ESLs are really only useful to save an ESP slot if you just need an empty plugin to load a BSA.  The format makes it impossible to make a mod of any significance with an ESL, hence the lack of any big CC mods (it's not possible with that format).

I agree. And if someone is using less than 255 slots then I wouldn't advocate making the effort to flag or change.

 

With regard to empty plugins, flagging or converting the esp is an alternative to adding the BSA to the Skyrim.ini file.

 

I have only converted or flagged small esps thus saving me the need to merge plugins. I have tended to avoid merging plugins for the simple reason that updates require me to rebuild a merge.

 

I have successfully converted a couple of medium-sized plugins, but the mods only contained BSA files rather than loose. I also do not convert mods with MMC as I have noticed $ flags at the beginning of text lines. Flagging these instead works fine.

 

There is no hard and fast rule that I use for any of the above. It has been a matter of trial and error based on observations from other modders. If anyone wants to have a go, my advise would be: use caution, think about what you are flagging or converting, use a testbed save and do not use on an existing playthrough.

 

So far in my case, I have had no issues. That doesn't mean I will not. Time will tell.

[khumak]

7 hours ago, General Neondaze said:

I agree. And if someone is using less than 255 slots then I wouldn't advocate making the effort to flag or change.

 

With regard to empty plugins, flagging or converting the esp is an alternative to adding the BSA to the Skyrim.ini file.

 

I have only converted or flagged small esps thus saving me the need to merge plugins. I have tended to avoid merging plugins for the simple reason that updates require me to rebuild a merge.

 

I have successfully converted a couple of medium-sized plugins, but the mods only contained BSA files rather than loose. I also do not convert mods with MMC as I have noticed $ flags at the beginning of text lines. Flagging these instead works fine.

 

There is no hard and fast rule that I use for any of the above. It has been a matter of trial and error based on observations from other modders. If anyone wants to have a go, my advise would be: use caution, think about what you are flagging or converting, use a testbed save and do not use on an existing playthrough.

 

So far in my case, I have had no issues. That doesn't mean I will not. Time will tell.

 

I agree about merging plugins, it's a hassle if you have to update 1 or more of the mods that you've merged, but if you're over the 255 plugin limit there's really no way around it.  In my case it's like playing musical chairs trying to get my mod count down below 255.  I manually merged a few dozen mods that I know I will always use in every playthrough and that don't often get updated.  That gets me down to about 260 mods. 

 

Then I move the ESP for everything that Wrye Bash says it can merge into the Bashed Patch into a temp mod that I only activate whenever I rebuild my Bashed Patch.  Then I activate my temp mod, disable just enough of my other mods that don't touch leveled lists to get me to 254 plugins, sort with Loot, build my Bashed Patch, disable my temp mod, re-enable everything else, and rerun Loot.

 

So technically I'm merging a bunch of mods every time I redo my bashed patch but the whole process only takes about 30 seconds.  And if any of the mods I merge with that get updated all I have to do is copy the ESP from whatever mod I updated into my temp mod and redo my bashed patch and I'm done.  I don't use the merge plugins tool for merging, just SSEEDIT and Wrye Bash.

[memememe1]

On 8/20/2018 at 8:32 AM, CPU said:

ESL are mods that restrict the max number of identifiers of a mod to 16k (they use just 2 bytes and not 3.)

Technically scripts have no IDs, they are referenced by names, but keep in mind that when running the mod, if the mod creates dynamic items they will still get limited.

And Papyrus does not support well the short version of IDs from ESLs.

 

Mods that just add armors, weapons, and DO NOT replace existing items (and better if no scripts, or at least no heavy scripts) can be produced as ESLs.

To do it you have to save the file in this format from the CK.

Use the latest edition of xedit to change the records in the header to ESL. Don't change the extension. Then loot works with it just fine. Make it an ESL Flagged ESP. NMM will still count it toward your count, but the game doesn't. All the ESLs are loaded into slot 255.

[CrysisWar1234]

On 8/20/2018 at 9:55 AM, CPU said:

Yes, there is.

They save one slot of mods.

 

The max (with them is)

1 for base game

1 for each ESL (max 255)

1 for each normal mod (but limited to 253)

 

DLCs will consume a normal mod slot.

 

So, with ESLs, the max is not 509 slots available.

 

509?  I have 600+ and still going without any crashes.  Everything works as intended since I mostly do my ESLs through SSEEdit.  However, do not ESL-fy mods with SKSE scripts (bugged out hotkey options or in  some case won't even save your settings), anything having to do with additional landscapes or anything with a facegen as they will give those mods black faces unless if you plan on fixing them via Nifskope to fix the texture paths.  Besides that, I don't see any downsides of using ESLs.