Merging followers (Non scripted)

[spiffypanda]

Is it safe to merge non scripted followers. I'll use the jinxxed followers as a example because I have a separate merge going on for them since they all start with Jinxxed and are made by the same author. In the case as this is it good to merge them? I'm going to back up my data folder before putting in the merge just in case things get messy but want to double check with experienced modders first. I've honestly never merged mods before, I never even knew there was a 255 limit before after all these years. I usually just pick the mods I want, trouble shoot as I go and play. First time I've put in so many graphical mods in though so have hit way over the cap. Honestly have a ton of followers just as eye candy and for science reasons as well. So first time getting more then just a handful. Kinda wanted to deck out my larger castles with NPCs that people have made just to kind of give life to the buildings. I'm thinking of maybe trying out that guild mod too to give it kind of more flare. I'm also trying to put together a more SFW build in order to stream on twitch (finding things that look pretty that don't break TOS has been a little more difficult then I realized. Pretty much all male followers are safe to put in but if you want any female followers the only real way to go is Sofia, Recorder, Vilja, Skymira and then downloading the CBBE customizer and choosing underwear model to force undies on them and still be able to use CBBE. Any other follower that doesn't have a customizer is a no go because they are nude by default even if you have CBBE load after the followers. But this is neither here nor there in terms of the main topic, sorry for the ramble). I also have a merge that has around 50 basic followers with no scripts, I did get a message saying I will have rebuild the nif files? after building that merge and don't really know what that means or how I would go about doing that. I didn't give me that alert with the jinxxed merge though, just the basic follower merge, so would that Basic Follower Merge be better off if I broke it up further and made a Merge file by author instead of just merging a group of non scripted random followers? I really do want to try a heavily modded run of the game as it's something I've never done before, granted it's making me do a whole lot more in terms of troubleshooting and learning what everything does. I'm wanting to learn how to 3D model and am learning blender so learning how to mess around with CK has been beneficial albeit frustrating at times.

[spiffypanda]

Ok so I just deleted the entire Basic follower merge esp I made because i was able to free up room and I'm sitting at 245 esps right now so am good. Issue is when I had the merge going, all the heads of everyone were the same head which was like a cross between male and female and with the darkface bug. It was a mess. I deleted and it's still the same problem. I reinstalled each follower and even tried to install one manually to check. Each time i checked I did a new game and warped to where the follower was. Still the same issue. I've checked the Nif files in Nif scope and the Nif files in my skyrim se data folder are showing up as the proper Nifs in nifscope but when I start the game the heads aren't what they should be at all. Is there a step I'm missing? Pictures are a example of what I'm talking about. That head is on 2 other modded followers in that inn.

[spiffypanda]

I've deleted the merge though and am still getting that head error. Trying to get CK to work but so far I keep getting the multiple master file error. I edited the ini and now it no longer responds. Ughhh modding can be such a pain to get right sometimes.

[spiffypanda]

Awesome. I did see that flagging esp as esl was possible, there is a option for it in vortex as well. I didn't really know what esl were till a Mod explained what a ESL was when I was installing it and it gave me the option to turn into a esl. Once I read that I saw there were a ton of mods that had the "Could be flagged as light" option and did that and had a whole hell of a lot more room. Problem I ran into now is I did a clean install of everything, uninstalled all the mods, the game and deleted all the folders then reinstalled and put all the mods back in. Some how Magnolia still has the missing head mesh. No clue how that works since I installed fresh everything and did not merge a thing. Is it possible it changed the Rar file in my mod folder?