Mod merging question

[ShangWang1]

Hello there,

 

I hope I am posting this in the correct section. I have reached my mod limit quite some time ago, though due to my ignorance about these limits, I was unaware. I use NMM (I know it's aweful but given all of the mods I have, I don't want to go through the process of reinstalling everything to use MO2), and I noticed the little triangle warning by the number of active plugins being 332 out of the 257 max limit, with the numbers in red. I came across a solution to merge my mods. I wanted to use Zedit but I don't think it works with NMM, so I will do it with xEdit.

 

I was wondering if anyone highly experienced with this undertaking would be so kind as to look at my load order and maybe highlight or recommend which mods I should merge together? I am looking for maximum efficiency. I want to shrink my load order to the smallest size possible through merges, while still keeping the game stable. If this is a daunting task and what I am asking is unreasonable, then I completely understand your reservations, as I know that I have a pretty big load order (according to NMM). Please understand this is the first time I am undertaking such a task, and I really don't want to mess things up. I exported my load order into a text file and I am attaching it below. Thank you for any help you can provide.

LoadOrder_SkyrimSE_2021-05-11T19-35-43.txt

[Scrab]

With only 332 mods there is literally no way you reached your limit in SE

 

Look into how to .esl flag your mods, thats more reliable and easier to do; Merging and bashed patches arent worth the hassle

[ShangWang1]

1 hour ago, Scrab said:

With only 332 mods there is literally no way you reached your limit in SE

 

Look into how to .esl flag your mods, thats more reliable and easier to do; Merging and bashed patches arent worth the hassle

Thank you, I will certainly look into this suggestion. I've been trying to do research/ watch videos on merging and its sooooooooo overwhelming. I have no clue which mods in my load order to even merge with one another. Every time I think I've figured it out, I question if one of the mods I plan on merging are a master to some other mod in my load order. I am going to look into the .esl flag now. I will update on what it does if I can figure it out. Also its 332 mods that I can run Skyrim with stability, anything greater begins to start causing inconsistencies and crashes.

[Scrab]

18 minutes ago, ShangWang1 said:

Also its 332 mods that I can run Skyrim with stability, anything greater begins to start causing inconsistencies and crashes.

 

Thats your game not being optimized properly, merging plugins wont do anything for you there

 

What merging plugins can do is reducing startup time but only for mods that dont add any new content and instead only overwrite other stuff - patches, npc overhauls, etc

It doesnt resolve any conflicts however, 10 mods with conflicting entries behave the same when merged, their conflicting esps will simply be overwritten when merging instead of when loading the game, if one of those 10 mods causes a game crashing conflict, then the merged plugin will still have this game crashing conflict contained in it - and will crash your game; potentially making it harder to track down the issue

[ShangWang1]

3 hours ago, Scrab said:

 

Thats your game not being optimized properly, merging plugins wont do anything for you there

 

What merging plugins can do is reducing startup time but only for mods that dont add any new content and instead only overwrite other stuff - patches, npc overhauls, etc

It doesnt resolve any conflicts however, 10 mods with conflicting entries behave the same when merged, their conflicting esps will simply be overwritten when merging instead of when loading the game, if one of those 10 mods causes a game crashing conflict, then the merged plugin will still have this game crashing conflict contained in it - and will crash your game; potentially making it harder to track down the issue

So it took about 45 minutes of research, but I learned about .esl flagging and I found it to be extremely easy to do. I spent about another 25 minutes or so flagging my mods to .esl. I loaded my save game and it CTD. I am sure this is not due to the .esl flagging but rather, the save was dependent on some mods that I disabled so that I would be within the "limit". I am pretty sure its because there is a tattoo mod that I must have disabled, that the save game relies on. In the character creator of the new game that I created, those tattoos were no longer in the texture list, therefore, I must have disabled them. Since I theoretically freed up space, I will now re-activate the old mods and see if my save works. I can confirm that the game is working just fine in its current state as I started a new game for testing purposes. Thank you greatly for suggesting this process, it gave me another avenue to resolve my issue in a much quicker, stress free, and easy fashion. Also, I learned something new!

[Scrab]

19 minutes ago, ShangWang1 said:

I will now re-activate the old mods and see if my save works

 

esl flagging often requires you to change the formIDs of mods, if you load that mod in your existing save again, its essentially the same as completely uninstalling the old mod and installing a new, different one

When .esl Flagging mods, you should ideally start a new game - the same goes for merging plugins btw, so thats not a downside on esl flagging

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that you cannot compact formIDs of mods that are used as a master by other mods. The mods reference as specific formID and if that one changes (e.g. by compacting its formIDs to flag a mod as a master), the child mod can no longer find its parent. Thats essentially the same as loading up a mod with its master disabled which can (and will) cause CTDs

[ShangWang1]

5 hours ago, Scrab said:

 

esl flagging often requires you to change the formIDs of mods, if you load that mod in your existing save again, its essentially the same as completely uninstalling the old mod and installing a new, different one

When .esl Flagging mods, you should ideally start a new game - the same goes for merging plugins btw, so thats not a downside on esl flagging

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that you cannot compact formIDs of mods that are used as a master by other mods. The mods reference as specific formID and if that one changes (e.g. by compacting its formIDs to flag a mod as a master), the child mod can no longer find its parent. Thats essentially the same as loading up a mod with its master disabled which can (and will) cause CTDs

Yes that was actually a strong pointer in the video I watched. I actually found one of the esp's that had a formID with a data block entery, I left it alone. Also I ended up ditching my save and started over. I'm glad I did because now I am running all of the mods that I want, and as far as I can tell, everything seems to be working to my satisfaction. I only had one CTD ever since, and it was while I was trying to reload a save after I died. Thank again!

[ShangWang1]

So after learning all about ESL flagging and getting into mod merging I have successfully created several merges for followers and player homes. My latest merge initiative was to merge a ton of armor mods together. I have merged about 15 or so armor mods without error and activated my new armor merge and deactivated (did not delete) the individual esp files that are contained in my armor merge. The problem is that when i load my save, the merged armors do not show up. If i disable the armor merge esp and re-enable the armor esps that the merge contains then everything goes back to normal and the armors exist. I am not sure why they won't show up? I tried to both install the armor merge manually and with my mod manager but nothing seems to work. I even deleted the merged mod and re-merged everything again, and still no success. If it helps I will paste a screen shot of the mods in my load order that I merged, as well as the contents of the new armor merge file. I would greatly appreciate any help that can be provided. I hope I am not breaking any rules and I hope its okay that I use the same thread to post since this issue is also about merging albeit a bit of a different issue.

 

edit* I would also like to add that after looking through the file contents of the merged zip, that there are no mesh or texture folders. For some reason merged plugins did not create them. I am not sure why. When I open some of the zips of some of the mods contained in the merge, those files are in fact present. Is there any way i can add these manually? if so then how? Also is that something that I should even do?

[ShangWang1]

Update: After yet another troubleshooting session, it turned out that when using my merged armor mod, the items were still in the game. For some reason unknown to me, when i disabled the individual esps to enable my merged mod, the items in my inventory and chests pertaining to the disabled esps disappeared. I found a mod called additemmenuse that allows you to add any item you want from esp files contained in your load order. I used this mod to test my merged mod, low and behold, i was able to add the items that i originally thought that i lost. I guess when merging mods that contain inventory items, any items already in your inventory disappear when disabling their esp files. Even though a merged mod may contain the same esps, the items still need to be acquired once again. However, as long as you have made a successful merge, those items should still exist in the game. Though to prove this some kind of mod such as additemmenuse may be necessary. My conclusion is based on my experimentation thus far with merging mods, and i believe that my findings are verified. If i am wrong however, then this is all likely a coincidence. I hope this might help someone someday who may have a similar problem. Happy modding to all!

[Scrab]

11 hours ago, ShangWang1 said:

I guess when merging mods that contain inventory items, any items already in your inventory disappear when disabling their esp files.

Merging mods isnt actually merging anything. All you do is taking the content of multiple esp and copypaste them into one

If you want to merge mods you should understand the way the game loads esp, what single entries inside an esp are, what exactly conflicts are and why load order matters so much in those instances

 

Hence why I dont recommend merging mods. Its painfully pointless - and if you dont know what youre doing, rather complicated and confusing

[Varithina]

When you merge mods, no matter what those mods are you change the editor id of each item in it, when you then deactivate the original esp you then in effect remove those items as the editor id for those items no longer exists, if you are merging stuff, when activating the new merge and deactivating the old esp it is pretty much new game required, which is why most merges are done before starting a game.

[ShangWang1]

6 hours ago, Scrab said:

I dont recommend merging mods. Its painfully pointless - and if you dont know what youre doing, rather complicated and confusing

I know you recommended I perform esl flagging instead, but of all my mods there are no more that I am able to flag as esl. When esl flagging, I use the [fe method in xedit. I am unsure if there are other methods to flag esps that do not show up when typing that search term. The only other option that I am aware of to make room in my load order is merging, hence why I have resorted to it. If there was a way to flag my other esps to esl I would much prefer to use it. As you said, merging is rather complicated and confusing especially if you dont know what you are doing. Since I am new to esl flagging and merging, I would certainly place myself in that category. However this process is not without its lessons and I am learning as I go along despite the head pounding I was doing for three days trying to find a solution to my problem.

 

22 minutes ago, Varithina said:

When you merge mods, no matter what those mods are you change the editor id of each item in it, when you then deactivate the original esp you then in effect remove those items as the editor id for those items no longer exists, if you are merging stuff, when activating the new merge and deactivating the old esp it is pretty much new game required, which is why most merges are done before starting a game.

That actually makes perfect sense considering the issues I was going through. As far as merging mods before I start a new game, I have an aweful habit of constantly adding new mods. As a matter of fact, the first thing I did when I found my solution was download five more armor mods and add them to my merge. I have a weakness for DX armor mods. I dont have much self control as you can see ?. But yes, if I started a new game after my merge I would not have went through the issues that I did.

[Varithina]

7 hours ago, ShangWang1 said:

That actually makes perfect sense considering the issues I was going through. As far as merging mods before I start a new game, I have an aweful habit of constantly adding new mods. As a matter of fact, the first thing I did when I found my solution was download five more armor mods and add them to my merge. I have a weakness for DX armor mods. I dont have much self control as you can see ?. But yes, if I started a new game after my merge I would not have went through the issues that I did.

 

You can just about get away with doing this for armor and weapons merges, though if those armors are smp/hdt it can cause problems due to the scripts running on the now missing items still being in the save and doing potentially very odd things, doing this is you are merging followers and anything with a fair few scripts being run in it will sooner or later kill the save game anyway.

 

How are you doing these merges anyway? manually or with one of the tools you can get?