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FNVEdit auto-merge confusion


BCk9

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Ya! Me again.

 

I'm somewhat confused with the FNVEdit auto-merge function. I've run FNVEdit, checked for conflicts, adjusted my load order, ran the auto-merge function and created a merged patch [titled "FNV 1"].

However, several of the mods with red flag conflicts do not show up as part of the merge patch I created and I would like to know how these are resolved.

 

In an example of my query;

 

I have the house mod "Ravens Nest" esm and at the end of my load order is "Sexout Breeder" esp, right above my "FNV 1" merge patch.

There are several world space/nav mesh red flags in "Ravens Nest" being overridden by the "Sexout Breeder" esp.

The "Ravens Nest" mod does not show up in the "FNV 1" merge patch at all, so do I manually edit "Ravens" into the "SO Breeder" esp [via 'Drag and Drop'] to resolve the conflicts?

OR, do I create another merge patch manually and edit into that?

OR, do I ignore it, as it's what should be?

 

OR, just what the **** have I missed in the instructions?

 

There are other mods installed that are kind of in the same situation, I'm using "Ravens Nest" for my example because it's got lots of red in it and a pink background to boot.

I've also got some 'pink' backgrounds on a few other mods and I don't see a reference to that color in the FNVEdit manual.

[Yes, I read it. Several times. Don't see anything about merging mods that doesn't involve using a created merge patch. Could be blind].

 

Most [not all] of my FNVEdit background colors are orange [conflict winners], although there are still some red flags.

I've been able to make adjustments into my 'FNV 1' merge for some mods [ie; Lings Pretty Things alts for Sunny companion], but if it's not in the merge patch....?

 

As Vinnie Barbarino sez " I'm SO Confused "

 

THX

 

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You need to really understand the merged patches. Sexout mods are not to be merged as that will mess things up badly. I would advise not to merge any mods together (for serious play, testing learning is a completely different matter) unless someone tells you to do so. If you are to merge only merge things like jaam pointed out. Lists and such. An Armor mod, Weapon mods etc Mods without scripts and other complex structures.

 

To do some of what you might be desiring to do you might want to use GECK or manually make the needed changes by copying the data into the mod of choice and re-runing the scripts and such. Know that many, many issue can arise. Masters will also need to be changed. (Anything that has been worked into another mod will have to have the master from that changed to the new one) Also you will experience records that conflict and have to be changed. Each of those records will have to be chased down and found in all the mods that reference this merged changed mod and changed on that mod as well. (because you had to change the conflicting records)

 

It is alot of work to do some of the things you want to do. Oh finally when someone comes along and makes changes to the mods you have worked together you will have to re-work everything over again to get it to work correctly. Finally too much combined of scripts and other things in one mod can cause issues in itself. SCR is being reworked as we speak because it started to develop issues that made it harder for those members / users with weaker machines to use SCR properly without problems.

 

Good Luck

 

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While the advice not to merge any sexout mods is sound, the FNVEdit auto-merged patch is still a crucial element in getting a stable game with lots of mods. Not only that, some mods even require it. You can use that function safely, like it is described in the manual and I can guarantee you that no sexout mods are harmed in the process. :D 

 

Like jaam said, it combines mostly leveled lists. Not only that, it combines containers, which is important for merchant inventories, if you have more than one mod that adds items/lists of items to one particular merchant. It also combines changes to NPC inventories, if more than one mod changes that particular NPC. 

 

It is important to know that you should delete and build a new merged patch every time you make changes to your load order or add/remove mods. 

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Just open up FNVEdit, don't change anything what it loads (it should load all the mods that are active), wait until it's finished loading, right-click anywhere on the left-hand side, select other->Create merged patch and let it do its thing. Check what it has done and you're good to go

 

I think you and I are not talking about the same thing, RC. ;)

 

What I think you mean is merging two or more mods into one. That should never be done automatically and I think Gecko is more suited for that, though I don't have much experience with that.

 

Edit: ninja'd again... :D

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I think you and I are not talking about the same thing, RC. ;)

Well yes and no. I understand that you can create a "patch" for the games however I was under the impression that it caused problems. I never could get that to work properly before. If it works for you properly then my problem must be between my fingers and my keyboard... I will have to look into this further. That could help me move above 120-140 mods. Somewhere around there scripts start to deteriorate a couple of hours into the game. A few errors, responses and occasionally stutters etc. It is related to the mods I use. Some combos work flawlessly other not so much. Many that give issues at that level are likely caused by the added items to list and such and a patch would work well provided I don't screw it up.

 

I know for a fact that you can't easily combine mods together in the GECK unless they are simple mod with just resources like armors and such. (or so I have been told haven't done that yet. ) If you do combine you have to chase down every reference that has been changed and change all those references to the new ones. I believe each script needs to be re-compiled and lots of other work. Again as far as I have learned so far.

 

What I think you mean is merging two or more mods into one. That should never be done automatically and I think Gecko is more suited for that, though I don't have much experience with that.

You likely have more experience with the GECK than me. I have fired it up a hand full of times (mostly doing the vault tutorial and testing to make sure GECK pu works or at least loads). Only once in the past years ago I changed the armor record (FO3). :D I hope however in the coming months that will change. ;)

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You think of the Wrye bashed patch. That's a whole different story, since that patch actually allows you to deactivate certain mods and shorten your load order by fully merging them automatically. The FNVEdit merged patch only does what I've described a few posts before. Whatever caused your stability issues, I can guarantee you that it wasn't the merged patch. Given of course that you created it correctly and didn't have any load order issues in the first place. Mods included in the merged patch can't be deactivated, since it is only an override combining lists (inventories, leveled lists, form lists, etc.) from several mods. You absolutely need the merged patch, if you use mods like WMX or spice of life for instance. Not using one, doesn't necessarily mean that the game becomes unstable, but you won't see many changes these mods make if a mod loads after them that change the same things intentionally or unintentionally. If that happens however you increase the likelyhood of destabilzing your game, because if a mod references a certain list that was overridden by another mod, you can get crashes.

 

Gopher made a very helpful video about this on YT, which explains a lot of these things better than I could do. Be aware that he uses an older version of FNVEdit. You'll find the merged patch option under "other" in the new context menu. Disregard the whole masterupdate section though, it's just superstition and like he says, breaks some mods. :D

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, I meant TESGecko earlier, but I forgot that that was an oblivion program. FNVPlugin is the program that has similar functionality for FNV. You could think the TES in the name would have given it away. :lol: Merging mods that way should be done cautiously, since it combines them into one, which potentially breaks scripts and every mod that uses the getmodloaded functionality (like sexout and many sexout-based mods do).

 

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It has been awhile since I did the merge. It might even have been with the Wyre Bash that I tried it with. can't remember. Now that I know there is a difference between and reasons behind it I can understand where problems will arise from easier.  That also explains why I had some issues with certain mods missing assets even-though I had them installed. Might have even tried spice of life as well and it would miss some items where I thought it should be.

 

I understood what you meant with the previous references. This also explains my error with the Wyrebash before with Oblivion. For some reason I got those two confused before. I didn't deactivate the mods that were bashed if memory serves me correctly.

 

I am now taking some time to learn the alternate tools and setting them up before jumping back into gaming and possibly some light modding (even if it is just changes to my game :P )

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I've read the posts in this thread, but I'm still confused.

 

I've tried FNVPlugin and FNVEdit in my attempts to condense my always loaded mods to reduce the absurd number of ESPs.

 

NOTE: None of these are SO mods.

 

I'm having missing texture issues like ritual mentioned.  Am I just not doing things right?  Should I try Wyre Bash?

 

And just to clarify, I'm not having mod conflicts that are causing gameplay issues.  I just want to reduce my load order.

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Or maybe I'm just forgetting to do some basic things after having created a patch.

 

  1. I guess that stuff is missing from my inventory because it's as if the original mod was freshly installed.
  2. I guess that I should have toggled Archive Invalidation?  Is that the possible problem w/ textures not appearing?
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Okay, so the first one was totally my derp, but the textures are still not showing after AI.  :-/

 

EDIT:  More info:  When I tried to clean masters on the merged file, it didn't remove the ESPs.  I did "deep copy as override" for all records onto the merge patch.  So when it didn't remove the ESPs, I removed them manually even though I know that it's bad to do that.

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"Deep copy as override" is copying the exact same entries from one mod into another. That makes the plugin you've copied it in dependant on the original plugin. If you want to merge several plugins into one to remove them for reducing your load order, this doesn't work (because they are dependant on the old one, meaning the old one has to be still present). You can however copy entries as new records into a new plugin, which will remove the dependancy. 

 

As for missing textures, does any of the mods you are trying to merge have a .bsa archive? If so, try to rename the .bsa to the plugin you have all your stuff merged into or merge or unpack the .bsas if you have multiple of them. Archive invalidation only needs to be done once with FOMM and shouldn't be the problem.

 

The automatically created "merged patch" is not what you want to look for if you want to reduce your load order. It is in fact an override patch, that only merges certain aspects of several mods editing the same things (as mentioned before). Hence the need to rebuild it everytime you change your load order.

 

The bashed patch on the other hand "merges" all the override patches, which in turn can be deactivated. It has some other nifty features, like combining race mods and allowing you to decide which mod entries take priority for the same entries, by importing only certain aspects of a mod. For instance for NPCs, only the cosmetic changes of mod like New Vegas Redesigned and only the changes to inventories from a mod like Mission Mojave.

 

If there is enough interest, maybe I'll find some time to make a tutorial about the FNVEdit merged patch, Wrye Bash bashed patch and merging several plugins into one with FNVEdit (and maybe FNVPlugin). These are all different things that have different uses.

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As for missing textures, does any of the mods you are trying to merge have a .bsa archive? If so, try to rename the .bsa to the plugin you have all your stuff merged into or merge or unpack the .bsas if you have multiple of them. Archive invalidation only needs to be done once with FOMM and shouldn't be the problem.

 

i was going to say the same thing. :) Another thing I noticed and discussed with Halstom and DoctaSax (I believe) is the bsa size. The size seems to have an issue with textures not showing up in game. First was textures nested deep in the file structure were the first to seem to go then others started to go randomly. For me it was when I combined all the mods resources for SCR into one BSA. Nothing was missing. No messing with the SCR ESM or other modifications the only change was packing things into the BSA. When I split the BSA it returned to its former glory. I imagine size tolerance of the bsa are related to the spec of your system like many things with the game. To test I would extract all bsa files into loose folders to make sure everything is working as desired. Then back them up as needed. (if desired) I like to do that because it seems to make a difference in the stability and performance of the game.

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The mods that I'm looking to consolidate all have loose files (non-bsa).

 

I've gotten Wyre Flash installed.  I'm not expecting anyone to hold my hand during the process, but I have no idea what to do now.  There aren't as many guides in text or video for Flash as there are for Bash.  Would following those guides work?  I'm afraid of fucking things up.  :unsure:

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Okay.  I lied.  I do want my hand to be held.  Sometimes I can select a whole category (e.g., Creature) and add that to the new mod.  Other times, I have to go into the category and individually select all records for the "Copy as new record" option to appear.  It also tried to add an esp as a master for one of them upon copying CELL information.  If I'm using "copy as new record," will those esps actually be cleaned out of the new mod's master requirements?

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For posterity to other panicked/confused people such as I:

 

DoctaSax/jaam linked to this FNVEdit/Skyrim merge script in another thread.  This does require FNVEdit 3.0.31, so if you installed FNVEdit BEFORE OCTOBER 2013, you will need to download the current version (.31).  Also, it needs to be installed in its own folder in FNV's base directory not Data to take advantage of merging the textures into a folder for the merged patch.  Install the script that you downloaded from the Skyrim Nexus into the "Edit Scripts" folder in the FNV folder.

 

Avoid merging mods that have MCM menus.  Apparently, they don't always merge properly.

 

The Skyrim Nexus page has the details of what you need to do in FNVEdit prior to/post running the script.

 

The only possible issue consideration is that Cell/Worldspace additions don't merge well.  You can still do them, but it will delete navigation records (so you NPCs can't move around).

 

EDIT:  Since this was first written, the script can supposedly merge new cell/worldspace stuff now.  I haven't verified it, so use caution.

 

While I haven't tested out all of the patches I merged (haven't made it back to certain retextured cells in my current game), the game is much more responsive and the regular animations look much more crisp

 

This is the half-assed version tutorial.  ;)

 

EDIT:  After I merged the patch, textures were fine, but after I moved the esps that I had merged, back to missing textures.  I had them disabled before during my initial check, but I suppose that that's evidence that esp stuff still loads sometimes (or still had info in my save file or ?).  I toggled AI and looked through my meshes/textures folder to no avail.  I posted on the support thread for it, and I'll update when I figure out the best way to deal with the issue.

 

EDIT EDIT:  The problem, which I didn't realize, was that some mods that had 2 textures (literally) had them in a BSA.  Yes.  Really.  So the BSAs needed to be extracted and installed normally (I extracted, created a 7z, and installed them using FOMM).

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