Merged Mods

[shadowknyght]

Does anyone tried to merge any sexlab mods together.  If so, how well did it work.  I've been considering it because my load order is pretty tight and I'd like to add more.  I know a lot of patches can be merged as long as you putting them sequentially in the load list doesn't cause any problems, but I'm not quite sure about mods themselves as I've not been ballsy enough to attempt it.

Anyways, any feedback on this would be nice so I can figure out if there's anything I can do about this.  With the creators permission, I may even post them if I can get them to work.  Also curious about merging armors and the like.

[TombFiend]

Don't even try. All sexlab mods are script-heavy. And you should NEVER merge script-heavy plugins. 

[t.ara]

this answer is of course hypothetic only and not based on tests

 

 

contra mod merging:

 

if you play mods exactly together and if they don´t seem any more to be developed (updated) , you can of course have a try - but lot of mods don´t work together well, so it´s better to keep them apart from each other UNTIL you have exactly your "dream-combination" 

...and there are also older versions of a mod, that are running more better with old quest-mods , that´s very tricky

 

 

contra:

you will not have a chance, to switch off a mod to look for "error-terror" that can be caused by a specified version or by a single mod

 

pro:

some mods are inviting like to be "melt together", others not (especially clothing stuff)

 

pro:

you could for example merge specified clothing into your beloved quest-mod - why not

 

quest-mod-merge:

all scripts are of course collected into one folder, it´s in every case the same result concerning the papyrus-behavior - but merging quest-mods seems to me a little strange because you won´t like to play always the same stuff

 

resource mods (esm):

melting them away means to ignore ongoing updates and all merged mods can´t also be edited without editing the master mod itself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't even try. All sexlab mods are script-heavy. And you should NEVER merge script-heavy plugins. 

 

[valcon767]

1 -Does anyone tried to merge any sexlab mods together.

2 - If so, how well did it work.  I've been considering it because my load order is pretty tight and I'd like to add more.  I know a lot of patches can be merged as long as you putting them sequentially in the load list doesn't cause any problems, but I'm not quite sure about mods themselves as I've not been ballsy enough to attempt it.

 

Anyways, any feedback on this would be nice so I can figure out if there's anything I can do about this.  With the creators permission, I may even post them if I can get them to work.  Also curious about merging armors and the like.

 

1 - I have in fact tried to do this in the past

     method A - Merge Plugins Standalone (3 different versions of this tool)

     method B - XEdit script for TESVEdit (2 different merge scripts)

     Method C - manual merging using TESVEdit

 

2 - the only mod I managed to make a working merge with sexlab mods in it was a merge of SLIA's  (SexLab Interactive Arousal) extra esp files (not the core file, just the dlc files).

     at this point in time I do not even remember which method worked that single time.

     any other attempts failed (usually catastrophically), the mods I tried to merge (even small mods) would have gameplay errors and other weirdness

     occurring (I only tried this after I knew what the mods involved were supposed to do).

 

 

at the end of my experimentation on merging SexLab style mods I came to the conclusion it was not worth even attempting due to

     1 - the mods always broke

     2 - inability to ever update the individual mods ever again

     3 - the sheer hell (imho) of having to try to manually merge them in the CK (it would be easier to make a new mod than to merge others) if that would even work

 

 

as for merging armor mods that is usually not hard to do (using either the standalone or Xedit script in methods A and B above), and something to remember

when merging armor mods is that some other mods require the armor mods individual esm/esp file to be available.

merging armor, weapon, or follower mods can indeed save quite a few esm/esp slots provided you take into account that updating any merged versions

means rebuilding the merged mod from scratch and that some will just not work right merged regardless of method used.

(there are several follower mods with ingame body changers on nexus, I could never get any of them to work right after merging even though they still looked fine)

 

the general rules I use to determine a mod can be merged is listed below (it has to fit all requirements)

  A - only merge one type of mod per merged mod created (all armor, all weapons, all followers, etc)

  B - all mods in the merge must not have any other mod looking for any of its specific esm/esp files

  C - limit merge to 40-60 mods included max (I learned this the hard way)

  D - add only a few (1 to 5 max) at a time and test extensively to be sure nothing broke (if something broke, try 1 at a time until I found the mod that broke)

  E - use only 1 method for each merged mod created, and leave a note somewhere so I know what method I used (in my case a notepad doc in a spare folder).

 F - make sure to have a backup of all the mods used in the merge saved elsewhere (for use if I have to rebuild it or if I want to try to remove anything).

      (my back up of files is stored on an external hard drive so even if I lose my comp I still have the original files at least)

 G - it cannot be a quest mod (of any type), any type of custom voiced npc (follower mostly) mod, or anything I do not intend to keep for a very long time

 

you can of course try to merge SexLab mods (that is your decision), but I have tried in the past and have yet to succeed with any of them (except the single instance noted above).

 

hopefully this information helps some.

 

p.s.

also refer to the post made by T'ara for some other pros and cons.

[WaxenFigure]

 

I merged TDF Prostitution with the expansion mod for it but since they were designed to work together that wasn't a real problem.

 

But in general I merge only mods that aren't getting updated and mostly just resource mods and even then only enough to give me some "headroom" to add a few mods during a playthrough.

[worik]

Except for testing purposes, I merge my mods quite often. Over at the other site there is some nice guidance about the adviced general  load order for mods... e.g. load mods for ITEMs before mods for NPCs.

Along the line of that guidance, I don't merge mods of different categories .. 

 

So, my basic rule: I only merge those mods, that run stable in my unmerged test game and which follow immediately after another in my load order.

 

Anyway, aside from the plain esp, you have to watch out, what is contained in the BSA files and which mod relies on something, that gets overwritten by another. Some mod authors include scripts from other mods in their packages. Mostly by accident, sometimes not. It MAY break things and makes it harder to debug if you merge such stuff together.

Example: I can't count, how often I had to deal with mods, that overwrite SKYUI's scripts with older versions - purely annoying. :(

Personally I ditched NMM and use MO, because of exactly that advantage to control those annoyances. MO does a far better job at that discipline for me.

 

My secondary rule: watch out, what the cat dragged in. (look at BSAs and loose files in the mods)

 

At a summary of all that, I never had problems with my SL merges ... But I did not even attempt to merge all.

[worik]

Some of my DO-NOT-MERGE examples (you may call it my blacklist):

• Armorous Adventures
• Beeing Female
• Devious Devices Assets, Integration and Expansion - ALL of them DO NOT MERGE!
• Devious Devices Equip
• Prison Overhaul
• SL Aroused Redux
• SOS

Some DID-WORK-WELL examples:

• "Devious Cidhna" with "Blood and Silver" + some other non-SL location based quest mods
• lingerie, toys, .. stuff like that
• prostitution mods like Working Girl, Radiant Prostitution, TDF ... ( I always merge them together and had never any issues, that weren't there in the un-merged versions)
• SL quest-like mods like Angrims Apprentice, SLEN, SL, Solutions, Sisterhood of Dibella.. same as the bullet above)

[darkevilhum]

Merge your outfit esps to save space.