Reducing plugin loads by merging esps

[LesboIsBesto]

I'm nearing 200 active plugins in my game and my game is finally taking a toll on performance. Just longer loading screens for now but it could get worse soon & there are still more mods I want. For example, I still want Mihail's Monster mods but he hasn't packed his monsters up yet tho he keeps teasing at it & I downloaded the bikini armor mods separately, not knowing there was a pack of them and I'm concerned about attempting to remove & replace the individual armors with the pack for now.

 

For Mihail's mods specifically, I've been told to merge esp's to reduce my load order but I don't know how that works and it sounds like something that'll fuck my game up if I do it wrong. I heard about using the CK or some other programs so I want to know what reliable and up-to-date guides are out there about merging esp's that you guys would recommend?

[King-Crimson]

1 hour ago, Destroyah340 said:

I'm nearing 200 active plugins in my game and my game is finally taking a toll on performance. Just longer loading screens for now but it could get worse soon & there are still more mods I want. For example, I still want Mihail's Monster mods but he hasn't packed his monsters up yet tho he keeps teasing at it & I downloaded the bikini armor mods separately, not knowing there was a pack of them and I'm concerned about attempting to remove & replace the individual armors with the pack for now.

 

For Mihail's mods specifically, I've been told to merge esp's to reduce my load order but I don't know how that works and it sounds like something that'll fuck my game up if I do it wrong. I heard about using the CK or some other programs so I want to know what reliable and up-to-date guides are out there about merging esp's that you guys would recommend?

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/69905

 

Download this and force your way through the 70 pages documentation (dont skip it or you will most assuredly fuck up your skyrim!!!).

 

Be prepared to do intense testing and always always read the plugin details in the merging window as it contains useful information and comments from other users ands their experience wtih merging certain esps.

 

If you want to do it seriously, you should be aware this will take much more than a mere weekend of your time.

 

Good luck and have fun!

 

 

PS: I have never encountered any problems merging esps (and therefore skyrim telling me that esps and content may be missing) - my Skyrim runs rock solid with 368 mods with 80+ GB in total. Just make sure you take your time with it and dont rush things.

[foreveraloneguy]

Pretty fool proof: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/69905

 

I've got something like 200 mods merged together with this. I do not recommend merging followers with custom voices and quests. The couple of times I've tried it, the followers quests wouldn't fire correctly. But I've merged many custom follower, armor, and weapons mods together without issues.

[Lostdreamer]

I reached this point a while ago.

 

As far as I can tell - like many modding tools - Merge Plugins isn't actually as scary as it looks if you are just approaching it as a 'user'.

 

Point MO at it, find a batch of related plugins you want to merge. This will probably involve juggling your load order a bit as they need to be sequential, so it helps to have a post it note handy to make notes of which mods need moving around. Expect to fire up Merge Plugins a few times just to have a look at which mods you want to merge, then close it again to change your load order. Merge plugins shows a bunch of flags after the mods in it's list - scripts, facegen data, etc. If you just avoid adding anything with a flag other than ".bsa archive" it should work fine in my experience.

 

Check where the output directory is.

 

Press 'go' on merge plugins (*)

 

Then go to the output, zip it up and add it like any other mod.

 

I then just uncheck the .esps in the load order so that I can still see them and don't lose track of them (and their related mods) completely!