merging gone wrong

[yungskiz]

so i recently discovered what merging mods was/is and how that can be abused to be able to load way more than the #of allowed esp's....well i broke something

 

im using the merge plugins utility, and i made a merged plugin (like my 5th...i got cocky?)....a gun pack, from 30 separate esps that added anywhere from 1 to maybe 10/12 guns

 

i figured it worked because i can pull them up in the item browser mod and the game doesnt crash, but some of the guns show up as red triangles (not all, and with no consistency or pattern that i can see)

 

i thought i corrupted some meshes and then reinstalled one of the original mods (inverse Berettas) and i still got the red triangles, so i thought NV was messing up, so i loaded the ORIGINAL esp, added the items and they worked fine,

 

now heres where it gets weird, with the original mod esp loaded the guns that were in the merge pack now show up properly as well, even though theres no master file relations going on....its like with the original esp checked the game is all of a sudden able to find the meshes that were there to begin with, even though there are separate esp's

 

can someone explain to me whats going on and maybe how to fix it.....probably not merge 30 esp's

edit: found someone that merged 40 :D

 

 

edit: found something interesting, inverse Beretta uses a BSA file.....do merge plugins and bsa files not mix?

 

lol im trying, i found that bsa files do indeed cause trouble when merging, however i am using this http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/69905/? which has a section about bsa files, maybe im not using the utility right

Edited September 6, 2016 by yungskiz

[dubiousintent]

BSAs are not loaded unless they have the same beginning to their file name as the ESP plugin (i.e. "Project Something.ESP" and "Project Something - Assets.BSA".) It isn't exactly clear just how much of the filename has to match, so common practice is "all that is significant enough to distinguish from others" (like other "Project" mods) up to a blank space. The BSA filename has to match an ESP, not an ESM file. Without this, the BSA is ignored, and you get the "missing textures" red triangles, etc..

 

As your "merge file" isn't going to match more than one plugin at best (and trying to name it the same as a downloaded plugin is asking for confusion and trouble), the tool you are using gets around this under the "Options (Gear) icon". Select the "Merging" tab, and then enable the "Extract BSA" and "Batch copy assets" checkboxes. The one causes the tool to pull "assets" like meshes and textures from the BSA as "loose files", and the other causes the tool to pull the "assets" loose files into the "merge file".

 

Generally you want all the other "handle" options on that tab enabled as well. But you will need to have installed some utility for extracting the contents of the BSA, such as "BSAOpt", and point to it's location under the "Integration" tab.

 

You should revisit this tab every time you create a new merge just to be sure you have re-considered all the potential effects.

 

There are other considerations for merging. Suggest you read the wiki article "Merge Plugin Guidelines for Personal Use", especially the short bit about merging "up" and "down".

 

-Dubious-

[yungskiz]

THANKS!

[RoyBatterian]

extract all the assets for all the mods you merged with fomm, put them all in the same folder, then create a new BSA with fomm.

 

BSAopt can make corrupted archives for Fallout games, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

the bsa name should be, nameofyouresporesm - main.bsa , it can fail to load without the extension.

[dubiousintent]

...

 

BSAopt can make corrupted archives for Fallout games, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

...

What do you recommend for creating Fallout BSAs, then? (Inquiring minds want to know. :mellow: )

 

-Dubious-

[RoyBatterian]

FOMM has a built in BSA creation/extraction tool. Other than that I would say BSASharp (What I use) , but that's command line only.

 

I can link it if you want.

[dubiousintent]

@RoyBatterian: Thanks. Found it here on GitHub, unless you know of a more preferred source. I'll update my info to include it.

 

BTW: Does FNV load a BSA from an ESM? My prior knowledge is that an ESP (even an empty dummy file) is required, but as Fallout came later it may be different.

 

-Dubious-

Edited September 8, 2016 by dubiousintent