Mod load order general question

[ezg1969]

I have a general question about mod load order for one of my recently installed (Herculines Shojo Companions for NCCS NV), some of the NPC's are nothing but big red triangles. You can see the body within the triangle and there is no hair. About 1/2 of them seem to be working properly. And I think I have everything I should have for it to work, unless i'm missing something from Lings?

So here is my question about load order. I know esp files are supposed to load after esm files, but does it matter where a specific mod is in load order as long as that's the case. For example the shojo mod has all the Shojo esp files loaded after the Shojo esm files. But the Shojo files are not together in the load order. There are some mods above the Shojo esm files, then there are some Shojo esm files, followed by other mod files. Farther down is the Shojo esp files. Does it matter if there are other mods between esm and esp files?

Thanks in advance for any response.

[dubiousintent]

Other than the general rule of "masters before dependents" (which mostly means ESMs before ESPs, but some ESPs can be flagged internally as ESMs), plugins are sorted based upon the record types that get modified. Usually all the plugins from a particular mod are modifying records from their ESM, but sometimes they are modifying records from other ESMs (i.e. the main game and DLC files or other mods). In those circumstances, a mods particular plugins will get sorted after the plugins of other mods. So, yes having other plugins mixed in is common. In fact, I would say a mostly alphabetical load order is strongly suggestive that it hasn't been sorted correctly.

 

LOOT is an automated process for checking and sorting plugins on the basis of file headers and which records are modified by other plugins. However, like any automated program, it has it's limits. For instance, when two plugins are "ranked equally" it may require human intervention to "break the tie" with additional information, which is where the "metadata" feature of LOOT comes into play. It provides a reasonable "first approximation" load order.

 

See the "Terminology" section of the "FNV General Mod Use Advice" wiki article for more, especially how the "Rule of One" and "Patch Files" affect this.

 

As for your "red triangles", you need to enable or toggle your "ArchiveInvalidation". That is also covered in the "Mod Managers" section of the same wiki article.

 

-Dubious-

Edited January 22, 2017 by dubiousintent

[Purr4me]

I have a general question about mod load order for one of my recently installed (Herculines Shojo Companions for NCCS NV), some of the NPC's are nothing but big red triangles. You can see the body within the triangle and there is no hair. About 1/2 of them seem to be working properly. And I think I have everything I should have for it to work, unless i'm missing something from Lings?

So here is my question about load order. I know esp files are supposed to load after esm files, but does it matter where a specific mod is in load order as long as that's the case. For example the shojo mod has all the Shojo esp files loaded after the Shojo esm files. But the Shojo files are not together in the load order. There are some mods above the Shojo esm files, then there are some Shojo esm files, followed by other mod files. Farther down is the Shojo esp files. Does it matter if there are other mods between esm and esp files?

Thanks in advance for any response.