What mods can/cannot be made to ESL?

[GiantSweetroll]

With the new ESL plugin format introduced by Bethesda in both Fallout 4 and Skyrim SE, we have been given the ability to load more mods as the ESL does not count towards the 255 esp limit. A few mods has begun to use this new format, and mod users has also started converting their mods for personal use.

 

However, can any mod be made into an ESL? I have searched google to find what kind of mods can or should not be made into ESL, but all I got was just procedures on how to convert, and the general limitation of 2,048 forms max per ESL. These tutorials tend to say to convert "small" mods, but with no more detailed explanation on what "small" really is (other than obviously below 2,048 forms). Is it safe to convert scripted mods, armor mods, weapon mods, animation mods, etc.?

 

I've tried converting two mods to ESL, IMP - Invisible Marker Pack and Advanced Recruitment Beacon. The former becomes buggy and the holotape became really glitchy and unusable, while the latter worked just fine as an ESL so far. They both have scripts and adds to workshop menu. The only difference I can tell (from a user perspective at least) is that the IMP is configured via holotape, while ARB uses a terminal to personalize it.

 

Take note, I am not posting here to ask for help why IMP as an ESL is broken, rather to ask for help on what aspects of a mod make it not ESL friendly?

 

Can anyone with some knowledge of ESL please help? Thanks :)

[chucksteel]

The .esl record cap is actually 4,000 not 2,048. I personally don't know the mods your trying to convert, I have heard of them but have never looked at how they work but one issue may be if they are load order dependent meaning that another mod can overwrite them. .esl's always load just after the .esm's so an .esp can potentially mess them up.

[zilav]

ESL can't contain FormID raw numbers over 00000FFF, that's 4096 records. But considering that numbers below 00000800 are reserved which is 2048, the available number of usable records for ESL plugin is 2048.

 

So the good candidates to be ESLized are plugins with less than 2048 records that don't serve as masters to other plugins, and which have only ESM files as their masters due to load order issues. So patches that have ESP masters are not suited for ESL format.

 

This means a typical small plugin that adds a new armor, weapon, house, etc and relies only on vanilla ESMs is the right one to be ESL (like Creation Club mods). A mod that relies on other 3rd party mods or patches them is not.

Edited December 28, 2017 by zilav

[SirDanest]

Is there any way to know which mods are too big? What will happen if I try to convert one that is too large? Will it tell me that it failed or will I have to find out in-game?
It sounds like anything with scripts won't work?

[zilav]

Is there any way to know which mods are too big? What will happen if I try to convert one that is too large? Will it tell me that it failed or will I have to find out in-game?

It sounds like anything with scripts won't work?

CK will tell you. Scrips are irrelevant, they are external assets and don't affect the number of records. Almost all CC mods are scripted for example.

Edited December 29, 2017 by zilav

[SirDanest]

It's confusing and somewhat tedious to try them and see. Some radio mods to my surprise worked fine as an esl. Hair mods vanish from the game, even though the geck appeared to have successfully converted them.
Some that appear successfully converted end up glitchy, there's no way (apparently) to tell ahead of time whether or not that will happen.

[zilav]

It's confusing and somewhat tedious to try them and see. Some radio mods to my surprise worked fine as an esl. Hair mods vanish from the game, even though the geck appeared to have successfully converted them.

Some that appear successfully converted end up glitchy, there's no way (apparently) to tell ahead of time whether or not that will happen.

You can't convert mods to ESL in ongoing game because it is the same as removing the plugin and installing a completely different one.

Radio mods work because they are bound by a radio frequency value which doesn't depend on plugin name and FormIDs.

Anyway you can always check in FO4Edit what has happened in ESL and fix if needed.

[BlazeStryker]

My question is if a mod that has only ESMs as a master will (once converted) be picked up on and accepted by dependent ESPs.

 

Example: If AnyModAnyWeapon was converted to an ESL, would LegendaryMod still play nicely with it?

[chucksteel]

You would have to use FO4EDIT to change the dependent mods master list to require the .esl.