Deployment phase: "merging mods"?

[VulcanTourist]

What the Deployment phase "merging mods" actually do?

[Pickysaurus]

It depends on the game, for Bethesda titles it doesn't do anything. When you see that message what it really means is "Vortex is checking if there are any merge actions to complete".

[VulcanTourist]

I didn't think it would have anything useful to do (should have specified the game), but I was asking to be sure.

[Tannin42]

A bit more explanation: With some games like Dragons Dogma, the game doesn't support loose files, we have to package all the modded files into some archive, that is something we would do during merging.

With other games like Wolcen, MS Flight Simulator or Dragon Age mods include configuration files, stuff like xmls, where we can't just pick one but have to combine them. Again, this would be done during merging.

 

For Bethesda games it would be conceivable for example that somewhere in the future we unpack bsas during mod installation so users can pick the files they want to use, then convert them to bsas during deployment to ensure the load order is applied correctly and to improve load times.

Or we might integrate plugin merging using Mator Smash or something which would also happen in that phase.

For now, as Picky said, it shouldn't be doing anything for Bethesda games.

[VulcanTourist]

For Bethesda games it would be conceivable for example that somewhere in the future we unpack bsas during mod installation so users can pick the files they want to use, then convert them to bsas during deployment to ensure the load order is applied correctly and to improve load times.

Or we might integrate plugin merging using Mator Smash or something which would also happen in that phase.

I daresay you might lure some modders from the fold devoted to your earlier work if those features made an appearance.