Merging Plugins + Merged Patch: what order do I do things?
I'm confused as to in what order I should do modding. Here is what I've been doing.
I merged .ESPs with Mator's Merge Plugins tool. I only merge ESPs that are next to each other in a continuously fashion in the load order, and make sure the resulting Merged Plugin ESP is listed as completely green.
I fix Navmesh errors for the freshly made merged plugins by opening it in FNVedit and deleting the wrong Navmesh info, then I save them in GECK v1.5 to rebuild Navmesh.
I then make a Merged Patch (automatically) in FNVEdit of course.
Then I try to make manual changes to the records in the Merged Patch.
I remove any unused ESP files in the Data folder.
I go to FOMM and make all the mods and my new Merged Patch appear in the right order, then I run FNVMasterUpdate, close FOMM, and check everything is in the right order AND ESMified.
Is this the right sequence of actions I must do?
Do I make the record changes first, then make a merged patch?
Also, do I have to worry about merging ESPs with BSAs associated with them, which I SHOULDN'T be doing? Or if the resulting Merged Plugin ESP file is green in Mator's tool, I don't have to worry about it? Does the Tool automatically detect whether an ESP is free of BSA dependency and mark them with a green checkmark if it has no BSA dependency?
I don't know how to use WryeFlash, and I don't know if I need to. (I hear it only save changes to leveled Lists only, and I still need a Merged Patch anyway. What is a leveled list, even and do I need the one given by a Bashed patch from Wrye Flash?)