Making your own esp from others

[Ninja2dan]

I'm fairly new to mod creation/editing for New Vegas, but I'm learning slowly. One thing that I have yet to figure out is how to "borrow" individual parts of another mod's .esp to use in a private combined esp.

 

First off, I want to say that I'm not talking about stealing content from other mod creators and attempting to use it in my own mod for public distribution. I have worked in the game industry for over a decade, so I'm quite aware of the policies and requirements for using the work of others.

 

 

Let's say I have an assortment of other mods that include various items that I like, but at the same time they include items that I dislike, or features that conflict with my game. I'm wanting to break those original mods down into parts, take the parts that don't conflict, and combine all of them back into a single new mod. FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY

 

One example is that a mod includes armor, weapons, and a few NPC. But the mod also adds those weapons via a container that conflicts with other mods I'm using. I don't need the armor, won't be interacting with the NPC, I just need a few of the weapons their mod adds.

 

Another example is that a mod adds some armor, but the armor is placed in a bad location that causes problems with other mods or breaks the game. I'd like to have that armor available, but I'd like to place it in my own desired spot that doesn't conflict with anything else I'm using.

 

 

After obtaining permissions from the original mod authors, how would I go about breaking down their .esp files to extract just the items that I need? And once I have all of that together, how would I package it back up into a single .esp file?

 

 

And once again, I am NOT talking about stealing someone else's model to apply my own texture and rename it as my own work. I'm not asking to steal someone else's weapons to place into my own poorly-written quest mod. I'm talking about using portions of mods in my own personal-use mod, after obtaining full permissions from the original mod authors.

[drithius]

If you're talking strictly esp's, make heavy use of the "copy as new record" option in FNVEdit.

[Ninja2dan]

If you're talking strictly esp's, make heavy use of the "copy as new record" option in FNVEdit.

I'm not sure what that means yet. I've only recently installed FNVEdit, and so far I'm only using it to confirm load ordering is good and that mods don't conflict.

 

I've been able to mess around with the GECK enough to learn a few things such as where articles of clothing and weapons get their object effect lists, as well as how to create new ones. I know how to modify certain values of items, change icon images, and even swap out a few bad textures. But I'm still very early on in the learning process.

 

I can go into a mod through the GECK and FNVEdit and I can see everything that a particular mod changes, such as which vendors have those items added to it or where new containers have been placed. So I think I have a good understanding of how to move or delete those containers in order to keep them from conflicting with other mods. But there are some changes that I simply can't figure out how to revert, and think it would be easier to just tear the mod down and rebuild it using only the portions that I personally need.

 

I'm also not understanding how to properly select more than one esp file in the GECK for editing. For example, I want the armor from one mod, and the weapons from two other mods. So that's a total of 3 esp that need to be loaded up, but you can only set one as active. And any changes will edit the active esp file.

 

I'm only wanting to take the armor from one mod, and the weapons from another few mods, and combine them into a single new esp file for personal use. While I like the armor for example, I don't want any of the other changes that armor mod adds, such as new NPC or vendor lists. Basically, I'm saying "I like your armor, but I don't want the rest that comes with it".