FOMM/New Vegas Plugin Limits

[desertoth1]

Recently, as I've been going through with my project to comprehensively mod my own game, it's seemed as though every single new mod past ~145 .esm and .esp files has caused the game to break mid-play.

 

Here's what happens: *The game plays normally from a few seconds to a few minutes

 

*The game fails to enter the Pause Menu when Esc is pressed

 

*If any menu for a particular mod is activated (through hotkeys or through PipBoy items), they appear with muddled text and the game freezes

 

*Often, there are graphical glitches and missing models and sounds during play

 

After trying to add over a dozen different plugins, individually and in various combinations, I've found that when I deactivate all but what I had before this business started, plus ONE, everything works as normal. I've tried various ones in this context, and in fact tested my suspicion that this was not a problem with any individual mod that I was trying to add by creating a merged patch and activating it as the 'extra' plug-in. Same deal: bugs and a freeze. Clearly, I'm breaking some sort of limit.

 

But what exactly is going on here? I think the FOMM limit is 255 plugins, and I only have a little over half that. I'd really like to be able to install more mods - but how, then?

[blove]

The mod limit hard cap for Fallout New Vegas is 254. FOMM will let you use 254 mods. The mod limit soft cap for Fallout New Vegas is 139. You can merge mods together with a utility like FNVPlugin to get under the soft cap.

[desertoth1]

I've been trying to use FNVPlugin, but it seems as though the mods merged in it don't quite work the same way...

 

E.g. ESPs A, B, C, D, of which B, C, and D, are merged into MERGE.esp. Checking in FNVEdit, MERGE seems to have all the records/flags that B, C, and D do. However, in-game mod B appears incompletely, and as for C and D I can not be sure that their effect has not been lost, as they are mastered by .esms or other .esps (and finding out would require a lot of subtle gameplay testing).

 

To be more concrete, some mods under the MCM appear in its menu as headers, but contain no content when clicked. Others are functional but I can't say this is not due to the function of non-merged and still-active masters.

 

To be even more specific, Official Pipboy Readius has all its files in the merge .esp yet when I leave only the merge .esp active, in-game trying to bring up the Pip-boy merely brings up the player=character's bare arm.

 

Is there something I'm not understanding about merging? Surely if all the data in one file is contained in another, the latter should retain the functionality of the former...

 

And another problem has emerged, namely that grenades (but not dynamite), plasma bolts, and maybe lasers, are glitching as missing models/textures in-game. This likely was extant even before I tried the merge stuff, so that can't be it. Checking everything pertinent to projectiles in FNVEdit, I find no issues, and the graphics files referenced in the plugins and masters are present in my Data folder. I've even replaced them from the original sources (i.e. EVE, WME, etc.), and yet no dice.

 

I'm just confused by it all. Going by what I see (or know to see) in FNVEdit, everything should be working fine on all counts! Note that I'm currently well below the soft limit for mods, having deactivated a couple recently.

Edited January 4, 2014 by desertoth1

[camaro_69_327]

I never got around to trying the merge stuff because as i understood it as this......

 

Say you merge mods A, B, C. this is all fine and dandy, but what happens when mod B is looking for something that had something to do with its Original name? Say the Pipboy mod is looking for something in the Pipboy mod that is now called Merged01 or what ever. it cant or wont find its files, as i said i never played around with this so i could be way off base, but that's how i understood the difficulties of merging plugins.

[luthienanarion]

This is why I always recommend trimming the fat out of your load order instead of merging plugins. It usually ends up being a lot more complex than clicking a button as most seem to expect.

 

Don't ever merge mods with MCM menus, because you will have to edit the menu scripts. The mod isolation conditions as described in the official MCM guide (and followed by almost every mod that supports MCM) do not support multiple menu scripts within the same plugin. It can be fixed, but you have to know what you're doing with MCM scripting.

[desertoth1]

I think you guys got it right - that's just what I was beginning to consider.

 

But so, I have found some mods that do work in Merged patches, for instance Goodsprings Filler. I wonder if the qualities to look for might not be: no BSA and no NVSE scripts.

 

Bashing mods seems to work fine too, but not many mods seem to be eligible.

[luthienanarion]

BSA archives are loaded by the engine when it encounters one with the same same as a loaded plugin. You'll have to rename them. NVSE scripts are not a problem with merging--just MCM scripts specifically.

FNVPlugin often saves an incorrect or invalid FormID for script references. A common example is "00000014" or "01000007" instead of "00000007" when referencing the player. You'll have to be able to spot and fix these errors.

[desertoth1]

The problem with correcting those errors though, is that it seems to force the merged plugin to take its component plugins as masters - which defeats the purpose of the enterprise.

 

But certainly, targeting mods that are just non-MCM lone esm or esp files has given me a number of weapons, armor, and quest mods for free in the load-order, so to speak. I've tested in-game where it was simple to do so, and everything seems to work fine, despite the changed references.

 

Also, a very interesting development: For the armor mods specifically, I've got Dragonskin Tactical Outfits and Reinforced Chinese Stealth Suit. The merge of them was unable to avoid making these files masters to the merged .esp, and yet, I am able to load the game just fine without activating DTO or RCSS .esps in FOMM, and the content seems to appear in-game and work just fine.

 

While very convenient, I wonder how such a thing could be possible?

[macdaddy1176]

use the Merge Plugins TES5Edit Script Mod/thingy

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37981/?

it's very easy to use and works with FNVEdit ( i've merged armours and weapons ) just don't merge mods with scripts, scripts don't work so well with it ( atleast on skyrim )