Creating my first mod - tips?

[Weightaholic]

Nothing special, just dropping some of my mashups into a mod for my own use, but is there anything I need to watch out for?

Not creating costumes through the workbench, I will add them to inventory via console, so Armor and Armor addon records only, but is there anything I need to watch out for?  Anything that will lead to save corruption?  Eg, do Armor addons need to be a higher form number than corresponding armor items (or vice versa)?

 

Bi of a n00b, not too smart at this sort of thing, but I'm stubborn as hell. 

 

[Squirrel97]

One thing I know is that the body slots in the Armor (ARMO) and Armor Addon (ARMA) records must be the same, or you get invisible clothing. I found that out after I made my Vtaw and VTAC preview mesh mod and some people said they had invisible clothing when using my mod. It was because they were using some mods that changed the slots and conflicted with mine. My mod only modifies the Armor record.

[Glitchfinder]

The game doesn't have any prioritization for formids. Forms (and their corresponding ids) are used to build a complete database before you even manage to hit the title screen, so it's better to think of them as being more like page numbers in a dictionary than instructions that need to be in a specific order.

As for armor, Squirrel97 covered an important detail. Aside from that, most armor data isn't actually cached in saves because there's not really much point to it. Items in inventory (even equipped ones) are typically destroyed and just stored as a list of formids for the relevant base objects. Armor will also store extra data, such as a list of the attached OMODs, so if you mess around and remove an OMOD that you're currently using you may wind up with undefined behavior for that armor.

[Weightaholic]

Thanks guys, mine's pretty simple mashups, so no omods (yet), but I will bear it in mind.  Cheers.