How do I combine a bunch of mods into one plugin?

[tawney]

I have wrye bash, obmm, and the tes cs. Do I use one of those to combine all my mods into one? I've heard this was possible somehow, so I'd really like to do this. I've heard of the tesgecko tool thing, does that do it? And how? :huh:

[razorpony]

I'm more familiar with Gecko, with it you simply pick 2 mods you want to merge, set the priority (1 being highest, 9 lowest) then click merge. I've used it to merge things like multiple armor mods and even all the Unique Landscape mods. With the larger mods I've had better luck just merging 2, then adding 1 at a time until I'm done. If you're talking about huge complex mods with a lot of quests or advanced scripting, changes to leveled lists, etc. You'll likely need Wrye Bash. I'm not as familiar with all its uses but it has the ability to look at all the changes made by various mods and merge those changes into one 'bashed patch' to elliminate conflicts.

 

-Razorpony

[RebelOConner]

There's also a tool "combine loaded plugins" in the construction set.

i don't know the limit of plugin number.

to merge, load all the plugins you want, select files->tools->combine loaded plugins. you'll have a save menu( be careful, don't select an existing files)

anyway, i recommand you to made a backup of your mods.

[Jessie234]

Could someone possibly supply a link to gecko?

[bben46]

Not every mod will be a candidate for combining. So for example if you have 50 mods, do not expect to be able to combine 25 into one. Depending on the content, 7 or 8 may be reasonable. Some mods will not combine at all due to their complexity. Simple mods, such as those that add a single article of clothing or a group of similar weapons are the best candidates for combining. Quest mods and castles are not.

 

As to finding things, The Nexus actually has e very good mod search capability.

Tes4geko: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8665

 

Before diving into combining mods learn all you can about how to work with mods that have not been combined. Oblivion actually allows a total of 254 mods plus the Oblivion.esm for 255 active mods allowed in the game. I woulden't worry about combining until you are well over 200.

[Tomlong54210]

Some guidelines: Merging Plugins

[chaospearl]

Some guidelines: Merging Plugins

 

Bwahaha... thanks for the link, Tom. I wish I'd seen that a couple weeks ago when I first learned how to merge with Gecko! I'm pretty much done with the merges now unless I get it into my fool red head to download more mods I don't need, but I'm gonna go back over everything I did successfully stuff together, using those guidelines you provided, and see if I can't streamline things a bit more or eliminate a conflict here or there.

 

While I'm here (and I hope this isn't considered a hijack; it's relevant at least) ... is there a similarly easy way to UN-combine mods? I've sort of got myself into a situation entirely of my own stupidity and I'm not quite sure how to iron it out. I merged mods A, B, C, and D using Gecko. They're all "add a couple pieces of clothing" type mods. Later on, I decided I wanted to edit some of the clothing from Mod B by changing the names, because I think "short white miniskirt" sounds a lot better than "skirt HGEC EBE white amulet" in my inventory. Here comes the stupidity. I edited the names of the clothing by opening the merged mod in the CS, instead of changing them in Mod B and then re-combining all four mods. It wouldn't be an issue except that now I've realized I don't want to use Mod A anymore. Only I don't have much choice, because I don't know how to pry Mod A out of the combined merge, and if I make a new merge with only B, C and D, I'll lose all the painstaking changes I made to the items from Mod B.

 

I realize I probably deserve this for being such an idiot, but I'm still hoping there's a way out, lol.

[Tomlong54210]

Some guidelines: Merging Plugins

 

Bwahaha... thanks for the link, Tom. I wish I'd seen that a couple weeks ago when I first learned how to merge with Gecko! I'm pretty much done with the merges now unless I get it into my fool red head to download more mods I don't need, but I'm gonna go back over everything I did successfully stuff together, using those guidelines you provided, and see if I can't streamline things a bit more or eliminate a conflict here or there.

 

While I'm here (and I hope this isn't considered a hijack; it's relevant at least) ... is there a similarly easy way to UN-combine mods? I've sort of got myself into a situation entirely of my own stupidity and I'm not quite sure how to iron it out. I merged mods A, B, C, and D using Gecko. They're all "add a couple pieces of clothing" type mods. Later on, I decided I wanted to edit some of the clothing from Mod B by changing the names, because I think "short white miniskirt" sounds a lot better than "skirt HGEC EBE white amulet" in my inventory. Here comes the stupidity. I edited the names of the clothing by opening the merged mod in the CS, instead of changing them in Mod B and then re-combining all four mods. It wouldn't be an issue except that now I've realized I don't want to use Mod A anymore. Only I don't have much choice, because I don't know how to pry Mod A out of the combined merge, and if I make a new merge with only B, C and D, I'll lose all the painstaking changes I made to the items from Mod B.

 

I realize I probably deserve this for being such an idiot, but I'm still hoping there's a way out, lol.

That is the problem with merging. There is not a way to unmerge mods, but if A is not too big, you can use TES4Edit to remove the records from the merged plugin easily enough. I also use part merges to help with this. I was merging about 60 item mods, and I was sure I wanted all of AlienSlof's, so I merged hers separately, first. After choosing the other new item mods and merging them together, I then merged the two "part merges" together. It may reduce the changing you need to do, merging final mods and then "in progress" mods, etc.

[CoinOp]

How do I get Geko to work with Fallout new Vegas?