Easiest way to split off new NPC records/templates from an ESP and into an ESM?

[drithius]

I have a quandary: I have an esp that involves many different masters - some esm and some esp. I'm at a point where I may need to create new npcs and their templates - each of those dependent on leveled lists created within my esp (and also incorporating items from aforementioned various esm/esp mods). I'm under the assumption that creating npc records of any type in an ESP is simply a no go due to body mismatch.

 

So, what do I do? Do I make a copy of my current esp to subsequently turn into an ESM master? Chop off anything that's not a new record, and s-l-o-w-l-y tie these master records back together with the secondary esp (which now has all manner of broken and duplicate references)? All the while eliminating other mods' entries from the leveled lists of my ESM only to subseqntly merge them back in with the esp slave? I have thousands of records that I would need to juggle around if this is my only option....

Edited September 5, 2014 by drithius

[RoyBatterian]

I think the easiest way would be to use the "merge up" method with Edit.

 

Create a new esm to hold your NPC's, place it below the other esm's in the load order of all the masters you need. Load your esp into edit and add that new esm file as a master, and sort the masters. Exit to save the work. Reload the esp along with ALL the plugins that have references you need to be changed, and you can then use the "change form id" function to change all the NEW NPC's (being NPC's you have created and do not belong to another master) to the newly created esm. Be sure to select every NPC at once before using the function and it will automatically renumber them all for you. A window will pop up with a list of plugins that reference those NPC records, select the ones you want the references to be updated to the new records in the ESM. You can then select all those same NPC's (if they aren't still selected) and copy them into the new esm without a problem. All the references will point to the new esm's records, and you can delete the ones in the esp you copied them from if you desire or leave them with the changed id's and they will be injected into the master. I don't see any reason to keep them however. Quit Edit to save all the changes and leave the plugins checked that you want to retain the changed references.

 

Additionally if you want to copy the other NPC's from the other esm's into that plugin it should be a straight copy, as long as you add the correct masters to your new esm.

 

You can repeat the first procedure for any esp's coming after your esm, add master, sort, save, reload, renumber, copy, (remove), save.

 

The only snafu with this might be some scripts will need to be recompiled because of the new reference id's.

Edited September 6, 2014 by RoyBatterian

[drithius]

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure if injecting the NPC records into an esm would solve body mismatch issues, as the records are still found in the esp - or are they? Getting into the details of the engine now.

[RoyBatterian]

I've noticed that edits to an NPC record residing in an esm from an esp don't always function correctly, giving white faces or other weirdness. Moving them into an esm fixed the problem I was having with that type of issue. You could always quickly test a few NPC's to see if it resolves the issue for you. When you say body mismatch, I assume you mean an engine bug giving them a body with the wrong skin tone?