Difference between merge and patch?

[gyashaa]

Or what exactly is a patch?

 

And what exactly is a merge?

 

I know they both are ways of making two conflicting mods work together. Are there any other things that do the same that I should know of?

[TheTalkieToaster]

It depends on the type of things they change.

If two mods will change the same list (e.g. each one edits the list of weapons Raiders spawn with to add their own), these changes are easily merged together by adding the items from both mods to the same list. Automated tools can do this no problem.

If two mods will change something that's not a list (e.g. one changes the damage of Pipe Rifles, one changes the mod slots Pipe Rifles have), then someone has to manually compare the two mods and make a patch that combines the two changes. It's not immediately obvious to a utility which changes should/shouldn't be kept- if you make any changes to a weapon, you include a copy of all the weapon's information in your mod.

[SirTwist]

A patch does a couple things. One is to update, in a small way, a mod. Or it can be the bridge between two mods, which is called a capability patch. These are typically created by the mod authors.

 

A merge, however, is one you create that encompasses at least two mods to work together, if not more. This is one that you create, to make your load lighter. Typically you use a variation on the TES5Edit. In Fallout 4's case, that is FO4Edit.