From MMUE to NVEC?

[KefkeWren]

I started out my modded New Vegas career using MMUE(+) for all my bugfix needs and a bit of extra content. It seemed a good fit, because it covered a lot of ground, and didn't add a lot of features, leaving me free to shape my experience with other mods. A couple characters and some browsing later, though, and I find myself dangerously close to what tends to be considered the mod ceiling for New Vegas, with around 140-odd ESPs.

 

In looking for ways to cut my load order down, and avoid the infamous Gamebryo bugs that show up with a higher plugin count, I re-examined NVEC. The first time around, I skipped it - partly because it has a definite flavour to the game, and partly because I simply couldn't be arsed with the extra steps needed to use their More Perks merge at the time...something I have since gone back and done anyway. On this second examination, I find myself much less critical of their choices for inclusion, as I count a fair number of mods I am currently using. At a quick count, it should drop about a baker's dozen mods from my load order, before any required patching and not counting MMUE(+).

On the other hand, I do have some concerns, which is the reason for this post...

• Can I overwrite changes to companion limits, TAG skills, and the like by loading other mods that adjust these after? - Specifically will menu based settings from Project Nevada take priority, and will CCO's charisma-based followers override the unlimited followers included with NVEC.
• Is NVEC fully redundant with MMUE(+)? If not, is there a compatibility patch to keep them stepping on each-other's toes?
• Would it be necessary to remove my mods and rebuild from scratch using NVEC as a base? I'm not opposed to doing this, but it is a time consuming process to be sure.

[dubiousintent]

Your questions all are related to "load order".

 

This relates back to "the rule of one". Without patching, the last mod to load overrules all earlier mods (in their entirety) that touch on the same record. That is the reason you need either a hand made "patch file" or to use a tool like "Wrye Flash" which creates a "Bashed Patch" (BP) that allows non-conflicting records from other mods to co-exist with the winning record from conflicting ones. Where conflicts exist, the last mod in the load order touching on a given record "wins" the conflict. The exception to this is with the use of "Bash Tags". These tell the BP to have the earlier loading mods with the appropriate tag win. In the case of "ties" between mods with the same "bash tag", the same rule of one applies. So, changing your load order and checking the result in FNVEdit will enable you to get the winners you desire.

 

"Wrye Flash" (WF) is a version of "Wrye Bash" (WB) customized to work with the file format of FNV records. It works just the same as WB. So, the "Wrye Bash Pictorial Guide" works just fine as an introduction to how to use WF. In your case, everything you need to create a Bashed Patch is detailed in the "WBPG - Basics and Installers Intro.pdf" file. No need to re-install anything. The use of "de-activating" mods that are fully merged into the Bashed Patch can usually reduce your mod count by a dozen or so without you having to do anything else.

 

And yes, you can have more than one patch file installed: the same conflict rules apply. What you want with NVEC is the "NVEC Patches" download for your MMUE(+) compatibility. I would also suggest adding YUP (which has a compatibility patch there as well). Unless you really want to go examining which one wins any individual record conflict in FNVEdit, simply changing the load order should be enough if you find yourself unhappy with one's version of a fix over the other's. But the number of fixes in both YUP and MMUE are sufficiently different I just use both rather than worrying about conflict winners.

 

The S.T.E.P. Guide has a procedure for merging plugins using the "Merge Plugins Standalone" tool. Non-conflicting mods are easy, as long as you avoid ones that have dependencies. Do watch out for ones that have a BSA file. They need "asset" handling.

 

-Dubious-

Edited March 23, 2016 by dubiousintent

[KefkeWren]

Thank you, but I actually understand load order a little better than you do, I think. Particularly in worldspaces, the "rule of one" doesn't always apply. For instance, I have seem multiple mods both try to re-add the cut adventurer NPC on the road out of Goodsprings, with the result of getting two of them right on top of each-other until one of the redundant mods was removed. Also, when it comes to changing game mechanics, not all mods do the same thing the same way - hence my concern that having multiple mods overriding vanilla behaviour, one might take precedence regardless of load order, depending on the methods used. Specifically, if only one mod is directly overwriting the Vanilla content, or worse still neither mod doing the same thing is, things can get screwy.

So, no, I did not need a tutorial on how load order works. I have been tweaking load order to get the right mods to take priority since my Morrowind days. I would have thought that asking a question specifically about load order precedence, and whether it applied regarding specific scripted tweaks, indicated I was already familiar with the concept. What I wanted was practical information on how specific mods interact, and what patches are available.

On the other hand, it may be a moot point, since I've done a little digging and found that, while NVEC does contain a number of mods both that I have, and that I'm interested in, it also makes a number of changes I'm not comfortable with, and uses outdated versions of a few mods - in particular New Vegas bounties, which - without voiced lines - would pretty much be a non-starter for me.

tl;dr - Thank you for trying to help, but that's not quite the information I needed.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Kefke_Wren