Any advantages to merging plugins via Wrye Bash besides freeing up loa

[InsanityOnABun]

...d order?

 

I seriously doubt that'll I'll be hitting the 255 limit on plugins any time soon, so is there any actual benefit to merging plugins besides helping to avoid that?

Edited July 2, 2012 by InsanityOnABun

[CalenEllefson]

I do believe the main benefit of a Bashed Patch is in mitigating potential leveled list conflicts. When different mods make a change to the same record, only the change made by the last mod in the load order will have it's change appear in the game... Unless the record being changed is a leveled list, then Wrye Bash can merge the changes from all the mods.

 

Wrye Bash doesn't simply merge mods to avoid the 255 mod limit. The mods that WB can automatically merge are the ones that only make changes to leveled lists, and then only to the subset of record types that Wrye Bash handles in it's current incarnation. Version 299 at this time. (Development stalled on WB for a few months, after RL waylayed the original developer. But, some very good, smart and generous people have taken up the slack and continued development of WB. So it is steadily improving and handling more each new version, once again.)

 

While Bashed Patches are the main advantage I get from Wrye Bash, it is not the only benefit to using it, by far.

 

Another benefit that I have found with WB is for checking how playable my save game files are, so I can make adjustments if needed. WB can show you what mods were installed when a save game file was made, and in what order. Then, you can adjust your load order, or activate/deactivate mods. As we install new mods, update or remove old mods, or the BOSS masterlist itself gets updated, the load order can get changed. Since FormIDs are stored in the save game files, and the first two digits of the FormID are the Load Order Index number, being able to reestablish the load order easily is quite a benefit.

 

Then, there are the INI tweaks in can install/uninstall for you.

 

And, finally, at the risk of burying the lead, there is BAIN. (Sounds like a Dark Knight Rises commercial, doesn't it?) Personally, I use NMM, but I have read enough about BAIN that I wish it was the standard that mod authors consistently used. But there are many who convert the mod archives they download to be BAIN compatible.

[David Brasher]

The most useful thing that Wrye Bash does is perform the bit flip for esmifying and espifying when building new mods.

[ghussak]

I do believe the main benefit of a Bashed Patch is in mitigating potential leveled list conflicts. When different mods make a change to the same record, only the change made by the last mod in the load order will have it's change appear in the game... Unless the record being changed is a leveled list, then Wrye Bash can merge the changes from all the mods.

 

Wrye Bash doesn't simply merge mods to avoid the 255 mod limit. The mods that WB can automatically merge are the ones that only make changes to leveled lists, and then only to the subset of record types that Wrye Bash handles in it's current incarnation. Version 299 at this time. (Development stalled on WB for a few months, after RL waylayed the original developer. But, some very good, smart and generous people have taken up the slack and continued development of WB. So it is steadily improving and handling more each new version, once again.)

 

While Bashed Patches are the main advantage I get from Wrye Bash, it is not the only benefit to using it, by far.

 

Another benefit that I have found with WB is for checking how playable my save game files are, so I can make adjustments if needed. WB can show you what mods were installed when a save game file was made, and in what order. Then, you can adjust your load order, or activate/deactivate mods. As we install new mods, update or remove old mods, or the BOSS masterlist itself gets updated, the load order can get changed. Since FormIDs are stored in the save game files, and the first two digits of the FormID are the Load Order Index number, being able to reestablish the load order easily is quite a benefit.

 

Then, there are the INI tweaks in can install/uninstall for you.

 

And, finally, at the risk of burying the lead, there is BAIN. (Sounds like a Dark Knight Rises commercial, doesn't it?) Personally, I use NMM, but I have read enough about BAIN that I wish it was the standard that mod authors consistently used. But there are many who convert the mod archives they download to be BAIN compatible.

does it handle the formID properly? I mean, if I remove an esp or add another in-between the plugins.txt list, how the remainder formIDs get? will it mess all up?

 

what I have been doing is: I created a minimal esp called _PlaceHolderDummy.001.esp that has 66 bytes, it has nothing into it;

whenever I need to update my mods list, I place that filename properly at plugins.txt, and move the mod to the end;

in truth, I just thought, we should have several placeholders so when we need to add a mod in-between the list, the slot would be made available and wont break the save...

 

EDIT: we should also have some hint saying mods are movable, I mean, mods without formIDs (that create no items or spells etc) could be freely moved (like the "weighted items" mod, Skyrim didnt complaint after I moved it to the end of the list :)

 

btw, will there ever have a savegame fixer? in a sense of to update formIDs, it would require knowing the mods it was generated with and after that make the mod list change and fix the save with the new mods list from plugins.txt and them at Data folder...

Edited March 23, 2013 by ghussak

[scrivener07]

Wrye bash doesnt merge plugins or make your load order smaller. Wrye bash merges the records in plugins and saves the changes in an additional plugin which should be loaded last.

 

edit~ noticed how old op is..