scarycave Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 Hi again forum, I just had a quick question about combining mods. I have these two separate mods that I want to put together, one has a quest, the other has a handful of actors, I could probably just remake the actors in the quest containing mod but I wanted to know if it was necessary. I noticed you could have multiple mods open at a time in the construction tool : Master file and plugins, but I don't know if it will mess up the mods, or if it will carry properties over to the master file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfh85 Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 it wont alter the master file. The CS is unable to edit esm files. Combining two esp's is easy, open both with the CS and just select combine and I think you can do it with Gecko. As long as you haven't added items/quests/scripts etc with the same names to both esp's then there shouldn't be any problems. Given that you created them you should know better than anyone else any potential conflicts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarycave Posted August 9, 2012 Author Share Posted August 9, 2012 Thanks. I have no idea how I missed that. Serves me right for not looking everywhere. :) This is really going to speed up on production time, all I have to do now is decide on locations and add a few more areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nephenee13 Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 The CS is entirely capable of editing ESMs, you just need to get Construction Set Extender. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordEmm Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 Or turn the esm to an esp beforehand (then you do not need the CSE)... Also combining, while easy when you know what you do, is MUCH trickier than it would first appear. Unless you know what you are doing refrain from combining anything that has dialogue or animations. Simple Weapon, Armor, Potions, etc or NPC mods should be fine. For anything that edits cells or worldspaces, make yourself familiar with that first. For Leveled Lists or magic effects the same. Familiarize yourself with Tes4Edit and Gecko, the CS screws up a LOT when combining mods.Trust me, it took me about 4 years (and Fallout) to completely get comfortable on how to combine mods.... Always make backups too before you edit anything! These days i am combining most of my mods into a dozen or so übermods ;) Keeps the directory clean :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfh85 Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 I had a major issue with converting esn's to esp's and back. It changed the editor Id of (I assume) every new item I'd added. I wasted a lot of time placing statics just for them to be replaced with something else... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordEmm Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 (edited) cfh85, that should not happen. editor IDs are not touched in the conversion of esp to esm and back, all that is done is a change of the file identifier (so Oblivion knows it is a master or plugin file). No changes are done to the records. Did you use Wrye or Gecko to change it from master to plugin? Also i think you meant FormID, as EditorID does not matter for statics really (unless you use them in scripts and call them by EditorID instead of FormID) unless you gave them the same name as another EditorID, then the CS in fact changes the name to "*originalname*copy". Edited August 15, 2012 by LordEmm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfh85 Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 I may have used gecko or TES4edit. To be honest I didn't investigate the problem, I just accepted it and moved on which is now an issue as I want to use a esm, but I'm worried I wont be able to edit it later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordEmm Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 As i said it is very easy to so. In Wrye you just tell it to esmify, or espify. Simple. In Gecko i think the same. I do not think Tes4Edit has the option to make an esm out of an esp (you can add masters to the esp, but that is obviously not the same). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrakeTheDragon Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 You cannot use FormIDs (the hexadecimal numbers) to reference records from another plugin or masterfile. The 1st two digits represent its place in load order and this isn't actually the same when opening it in the CS. One change in load order, or a difference between your's and someone else's and your plugin will not work for someone else. I used the ESMify feature of Wrye Bash to turn my dragon race plugin into a masterfile, so I could use my races in a companion mod, turning Viconia de'Vir into a female dragon. I can now change my dragon race plugin however I please and will not have to update Viconia de'Vir's plugin every time or anything... unless I change the EditorID of the race or some of the assets I made Viconia use, of course. Nothing inside the plugin is changed during the process of ESMify'ing nor changes anything inside Viconia de'Vir's plugin by parenting it to my race mod. I only have to keep in mind to ESMify my dragon race plugin every time before I open Viconia's plugin again and always ESPify it back afterwards before I start the game again. Keep in mind you can only modify the assets of the "active" plugin. Any attempt to touch the records of one of the masterfiles will create a copy of them inside the active plugin and not touch the masterfile at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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