Merging Plugins + Merged Patch: what order do I do things?

[CrabTasterMan]

Merging Plugins + Merged Patch: what order do I do things?

I'm confused as to in what order I should do modding. Here is what I've been doing.

1. 
   
2. I merged .ESPs with Mator's Merge Plugins tool. I only merge ESPs that are next to each other in a continuously fashion in the load order, and make sure the resulting Merged Plugin ESP is listed as completely green.
   
3. I fix Navmesh errors for the freshly made merged plugins by opening it in FNVedit and deleting the wrong Navmesh info, then I save them in GECK v1.5 to rebuild Navmesh.
   
4. I then make a Merged Patch (automatically) in FNVEdit of course.
   
5. Then I try to make manual changes to the records in the Merged Patch.
   
6. I remove any unused ESP files in the Data folder.
   
7. I go to FOMM and make all the mods and my new Merged Patch appear in the right order, then I run FNVMasterUpdate, close FOMM, and check everything is in the right order AND ESMified.
   

Is this the right sequence of actions I must do?

Do I make the record changes first, then make a merged patch?

Also, do I have to worry about merging ESPs with BSAs associated with them, which I SHOULDN'T be doing? Or if the resulting Merged Plugin ESP file is green in Mator's tool, I don't have to worry about it? Does the Tool automatically detect whether an ESP is free of BSA dependency and mark them with a green checkmark if it has no BSA dependency?

I don't know how to use WryeFlash, and I don't know if I need to. (I hear it only save changes to leveled Lists only, and I still need a Merged Patch anyway. What is a leveled list, even and do I need the one given by a Bashed patch from Wrye Flash?)

[dubiousintent]

Merged Plugins is a way to reduce the number of separate ESP files down to one. However, merely being adjacent to each other is a requirement, but not sufficient in and of itself. Some should not be merged, period. Once the process is finished, the Merged Plugin is treated the same as any other plugin because it is in effect a "new" plugin.

 

Merged Patch is a way to resolve "record level conflicts" so multiple plugins can work together. (MPS does not, and says so in it's docs. "Mator Smash" is a way to resolve "record level conflicts", and can be used to resolve those when combining the more limited number of plugins into a Merged Plugin file. It says it can handle the entire load order, yet I have encountered plugins it does not handle perfectly so I haven't attempted that.) Without it, only the last plugin to touch on ANY record that is shared in common between more than one plugin "wins" and the others are ignored as if they do not exist. So, your Merged Patch file needs to come last of the two. (However, there is a third file that may possibly go after that. That file, "Override.esp" is manually created with xEdit/FNVEdit and is recognized by LOOT and placed correctly; and what I would use to make my "override edits" to the Merge Patch file instead of editing it directly.)

 

Please see the wiki "Merged Plugin Guidelines for Personal Use" article.

 

The "Bashed Patch" generated by Wrye Flash is also a "Merged Patch" file. It does record conflicts resolution as well as handle leveled lists. Do not confuse reports about what the v300 series of Wrye Bash does with what the older Wrye Flash (based upon v298) handles. Bash is catching up to what Flash handles, but the older version still does some things not yet in the newer one. It's more a question of which features do you really need at the moment. (I use both for different purposes.)

 

-Dubious-