Compacting Form ID's in Xedit

[majekillusion]

I am running through one of the guides for SkyrimSE and a few of the mods have me compacting the form ID.

 

When I load up the plugin and select compact form ID, I receive a pop-up asking me which mod groups I would like to activate.

 

My question is should I enable all of the mod groups or none of the mod groups and why does it matter?

 

Advice would be most appreciated!

[HadToRegister]

Is it telling you to Compact FormIDs in order to convert to ESL or ESPfe?

If so, I stay away from converting those, and only convert the ESPs that don't require compacting, mainly to avoid the hassle of doing it every time a mod updates, plus, the FormIDs change from update to update, which means your savegame will suffer

[majekillusion]

Its part of the YASH guide which has me converting this: Realistic Horse Breeds by KrittKitty - [1] [ESPLite - C] On the plus side, I have notated, through MO2, every mod that has been ESL'd or ESL'd and compacted. If the mod ever requires updating, I'll just re-install the mod and the update.

 

Thanks

Edited June 29, 2019 by majekillusion

[HadToRegister]

Its part of the YASH guide which has me converting this: Realistic Horse Breeds by KrittKitty - [1] [ESPLite - C]

 

 

Yea, as I thought, it's to convert mods to ESL.

Just remember, when you do that, the records you compact will change if the mod updates, and you compact the records for the updated mod, which in turn, will mess up your save game.

Which is why I only convert the mods that DON'T require the records being compacted.

 

 

 

 

[majekillusion]

Some of the mods in the guide are listed with the ESPLite tag only which is a simple matter of changing the header with no compacting form id requirement. Thank goodness, there are very few mods listed where you need to compact the form id's.

 

Cheers!

[Arthmoor]

Do not compact the form IDs on a mod you didn't write, or on one that's been published already even if you did. The moment this is done the mod is no longer in sync with any patches made against it and will corrupt your saves if you go forward with it anyway. Guides that tell you to do this are wrong, period, and need to be corrected.