Someone please spoonfeed me on this

[fcae]

I'm currently using a lot of mods and from what I've read, merging my mods would make my game more consistent. How do merged mods even work exactly? I used FNVedit to create a merged patch for project nevada (it's a lot of compatibility patches) and I got a single ESP file that required a lot of masters (and I mean a lot, like more than half of my mods). Did I misunderstand it? I thought it just combined a lot of mods into one file. Or am I not supposed to do that in FNVedit?

[dubiousintent]

This is an area where a lot of the terms are similar and it is easy to get confused. You have "merge patches", "merge files", and "merged plugins"; and while they are somewhat similar they are also significantly different in result.

 

* "Merge Patches" are reconciling record level conflicts between different plugins (often called "mods", but the problem can occur with different optional files from the same mod). These give you consistent preferred "finer grain" results than where the "Rule of One" gives you grosser results based upon "this mod wins over that mod"; by producing a "new plugin". (This sounds like what you have now. And yes it will have every preceding plugin that has a record level conflict as a "master". But that is okay and on purpose.)

 

* "Merge Files" are combining multiple optional files for a given mod into a single combination file. These are usually composed of "compatibility patches" so one mod works with a mod from a different author.

 

* "Merged Plugins" are combining multiple "non-conflicting" plugins into one file for the purpose of reducing the number of active plugins in your "load order".

 

Please see the wiki "Merged Plugin Guidelines for Personal Use" article which discusses this in more detail (including "masters" and what they mean). Then see the wiki article "Compatibility Patching" for that basic process. There is also the "Multiple file Merge-Up Procedure" article for a more complex example of "merging files".

-Dubious-