Merging Mods

[BunnyZiebowicz]

 

Yeah I've seen some of those ESL flagged ESP mods, however I'm a little confuse with them. When I activate such in mod in MO2, they still appear to count toward the mod limit in the far right pane showing the load order. The mod index is clearly different (FE:###), but I don't understand why the number of active mod still goes up.

 

I don't use MO 2, so I can't give you a definitive answer. My guess is that MO 2 doesn't make a difference between esl/ESPFE plugins an others. And of course anything with an esl flag is still an "active mod". So probably you're just seeing a general mod counter.

 

 

My apologies for a late response ... and you are correct on the count of total active plugins will keep going up. The part to watch for are the 'non-FE:###' in the far right 'Mod Index'. Those are the plugins which count against your limit. The 'esl/espFE' are all put under the hexadecimal 'FE' slot (the 254th), so you can use all the others from 00(Skyrim.esm) all the way up to the FD slot (the 253rd), usuallyl filled by your Bash/Smash/Merged/ENB/LOD 'last to load' plugins.

 

For me, the nice use of MO2 is being able to click on the Mod Index header to sort by and quickly seeing my hexi/slot used plugins at the top and all the FE ('can cram 1000+ plugins, so we treat them like they don't really count against our limit') in order below them. My current profile play-thru I'm cleaning up and prepping, is sitting at 928 Active Mods (left pane) with those providing 973 total Plugins (right pane). Of the 973 total plugins, only 249 are 'full or used against the limit' with the rest being in the FE slot (.esl or esp-lite/espFE).

 

Hoping I didn't muddy things up with my two septims worth of an add-on!

[VulcanTourist]

Word of warning: Don't compact the form IDs of plugins you already have in your load order.

Practically speaking, they have to be installed and "in your load order" before tools like SSEEdit can even see them. Yes, I know that I can just manually extract and drop some ESP file into Data and SSEEdit will then see it, but I have no audit trail at all for that process. Actually installing it (in Vortex) gives me that audit trail.

 

I don't see how this process is harmful unless that load order is actively being relied upon in an existing saved game. Is that what you meant to imply?

[Algabar]

 

Word of warning: Don't compact the form IDs of plugins you already have in your load order.

Practically speaking, they have to be installed and "in your load order" before tools like SSEEdit can even see them. Yes, I know that I can just manually extract and drop some ESP file into Data and SSEEdit will then see it, but I have no audit trail at all for that process. Actually installing it (in Vortex) gives me that audit trail.

 

I don't see how this process is harmful unless that load order is actively being relied upon in an existing saved game. Is that what you meant to imply?

 

The process isn't "harmful" in a strict sense. When you compact form IDs and then turn the plugin into an .esl or "ESPFE" file, the plugin will technically work fine. Problem is: Compating form IDs changes said form IDs. And this can be bad in an already existing game. Items you already acquired are gone, because the save game contains the "old" form ID, which doesn't exist any more (or belongs to a totally different object).

 

In fact, in my personal load order (400+ plugins and counting....) there are many files I turned into ESPFEs after I compacted the form IDs. Not a problem for me, since I already start my playthroughs with these changed files. My older savegames however aren't fully functional any more...

[VulcanTourist]

 

 

Word of warning: Don't compact the form IDs of plugins you already have in your load order.

Practically speaking, they have to be installed and "in your load order" before tools like SSEEdit can even see them. Yes, I know that I can just manually extract and drop some ESP file into Data and SSEEdit will then see it, but I have no audit trail at all for that process. Actually installing it (in Vortex) gives me that audit trail.

 

I don't see how this process is harmful unless that load order is actively being relied upon in an existing saved game. Is that what you meant to imply?

 

The process isn't "harmful" in a strict sense. When you compact form IDs and then turn the plugin into an .esl or "ESPFE" file, the plugin will technically work fine. Problem is: Compating form IDs changes said form IDs. And this can be bad in an already existing game. Items you already acquired are gone, because the save game contains the "old" form ID, which doesn't exist any more (or belongs to a totally different object).

 

In fact, in my personal load order (400+ plugins and counting....) there are many files I turned into ESPFEs after I compacted the form IDs. Not a problem for me, since I already start my playthroughs with these changed files. My older savegames however aren't fully functional any more...

 

Have I read elsewhere that compacting FormIDs is potentially harmful if other plugins are dependent upon the existing ones? If so, can that be avoided or resolved to allow it to be done?

 

[primem0ver]

Have I read elsewhere that compacting FormIDs is potentially harmful if other plugins are dependent upon the existing ones? If so, can that be avoided or resolved to allow it to be done?

Hmm... the quick answer to this is "it is possible". However there isn't currently a utility to do this kind of thing so currently it cannot be done. I may decide to add that functionality to the utility I am currently working on since it already keeps track of everything necessary to do such transformation.

[VulcanTourist]

 

Have I read elsewhere that compacting FormIDs is potentially harmful if other plugins are dependent upon the existing ones? If so, can that be avoided or resolved to allow it to be done?

 

Hmm... the quick answer to this is "it is possible". However there isn't currently a utility to do this kind of thing so currently it cannot be done. I may decide to add that functionality to the utility I am currently working on since it already keeps track of everything necessary to do such transformation.

I replied to your thread in General Mod Author DIscussion. I thought that I had read recently that SSEEdit might actually be avoiding this complication, so long as you make the effort to load ALL your plugins prior to the compaction so that it can check the other plugins that are present. That of course doesn't eliminate all potential, since there might be other mods you don't have that are reliant upon what you intend to compact. Assuming your mod list is complete and stable, that risk would be minimal.

 

So I wonder if SSEEdit actually does this or if I misunderstood something I read?