Plugin Limit? What do I do?

[cbeau]

I've been trying to find some information about merging mods, but it seems every guide I find has a message saying it's outdated. What is the current preferred method of merging mods (assuming we even have to worry about a mod cap anymore)? I'm getting close to 255 active plugins and I really want to try converting some LE mods for personal use. Guidance would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

Edit: Disregard. Finally found zEdit and zMerge.

Edited February 22, 2020 by cbeau

[Indio21]

Just as an FYI, I believe merging plugins is a last resort now a days with the .esl extension available. All the reading I have done says to convert .esp plugins to .esp with a .esl flag until that 4096 .esl plugin limit is reached. They emphasis doing this first as merging plugins can make for problems in certain cases.

 

Also, now that you found xedit lookup how to use it to do the search for plugins that meet the .esl criteria for conversion. Just because your MM shows a plugin count of almost 254 does not mean they are all .esp plugins that count towards the limit. GamerPoets on Utube has a great video on using xedit for conversion to .esl flagged plugins and merging them when and if needed.

 

For clarification sake let me cover when I said "until that 4096 .esl plugin limit is reached." Some .esp plugins are to large for a simple flag conversion. They recommend converting all the .esp plugins that make the criteria xedit recommends to be converted. This opens the playing field tremendously! Mod authors have been using the internal .esl flag for awhile now so probably most of your patches and such are already flagged.

 

As an example my MM shows I have currently 369 active plugins, but I know from doing the search in xedit that more than half of them are flagged .esl internally. For the sake of using even numbers this means I have used about 180 slots out of the 254 .esm/.esp slots and only 180 of the 4096 slots available for the .esl extensions. This means I still have a long ways to go before I will start to consider merging plugins.

 

This flag is created internally so mostly most plugins will not reveal they have it without using xedit.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Indiao21