Potential new utility for merges and large load orders. Anyone interested?

[primem0ver]

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/25093

I must admit, Gnarly1, the point of "The Method" escapes me other than to better track conflicts. Creating mod groups doesn't seem to do anything but hide the intermediate values which seems completely unnecessary for any other reason since ultimately the result is the same... the conflict winner is the chosen value. Is there any other REAL reason to do it besides finding "new" conflicts a new mod adds? My software is MAINLY for creating a load order; not for adding a mod here and there. Doing "The Method" for over 1000 mods seems like MONTHS of work for no functional reason. [EDIT: Unless the reason is to merge patches that overwrite what the other patch does]

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by primem0ver

[bloodstone2008]

I am going to explain a few things first then you can tell me what you may want me to test or look at. First I use Mod organize 2 and have a working understanding of Zmerge. I have 3 merge packs created with this tool. The total build list with the Zmerges active but not enabled is 494 (mod organizer 2 has two selection options) the main window selects the mod and enables the entire mod, however there is a window withthe running esl/esp/esm that can be deactivated for your load order while I may have 494 enabled thats only for 2 of the three build sets the third one is a merged file and all the assets were crammed into the folders under it. Clothes(183 mods), merge set 1(164) and merge set 3(28) are those mods. total mods running in the load order are 237

This build is both playable and stable, it also saves without corruption. That being said there are two more merge batches that for some reason do not work properly, or cause issues. Merge set 2 and 4, are not used for this reason.Most of the time they run, but I get save error corruption and have to exit skyrim and reload the save to get it to run. ( I am running skyrime SE) I have been running this build for about three weeks now. If you want a full build list feel free to message me I can get it together, in a readable format.

Edited July 8, 2021 by bloodstone2008

[primem0ver]

NEWS/UPDATE:

I have been working on this project for almost a year and a half... much longer than anticipated because I wanted to work in a COMPLETE AND FULL FEATURED ESP=>ESP/FE Conversion Utility capable of converting any type of mod that should theoretically be possible. And...I have GREAT news.

 

The utility finally seems to be working correctly and is approaching the point where I can post it for Alpha Testers. I haven't updated myself for several months on conversion efforts and conversion utilities but I believe this utility is the FIRST that is capable of fully converting a voiced follower mod to an ESL/ESPfe. I successfully converted two voiced follower mods with this utility. The character voices work and I am able to interact with them. I will post a video of this success soon. I have also performed several batch conversions and except for an occasional mishaps due to a multi-threading bug which I have yet to track down, those batch conversions have been successful and error free (error checked by SSEEdit).

 

I have not adapted this utility to Vortex since I do not use it. Once I post this utility for alpha testing, that will be the next step. I am probably going to post the code on github so that anyone who knows what they are doing can help develop the Vortex end of things.

Edited July 10, 2021 by primem0ver

[primem0ver]

This build is both playable and stable, it also saves without corruption. That being said there are two more merge batches that for some reason do not work properly, or cause issues. Merge set 2 and 4, are not used for this reason.Most of the time they run, but I get save error corruption and have to exit skyrim and reload the save to get it to run. ( I am running skyrime SE) I have been running this build for about three weeks now. If you want a full build list feel free to message me I can get it together, in a readable format.

 

I am currently finishing up the ESL conversion functionality of the app. I should get to the merge functionality soon. We can compare notes then.

[VulcanTourist]

If you are indeed saying that this tool will be able to ESL-ify the mods that neither I (with SSEEdit) nor Vortex could manage because they required "extra work" of compacting formIDs or somesuch that I didn't know how to do and Vortex couldn't, well then... you will single-handedly be responsible for allowing me to return to modding and playing Skyrim after a long absence because of my shortcomings.

 

If I can be of help testing Vortex integration, perhaps I can contribute something of use. I don't really understand why such integration would be necessary, though; if this tool can ESL-ify a difficult mod, then Vortex will happily deal with the modified plugin, and already has means to mark it as externally changed.

[primem0ver]

If you are indeed saying that this tool will be able to ESL-ify the mods that neither I (with SSEEdit) nor Vortex could manage because they required "extra work" of compacting formIDs or somesuch that I didn't know how to do and Vortex couldn't, well then... you will single-handedly be responsible for allowing me to return to modding and playing Skyrim after a long absence because of my shortcomings.

 

If I can be of help testing Vortex integration, perhaps I can contribute something of use. I don't really understand why such integration would be necessary, though; if this tool can ESL-ify a difficult mod, then Vortex will happily deal with the modified plugin, and already has means to mark it as externally changed.

Yes. This tool *should* be able to ESL ify any mod which is theoretically possible. It might take some debugging/testing but it already does a better job at detecting references to changed Form ID's than SSEEdit (which missed about 100 references on my last comparison test... [uPDATE: Analyzed and found difference. Explained in my next post] This includes voiced mods. The only mods that it will not be able to ESL -ify (when fully functional) are the following (because they are impossible):

• Mods with over 2048 internal forms.
• Mods with internal cells not defined elsewhere
• Mods with scripts that explicitly refer to form ids within the script (this one may yet be possible but I don't currently have the knowledge of Papyrus Scripting to Decompile/Recompile and change form ID's within scripts). Most scripts DO NOT explicitly refer to form ids (as they use aliases defined in the mod instead which my tool can esl-ify).

 

Unlike ANY OTHER TOOL, it also saves a table of ids that were changed so that any mod that that has the esl-ified mod as a master will be able to be modified accordingly. (This functionality has not yet been tested... but should work when I get the bugs out).

Edited July 11, 2021 by primem0ver

[VulcanTourist]

Sounds like you have the process well covered, as well as I've been able to comprehend it. I've been missing my modded Skyrim; I look forward to ESL-ifying about 20 or so more mods than the 280 I have now and enjoying the distraction again.

[primem0ver]

Ok... my mistake. I figured out the discrepancy between reported changes in SSEEdit and my mod. SSEEdit didn't miss anything. They simply used a different re-numbering tactic. My utility gives the user the choice (just like the Merge-Mod utility) to choose to renumber ALL or just renumber those that need to be. My software was at the time set to do the former where SSEEdit seems to be automatically programmed to do the latter. That accounted for the 134 missing changes.

Edited July 11, 2021 by primem0ver

[primem0ver]

Alright... a demo video that includes a demonstration of voiced mod conversion has been posted on here on Youtube. Enjoy!

[KamSolastor]

This looks really interesting - too bad about it not working with NMM though :D I keep hoping Bethesda may in the future remove the darn 256 plugin limit with the switch to x64 now instead of x32... but we'll see.