xedit, zedit, motar, merge plugins OH MY...

[Guest deleted95234838]

For a few days now I have been building up mods so I can play through Skyrim again. I have 298 of essential mods. I've been testing things in COC QAsmoke and I got everything the way I like it.

Now I've hit the wall of trying to figure how to bypass 255 plugin limit. On top of all that I don't even know which tool I should be using anymore. I am accustomed to xEdit, Wrye Bash, NNM and LOOT. Seeing NNM has been retired I have been using Vortex. I refuse to use MO2 cause it looks too confusing.

I've looked at videos and read a lot in how to bypass 255 plugins but I am still unsure how to approach this problem. The dates for all the information I've been going through is dated and has left me hesitant.

So my questions are;

1. Which tools should I being using so I can start playing already?

2. Which videos/information is still relevant for bypassing 255 plugins today?

3. Do .esl's need to be loaded into xedit when making a merge file?

4. How do I figure out which mods should I be making a merge patch for?



Thank you in advance.

[anjenthedog]

For #2... One thing you can do is (if using Vortex anyway) open the plugins tab, then isolate those plugins that can be made "light". Make them light, and voila, you've cleared 40 or 50 or more plugins from your load order limit Look for hollow leaf shapes in the "Flags" column towards the right side. I f there's a leaf shape and it's not solid colored, it can be made light. I did 50 or 60 of them so far, but I see I still have some to go.

 

 

 

FWIW, making a plugin light means that it's taken out of the basic load order set (0-255) and loaded into a secondary address space, reducing the number of plugins contributing to the load order length. I don't know the right terminology, but I think that outlines it roughly anyway.

 

I can't really say for the other 3 questions (although #1 *might be resolved if #2 is)

[Algabar]

As anje said. Convert plugins that can be made "light". Probably the best way to do that is to simply add an "ESL" flag in XEdit. Do NOT "compact form IDs" and do NOT change the plugin's extension to .esl! Both would mean that you loose items added by the converted mods in your current game.

 

Here's a guide on how to convert plugins to "light":

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21618

 

On a side note: DON'T try to merge anything. "MergePlugins", the program you would use for this purpose, is unfortunately very outdated. It works quite well for "Oldrim", results for SE (and also Fallout 4) can be quite "unexpected".... Besides that, merges are "static" once you made them. This means you practically can't update mods contained in merges any more. And there's also the risk of breaking dependencies if you're not exactly sure what you're doing with a merge.

 

TLDR: Make light plugins, not merges. :ermm: