How To Merge Multiple Mods with Multiple Master Files

[shodan0609]

Thanks for the reply Draco! Decided I'm going to wait on trying to merge them until I have a better understanding of what I'm actually doing, since not confident at all that i'm doing it right lol

[ChristopherC71]

Sharlikran did a YouTube back in Jan 2013 with TESVSnip. Later we had the new version of TES5edit which is used in these screen shots. I have been playing around with the idea of merging many of my armor mods. The ones I have selected contain no scripts that I am aware of... They do sometimes have quests, perks, npcs, and the occasional level list.

 

Early attempts have failed due to the duplicate ID issues even when creating a new Patch file. I am having difficulty determining to what extent TES5edit can create new Form ID's? Does is update a quest that ref. a specific Form ID? It would be good to have some warnings about what is realistically merge-able? Where are we biting off more then we can chew?

[Sharlikran]

FormIDs can be changed, when you do then references will be updated. I don't use all the functions but there is an option from the context menu, and then there are pre generated Script files that should help. Try those for mass changing FormIDs.

[Mookeylama]

this method has really been a big help! i felt so confident after this that i made my 1st Bashed patch. I had also read that an overall "create merged patch" from TES5EDIT would supplement a bashed patch, so i made it 1st before bashed. the bashed patch works fine, but the all encompassing EDIT patch does not!

 

i loaded up all mods, right clicked, and did "create merged patch". had immediate crashes starting the game. tried again, and noticed EDIT throwing up errors about a few old mods. facelift type mods that i'm guessing were made w/ TESSnip or npc editor. started over but this time unchecked all those that showed errors. no errors showed so made the patch. crashed a lot less but still more than before.

\what could i be doing wrong with this overall patch? things i think may be messing it up...

 

 

1. there were 3 mods that were merged during Bashed and so were disabled (they're still in the load tho), but when i had made the Edit patch, they were still enabled. should i remake the Edit patch but not included those 3?

2. two mods (armors) that i had manually merged using the very methods described in this thread, were also enabled and included in the "create merged" EDIT patch. should those be excluded?

 

3. should i just forget about the EDIT overall patch lol?

 

as always, advice greatly appreciated!

[ChristopherC71]

How many Mods were you trying to merge? :geek: I tried the method of "Go Big or Go home..." TESVedit sent me packing for my ignorance. So i am starting small with uncomplicated mods. Armor & Weapon Mods and I mean start small.

 

1st pass was to open Mods version 0.94 and load up individually and save in 1.70 format. I found various errors in my mods and I cleaned up some dirty edits. Now I have a good base to work from and I will get back with my success or failure. I think I will start small with TESsnip and then try TESVedit to see how that works. My bane was DuplicateID even with a new Mod.

 

Just an FYI, on Bashed Patches. I run them LAST (unless using a skyproc patch) and rebuild them often. Bashed is good for merging your leveled lists and other issues. Still pretty basic is Skyrim vs other games but very useful. Even when I was making a Merged Patch I took out the leveled lists and placed my rebuilt Bashed Patch after.

 

Modding your games is not for the faint of heart. I spend a lot more time modding then I do playing. How sad is that :huh: But it's fun!

[renjer]

I was not able to remove masters from my new merged file because for some reason, the headers do not load at all! What should I do in this case?

[infernalmachine007]

Thank you so much for this howto. I searched all over to find exactly this information, and most of what I found confused me even more.

But of course, there are always exceptions to every rule (in this case renumbering form IDs), and, lucky me, I ran into one on my first try. The mod UndergroundBathhouse comes with an optional download to separate the bathhouse into (up to 9) unique cells. It produces 8 .esp files to override the main esm, and you can activate as many of them as you wish.

I tried to merge all 8 of these (since I use all 8 of them) into a new plugin, using the exact instructions in OP and of course I got a CTD. In this case, the form IDs are meant to remain the same. But when I went back, and did the deep-copying without any renumbering, it worked as expected.

Anyway, thanks again for the explanation. It was so clear that even when I failed the first time, it wasn't too hard to figure out why and try a different approach.

Edited March 25, 2013 by infernalmachine007

[Ablaze666]

Fortunately I discovered this thread. :smile:

MTichenor, your tutorial is awesome explained, it was a success at my first attempt. Tested it with Personalised Music, merged 9 esp files into 1, worked with zero problems. I wanted a way to merge plugins so badly since I started modding in Skyrim. Playing with the CK is much easier now.

 

Thanks a lot and high five, dude ;D

 

http://www.owned.lv/images/x3x9b19f055b0e554ab51750a481c55ef2f.jpg?iact=hc&vpx=454&vpy=387&dur=3845&hovh=191&hovw=264&tx=196&ty=96&ei=bDBQUfK8BovltQalpIHwCQ&page=2&tbnh=123&tbnw=153&start=34&ndsp=43&ved=1t:429,r:46,s:0,i:240

[MTichenor]

I was not able to remove masters from my new merged file because for some reason, the headers do not load at all! What should I do in this case?

 

 

Huh. I'm not sure what you mean by the headers not loading...If something doesn't load in TES5Edit, that's usually indicative of a corrupted .esp file.

[sylvju48]

So by creating a merged esp, would it remove the dependency of these mods being in my load order? Thus, if for example i wanted to re release multiple mods into one pack (which I am attempting) I could post this on the nexus, and the file that would be downloaded by the users would be all of the mods merged?