MCorolla Posted January 2, 2014 Share Posted January 2, 2014 I am having difficulty dealing with BSAs while merging mods? For example, I have a mod called Moss Rocks, the BSA file of which is 14.8MiB, but even with the many other mods I attempted to merge the resulting merged mod is only 4.29MiB. I've read pages of this forum and I can clearly see that there is something I have to do about the fact that these files are BSAs, but I don't understand the solution. If anyone could explain to me, or direct towards a solution it would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matortheeternal Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 (edited) I'm very confused about one thing. The entire point of merging mods is to reduce the number of esps loaded. This means you wouldn't need the esps you merged anymore, only the merged patch. Correct? But by copying as override, no new records are actually created in the new file. They all just link back to the original files, and loading without them should crash it. Does removing the masters somehow force the plugin to recreate those records for itself? I must be misunderstanding something. Edit: seems to be working fine, though I don't quite understand why. The only issue I'm having now is that I am getting conflicts with Dawnguard. I'm trying to merge the main version of my player home with it's Dawnguard addon (for some reason, having them seperate does not work well - the CK is removing the main esp from the addon's master files all the time). Now the merged version has Dawnguard as a master file obviously, but the world edits were done without it installed. TES5Edit lists the following conflicts: - In Woldspace "Tamriel [0000003C]" the entry for "MHDT - Max Height Data" is empty in my merged file, but Dawnguard has a huge string of numbers there. I tried copying the value but only get the first line or so (clipbiard can't handle it?)- The Cell "<Persisten Worldspace Cell> [00000D74]" has some region entries that my file does not. How bad are these conflicts? I'm guessing any mod created without Dawnguard that does world edits would have these, so I'm wondering if I should even try to fix them. If I should, what can I do about the MHDT entry? Deep copy as override in TES5Edit and then removing master association will allow the associated records to become independent records in the new file without breaking their FormID associations. Don't question what works, just know that it does work. You don't seriously think that everyone on the last 20+ pages of this thread and everyone who has downloaded my Merge Plugins script is part of an elaborate conspiracy, do you? Because if you do think that - god have mercy on your mind. And if you don't then don't question it... seriously. I don't know about specific error issues, though I do know that merging player home mods, especially ones with cells, is a very precarious thing to do. In other words: it almost NEVER works. Test it out ingame. If it's non-functional I can't help you. I'd also recommend merging with the latest version of my Merge Plugins script. I am having difficulty dealing with BSAs while merging mods? For example, I have a mod called Moss Rocks, the BSA file of which is 14.8MiB, but even with the many other mods I attempted to merge the resulting merged mod is only 4.29MiB. I've read pages of this forum and I can clearly see that there is something I have to do about the fact that these files are BSAs, but I don't understand the solution. If anyone could explain to me, or direct towards a solution it would be greatly appreciated. Merging only involves the merging of esp files (or esms, but preferably just esps). The BSAs need to be extracted so the assets are available to the new merged esp file. You can then create a single BSA file housing all the assets afterwards if you so wish, but you should start by getting the merged plugin working without the BSAs. Edited January 3, 2014 by matortheeternal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soupdragon1234 Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 (edited) Thought I'd share my experience with merging a couple of mods I created, its been quite a ride... The first post really needs to point out that it really only works for texture mods and the like, anything with scripts is probably going to fail (navmeshed items too). Tryed merging two mods using the guide, one had scripts in it (didn't know about the limitation at the time) and while everything seemed ok (no errors reported by TES5edit) when loaded into CK all kinds of errors showed up, oh dear... to cut a long story short I merged the simple mod (static objects, no scripts) INTO the scripted mod but NOT renumbering the scripted mod, just deep copied it into, took a couple of attempts before TES5edit would accept it but finally got it in there making sure there were no conflicts. loaded merged mod into CK and no errors this time, at least none that weren't there before. Checked scripts in CK, all a-ok. Game loads ok, no CTD's. Phew. Keeping the originals for a while, just in case... Edited January 11, 2014 by soupdragon1234 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkarhon Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Oh i have been waiting for this ! finaly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spadesage Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 I have absolutely no idea if anyone actively answers questions here anymore, but as this particular topic is exactly what my question is about.... STRINGS. What do I do about Strings? I know that TESVEdit can save over/ overwrite (or whatever it does when it saves) them, but is it safe to merge a mod that uses Strings? Since Strings usually need to be kept even after removing a mod to avoid crashes (unless deleting all saved games and starting anew), I'm -very- hesitant to do anything with them. For example, a mod I use that contains Strings files has several .esp files (one per item category-- said mod changes the weight values for all items, so it sorta makes sense that they're broken into groups). I -think- that based on the name of the String that it's solely for the weapons, but that's not overly relevant to my overall question I guess. Anyway, what I really want to know is whether or not it's safe to merge a mod that utilizes Strings files. I already found out the hard way that trying to change the weight values in Requiem (which utilizes a massive amount of Scripting) results in Skyrim-instant-death-syndrome (aka crash-upon-startup-syndrome). Loading the weight stuff before Requiem causes almost every item to lose the Item Weight Overhaul values, and loading it after Requiem messes up some of Requiem's changes (oddly enough, not the armor ratings or damage ratios-- the biggest offender is potions reverting to vanilla effects), so I was hoping there might be a safe way to do this. Because the realism value with both of these is phenomenal. ....Yeah, I know most people could probably just do a merger that uses Requiem/ the Item Weight Overhaul .esp's as masters, and I've tried that: it doesn't work out very well (yes, I did select only the item groups and went through each and every item record by hand to combine the values properly- it crashes every time). And I can't use the Creation Kit for anything; ever since having to re-install Skyrim (apparently everything got corrupted after I edited Requiem's .esp, as Skyrim crashed even with no mods selected to run-- I really do think it was the Strings from the item adjustments) and the Kit itself (for good measure), it can no longer handle even a single .esp file, let alone multiple master loads. :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tulsa299 Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aminebenhouria Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 hey thx for ur toturial bro but after i do these steps do i deactvate the files i combined and leave the new one? from data selection in the launcher or keep them all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roninthecow Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Would like to know if its possible somehow to make the merged mod to become a master file to some different esps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dahveed Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 (edited) *SOLVED* - Thank you Matortheeternal, I did indeed have to extract the .bsa files. Not sure how I missed your post before, eyes are getting tired I guess... Thanks for the tutorial, it seemed to work, HOWEVER... I used this to merge about 20 different armour mods, some of which were already collections. A lot of it worked, but some of the armour would occasionally be invisible in-game... It's as though the game is unable to find the texture files for these armours.' I followed everything carefully, VERY carefully, step-by-step, no wanting to mess everything up. Renamed IDs etc. Has anyone else encountered this issue? Edited March 15, 2014 by Dahveed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NWelf Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 You could try re-installing the textures for the invisible armors back into the data/texture folder and see if that fixes the invisible armor problem. Could be that the merge may have messed up the textures somehow, or the texture may have gotten overwritten, especially if you have 2 armors that use the same mesh as a base. It may have deleted one of the textures, seeing it like a duplicate to that mesh. Or possibly, now that I think about it, if 2 armors use the same mesh as a base, it may have merged the meshes?? But I am by far no expert, but that would be my best guess. Hopefully someone here with more knowledge will have a better answer for you. But I figured I would throw the idea out there anyway. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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