New to resolving conflicts

[EldritchEquations]

The problem: CTDs in and around Diamond City
Programs: NMM, LOOT, WyreBash, FO4Edit

I have a hefty load order, which I'll be posting below. As early as May of this year, I had a working load-out, with these specific mods plus a few more, and a slew of Sim Settlements mods. No problems, really... but I had a lot of time this year so I decided I'd try to step up my modding skills, since I do like playing with a lot of mods.

And I can't even reliably recreate what I had before. I'm at my wit's end, I feel like I'm obviously doing something wrong, so here I am for help.

Here's what I've done, just to give an idea where I've been:

1. Clean install of FO4. Made a character, saved. Everything worked fine. Then the essentials: NMM, LOOT, WyreBash, FO4Edit, all good.
2. Cleaned vanilla files one at a time using QAC in FO4Edit as per following GamerPoets' videos. Made sure they were in the right order.
3. Installed F4SE. Loaded game to be certain it was working. OK.

4. Duplicated Clean profile to make a "Modded" profile in NMM.
5. Install 5 mods at a time.

6. Sort with LOOT. Clean whatever LOOT says to clean in FO4Edit, one at a time. Resort.
7. Open WyreBash, look for Orange or Red entries. No Red, some Orange. Show Masters. Make sure Masters are in the right order.
7a. Barring that, move the mods around until they're green.
7b. Barring that, open mod one at a time in FO4Edit, resort masters.
8. When all is green, rebuild Bashed Patch.
9. Load game and play around in world a bit to make sure mods are all loading correctly. Restart with 5 more mods at Step 5.
10. Hit Diamond City mods... Subways of the Commonwealth, Diamond City Expansion, Diamond City Outskirts, Diamond City Defenses, and Home Plate Workshop Settlement... instant CTD in and around DC and Concord.
11. I tried moving SoTC and DCE all over the place and then load the game, but coming anywhere near or in the areas either touched caused CTD.
12. I reinstalled both just to make sure it wasn't a bad install. Still no go.

13. I removed SoTC and went back to a save before I installed the 5. This got rid of various crashing in the worldspace outside of the stations, but Diamond City was still crashing.
14. I removed DCE again using a save before the group was installed. I fast traveled to DC, no crash. I went in, fiddled about a bit, exited from the front entrance, crash. When I reloaded, it let me leave, re-enter, save in the Dugout Inn, reload, fast travel to Sanctuary, and fast travel back to DC and go inside.

 

Now... I COULD just be happy with with that. The obvious answer seems to be DCE... but it's worked in the past. So has SoTC, and most of the time the mod is not at fault, the user is. I figured I've been watching a ton of videos and reading a ton of material, so maybe 'Apply Filter for Conflicts' in FO4Edit would help me. Holy cow, So. Much. Red!

It seems easier to just take DCE off of my game, but then again, I already chopped SoTC off. I see red and orange with a bunch of mods that I thought were fine. I feel like this is going to keep happening until my game is unplayable.

I read/watched some tutorials that said some conflicts shouldn't be touched, but not much explanation on how to tell the difference. I've watched some videos on example conflicts being resolved, but they were fairly simple Armor mod vs Armor mod entries, and there seem to be a LOT more entries with errors for worldspace-changing mods. I honestly don't even know where to start, even after having read through a good portion of the xEdit articles several times. I tried searching for more videos, but I don't know what exactly I'm trying to do. It's a bit difficult when you're not certain you're asking the right question, to get the correct response you need for your specific problem.

This is the second time this year I've gone back to square one and had something catastrophic go wrong in building my modded game, that I feel beyond my knowledge to resolve. I want to get better at this, because it's something I love, but I'm feeling like the more I learn, the worst my loadouts get. Any help would be greatly appreciated.