Packing Mods for 2021 Skyrim LE?

[Gorgopis]

Please, we're seeking clarification about best-practices for packing mods for 2021 publication.

1. Our custom NPC only has unique texture and mesh files, along with a unique tintmask. All of its other assets are vanilla game assets. We think we're just a step or two away from publishing. Should we be using Archive.exe to pack mods, instead of extracting via CK? We found a detailed tutorial using Archive.exe, but didn't quite understand the part about "collecting all the assets", and then later "deleting all the assets". (Hope we read that right on the tut.)

2. We'd like to "isolate" an NPC from a big personal Mod we made, wherein we built 12 new NPC's' We would now like to publish just one of the twelve NPC's as a custom-follower mod. We currently plan to set our personal mod as a master, and then simply duplicate/rename our special NPC. Is that right?

Is there a simpler way to export the one NPC (and assets) from our mod, and import it to CK, without needing to set up our bigger mod as a master?

Otherwise, our plan is to set up our personal bigger mod as the master, and then remove our mod as a dependency later, through CK and TESV?

Any tips here would be invaluable.

Thanks!

Edited February 22, 2021 by Gorgopis

[Gorgopis]

We bumped a more precise version of this question over to the CK and Mod Forum pages.

 

Thanks.