How to make mods compatible (or how to preemptively try to make mods c

[KHShadowrunner]

I'm sort of confused as to how mods can be compatible, or I suppose it would be better to say how to make mods more compatible. I created a test mod oh say.. a few months ago, to have a little fun. I know for sure that since then (as in yesterday), I downloaded a new mod that most likely modified the same character's text options as my mod would. Which leads me to immediately believe that it is a conflict in mods.

 

Or I could have a defunct mod and I need to restart from scratch. Sucks, but I could deal with that.

 

But it got me thinking. If you modify somewhat of a major file, such as a major character or a major area, how could your mod ever be compatible with some more subtle and less enriching mods.

 

Say I modify Aludin to do some goofy laugh whenever he flies. Because I've done this, does that mean any other file that would touch Aludin would either be incompatible, or would otherwise render mine incompatible?

 

Just curious if I'm understanding how compatibility works...

[gsmanners]

It depends on how you make your mod. If you create an override (typically by directly changing something from the master) then it will conflict with anything else that tries to do that. So, let's say that you change Haelga's outfit. Any other mod that changes her outfit would conflict with yours.

 

On the other hand, if you can cause changes to occur in a dynamic (either with Papyrus or MCM) way, then it more than likely will not conflict. Unless what you're doing causes some logical impossibility, of course.

 

Let's say for example that the USKP moves a few bowls and forks around to better fit the position they have on Alvor's table (which, I understand, it does in fact do). Then say you come along with your mod and disable or delete those bowls and forks. I would have to call that a bit of a conflict, but you see this is a conflict in purpose. Obviously, you wouldn't want your mod to be higher in the load order, or you might crash the engine. That would be the difficulty of doing something like that.

[Dienes]

What you are looking for is the merged patch feature of Tes5Edit. Say one mod changes Alvor's outfit and another changes his hair. Normally the last mod in the load order 'wins' and only its changes will show up. When you make a merged patch it reads each record from each mod and compares them. It will see that mod1 only changes the outfit and mod2 only changes the hair and it will make mod3 with the hair and outfit. Since mod3 is now last it wins and both changes show up in game. Not all records types support automatic merging but many of them do. Basically it makes a custom compatibility patch for all of the mods you use.

 

If you run a decent sized load order you are almost certainly missing out on content if you aren't using a merged patch. My lean mod selection of 70ish esps (picked not to conflict) still has like 200 records that tes5edit was able to merge and make work together.

[ripple]

The algorithm for the TES5Edit merged patch function is not intelligent enough to make selective merges. Instead, it will make 'raw merges' where conflicting records intended to 'replace' are merged instead (as an example, edits to NPC inventory by 'Immersive Weapons' that is intended to 'replace' default weapon assignment will instead be merged via the TES5Edit merged patch). So merged patches need to be manually edited afterwards to correct or remove unnecessary or incorrect merges. Wrye Bash (for Skyrim) 'intelligently' navigates the merging process via assigned bash tags, but covers a smaller range of records than the TES5Edit merged patch. So the best way is to use manually made compatibility patches if you are uploading a mod that you know will conflict with another popular mod. Some conflicts, of course, cannot be merged, because they are actual conflicts (e.g. two mods that assign different hair styles to the same NPC). Edited April 16, 2013 by ripple

[Dienes]

I haven't checked npc inventory but I know for other fields tesedit is smart enough to pick up on intentionally removed entries and carry that change forward even if a later mod uses the vanilla values. Also as far as I can tell wrye bash for skyrim only supports merging leveled lists. Is there a way to make it support anything else?