[LE] NOOB Separating Dependencies?

[Gorgopis]

We have made a personal custom mod, called, let's say, "ManyNewNPC's.esm." We enjoy this mod in our playthroughs.

 

In that mod are a lot of edited vanilla SR LE characters, along with 30 custom-NPC's.

 

One of those custom NPC's, named "Vital," let's say, turned out very aesthetically pleasing. And we would like to publish the NPC as a standalone mod.

 

How can we duplicate that NPC and separate its dependency on our larger personal mod? We don't want to publish the big one.

 

We see the process as follows:

 

In CK, we set our larger mod as one of the Masters, start a new mod and name it; then, we duplicate the "Vital" character, rename it, Then we create/duplicate all the necessary folders and files.

 

Once done, we save.

 

We start up the CK, load as before, and now use the "delete" masters "method" to delete "ManyNewNPC's.esp. as a recognized master?

 

We also open TES5Edit to clean our file and remove the dependency on the bigger mod?

 

Does that look right?

 

Thank you in advance!

[ReDragon2013]

Keep the mod file (you wrote: "ManyNewNPC's.esm") with vanilla NPC edits and 30 added custom NPC

1) make a copy of your mod, named as "OnlyNew30NPC.esm"
2) open TES5Edit, click right mouse button and remove all loaded mods
3) load only this esm with related vanilla master files and addons
4) remove any vanilla NPC edit inside your mod
5) close TES5Edit and save your work

6) the stupid part: some textures, meshes and bodyparts are saved in subfolders (1)
which have the name like your original mod,
you have to create new subfolders with the name of your new mod and
copy all files inside the subfolders (1) to subfolders (2)

use the windows explorer for this part

7) open CK for Skyrim 32-bit and finish your work, look for all good and save the mod file

8 ) check again with TES5Edit for dirty edits in your new mod file ("OnlyNew30NPC.esm")

9) open CK again and create a BSA archive to make clean mod installation

10) now rename any subfolder dependency like subfolder (2) by adding a number
as follow: the subfolder is named as "OnlyNew30NPC" rename it to "OnlyNew30NPC.0"

11) now run Skyrim and load only the mod "OnlyNew30NPC.esm", not your mod "ManyNewNPC's.esm"
check is all working good

12) if yes publish your mod

 

Good luck..

Edited March 5, 2021 by ReDragon2013

[Gorgopis]

Thank you!

 

Lots of "work" for us to do, but thanks for your "work" in your post, too!

[Gorgopis]

Progress Report for @ReDragon2013.

 

We opened our ManyNewNPC's.esm in the CK and hit save to start a new mod and named it.

 

We duplicated our one NPC (Sara.esp) we liked from our master and added all the dedicated character/texture/meshes/FaceGen folders and paths.

 

We saved and closed. Then we restarted the CK.

 

This time, in CK, we checked our Sara.esp as the active file, and the only dependencies that popped up were our base game.

 

Our ManyNewNPC's.esm did not (seem to) need checking as a dependency, and did not "auto-check" as a master.

 

We're wondering if this is because our ManyNewNPC's.esm is really just an overwrite of the vanilla Skyrim.esm?

 

We were able to continue work on our "isolated" NPC-duplicate in the CK.

 

We have not placed the NPC yet in the Skyrim world, yet, nor tested the NPC in game.

 

But we thought you would find this progress, so far, interesting?