Finally had a merger that, although it'll merge just fine, does not work. Mergine Qarl's Harvest and related mods(most come with it) will not work. The meshes will not read at all.

I think I was able to merge the following mods together:

---at priority 1
Lem-Hotkey Cyclers V1 OBSE http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17402
Improved Hotkeys v1.1 OBSE http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18571
Toggleable Quantity Prompt v3.1.1 OBSE http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12859

---at priority 2
P1DMenuEscape 0.7.1 OBSE http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10812
AutoBookPlacer_v3 OBSE http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10561

Everything seems to work. Cool beans.

Wanted to create a mod that handled all the annoying aspects of interacting with NPCs and stuff.

Wandering if PiiP- enhanced grabbing could be merged as well - it has dialogue and a BSA though. Anyone have any suggestions on that?
Maybe even the newly updated keychain mod too?

PetrusOctavanius posted somewhere a long list of mods he had merged - I aspire to that.

If you merge a mod which has a BSA you'll need to do one of three things:
1) Extract the BSA into your Data folder
2) Name the merged ESP to match the name of the ESP which came with the BSA
3) Rename the BSA to be identical to the name you gave the merged ESP



If you merge a mod which has MP3 files for audio dialogue, it MUST be merged at priority 1. This should ensure that the INFO records for the dialogue retain the same Form IDs from the original ESP. You will then need to rename the Data\Sound\Voice\ModName.esp\ folder to match the name you gave the merged ESP. If the merging did change the Form IDs for the INFO records, you will have to either:
1) Open the merged ESP in TES4Edit, open the original ESP in TES4Edit separately, and change the Form IDs for every relevent INFO record in the merged ESP so that they are identical (excluding the first two digits) to the Form IDs for the same records in the original ESP
2)Open the merged ESP in TES4Edit, and match up every single MP3 and LIP file from the Sound\Voice\ModName.esp\ folder with the INFO records in the merged ESP, so that you can rename all the MP3 and LIP files to match the new Form IDs.

There's a chance that TES4Gecko may contain a feature to help with this, but I don't know.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=947548&hl=

I have since added Dungeon Actors Have Torches 1.6 DT.esp and Exterior Actors Have Torches 1.3 DT.esp.
Also, I merged all the Treasure Maps (Nexus is down, so no link) into one, and also most (some have too many landscape conflicts) mods containing one dungeon into one. Merging the two Unique Dungeons mods was a small mistake though, since they are supported by Item Integration.

Oh man, if you made a list of those PLEASE post it , I only use Weapon and Armor mods that make you "work" for the items
instead of walking to the nearest shop and buying it.

Good example is Alex Scorpions Sneaking Gear, he stuck that all the way in the bottom of the Ailyid ruin by the sewer,
that was a pain/fun to get

I keep getting an error when running TES4Gecko, it can't seem to find my oblivion install directory, is there a command line option to manually select it? I'm using windows 7 beta.

Have a couple of questions about mod merging that have seemed elusive to me: priority.

if Mod A affects factor X and Y and is set to priority 1
and Mod B affects factor X and Z is set to priority 2

which one wins the control over factor X? priorit 1 or 2?

Just realized that maybe I don't get that after all.

I Was thinking about attempting to merge some horse mods, so far:
Horse Commands http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=4276 which has Dude Where's My horse http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2269 as a master
(maybe could convert to esm then merge then back to esp then merge with these below ...)
horse sanity http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17329
Horse speed equals player speed http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8805 ... or ...
Mounted combat (3 esp) http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8962

horse speed and mounted combat both affect horse speed, but horse speed only seems to have effect on walking speed.

Looking in T4V none of them seem to have any overlap from my untrained eye - no red except in test world and a script effect under magic effect that conflicts with everything (lots of mods apparently).

Anyone else had success in merging horse mods like those above? While Ulrim's Horses has been great for me - still not that satisfied - seems that this is a very difficult area for modders.

Perhaps just mounted combat+Horse Sanity+Horse commands - that is 5 into 1

Seems pretty straightforward. Priority 1 goes in first. Then P2, P3, etc. All well and good, except for this:



This is why you should avoid at all costs trying to merge mods with conflicting records. Usually because they're both trying to change the same Oblivion.esm formID. You'll only get the record from one of the mod, but the docs don't address what happens when merging more than 2 at once. My assumption is going to have to fall back on rule of one. Last man wins. Although I've had attempted merges with path grid edits simply drop the path grids entirely. So YMMV.

When you set priority, and you only have one #1 mod, that mod won't suffer having its formIDs adjusted. But anything after that will if there would be a collision. Gecko will not tell you it did this either. This is something you have to be mindful of and check very carefully afterward. If the collision takes place with a persistent object you can end up with some very screwed up results. Like flaming braziers showing up in XMarker positions. While amusing, it could also be potentially fatal to your game if a collision changes a script into landscape or something. And if you set everything to the same priority, count on FormID collisions being nasty.

So if I set mod A which affects factor X and Y and is set to priority 1
and Mod B affects factor X and Z is set to priority 2

and don't click 'Delete last master record conflict' box then Mod A will win in the factor X conflict? and if I do click that option then Mod B wins? - is that it?

not that I plan to merge much with conflicts - and say is a good way to look for that to open all mods bein merged in Tes4Veiw and looking for red and other colors of conflict? If it is all white then is it safe to assume they touch very different things? that was the case with the hotkey mods I merged above and that seems to work great.

As for the horseys ...

Just tried converting Dude where is my horse to an esm then merging horse commands with it and then convert the resultant esm back to an esp and like toj many posts above the result was that both the esm and final esp was dependent upon itself. He claimed to figure it out but didn't post how.

thanks Arthmoor

Yes, that's what the docs said

Factor Y and Z are irrelevant. You sure you don't teach 4th graders those evil math word problems?



Yes. Load the group you want to check into t4e. Run the filter like you're going to clean them, but DON'T actually clean them. You'll have all sorts of lovely colors most likely. If you get any records from oblivion.esm in ANY color that more than one ESP wants to change, your merge is doomed from the start.



Try using t4e to remove the circular dependency? Gecko won't let you undo that with its Edit Master function.

Ohh - I should run the filter??? err uhh - need to go back and look at past merges.

OK just did that.

Dude conflicts with Horse Sanity over Magic Effect 0000189A they both want to change from oblivion.esm

Horse commands with Slofs Horse base and DLC horse armor over Tamriel World Space 00000037 cell 00032777 ... is that bad?

Mounted combat mods conflict with many many mods (saw this even before filter of just horse mods) over Worldspace 0002525F testworld cell 0023763

So am I doomed? :nuke:

Maybe if I just merged the Mounted combat+Horse speed equals player speed+Horse sanity - 5 down to 1. Then it would have dude as a master.

anyway it is late = sleep.

that word math was bad? Sheeze look at what you do here - mindblowing.

Not those. The stuff inside either the "persistent" or "temporary" branches. Where landscape, paths, markers, buildings, and all that are placed. That's what Gecko will be dealing with.

So I went back and read over some more then tried the following merges:

first I figured out how to merge 'Horse commands' with its esp master 'Dude, wheres my horse'.
1. Converted 'Dude' to an esm
2. Changed the master for 'Horse Commands' to the esm version of Dude from the esp version (the step I forgot above)
3. Merged 'Horse Commands' to it's master Dude.esm
4. Converted the merged master back to an esp.
that worked.

Then I tried to merge that esp with
Mental elfs Horse Sanity
and the three mods from Mounted Combat: Mounted_Steering, Mounted_Trampling, Mounted_Spellcasting.

the only error that came up was that apparently the three mounted mods above have an identical script regarding running. Gecko asked if I want to rename the scripts to a variation (added a number I think) - that is probably not a good idea right? Saying no to that though results in a failure to merge.

any advice?

What about deleting identical scripts in two of the three prior to merge?

thanks

If the scripts are 100% identical, then I would suggest deleting the script from two of the ESPs, merging them into one ESP, then ensuring that whatever used to reference the deleted script in the two ESPs now references the script in the merged ESP. That should work.

When scripts are identical in names (this works for any EditorID in fact), TES4Gecko just ask you if you want to rename the second one it find. You can safely say yes then remove all the duplicate after by using the display copy option. The duplicate scripts (and quests and whatever) go with X and the end of the name, XX if you have 2 duplicates of the same items and so on.

Thanks to both of you - will try Ismeldas variant first as I did the merge - need to test it more but horse trotting to running isn't happening like it used to when they were separate (I haven't deleted new scripts yet). The horse will run even sprint then stop dead. Don't recall horses having fatigue reserve that gets tapped. Maybe scripts interfering. I dunno gotta go to work now.

thanks

If Gecko is to merge the mods correctly, then it will still leave the recors which reference the duplicate scripts referencing the duplicate scripts. So you'll still need to change whatever references the script to reference the one not renamed. If Gecko does this automatically, then it hasn't merged the ESPs together correctly.

I've had problems with fatigue myself. I don't like the horses as I like to go on foot and fight in the wilderness, but perhaps the horse fatigue is coming from Oscuros Oblivion Overhaul. my blunt attacks drain fatigue FAST due to OOO. The sad thing is I haven't found a fix tweak mod for this.

Although horses aren't my forte, I know there's a mod that makes them 'essential', which means they'll never be killed...let me see if I can find it...Geez, nexus is down.

It's called zom813_your_unkillable_horses_1.0 if that helps

There's also:
Shadows_Horse_Wander_Fix-8659 (No, I didn't make it)

Sorry I've been out for weeks. I've a lot of illnesses that flair up from time to time.

I finally resorted to using xp and merged some files, but I can't get better beasts and beautiful people to merge correctly, it gives some java errors and when I activate the mod I get no whiskers or claws, do I need to edit the files before merging?

Hmmm- so apparently Horses do have fatigue - haven't really owned a horse long enough on this current game to know for sure. Past game I had one but that was mostly vanilla and fatigue in Vanilla is well ... non-existent.

the quests that activate the scripts were identical seem to have been merged together. One of the scripts though is slightly different and the linger script was kept as the main script the slightly shorter script was given an x at the end. then the quest was automatically assigned to address the script and it's apparently new ID. So maybe everything is OK after all.

Is there harm in not deleting the extra script with the x at the end if nothing is going to reference it?

Next merge project: Strategy Masters TIE4MODS!

Yes you need to edit the files if the merge fails. Gecko should have given you some clue as to what needs editing, what exactly did the errors say?




If I read you right, then Gecko just FAILED to merge those ESPs together correctly. Whatever quest, INFO, activator, door etc. was triggering the script that had an X added to the end should still be referring to the script with the X on the end. If Gecko has redirected the triggering quest/object/etc. to use the script from the other ESP instead, then it has potentially broken one of the mods, as Gecko has no way to know whether the scripts do the same thing or not. In which case Gecko cannot be relied upon to handle merging of ESPs which contain scripts with identical names, and you should manually rename the scripts in the CS before merging.

Yeah I'm calling that a failure. The horses well gallop for a minute then stop dead and at varying time lengths.

I'll have to come back to it later. I'll look at the scripts again. Compare behavior with unmerged mods again, etc.

thanks

Ok so Figured out the horse merger issue. Horse Trampling already incorporates horse steering. Once I dropped Steering the merger worked great. Cool stuff.

So wanting to go onward with more mergers and try to keep my mergers theme consistent - similar mods that can be stacked/mashed together without conflict.

On the other hand if they do conflict then maybe it is a better idea to merge things that aren't that similar and have more of those so that they can still be separate in load order (Pretty sure I'm not using adequate language here).

One question - I understand that merging quests is not a good idea, but what about dungeons?

Like if I were to attempt merging Vibliribland's dungeons or Edolsian's dungeons/forts or the Unique dungeons mods?

I understand that I'd want to run them through ID to parent filter and look for conflicts in worldspace - and red in other areas too.

Is there anything inherently flawed in that thinking?

thanks

I personally have merged several dungeons, but not those with Worldspace conflicts.
I can fix most conflicts, but real in-game landscape conflicts means using the CS, which I'm not confortable with...

The reason to avoid merging mods which contain quests is because doing so will reset the quests in your game-save. So if you've made progress in the quest, you'll have to start again. Otherwise it should be safe to merge quest mods together.
The same applies to player house mods. If you've moved into a player house and dropped your possessions around and filled the containers, and then you merge the ESP with another ESP, the home interior will be reset and all your possessions will be lost.
And with any weapon/armour/item mod. If you are carrying any item from such a mod, and you merge it in with other ESPs, the items will be removed from your possession and returned to wherever you got them from.

With dungeons, if they contain no quests, then their purpose is for you to explore and clear out the baddies. This would imply that they contain nothing that needs to be stored permanently in your save file (as long as you're not actually IN the dungeon in the save) and therefore it should be perfectly safe to merge such mods.