awesome thanks!

I ran into problem, when cleaning plugin, which contain extended scripts, I presume this is not possible?
Everything should be fine, program works on other files, but I got messagebox telling: unable to compare data, string out of index etc...
And program went to infinite loop

TES4Gecko problem:

When I try to merge mods I get this message:
Error:
I/O Error
java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\Program Files\bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\Gecko-Oblivion index (Access is denied)

Unlocker said nothing locks the program.
Java is up to date (6.14)
Am on Vista.
There are 2 files named TES4Gecko:
One is executable Jar file. it opens Gecko but not as administrator.
The other is shortcut and it has option to open as administrator but it doesn't open Gecko at all. When I try, I get message: Unable to access jarfile C:\Tmp\TES4Gecko.jar
I think if this can be sorted out, gecko will work fine for me.
Also, Gecko does not create Gecko-Oblivion.index in ...\Oblivion\Data directory.

Any suggestions?

Is it safer to merge with TES4Edit with copy as new in this case? Or has T4E the same problem?

TES4Edit is not really designed for merging mods together, and so doesn't have the same problem, but is a little more fiddly to do. Really it's safer to do as I suggested, rename the script in the CS, then merge with Gecko.

Suggestions:

1. Upgrade to XP
2. If that's not desirable, the second best thing is to reinstall the game somewhere besides the Program Files directory so you take it out of where UAC makes a mess of things.
3. If that's not desirable, disable UAC.

Thank you, Arthmoor. I killed UAC and this did the magic! I merged my mods. 25 of them.
Too much? OK?

Now, what are my next steps?
I suppose:
Step 1: clean ClothesMerged.esp with TES4Edit?
Step 2: disable the original esps? All 25?
Step 3: Activate the new esp, then rebuild Bahsed Patch?

Is this correct?

Thank you!

Obviously wrong because after disabling the esps I merged and activating the merged esp, all things from merged mods were gone... any idea what am doing wrong?

Hi all,

After reading throug most of this topic in detail I have learned a couple of things and successfully merged the files of the "Companion Sound Set" mod, which is great. I would like to try my hand at more, specifically because I have about 200 active mods; but its not so much the 250 load limit that is the reason, but after extensive testing I have noticed that the game gets unstable withh 200+ mods loaded, particularly it crashes when entering interior cells. The frequency of those crashes increases gradually as I add more mods in general.

What I would really like to know is this: does merging mods give a performance and/or stability improvement to the game, or is merging useful solely for the purpose of keeping mods under the 250 limit? You see, I'm not sure if my own game's instability is caused by the mere fact that there are around 200 ESM/ESP files to load, or if it is the sheer volume of data in those mods, irrespective of how many packages that data is bundled into.

Thanks for the help!!

I also manually rename animations' IDs before merging them, and I use TES4Edit to do it. If TES4Edit has a way to rename EditorID, by just changing the suffix or prefix, that would be awesome. I spent hours to combine nine pose mods because five of them used that "ctadd..." naming thing. Those are the only troubles I have run into, but I have not ever merged big quests or Worldspace editing mods. Some of the weapons and items mods have added a miniquest or made a little cell edit somewhere, but I have not run into any trouble with them.

Clean the plugins before you merge them, including wild edits!
- Tomlong75210

It tends to go smoother if you clean the individual mods before merging them because otherwise the merged product contains all the dirty edits along with everything else. But yes, you should be able to clean the merged ESP and remove the junk.

Your next step would be to deactivate all the individual plugins, activate the merged result, rebuild your bashed patch, and re-run tes4lodgen. That last bit probably makes no sense, but since your mod index numbers have changed your LOD won't match up anymore either. As for what happened when you loaded the game and lost all the stuff, that's entirely expected and has been repeatedly warned about throughout this thread that you should not be doing this sort of thing to an existing game unless you're prepared to lose everything from the individual parts on that character.



Well if you want it in mass, it only offers to do that when copying multiple records as either overrides or new records. Otherwise you'll just have to right click the editor IDs and change them individually.

I know. The fact that it has that feature is another reason why I thought about how it would be nice to have the same function that FormIDs have for EditorIDs. If I really want to merge the mods, hours of editor ID changing will not stop me.

Any thoughts on my question last page...?

Thanks

Sorry to double post, but I'm really interested in an answer from an experienced merger-er, Arthmoor, perhaps?

To recap I would like to know if merging multiple mods increases the performance or stability (I'm particularly interested in stability) of the game. In other words, does stability suffer the more ESPs you have enabled, or is it more in proportion to the amount of mod data that you have loaded, irrespective of how many ESPs that totals to?

I have not quite yet hit the 255 mod limit but my stability suffers a lot around the 200 mark and I am almost there, hence the reason for my question.

Advice? Speculations? Thanks

The only real 'evidence' is that it is known that for many systems having 370-400 mods is the stability limit, but you know that.

The more scripts, lines of text, LOD, 'stuff' of mods - the longer it will take to load the game and therefore are contributors to lag, but systems vary - mileage varies.

any one report would have to have many other factors taken into account.

In almost 10 months of reading these forums - I've yet to see any great amount of posters claim what you ask, that merging the mods into larger ones improves stability because there is less data.

What I have seen is that many modders consider what little support they are willing to give vanish after they learn that their mod is 'misused' and merged into a group of mods. At that point it is considered that you know what your doing and it is now up to you to debug it.

I've also seen that the more you merge the more difficult it is to weed out the exact cause of a problem when they arise.

Not that it improves because there is less data, rather that there are less ESPs to activate. Because I would think the amount of data would be the same whether merged or not.



Well, fair enough, I suppose. I'm just looking to merge a couple for now. I was hoping by so doing to get around the stability issue, i.e. when I get past about 200 or so active mods, I get more and more random crashes on entering interior cells (just the houses/rooms in the cities, actually). They're random cos when I load up the game afterwards, it usually works, or crashes again, I try again, and it works, etc.

I meant less data files - sorry not a morning person.

Many many problems are load order related. Then come conflicts that can't be resolved, then come bad resources, and always system performance.

I hear you about there being less stability, but I've had as many as 240 active (and almost 400 total) with little to complain about, but now I have trouble with over 213 active. I'm certain it is one of the problems I list above.

It is amazing how subjective the search for a problem can become.

As I've wrote before - I'd avoid merging any cell or worldspace records and stick to merging game tweaks and scripted actions. Make sure what you merge is white compared to each other in tes4edit with the filter on.

best of luck

I certainly wouldn't expect to receive support from the author of a mod if I'd merged it in with another and had problems
It is always up to the mod-user to debug their own problems. Support literally means providing assistance - so the modder supports the mod-user's actions, offering advice and feedback on the debugging results. If they aren't willing to put in the effort, why should they receive support in the first place?

Some mod users report a "bug" and demand it be fixed NOW, yet when the modder asks them for more details and to try a few things, the user get ratty. Such people are not well-received by modders.

The only way I could see merging providing a performance/stability improvement vs leaving them all separate is if you were approaching the limit on the number of files the Data folder can have in it before the game goes loopy. This is generally anywhere between 350 and 400 file. Almost a certainty above 400. Files being any ESM, ESP, *AND* BSA files sitting in Data, whether they be activated or not. Merging reduces this number obviously, assuming you're getting rid of the original data files when you do it.

If you're far enough under the count limit I can't see it helping since you still have the same amount of actual game data regardless.

Right, thanks Psymon I will check that. So far I've only merged Companion Sound Sets, a bunch of dialog files for giving companions custom dialog. I've gotten a lot of info just from this thread though, some of it obvious, some of it not so.



Okay cool. I have been keeping my data folder clean, so 95% of my mods in there are actually being used, the rest are ghosted. If I have ghosted mods, is there no theoretical limit to how many I can have in there? It might just be my paranoia but I've been keeping even the ghosted file count down.



Rats! I'll post my interior cell bug in a new thread, maybe I can get some insight. However I've done quite a bit of testing and doesn't appear related to a particular mod.

Wow always interesting to see one's opinions and statements get graded.

Especially when, in spirit, the message is the same.

-- "When working with groups and families the main point that hinders progress is that the identified patient is often caught in a web of socially constructed identity that defines them as the sole bearer of the blame and responsibility."

Perhaps that statement could be graded too.

Not sure what you're saying.

Bit lost as to who this is addressed to and why ?

That response was aimed directly at post 167 where my written words were bolded, crossed out, and recontextualized.

as if just quoting me was not enough - I needed to be graded (corrected) first.

Hi guys,

I?m not familiar with merging plugins at all, I need some help here. I want want to merge, spell delete, stat restore and No more annoying messages into one plugin. Is it safe for me to do this? Also where must I place this plugin containing these three esps in the load order? And which name should I give this plugin of the three esps it contains, for BOSS to recognize it.

Hope you can help me out

Thanks

Give it the name of any of the merged plugins, BOSS will then order it as if it were the plugin whose name you gave it. Hard to say which name to give it since that determines where BOSS will slot it in. Are these plugins close to each other in your BOSSed load list already?