In order to get past the crashing testool bug of so many mod files whilst doing a merged objects would it be possible to split your modfiles into different merged objects esp's, and then merge that esp? Obviously then keeping the first two merged objects esp's ahead of the definitive merged objecs esp in the load order, which would then load last? This way for people with huge amount of load lists it would save merging modfiles? Does anyone get what I am asking??!!??

I... I think I get it :wacko:

From what I understand, you are saying that you have more mods than TESTool's Merge Objects function can handle. And you want to overcome that. Right? If that is so, just divide your modlist into 3 or 4 sections, create a Merged_Objects.esp for each one (renaming them with each session of course, or else they will overwrite each other), and then activate only those Merged_Objects.esps and use Merge Objects function of TESTool on them. This way you will get the ultimate Merged_Objects.esp for all your mods.
The downside of this method is that you have to repeat it every time you add a new mod which requires you to merge your objects. But then again, what other options do you have?


Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

TESTool's merge objects function will only merge records for similar objects and discard the rest, so the likely result of trying to again merge separate merged objects esps would end up dropping most of the data.

Instead, you want to take each of the separate merged objects esps and combine them using the CS (i.e. merge esps instead of merge objects). You'll then end up with that ultimate Merged_Objects.esp.

Maybe that's the best solution, but it will still quite likely be a flawed merged object file. When you divide your mods in two groups and merge objects for each group, if only one mod from each group modify a particular object, the modifications to that object will not be merged.

Also when you load your two merged object files in the CS, won't the one that loads last overwrite the changes in the first one?

You can try esper: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1067443-wip-new-merge-objects-program/

It works a lot better than TesTool.

Have a read of this archived thread: http://www.yacoby.net/es/forum/12/9197901228156260.html, particularly Psyringe's posts.

[Edit: ninja'd]

To clarify, you still want to run the separate merged objects esps thru TESTool together to catch any similar merge-able object records between them before combining all merged objects esps together in the CS.

You do want that final merged objects esp to overwrite the others since it specifically includes the merged data for any conflicting records. Technically, you don't have to combine the separate merged objects esps (think of them as a progression of patches) - combining them just helps save plugin slots.

I use esper to do merged records and it works much better then Testool ever did and my load list is at 250 mods (probably around 500 or so If I count everything that was merged together) and I don't have any problems with it.