Good spot :thumbsup:

@Alexir: Thanks for pointing out the -b discrepancy in the docs. I am working on an HTML version of the docs which will be autogenerated from source code.

@Dragon32: does TESPCD remove records that are identical, or just "the same" (As in the same name)? If the latter it would be disastrous to use it a merged-records plugin.

@FallenWizard: thanks, I have put a link to your EXE on the main post.

@Mordicus: is there any chance you can narrow down the problem to implicate a specific plugin or plugins?
Also, if you are able to do that, I recommend re-downloading that plugin -- that has fixed all sorts of problems for other testers. Some other programs can corrupt plugins in subtle ways apparently.

@Alan: I think I understand. The trouble is it would be different every time you ran esper, so people's appearances would change every time you decided to re-merge.

Thank YOU :thumbsup: for such a great tool to aid people in shrinking their dangerously big pluginlists ..and just to fiddle with too (I've always loved the ol'n'good command line)


Looks like the former, not the latter but it has to be verified more thoroughly. As an example I took my old Testool'ed 'merged objects.esp' (since the esper-made merged records file has already been cleaned with TESPCD). TESPCD marked as unclean only 56 records out of 1037, and the data they contain is absolutely the same, http://savepic.org/391444.jpg.

p.s. sorry for punctuation and things.. the rules in my native language are 'slightly' different :shrug:

Another problem with randomizing head/hair for NPCs is if merging was redone with a game in progress, savegames store the old references for previously encountered NPCs so the head/hair model paths would not match the new merged references in-game and throw errors.

With randomizing head/hair on npcs it could be done similar to how the build cache where you only do it once and it would make a file storing that information which would be used when merging is done. That would remove the problems when remerging plus make it so it doesn't have to be done every time you redo the merger.

But enough to merge so once. There is no sense so to merge plug-ins more than once.
For example, esper -r plugin1.esp plugin2.esp -o merged-objects.esp
Or is it difficult?

Another problem with randomizing head/hair for NPCs is if merging was redone with a game in progress, savegames store the old references for previously encountered NPCs so the head/hair model paths would not match the new merged references in-game and throw errors.

I think if the plugins were already connected it is better to start a new game. Also it solved the problem of doubling the objects.

As Alexir says, TESPCD compares records to those in your currently loaded ESMs and deletes those that're an exact match (not just on name). AFAIK, TESPCD was created before people started producing mods as ESMs, which is why it does all ESMs and not just the Bethesda ones.
Whilst I wouldn't describe esper's ability to compare records against the most recently loaded plugin as a "must have" it's definitely a "nice to have" as it'd reduce the size of the plugin, and so reduce load times. Beyond that there's no major benefit. Like I say, nice to have.

Promise I'll contribute some beta testing soon. Bit tipsy right now

Hi guys

It seems to me that esper is nearly ready for a "version 1.0".

The most worrying problem is Mordicus' earlier report of problems with cells/landscapes both in the plugin and in-game. However no one else seems to have reported this and Mordicus has not replied again. I am keen to know whether anyone else has had error messages to do with cells or land, and also whether anyone has noticed new problems with land textures or cells in-game. If not, it may be one of Mordicus' landscape plugins was corrupt.

Other than that - the "unclean" records reported by TESPCD are actually just records which are identical to the records in the ESM. It affects a small minority of records, and the only bad effect is inflation of the esper plugin size.

To Alan: I'm sorry but the random hair merging thing sounds like quite a lot of work for a feature which is quite far outside esper's remit. If there was a lot of demand for it I might reconsider in future.

@eeeickythump
I believe Mordicus is using a localized version of Morrowind (french) - he has previously reported problems with other utils (e.g. MGE when it rewrites to Morrowind.ini) stemming from accented characters in cell names not getting preserved that might explain the error.

Ok. I understand.
I had big plans for the Master Head Pack X by Westly.

Yes, you're right, that's may be the problem! (sorry I did not follow the thread last days) And, although most ID of localized French version are the same in French and in English, the ID of regions have been changed and translated to French (which is a bad idea from the French translators).

Esper may have trouble to handle non-English version of Morrowind. For example, when merging two mods or creating a merged objects esp, the dependency to .esm refer to English .esm and not to my own version. I have to use WryeMash to restore the dependency to my own esm (French Goty version).

I believe that these issues are still in need of fixing:
Check Resources isn't scanning BSAs
The Esper-generated plugin's file master's information needs to be correctly set.
Region 'Bitter Coast Region' Weather Chances do not total 100 percent.
The caravanners, e.g. darvame hleran, do not have all destinations available as is given to them through All Silt Strider Ports and All Boat Ports. Not sure if it's your intention to fix this one.

These ones look fixed:
default output name will now be esper_output.esp
_BME_Ice_minion_Shield2 & ebony_pauldron_right were either giving errors or had borked icons
Better adding of NPC items. Galbedir's wearing her "_HG_robe01c_WE" now.

Missing bodyparts.
Improved but still a problem. For examples:
Neminda is missing her left forearm from extravagant_shirt_01 (also NPCO subrecords added at beginning and looks like the "--zero-hp-fix" is on by default):

extravagant_shirt_01:


Templar pauldrons are missing upper arms:


Not missing body parts but it looks like multiple body parts are being displayed on the left leg (I have a screenshot if that'd help) of exquisite_pants_01:


expensive_shirt_01 is missing right forearm (at least for women):
Haven't spent any time testing the new zero-hp fix

Any news? This silence make me anxious.

I'm still here -- just with limited time to devote to this project.
Today I addressed some of Dragon32's reported bugs. From the commit message:

Set master file sizes correctly in plugin headers. NPC DODT/DNAM subrecords are now merged in groups, hopefully this will result in correct merging of destinations for guild guides etc. Weather subrecords are replaced en bloc instead of merging. Fixed the other place where NPCO subrecords were getting prepended to records.

There is a new version for download in the usual place, beta 16, with the above changes.
@Dragon32: I was not able to reproduce the problem with exquisite_shirt or the problem with the merged record with multiple CNAM subrecords at the end; but I was using a small testing set of plugins. What plugins did you merge to get these errors?

Thanks for addressing the 1234 bytes header issue! It was one of the most annoying bugs in my opinion.

I've compiled the new version:
http://www.4shared.com/file/258967438/967b2769/esper64_Beta16.html

It would be nice if you can change the download link in the first post.

EDIT: Just wanted to tell you that you forgot to change the version number in Esper itself. It's still showing Beta 15.

Thanks. I?ll keep looking.

Heh. Currently I'm trying esper out on my fully modded install, which is probably about 300 plugins (a whole load of them merged using the Construction Set). I'll try out the latest beta and report back, I'll see if I'm able to identify the specific plugins by using TESPCD or some other kind of voodoo.

Thanks for updating :thumbsup:

Hello! I have a question for Linux users out there. Have anyone succeeded running esper in wine? Right now it throws out error about invalid address.

I don't think Wine is needed. LISP is running on Linux. You will need to install LISP, ASDF and the necessary dependencies.

Looking forward to using this utility.

I haven't read the entire thread, and I might be slightly off-topic here, but I was pointed towards this thread because of my troubles with http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/956550-wip-the-dwemer-society , which have somehow been corrupted.

The new merge object program can probably not solve my problems, but it seems that this thread is the home of the people most knowledge of how an esp-file is actually constructed, so I hope that someone here can help me salvage the dwemer society.

I have tried all programs known to me including a few previouslu unknown, but they either fails when reading the file (like enchanted Editor of tes3tool) or only read until they find something corrupted and the ignore everything else (like TESame). I have opened it in notepad++ , where I think I can see, where tthe corrupted part is, but because, I'm not familiar with the 'raw' syntax of an esp-file, so I can't read everything.

If someone understands the syntax, and want to help me, salvage my corrupted file, so a few hundred hours of mod-making has not been wasted, please write in my wip-thread, which I linked to.

I cannot get this tool to work. I've read through the readme but either there is something wrong in it (0.01%) or I'm doing something wrong (99.99%).
My question is simple: what do I write in the command line so as to merge all the records in all active plug-ins?

esper --find-conflicts -a

It will output the path to some esp files. Copy these entries in a txt file and use this command to merge them:

esper -r -B textfile.txt

You will get a new esp file. Activate it and put it at the end of your load order.

Thanks, that did it

One more question. The rule that some mods should be left out while merging objects with TESTool also applies for esper, doesn't it?

No. Esper merges records (mostly) correct. Testool can mess some scripts up, that's why mlox suggests to deactivate them.