I'm very close to releasing the first of ten chapters for my Keening mod series. As this is my first mod, I'd appreciate input form people who have released mods where they have had do decide whether to combine and include large required mods, or to create .bsa and .esm files rather than an .esp - if that is even how it works.

So, this is about two concepts, really....
1. Making a .bsa/ master for several required mods
2. Making Keening Chapter 1 into a Master that depends on the other masters (Can that even be done?) or leaving it as an .esp?

The facts as I understand it:

- People seem to hate having to do more than one download for a mod. This is not my motivation, but if it makes those people happy, okay then.
- If I merge a large required mod with permission into my download, people who already have that mod will effectively be downloading it a second time.
- I have heard that if I am making a series of .esp files that build off of each other, it could cause doubling if chapter 2 edits an NPC from chapter 1.
- Some people have trouble installing .bsa files if they aren't experienced, and the old .bsareg doesn't work well on Win7 (thank you Kingpix for making a new one).

Current size of the Keening package without including required mods, uncompressed: 366 mb

Required mods that I'm using:

- Clothiers of Vvardenfell. 226 mb compressed. [esp] Permissions acquired from Badkarma and Lady Rae, Korana is gone but allows redistribution.
- Complete Gothic Attire. 49 mb uncompressed. [esp] Full permissions from Cenobite and Qarl
- Better Bodies (Haven't checked permissions yet)

These three, or at least the two clothing mods, could be combined into a master/ bsa.

- Morrowind Comes Alive. This is a master and because it is being updated, I have no intention of asking for permissions to freeze it in place by combining it.
- Westly's Master Head pack. Required by MCA, but only the files. Redistribution not allowed, so this will not be combined.

- Creatures XI. Full permissions granted, but only some of the files are needed. I'm not adept enough to isolate which ones are needed for the creatures that Keening uses, but probably about half of them. I have an alternate creatures folder (that is reduced to 84 mb uncompressed) that has removed the files that I *know* Keening doesn't need.
Question: If I did include the files (not the esp) into the .bsa/ master, would they be over-written if a new version of Creatures was released with updates? I would not want to do anything to interfere with that.
Question 2: On the other hand, if Creatures 12 were released and installed in the future, merging the files from v11 with Keening might REVERT newer creatures files to the older version if people installed it AFTER Creatures 12. I also want to avoid that.

Lastly, in the case that I were to make Keening Chapter 1 a Master File, how will that effect its dependency on another Master (MCA) and on the combined required mods esm/ bsa? To avoid the doubling on having a chapter 2 esp depend on the chapter 1 esp, I have thought about releasing them as .esp files, but changing chapter 1 to a master file JUST FOR THE EDITOR, and then removing the dependency on it in Wrye Mash before releasing it. The other option I've tossed around is to just release chapter two as a combined esp and ask people to remove the chapter 1 esp once it's released, etc. Kind of confusing, but that's why I'm here asking questions.

In an effort to make things simpler, I certainly don't want to create more problems and complexities. But, I'd also like to have a solid answer for people asking why I have required mods rather than combining or creating a master file.

Thank you for reading through all my thoughts, and I appreciate any advice that doesn't just tell me to remove required mods and go vanilla.

NOTE: I chose to post this in the mods forums rather than the Construction Set forum because as far as I know, CS doesn't make .bsa files, and a lot of the topics in this thread are more about modding style than CS mechanics.