Hi,

I recently hit the 255 limit for mods and am looking at merging some files with TES4Gecko, but I have a few questions before I go running into it.

1. What are the guidelines (if any) for merging plugins?

2. I.E., if the plugins are related for instance Better Cities - COBL.esp, Better Cities - House price patch.esp, Better Cities - Unique Landscape *** patch.esp AND they are arranged consecutively in the load order is it OK to merge them?

- In this case I'm looking at a lot of the Better Cities files and patches

3. OK to merge plugins such as BathingMod_Bathroom_Upgrades.esp, BathingMod_Placeable_Bathtubs.esp, BathingMod_Soap.esp ?

4. And finally, I have a lot of plugins that require Unique Landscapes patches. Is it OK to merge the original file (Millstone_Farm_COBL.esp with Millstone_Farm_UL_Patch.esp) and etc. for the many other compatibility patches I have for mods?

5. I may be confused here, but having my load order arranged by BOSS. If the mod is related and starts with the same name like with Better Cities isn't it OK to merge the plugins since they are one after the other in the load order? So instead of 5 Better Cities files, I would have one and it would still work OK because it is in the same load order essentially as before?

6. Another example. CM Partners.esp, CM Partners NPC.esp, CM Partners Extra NPCs.esp. OK to be merged? CM PArtners.esp as 1, and npc.esp as 2, and extra npcs.esp as 3?

Sorry, I am just very confused and don't want to mess anything up. Any clarification would be appreciated!

Thanks

-J

http://sites.google.com/site/oblivionpoinfo/tunesetup/merging <-- be sure to check out the "Related Resources" section for previous discussions on this topic

Yes to the consecutive load order merges. Make sure you clean plugins before merging (not that you need to worry about that with BC, but I do not know about all of the newest ULs. I think they are fine though...)

Thanks for the link that is a big help and answers many questions.

1. I remember in the Francesco's installation for FCOM it is said NOT to merge the plugins for that. I am now left with 4 Francesco's Optional *** ***.esp. Is it OK to merge these with TES4Gecko at this point?

2. Also, on the link you gave. It says not to merge (This mod + Another mod patches.) I have quite a few of these from the Unique Landscapes Patch Compilation. I.E. HoarfrostCastle-LushWoodlands patch.esp

So, what the site is saying is it is not a good idea to merge HoarfrostCastle.esp with that patch above? Any way to combine the UL patches for certain mods to free up space on the mod list? I have way too many specific mod patches for UL compatibility from here: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13834

Thank you!

No. Do not merge FCOM components. If you could, then FCOM's instructions would have specified that when you installed Fran with the executable.

Right, was just checking. At the time I knew nothing about plug-ins and how they worked other than what the FCOM cheat sheet said.

So, all of the UL compatibility patches are off limits from merging with their respective mod then? Or any This mod-That mod patches like GuardsofCyrodiilRedux - RRLRpatch.esp ?

Since you are new to this, you should just not merge the ULs. Are any of your plugins mergeable? I run about 260 plugins, but only ~210 are active. Deactivate any green-text, purple-text or italicized-text plugins.

I am also (very!) new to merging ESPs (other than by using Bashed Patch, and I'm still not an expert with that either...) - so what I started with was merging sets of tiny tweaks, particularly parts of the same package. I think Message Remover Pack might've been the frist one, for example. So, one instead of about half a dozen or more.

But I've merged that many into the Bashed Patch, and deactivated a number more besides, that I can't seem to fill up the list! In hex... hm, that'd be 219 at the moment. Maybe some day.

Even if you have not reached the 255 cap, the closer you get to that limit, the more unstable the game will be.

Hm. Seems like one way to save a mod space is to delete DLCShiveringIsles.esp, and rename the Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch.esp to DLCShiveringIsles.esp. The original is just a dummy file anyway to load the BSA. Assuming you have both SI and the UOP, anyway.

As long as I follow this little step in your guide:

Voice files are also name-dependent. For example, if you merge all of the unofficial official mod patches together, including USIP, you need to change the "Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch.esp" folder (Data\Sound\Voice\) to "."

Does it work well to merge all the DLCs?

Simple rule of thumb when merging: Do not merge any ESPs that both alter the same cell of landscape or path grids. These records ARE NOT MERGABLE and you will end up with either land tearing, broken path grids, or both. So right away, drop any thought of merging UL patches with their parent mods.

Merging the UOP and the USIP is not recommended either because Gecko may not be able to deal with conflicting edits to the same scripts. So you should leave those out. Trick renaming the USIP to free a slot though is fine.

Merging the DLCs themselves with each other is probably not a good idea. However, you can merge the patches for each one with its parent DLC without much trouble, so long as you use the "merge to master" function to do it and not a straight merge. Just check to make sure the DLCs are flagged as ESPs afterward or you'll have serious problems once the game loads.

Usually the best candidates for merging are individual dungeon mods, and mods that only throw items into the game.

Over all, it's not recommended to merge anything that's still being actively maintained because updating things when that happens is almost impossible.

Agree much with Arthmoor on this - all attempts to do what he stated shouldn't have been failures. But that is mean - learn to walk by falling.

I've had much success with merging small game tweaks that are essentially unrelated to each other and that do not in anyway affect cell or worldspace records.

One way to assure yourself that two or more mods do not overlap and are safe to merge is to open them in tes4edit and run the filter (as if you were going to clean, but don't clean) then check to see where they overlap.

While UL and UL patches seem like a good candidate because they are numerous - start thinking about other small tweaks to the game where an esp does very little and that could be merged. Of note if you merge a mod that has an ini - it will still access that ini even if merged with another mod.

Dungeons and houses are great and easy to merge too.

Also avoid merging mods that other mods may be dependent on/check for. With OBSE it is possible to make otherwise incompatible mods compatible, if one of the mods check for the existence of the other and adjusts itself properly. And this is handled by OBSE calls where the exact name of the other mod, and formIds of items in the other mod are involved. Thus if you change the mod name or its formIds you break such inter-mod compatibility.

From my own mods I have many examples of this, with varying degree of seriousness. Map Marker Overhaul adjusts the map marker icons of other mods and will fail to do so if the other mods are merged into un-recognized mods. Enhanced Economy checks for Banks of Cyrodiil to ensure that you can withdraw money from the bank without getting the amount adjusted by EE's settings, etc.

So I guess Arthmoor's advice of merging individual dungeon mods, and especially mods that only throw items into the game is a good advice.

Yep, OBSE adds a whole new level of complexity. Ayleid Steps, for instance, uses OBSE's IsModLoaded function to do compatibility adjustments for all of the UL mods, as well as a few other popular things like Bartholm.

Definitely narrows the field on what's generally safe. Individual dungeon mods, some house mods, and miscellaneous item-only mods. Perhaps some things that are only scripts or leveled list adjusters too, but you don't see a lot of pure-script mods anyway.

Why only some house mods? What would be the dangers?

for instance I merged these mods for Tamriel:

Abandoned Mtn ShackAlchemsit Cove COBLAll things AlchemicalCastle KnightstoneDank Dark CaveFalls View Forgotten ChapelLinawiln HomeLireals RetreatMisty HideoutSilent Stones CampWaters edge CottageYellow Rose CottageWhite Tower

and these for SI:

Abandoned Mania CampBroken Promesis SwampCutter EstateInquisitors LodgeJagnot_Split HomesJagnot_SummitPointHouseMadness HideoutNew Sheoth HomesPond Cottage

And while I've not bought and fully tested each house I did make sure that no landscape/cell conflicts were present. Still I would not recommend merging houses that have serious quests or are alterations of vanilla houses.

Just curious your thoughts?

This question coming up a lot (barring breakdown's clowning that is).

Reagarding OBSE, are there commands than sModLoaded that check for the existence of other mods?
Seems like doing a text search on this command(s) before merging may be a good idea.

If The Ayleid Steps checks for the existance of any of those in order to move a step out of harms way, merging them would make The Ayleid Steps not seeing them, resulting in a step above/below ground. Similarly, if Map Marker Overhaul checks for them to change the marker icon from settlement to chapel or individual house, this would stop working.

Now neither is game breaking, but still something to consider when merging them.

GetFormFromMod also uses the mod name (and local formId) as input, and may very well be called without an IsModLoaded check first.

What house mods does MMO check for?

I guess I handled the steps issue by having characters go to the spots and check them out in-game pretty thoroughly - including ~tcl under houses and loading the same area without the house mod.
Took some work doing those two mergers.

I used merge to master to merge the unofficial patches into their DLCs. The UOPs are all bash tagged for various things, should I move those tags over to the DLC plugins now? Or is that no longer necessary since they are merged?

Regarding Gecko's Merge to Master function: Do you need to ESMify the Master first and then ESPify it after the merger?

Vorians gave the okay on merging BC. I do not see why you need to Esmify first, as Gecko supports ESP mastering.


Edit: Arthmoor is right about mods with overlapping landscape edits and path grids. You cannot merge those. I was way too tired yesterday... It is okay to merge random house mods that do not overlap. They probably should not be quest mods however, and if they have patches, that's a whole different trouble...

But why does Gecko search for ESMs only when clicking on Merge To Master?

I guess it does not fully support ESP mastering then. Yup, go with the ESMification first then. Although, you could just use TES4Edit to merge the patch if it is not too large. That why you would be sure it was correctly "merged", at least...

I forget all the tags that are on the UOMP files, but yes, you should probably move those tags over to the actual DLC files after you've merged their patches in.



You don't need to ESMify first, you just need to use the UI to tell Gecko to look for more than just ESM files. Once you're done though you DO need to use something to ESPify the result file afterward because Gecko will set the ESM flag on it.

I tried mergeing the DLC patches into the DLC but it turned out to be a disater. As soon as I step out the sewers, I fall under water. The land was all clipped. SO I gave up some other mods to make space instead.

So, would anyone have a document with screenshots for each step to do this in TES4Gecko?

I was able to merge all the trails of cyrodiil mods and that worked, but this merge to master was a bit over my head.

Sounds like you didn't do the last thing Arthmoor mentioned:
"Once you're done though you DO need to use something to ESPify the result file afterward because Gecko will set the ESM flag on it."