Glad to know you think it's doing so well

Dialog merging IS an important issue (so i found out). If you merge the dialog wrong, you break more than just quests and get refusal of services, but you can't hit diddly squat. The reason being, 'hit' is part of the dialog. (Or, so i understand it.) So the only way i was hitting was on a 100. I had a 40 shortblade skill; not being able to hit a rat seems a bit odd (Yes, it was that bad)

Yes, it should do leveled lists too. That part was completed when i got the Inventory (NPCO) part done. It actually wasn't that hard. Test it, try it, if you find a list or situation it doesn't work, i'll try and get it working. I'll try and include an example leveled-list merging in the next release.


The reason i'm working so fast on this, is multiple reasons.
1) i am working by myself (no team), so i don't have to conform to any standards beyond my own. (QA is a pain!!! Ugg, you don't know the half of it!)
2) Since i am working by myself, i know the whole source code inside and out, which makes tracking bugs and fixing them MUCH faster.
(so what if the code has some duplication? I'll refactor it later when it's working. BTW this is entirely in C. I wanted to do it in DMD D, but i couldn't find how to do raw structures for reading/writing the files)
3) I really want this tool done, so I'm working on issues as i come across them.
4) I want this in the Hall Of Fame soon

Then there's other smaller reasons, maybe Bethesda will notice me and hire me, maybe seeing the work being done they will fix the bugs they've been notified of in the last 5+ years. Maybe i'll get paid by the community for the awesome tool, you know, the lesser things

Enough off-topic rambling. I do appreciate the compliments and encouragement.

Version: 1.3

Fixed sorting bug that broke quests, dialog, and left duplicate ID's untouched.
Fixed text cleaning bug involving non-null ending strings.
Added --no_dialog_merge, --hard_limit, --load_ini

--no_dialog_merge
I don't see a need for this, but in case you really don't want it touched, it won't. (I think)

--hard_limit filename.txt
Impose your own hard limits(Caps) on weapons. You can specify the minimum/maximum value for any weapon type's values. (Flags not included)
example included explaining limits, comments, and template for making your own.
Not fully tested, if you see an issue notify me.

--load_ini
Per request, this option will open and accept the Morrowind.ini file as a filelist.
Not fully tested, if you see an issue notify me.


You're all getting this a little earlier than i expected. Anyways. Unicode and CSV output are planned, but put on the back burner till later. Please inform me of your thoughts, ideas for improvement, bugs, or praise. I'll also try to answer questions on it, if anyone suggests a better way to explain something in the manual, i will modify it for later.

Tried the new version - same issues. If I try to merge LGNPC with --reference, the tool eats 100% of my cpu again and nothing happens. If I use --no_dialog_merge it hangs at:

Once again i can't confirm or find an issue, it merged just fine for me. I'll recommend you download and replace you msvcrt.dll file; just in case it's an older or corrupted. (I also have 20, 40, and 71).

If that fails, pack all the plugins and masters (not including the 3 primary ones) and include an input file of exact options and order you have them. Either email or link it here.

EDIT: Something else to do. Right before it gets to that plugin, put in --query. Then put in the dialog ID. Save that output and include it in the package. It never know, it could be another plugin modifying the topic and messing it up...

I tried to replace the msvcrt.dll file, same issue with several different dlls. I will send you a link via PM.

Bug Warning:
In --hard_limit, the Health, Speed & Reach don't work right. Don't rely on these for the moment. The rest works as expected. Next version will fix this and have example(s).

EDIT: Merged lists may be out of order. Will be fixed in the next version.

Now thinking about it would your program run into the issues of using merged objects like TESTool does?

Using Merged objects? Please elaborate, since i don't use TESTool much and have been too busy to investigate it's quirks.

So far it doesn't really reference objects at all, other than merging. One exception is duplicate ID's where it finds all ID's of one type and renames them.

please check your PMs. I sent you a message.

Got it. Nice hefty download. I'll check back in an hour or so once i've run it through a few tests. Be annoying if it was something simple.

The little things are always the biggest bugs...

FallenWizard:
I was unable to find the problem with the merging without --reference (however there were a lot of broken INFO's, which likely killed the sorting/resorting routine)

BUT when using --reference (on the three masters) it did stall, but not at the topic you specified. This is likely dependent on how the library decides to allocate/reallocate memory so it isn't always consistent. Oddly enough, it breaks when querying it as well as trying to merge it. Now i got somewhere to work from.

I'll try and get this one resolved today sometime.

Does Hard limit cap affect only weapons? Also, is the damages not included? I remember you commenting that they were all one data entry (chop, slash, thrust)...i assume that means they aren't included, are they?

Certain mods that don't like to be merged like Creatures X which when merged causes whole herds of animals to spawn and various other mods that wonk out when run with merged objects. Would your program have the same side effects so checking against mlox to see if a certain mod should be merged or not or would there not be these side effects so you could safely merge all your mods without trouble?

With the last update, based on i was going to get the --csv_out function finished, i put all the damages as separate now, so that's not an issue.
Yes damages are included, as part of the example. And yes it only affects weapons right now, i could write another function to handle armor, and whatever other objects we need done. Probably change 'type' to 'weapon type', so you could use 'armor type' and any others that get added on.

I'm still hoping to find a good algorithm to use so we can just have it handle it all that aren't marked as special [unique] or something else.



Hmmm not sure if i fully understand that. I've only seen 1 time that anything like that happened, in the plugin 'welcome to the arena', but that might have been a scripting issue, causing all the contestants to come out at once (and kill you, and slow the graphics way down).

I'm hoping that everything can be merged without issue; Some of this requires specific extra logic to work right.
If you find a good example of 1-3 plugins, please refer me to a link of the plugins (individual and merged) so i can compare and experiment before adding the new logic. It's entirely possible the herd issue is a bug in the plugin. But i haven't played with the leveled lists much. In the next week i'm sure we'll get this figured out.

AFAIK there are only two mods that have reported potential issues with TESTool's Merged Objects: PirateLord's Creatures and Darknut's Greater Dwemer Ruins Vol I

With PL's mod TESTool was believed to do something screwy with the scripts attached to Guars and the like (leading to huge herds sweeping majestically across the Grazelands). However, IIRC, there was never anything definitive described; not all users of Merged Objects had this problem and it was never definitively tied back to Merged Objects. That said the advice not to merge is in PL's readme and I haven't heard of these herds with people who have excluded it. So, circumstantial....

Darknut's is, IIRC, solely based on him saying not to include it in Merged Objects without an explanation as to what including it could lead to. So, unclear and unsubstantiated...

What about PTE though?

If you use Better Clothes, then load the patch file (included) after merged objects. This will correct the errors caused by merged objects process.

Also edit the merged objects file, and remove all the NPC entries, or if you want to be totally precise (but more long winded), the NPC entries that PTE changes.
Leaving the NPCs in has been known to cause crashes with PTE due to their adjusted inventories and negative items.

This was not needed with esper and I am sure it isn't required for Smartmerger too.

Well based on how all this sounds, Assume merging is correct until proven otherwise.
If it's due to merging logic, i'll fix it.
If it's due to a Plugin bug, you can fix it & notify the author.
If it's a bug in the game, then we'll see if we need special rules for not merging things.

But for now, we'll tackle things as they come up. Personally i think the tool is doing an awesome job so far in most of the merging I've done. And the game seems more stable than before, however it does crash every so often (rarely), so not sure on that part. Who knows, maybe when i fix the leveled lists, the game will be nearly completely stable

EDIT: And of course as we go, It's interesting finding weird bugs left behind by Bethesda.

I have some feature requests:

Caching of the three main esms (Morrowind.esm, Tribunal.esm, Bloodmoon.esm) to speed things up.
Rebalance of item values, based on the players' desire.
Conflict checker, something like --find-conflicts of esper. It will write a list of conflicting plugins to the console. Will be handy with --input.


By the way: Will you release the source code someday?

I feel like I'm missing something very simple. I can't figure out how to get the --load_ini option to work; possibly I misunderstand what it is supposed to do.

I think it's supposed to use Morrowind.ini as an input list for what mods you want to merge and in what order. I have tried running "SmartMerger.exe --load_ini TestMerge.esp" from both the Morrowind directory and the Data Files directory, but all I ever get is an error message: "Error opening --load_ini". Does this mean it can't find Morrowind.ini (if so, how do I tell it where to look?), or does it mean it thinks I am trying to merge a file called "--load_ini", and it's not recognizing the option at all?

I'm sure the right way to use it is blindingly obvious, but right now I can't see it. (I'm using the 1.3 download from PES.)

No your right, seems it didn't like something when i compiled it, and isn't recognizing it. I'll to that. Bummer, i thought that was working.

EDIT: Seems there was a bug in the error message output. It would always print out the first argument you entered, regardless.

Yeah, PTE. I was assuming Pjstabb was talking about mods that we were told should be specifically excluded from TESTool's Merged Objects. Didn't realise you meant things where someone had to do something afterwards to fix the merge.

I don't use PTE myself but that (negative items in inventories for NPCs and the like) looks like it could be a good test case for SmartMerger's behaviour. Also I seem to remember people talking about problems with NPCs whose stats were set to Autocalc (some MCA ones I think)... I'll see if I can dig out something on that.

Should be able to get a chance to have a proper look at this program this coming week. Looking forward to it

Caching, not happening. The reason for this, is because it would have to have a copy of the three main files as part of the executable. Selectively, you could strip out the land & textures, and use those for reference instead. I could store certain common values, like the GMST's, but anything more i'd be iffy about.

Re-balancing, yes that's what i was thinking with the formula, although there would be some instances where the value/weight and other things just don't work.

As for the source, Yes. Currently the project is GPLv3, meaning the source is available upon request (thereby satisfying the license requirements). Besides, it needs some cleaning, refactoring, remove duplication, separate special logic that is put in functions it may not belong, some items need to be separated and rebuilt, Ect. As before, i'm trying to get it to work first. Afterwards i'll worry about source eye-candy, and getting it to a satisfactory level.

I was seriously unhappy with TESTool's merging, which is why i started this. Manually having to fix things that should be fine annoy me.

Negative values in NPC inventory is mostly used for sellers for replenishing supplies. (like being able to buy 100 arrows over and over again till your happy). Course if you sell the same item back, the negative number goes up, so you can buy more in bulk later
OR... If they have something halfway heavy like repair tools, you can increase their inventory 'burdening them', then pick a fight with them and kill them from a distance and they can't get near you.

So what exactly is the issue with the Autocalc? Theoretically the CS/game handle it for you so their stats aren't that important...

Again a TESTool issue. IIRC, where a NPC's class isn't defined in the main ESMs then those with Autocalc set would get borked stats. Mostly noticable by having their helath set to 0 and falling over dead whenever the PC enters a cell. I think this was most noticed with MCA as I guess that uses some custom character classes and so NPCs of that class are then borked. Memory's a bit hazy though.

Kind of related, Hrnchamd worked out the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1097214-gameplay-mechanics-anolysis/.

Anyway, must crash. It's late.