Hello all, another noob question if nobody minds too much...

What exactly is a merged patch, and is it always completely necessary? Because I never did that before, and I've never had much problem with mods, though I've always stuck with pretty basic stuff. Now that I'm expanding into more game-changing mods (FOOK, Project Nevada, WME, EVE, new texture packs and so on) I'm worried that I'm not getting the most out of mods or causing problems that will flare up later...

I assume the point of one is that, somehow, it can look at your mods and figure out how to combine the different effects they are going to have on the game in a way that they don't conflict. Is that the general idea?

If so...then...two questions:

1. Obviously, what's the most user-friendly way to create one of these?

2. Is it "too late" if I've already started a play-through with my own slapped-together set of mods (FOOK, EVE, WME, Project Nevada, some retexture packs, body replacers, etc.) to do this now? Meaning, is it smarter to add one mod, create a merged patch, add one more, create a new merged patch, add another, make another patch, etc.etc...?

And then, if anyone feels like really explaining this (or pointing to a resource that does) I'd really love some basic understanding of how the heck it can do that anyway...? Wouldn't it somehow need to know everything every mod is doing? Such as access some kind of "database of all mods and their effects" which I've never heard of existing... And then by what mechanism would it pick-and-choose which of 2 potentially conflicting changes to allow and which to disallow?

But that's a more advanced/complicated answer I'm sure. A basic answer to #1 and #2 above is all I really need...

I'd post a list of my mods/load order as I see people do, but I'm embarrassed to admit I can't figure out how to generate one of those via NMM -which is what I'm using to manage all my mods.

I only just started a new playthrough after a year or so away from NV, so it's no big deal if I'm given advice such as "Don't use NMM" and/or "Yes, you have to start over and build a merged patch via adding only one mod at a time."

Thanks again!

JD