Question about merging Mods

[Royhr]

I was just wondering if there is any sort of limitation as far as how many mods you can merge into a single merged file? I have merged multiple simple mods that I like to use use into a couple of merged files which has greatly reduced my mod load. Each contain around 15 mods thus reducing 30 mods to only 2. After creating them I ran fnvedit and it showed no problems and the game runs ok without any noticeable problems and all of the merged mods seem to be functioning as they should. But I just want to be sure I'm just not either very lucky or may still encounter some future problems. So again is there a cap limit as far as the number of mods you can merge together?

[KeltecRFB]

I don't believe there is a number but don't merge any mods requiring MCM but Roy or the other developers can better answer this.  I am curious too what the parameters are?

[Adonis VII]

There is no real limit on number of mods than can be merged. A mod can be a single form or it can be DLC sized, so number of individual plugins pre-merge isn't always the best gauge. In principle if you used GECK and ridiculous amounts of time you could manually merge most of your mods down to a couple.  In general though if you are just using xEdit to manually merge mods or using the Merge Script there are a couple things you'll want to avoid due to large headache.

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  Mods that have Navmesh data (which should be .esm anyway) requires manual GECK merging


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  Mods that have a MCM


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  Mods that contains a .bsa.  [modname].bsa will load if there is [modname].esp  Merging mods to have different .esp will cause the game to not load any .bsa that do not match anymore. If the .bsa is just textures/meshes they can be unpacked, but certain files such as .egm (makes clothing fit to NPC bodies) need to stay in .bsa. The latest Merge Script should rename single .bsa for you, but I can't remember offhand if it handles multiple .bsa.


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  Mods that are master to another mod. When formid's conflict, they will be renumbered. Say you want to merge mod A that adds new weapons with mod B. Now you want to use an IMPACT patch for A.  The weapon formid's to which the patch points may now be different.  You can however merge patches together or with the master.  In this example, merge A with the IMPACT patch.  You can then merge your new A-IMPACT with B.


• 
  Script/Quest heavy mods. There is a large possibility of breaking scripts without realizing it.

So what are prime mods to merge?

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  Simple graphics mods. Mods that have an esp to change a textureset, to alter the mesh (book of steel) etc.


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  Simple gameplay mods. Yuki for example has many small mods than can be merged such as Working Grinding Wheel and Campfire Cooking (which TTW Options  has a version of)


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  Patches. Patches are great to merge together on a per mod basis. e.g. all the ILO esp for the quest mods.  Alternatively/additionally you can fold many of your individual patches into a large Conflict Patch/Feature Patch. Some people roll this into their Merged Patch, some people keep it separate so they can regenerate the Merged Patch for FormLists separately.

As is the case with modding, there are exceptions, and things that need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

EDIT: I should also add that you should check conflicts before merging.  The Merge Script will choose the conflict winner to merge and does not automatically patch. E.G. merging conflicting Weapon-WMX and Weapon-IMPACT patches will NOT give you features of both, only features of the winner.

[Royhr]

Ok great thanks Adonis. Great post. One question though? Why is it that you should not merge mods using MCM? I have actually merged a couple that do and they have worked without any issues? But they again are very simple and basic mods that use MCM for some simple configuration  or settings.

Edit: Ok I stand corrected. I went back to recheck and I found that I actually only merged one mod that used MCM and when I checked in game I did discover that there were no settings avaiable for that mod when I went into MCM. The mod was listed but the setting didn't show when I selected it. But in the past I had this same mod merged and at that time the setting did show up but not this latest build that I just did. So not sure why it was ok before but not now. Anyway I removed it from the merged file and installed it as a standalone and all is now well.

[rickerhk]

To expand a bit on what Adonis VII said regarding Navmesh. FNVPlugin can help here. It will update the NAVI as well as NAVM records in the resulting plugin. It will even remove NAVI entries for deleted NAVM records. What I do is merge everything except NAVM manually by injection then copy, using FNVEdit. And of course, don't touch the NAVI record either. Then clean the source plugin of all ITMs resulting from the injection/copy. Then merge the plugins with FNVPlugin. If the original plugins didn't have any navmesh in common (conflicts) then you're done. If there were conflicts then you need to edit, then re-finalize the conflicted cell navmeshes in the Geck - there could be substantial work here if the conflict was major. In cases where the source plugin already had the destination plugin as a master and you had NAVM overrides, you're done as long as you finalized the NAVM in the source plugin - otherwise you will need to finalize those cells in the destination plugin, with the Geck.

[RoyBatty]

A lot of the time you can get away with just deleting the navi record and then loading and saving the plugin in GECK and it will "create a temporary navmesh info" record, which basically just rebuilds it. When you save it will give you a list of any cells that need a refinalize (usually with doors) if you are using powerup. You can then go refinalize the cells it mentions (typically worldspace). There's a way to audit all the navmeshes too, I forgot the process off the top of my head.

You can then clean ITM's afterwards and have a nice clean NAVI info record.