Merging Multiple Plugins Into One...

[Chrisjack]

First things first,

A good friend of mine and myself have recently decided to give Tale of Two Wastelands a shot for the first time and I just wanted to say; we both are beyond impressed. Great work on both the devs side of things and the community. We have created a couple of very stable but heavily modded games that we are extremely happy with. All this due to the hard work put in at this site. So, thank you, all.

 

That all being said,

We are at around 127 active plugins and from my previous experience modding FNV, I know that is (probably) nearing a danger-zone of instability. Now, I know there are ways to merge multiple plugins together into one single plugin but I do not have any experience with that yet other than the failed attempts in the past few days. I am familiar with using FNVEdit and its' corresponding versions for other Bethesda titles for cleaning, merge patches and master updates, though.

I have spent the last few nights googling around and reading posts from here, Nexus, Loverslab and all over really. I have tried following a couple tutorials (the best one seemed to be for skyrim, though, and did not work) but I could not, for the life of me, find a well written guide that gave me any actual results for FNV. I also did download the FNVEdit guide/manual from Nexus and read through that but it seemed not only confusing but contradictory at times or maybe missing steps when it came to merging plugins together. I could not get positive results from that or the FO3Edit Manual version. I have also read there was a good guide for doing this on the TTW site but I have not found that either.

Now, I have found http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37981/? and

 http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/39655/? but I have also read a few posts that warn against these and state they lack the stability that merging by hand will grant. And well, I want stability obviously. Though, many of those posts that gave such warnings were from years ago.

So, my questions to those with more experience in this than myself and who have been active in recent days; in what direction do I look? Is it safe to use one of these I linked? The Merge Plugin xEdit Script off the Skyrim Nexus looks pretty appealing with all its endorsements but I am hesitant until I get some feedback. Also, I am still interested in learning how to do it by hand with FNVEdit if anyone can point me to a guide/walkthrough that actually works. 

I am not opposed to a little hard work, especially if it pays off in the end. And anything that helps build the skills to create rather than just use is a huge bonus for me. Thanks in advance for any help given.

 

[Thenryb]

I have used the plug in utility you linked to merge a few simple mods and have also used the script from FNVEdit to merge a few others. Both have worked fine for me. I try hard to keep my active plug-in count to less than 100 and  use few mods which have require high textures. Definitely no weather mods for me and no crap packs to add 4 more, in my view, worthless plugins to my load order.

[Lyndi]

I've used this one a few times: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37981/?

I just used it today actually. I merge small stuff into one big plugin just like Thenryb said. I definitely wouldn't use it for something big like a companion mod or any mod with MCM. I crammed mine with casino crap, some camera mods, map markers, etc. Basically anything that's small and no one is currently updating.

In my experience if you go over 139 files all sorts of weird crap happens. Probably why they have that warning when you launch the game with more mods than that....  Anyway, I try to keep my load order in the low 120's. I'm currently running with the merged plugin I rebuilt today and a bashed patch that has some other mods merged into it. I haven't had any issues.

[Chrisjack]

Thank you so much for the feedback so far! I added my load order on this post as well. So, I was thinking of combining the Type 3/Breeze clothing replacers to start. Maybe then some of the interface mods.

The FAQ of the Merge Plugin xEdit page says it can successfully merge mods using MCM now or is that not actually true? I would assume to not merge the actual MCM into a merge as it is a master for several things.

I was thinking of trying to combine the Advanced Recon esp's that don't have others depending on them as well. My assumption would be you cannot merge things that have other mods dependent on them as masters... or am I wrong when it comes to this tool? Would I be right in guessing I could merge a bunch of my patches? So many patches in this setup. It would be nice to be able to combine those. Or is that a bad idea too? The Nexus page for that xEdit script seems very optimistic in what it can do. And that whole thing about when something seems too good to be true...

Any suggestions are highly appreciated. But I definitely want to figure out the actual rules and boundaries of using a tool like this before going crazy with it. Plus, almost all the feedback I see for it is specifically for skyrim, which is a slightly different creature from this.

[RoyBatty]

Maybe it can merge SKYRIM plugins with MCM, but not NV ones.

[Chrisjack]

Ty Ty, super glad to know this before I tried it and spent 5 hours troubleshooting. What about the patches, though? Will that work out ok?

[zilav]

Merge plugins script does exactly what FNVEdit manual says on merging mods, it just automates all operations. Keep in mind that it merges records, not the effect of plugins. People mistakenly think that merging 2 mods will give you one having the effect of both merged. While this is true for mods that don't conflict, it won't work for conflicting ones, those that modify the same records. Records from the winning plugin loaded later will end up in the merged plugin, changes from looser will be lost.

Simple example - you have 2 mods, one modifies ammo damage, other ammo weight. If you merge them you will get merged plugin that modifies either damage or weight, not both together depending on which mod was placed later in load order when merging. You will need first to create a patch plugin for those 2, and only then merge 3 plugins with patch loaded last to get the desired effect. That's why it is recommended to merge plugins that add new stuff like weapons and armours, since they usually only add new records and don't conflict.

 

[Chrisjack]

I definitely have read a few times now to have the load order set the way you want it and to have all the 'to be merged' plugins next to eachother before the combining merge and figured that is what this meant. It is good to have it confirmed that load order continues to matter and that I can make a custom patch and merge it as well. But on that level, it would seem to be safe to merge some of these patches taking up space then.

My next question is: will inactivated plugins still work against my grand total vs hitting that 140ish danger-zone? I remember using Wryebash years ago and needing to use a 'ghost plugin' function so that plugins which were unchecked would not count against your total. Do I need to worry about this here still or has the software moved past this? Was thinking I would just make a folder with sub folders in my Data folder to place all the inactive plugins to keep track of them if this is the case.

[RoyBatty]

Still it can't combine records from multiple plugins, you'll need to do such things by hand. Say for instance... you want the impact data from Impact, the Ammo list from CaliberX, the weapon mods from WMX, and the bug fixes to the forms from TTWFixes. This is something you have to do by hand because even Wrye pukes on such things because not enough tags.

Same goes for things like PN which adds and removes things from lists, particularly with a TTW patch. xEdit and Wrye become confused on what to add and what to remove so manual inspection is required.

It's perfectly fine for mods which only have new records and no overrides, weapon and armor mods are good examples unless they integrate the content into the vendor/npc loot lists, then you need to be a bit more careful as zilav suggests.

The only way to mod your game exactly how you want, is to learn at least rudimentary editing and get a little knowledge about lists and the things you want to merge, and doing it either manually or using a script and then checking the results afterwards. It's more time consuming, but you end up with results that work better, and can also be tailored to your individual liking.

[Chrisjack]

Also, on the subject of not touching mods that utilize MCM, would it still be safe to merge, say, the Project Nevada patches and just not the core files? Like the patches for DLCs, WMX, bottled water, etc etc... or does this make all of the things that touch PN unsafe due to the MCM issue?