Recommendations regarding mod merging

[jaydawg55]

As mentioned elsewhere, I am reconstituting my Skyrim AE mod list after a long time away playing other games. My goal is to get a stable game world established using mods that I can use for playthroughs with companions and new characters I create. To make Skyrim feel more populated, I am adding mods that expand the city outskirts as well as place other small towns on the map (Arthmoor's town mods are the backbone of this effort.). With larger cities this results in having to add a lot of compatibility patches to get various mods to work together properly.

Riften is a good example of what I mean. Placing a detour road around the city, restoring a gate, overhauling the docks, upgrading the farms, and including two different outskirts suburbs means a lot of compatibility patches to keep this from becoming a real mess during gameplay. I have done something similar with the other "big" cities when there are mods available that do similar things. 

Once a good load order is established (just about there now), would it be beneficial to use Zedit to merge the mods that form these metropolises? I have had good experience using Zedit in the past to reduce the number of armor and weapons mods into a single blob. I also combined village mods from the same author into a single blob. So far, whenever Wrye Bash advises me to flag certain mods as ESL or ESL-flagged plugins I do it. So I am not 

LOOT does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to sorting plugins, but I still have to do some finetuning by hand with Wrye Bash. I would like to minimize re-doing that every time I add another mod or two going forward. 

Your thoughts? 

[smr1957]

For merging plugins, zEdit is not recommended.  The ideal tool is xEdit using the Merge Plugins script for xEdit (I personally use this xEdit scrip for merging plugins: Merge Plugins xEdit Script - while it is linked under original Skyrim mod site, it works for SSE as well).  That recommendation is based upon my personal experience of merging plugins, and I probably have more experience than anyone when it comes to the subject.

It should be noted, that merging plugins has its own set of potential issues, and so should be approached with some caution.  Also, merging plugins is not just about the merging, it is about ensuring that all potential conflicts or issues or resolved first - and, there are some mods that you should NOT merge (Arthmoor's towns are one such). As to merging mods and their patches - that is also not recommended - it is better to just merge the patches and keep the master mods as separate independent plugins.  Basically, unless an individual has extensive experience in doing so (and I am speaking in general terms, and not necessarily referring to you, jaydawg), it is better to reduce the size of the build rather than merge plugins - and, even then, one should think twice.

For more info regarding merging and other things related to xEdit, see this guide:

Editing In xEdit

Specifically, the last two sections - Merging Plugins - Introduction and How To Merge 
 

The bottom line is (as with much in modding) - if in doubt, don't.

 

So, just make sure you take extra care going forward if you decide to proceed, and have everything backed up - just in case.  Good luck!

Edited March 13 by smr1957

[Arthmoor]

Actually for SE and FO4 the general consensus is that merging is a bad idea regardless and you should be using ESL flagged patches to resolve things.

Merging has NEVER been something you should be using to take content from two completely independent mods and make them one. All compatibility patches intended for those mods will be rendered useless to you and you'd have to rebuild such merges each time any of the mods in it were updated. Which means you can't update your merge on existing saves either because you can't guarantee the form IDs will come out the same each time.

[jaydawg55]

Thanks for explaining smr1957 and Arthmoor. I guess the moral of this story is: just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done. Wrye Bash is tipping me off when there is an opportunity to flag a mod as an ESL file and I have been taking full advantage of it. I am not getting close to the maximum number of ESPs yet. 

On a related matter, I am making good progress getting a new mod list together for Fallout 4 today. But WB did crash on me at start up just a few minutes ago. I filed a bug report in the proper forum on this site. Any suggestions you have for a workaround until a fix is identified would be appreciated. Until recently I have been using Vortex as my mod manager. I could go back to that without much trouble. But moving to MO2 would be like starting over. Do you know if Kortex still works? 

[Arthmoor]

I exclusively use Wrye Bash. Vortex lacks functions I consider mandatory, like manual load order editing. MO2 has that whole virtual file system thing I don't like and nothing else has ever really come close to being able to replace Bash for me. So I can't really offer you advice on making anything else work well.

I also have no idea if Kortex is still in development or not as I never used it either. I am very much set in my ways and use what works best for me

[jaydawg55]

If you are happy with what you have, there is NO harm in that. Since I have been using Wrye Bash again, I have started to appreciate it more. Back when SSE first came out, there were not a lot of alternatives. Now I can evaluate it against the alternatives more fairly. 

EDITED

Edited March 16 by jaydawg55