Im trying to find more info on mod limit

[Might]

I know the plugin limit is about 255 and you can add more with esl and esl flagged esps merging mods etc. But i feel there is another limit issue thats not being discussed

In fallout 3 the mod limit is also 255, however you'd never reach it because the game would bug out. I could add any mod I want in fallout 3 but I had to merge them to limit the amount of resources the game had to pull from.

I thought that might be the issue here so I merge most of my armors, weapons, settlement objects to about 5 plugins everything works fine. but i have this issue where if i add a mod it will not load in game and if i move it higher it will remove the mod at the bottom of my load order (start me up) so it says start me up is missing.. so in order for me to use a mod I have to uninstall another or make it an esl but not all mods are safe to ESL. what im trying to understand here is why im having this issue. I have 408 plugins but less than 200 of them are esp most of them are ESL and ESL flag. Can anyone give me some information about this ?

[Zekiran]

Then maybe, be more picky about what you want in your game, and carefully learn which ones should and should not be made into the other format. If you're getting actual load errors, "that's way way too many".

[Trehek]

If the problem isn't hitting the ESP limit, you might be hitting the limit of the ESL record space? ESLs basically get one ESP slot's worth of record addresses, which they have to share. Having a mod with just a few records in an ESP slot is wasteful, so squeezing it into the same space as other similarly small mods can give you much more room for mods. But if you're messing around with a lot of merged mods, particularly if you've got a lot of big ESL'ified mods, I suppose it's possible to fill that space up.

[Might]

I dont have any load errors my build runs fine I just cant add anymore mods unless I remove some im trying to understand why.

How would I know if im hitting ESL limit space? and I have some simple mods in esl format so I guess that might be the issue. I will merge the simple ESLs and see if I can add some more thanks.

[Trehek]

Originally posted by Might:

I dont have any load errors my build runs fine I just cant add anymore mods unless I remove some im trying to understand why.

How would I know if im hitting ESL limit space? and I have some simple mods in esl format so I guess that might be the issue. I will merge the simple ESLs and see if I can add some more thanks.

Assuming the ESL space is the problem, merging them isn't going to make a difference. They'll still have the same amount of records in the same space.

To be clear, are you able to narrow down which types of mods you're unable to add? Are you able to successfully add another mod with an ESL? What about a mod with an ESP? Also, did you count your ESMs in your ESP count? (because you should)

[Fear2288]

There’s another limit you need to be aware of, one that you’d never know about unless you went looking for answers…

The BA2 limit.

A BA2 is an archive file format popular among FO4 mod makers (and used by BGS themselves for the game). Archiving your mod’s files in a BA2 decreases their size, allows them to load faster in-game, and decreases the time it takes to download the mod off Nexus or wherever.

Thing is, the game actually has a limit for how many active BA2 files you can have.

For most people that limit is 510, though some claim to be able to go above that while others say they can’t go beyond a number less than 510.

What makes it tricky to keep track of is that BA2 files can be used in ESM, ESP, and ESL mods, and unlike the ESM/ESP limit which programs like Vortex will notify you of when you’ve surpassed it - you won’t receive such notifications for BA2s.

Another thing that makes it tricky is that a mod can contain as few as one BA2 file or as many as six - though most you’ll find contain two.

So what that means is that you could have a grand total of 255 ESM, ESP, and ESL mods and be sitting right at the limit of 510 if each of those 255 mods contains two BA2 files.

What gets most people is that they watch their ESM/ESP limit but then go buckwild with downloading ESL mods since they don’t count towards that hard 255 you normally cannot surpass.

The result may be that you’ve got yourself 200 ESM/ESP mods and 300 ESL mods, thinking you’re fine and good to go, and then BAM - instant CTD on game launch.

Little do you realize that between your total 500 mods you’ve stuffed 700 BA2s into your game and that’s why your game can’t even run.

To check how many BA2 files you currently have in your game go to Fallout/Data and in the search bar type “.ba2”. In the bottom left corner of the window you should see a number - that’s how many BA2 files you’re currently trying to use in your game.

If you’re over 510 - especially if you’re in the 600s+ - that is likely the root of your problems.

The only solutions are to either disable/delete mods until that BA2 count reaches 510 or below, or use a utility to unpack BA2 files (essentially turning them into “loose files”). The downside of the latter is that you may experience longer load times, and decreased performance due to it taking longer for the game to load those loose files as opposed to BA2s.

If that number is below 510, your issue lies with something else.

[🆄🅽🅲🅻🅴 🅹🅾]

Lol, and here I am quite happy with about 15 or so mods installed.

[hawkeye]

There are lengthy discussions on the afkmods.com forums.