Merging Mods??

[MikeCobalt]

Hey Everybody, I'm at 254 mods but the character is only at Lvl 35. I've heard some say "Don't do a merge mid play-through", and others said "it depends on the mods in question". The 2 catagory's are "Mihails Animal additions" and "JK's Town/Building Mods"; those 2 make more than 20 of my load order. If those are merge-able as 2 separate merges now I can add the travelling mods (Bruma/Cyrodiil, Baan Malur/Morrowwind, Wyrmstooth & Falskaar or Midwood) and 1 armor mod I'm looking at. Those two groups certainly are not loaded with scripts, no dependencies or requirements, it seems they would be the simplest merge possible.
Also, what about ".Esl"? would that be better, could it be done now without killing that play-through (like what happened before for an altogether different reason)?

Any Insight here would be appreciated

[mikk011]

Before you try merging mods, check your load order to see if any of your .esp files can be .esl flagged; if any are eligible this will free up some of your plugin spots. There is an xedit script you can run to check for .esl eligibility and I believe there is an extension in Vortex that tells you if a mod can be .esl flagged as well.

This is from the pinned topic Helpful Links and References and there are sections both on .esl flagging and mod merging. Hopefully SMR will be around later and might elaborate if he chooses-he's the most qualified person here and regularly available to discuss merging mods.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2660673605&insideModal=0

edit: I'm assuming by 254 mods you mean 254 plugins, specifically .esp and .esm files. Mesh and texture-only mods and no-.esp skse-dependent mods do not count towards the plugin limit, and .esls and .esl-flagged mods share a single plugin slot.

[smr1957]

Here's the final word - DO NOT merge already installed mods mid-playthrough - it will be the same as if you removed mods mid-playthrough and continued playing - your game WILL be borked.

As for mods that you have not yet installed, yes, you can merge them - but I would STRONGLY suggest that if you have never merged mods before, that you do not do so for an ongoing game.

As to making a standard .esp an .esl file - again, this CANNOT be done mid-playthrough on an already installed mod, again because it will as if you removed the installed mod, and again, it will bork your game.

If you have a stable playthrough, and are going to continue playing on this current game, I would really recommend that you just leave well enough alone. However, if you wish to add new mods, make a save BEFORE you install them - so you can roll back, just in case things go wrong.

When creating a large build, the best approach is to plan ahead - know which mods you want to use, and plan your build around them. And, as to merging, it would be far better to just use .esl mods whenever possible, as merging can get very complex, very quickly - especially if you have not done it before.

[MikeCobalt]

Ok everybody, thanks for your experience and this few minutes. Kinda what I'd thought already so this here just put that to rest totally.

[isomorphic_projection]

You can see for yourself if it is necessary. You can have 256 active full plugins and 4096 light plugins. If you use LOOT, you can see it top right of the screen.

I myself have now 496 active plugins, 86 are full ones. A full plugin is registered as an ESP a light plugin as an ESL. So the maximum is 256 ESP and 4096 ESL.

[MikeCobalt]

So, I play this character all the way to the end and when I start a new character I add the mods, .ESL ify as many of those mods as possible then merge those that cant be changed and after those, *Then, I start and go through the Helgan start?

[smr1957]

Originally posted by MikeCobalt:

So, I play this character all the way to the end and when I start a new character I add the mods, .ESL ify as many of those mods as possible then merge those that cant be changed and after those, *Then, I start and go through the Helgan start?

Yes - that's it (unless you have an unmodded save from later in the game). Just make sure you test as you do everything - for that, the mod Alternate Start - Live Another Life - SSE[www.nexusmods.com] is essential, as it allows you to skip the intro and start in almost any location.

[Death Approaches]

Mike, if I've said it one I've said it 47 times, and I'll say it til I quit Skyrim. While I don't (won't) use Vortex, MO2 is a quite powerful tool and has this lovely thing called "instances". But Vortex probably has something similar if that's what you went with.

the beauty of instancing is, you get to have multiple installs of Skyrim; so if you feel like working on learning merging mods and seeing if you're any good at figuring out what can be smushed together easily? You clone your current instance into a new one, and work on it... when you want to play, you boot into the original instance and play, they're isolated, separate virtual filesystem overlays... you can hop into your merged test, see how it's going, decide you biffed it, wipe it, re-clone it, start again, all never messing with your working install. Or see that it's working good, and want to try another merge set, clone the clone into a 3rd instance, and work on THAT one, as a checkpoint. You could work on ... well, as many different separate mod install instances at once as you want, depending on free drive space.

for someone who wants to change or install new mods frequently but doesn't want to sacrifice a current playthrough, it's freakin' magic. MO2 makes mod use a joy.

[isomorphic_projection]

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

Mike, if I've said it one I've said it 47 times, and I'll say it til I quit Skyrim. While I don't (won't) use Vortex, MO2 is a quite powerful tool and has this lovely thing called "instances". But Vortex probably has something similar if that's what you went with.

the beauty of instancing is, you get to have multiple installs of Skyrim; so if you feel like working on learning merging mods and seeing if you're any good at figuring out what can be smushed together easily? You clone your current instance into a new one, and work on it... when you want to play, you boot into the original instance and play, they're isolated, separate virtual filesystem overlays... you can hop into your merged test, see how it's going, decide you biffed it, wipe it, re-clone it, start again, all never messing with your working install. Or see that it's working good, and want to try another merge set, clone the clone into a 3rd instance, and work on THAT one, as a checkpoint. You could work on ... well, as many different separate mod install instances at once as you want, depending on free drive space.

for someone who wants to change or install new mods frequently but doesn't want to sacrifice a current playthrough, it's freakin' magic. MO2 makes mod use a joy.

It's what i do. I use MO2. Right now, i have 590 mods working perfect. The next mods, are for lights and more atmosphere as they say it. But i also have in those 590 mods. Cathedral 3D plants and tree's, Parallax, Jk's mods and 200 or so patches for it to work. With immersive citizens. I know it will go wrong. So i make another instance. And test it on that. If it fails, i can still go back to default.

[MikeCobalt]

:) Thanks everybody, I knew about the *Instances but never really associated it with multiple characters in the Same, play-through. "That is a very good idea to Try it before you Commit to it". Honestly, SE and MO2 are still fairly new as *Some Company* killed that first one when SE came out and the second one just last winter in another Update; I've stayed with LE all this time and the thought of reaching the mod limit was never an issue aside from building new world spaces/Kingdom that do often require a totally different look and feel (meaning *Alot of Mods).

I'll keep all this in mind and make sure I save this so I can reference it when I do plan to start looking ahead. My characters do tend to have Long Lives (My LE character is over 5 years, I just base my own new mods on existing mods to not take another slot) so this LVL 35 SE DB is still a pup compared to their predecessors. Before playing SE (for any amount of time) the issue of "Running out of slots" was totally unknown, no reason to even think about it.

Again, thanks for all this information and insight plus the time, I'll *try to put it to good use. I'd like to see a character see all those foreign lands, seems a very good way to round out a character.