Best Way to Manage Mods? : IV

Best Way to Manage Mods?

» Sat Jun 15, 2013 12:17 pm

I went on a download spree the last couple of months and got at least 2,000 mods of all kind organized in a folder based infrastructure. I'm trying to figure out the best way to install; should I unpack all of them and individually repack with a Wrye Bash system of folders with zero compression to speed up installation; if I do that, could I even get this amount of mods to work? Keep in mind that some of the mods are obsolete because I didn't check whether some them do the same thing as others. Any other suggestions to reduce the amount of time it will take to reorganize all of these mods?

Here's a list of the mods I have downloaded:

Spoiler

Toby Green: Posts: 3365; Joined: Sun May 27, 2007 5:27 pm

» Sat Jun 15, 2013 9:21 pm

Downloaded mods (continued):

Spoiler

Dezzeh: Posts: 3414; Joined: Sat Jun 16, 2007 2:49 am

» Sat Jun 15, 2013 8:58 pm

Uhhh....

This strikes me as not the best way to go about things.

Regardless, you should use Wrye Bash, but there is no way you can use all of those mods. There is a hard limit of 253 mod-added ESP/ESM files, and even with a Bashed Patch for importing and merging, you can only go so far.

phillip crookes: Posts: 3420; Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 1:39 pm

» Sat Jun 15, 2013 6:39 pm

Hmm okay... I wasn't really planning on using all of them as I have a lot of fillers for what I thought could be useful, but that is a big limitation.

Is there an easy way to merge smaller mods, which mostly consist of .esp files e.g. new homes into a single mod? What is the limit for merging mods into a bashed patch and what type of mods are able to be merged (can house mods be merged)?

Amber Ably: Posts: 3372; Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:39 pm

» Sat Jun 15, 2013 7:43 pm

Merging mods with tes4gecko can be tricky, but small tweaks should be simple enough. Never merge mods with landscape changes.

Psymon listed a few mods that can be safely merged http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1376687-need-advice-on-what-to-merge-and-not-to/page-2#entry21293157.

Tips from Anithinks:

Spoiler

1) Never merge mods that are under active development, and have new versions every few months. You'll have to re-merge these, and that is such a pain! E.g., SDR is a bad candidate.

2) Never merge anything that has Bash tags, as it could lead to unnecessary items in the bashed patch.

3) Always place the merged mod where the last mod would have been placed by BOSS. .g., when merging mods 1, 2, and 3, place merged mod where mod 3 would have been (assuming BOSS placed it last among these 3) in the load order (using BOSS userlist rules).

4)Tip from Psymon: Merge mods that are somewhat themaically related, like the ones for dialogs. Don't merge tweaks with quest mods etc.

5) Never merge mods that could be merged entirely within the bashed patch. Waste of effort.

6) Never merge mods that require other mods as masters, or are masters of other mods. I have done some of the latter, but it gets complicated.

7) Don't merge overhauls, COBL, ULs, BCs, and cother complicated mods. Stick to the simple stuff. Scripted mods usually good candidates for merging. Kuertee's mods are good candidates for merging.

8) Always clean the merged mod with Tes4Edit, and check for errors. COmmon errors you'll notice include where player reference 00000014 gets replaced by 01000014. You'll have to manually correct that. Kuertee's mods always have this issue when merged, and there are other places when that 01 prefix needs to be renumbered to 00.

9) Don't do merging when you have a current game active. It changes references for OBSE mods that can be sometimes fatal to a savegame. In fact, don't add/delete mods from an active game. I suggest setting up your load order and testing it before actually starting a character you want to play. I have lost too many good save games and characters to "mod greed".

10) Always remember to rename bsa's when included in a merged mod. E.g., Mod a has "Mod A.bsa", and is merged into "Merged Mod.esp". Now it should be renamed to "Merged Mod - Mod A.bsa", so that it will load correctly.

Some of the mods I've merged:

Spoiler

and a whole bunch more that I was stupid enough to forget to list in the description of the merged.esp.

Even if you can keep your limit under 253 esp/esm there's also a limit of 400 esp/esm/bsa in your data folder.

ANaIs GRelot: Posts: 3401; Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:19 pm

» Sat Jun 15, 2013 1:39 pm

Oblivion seems to have a lot of limitations :confused: especially the 400 esp limit in my data folder. That's very damaging to what I was trying to do.

I will think this over more and go by some of those tips, thanks.

koumba: Posts: 3394; Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2007 8:39 pm

» Sat Jun 15, 2013 6:36 pm

It's not just Oblivion, it's the game engine that Bethesda uses for their games. All of their titles have a limit as to how many mods you can include. As for your current approach, it sounds like you're going about it all wrong. If you toss in a whole bunch of mods at once, it's going to be a nightmare trying to find the source of any potential problem that might pop up. A lot of mods conflict with each other, which can cause serious problems for your game. You really want to take it slow to make sure that all your mods are playing nice with each other. Which means adding one mod at a time then checking ingame to make sure it's working properly. And you want to make sure you have things set up with a proper load order. You need to get BOSS, which will automatically sort your load order for you, to a certain extent at least. There will still be some mods you'll need to sort yourself, and you'll need Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) for that. Load order is very important for Bethesda games, make sure you are doing things right in that regard.

Maddy Paul: Posts: 3430; Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:20 pm

» Sat Jun 15, 2013 2:03 pm

Do not use OBMM, use Wrye Bash. There is no reason to use OBMM except for the vanishingly few mods that require it for instal (mostly a couple of shader changes and Sensual Walks).

Katie Louise Ingram: Posts: 3437; Joined: Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:10 am