XEdit Conflict Resolution/Merged Patching (FO4Edit) 

Glad to help, that's the whole point of modding in my opinion!

Glad to hear it.

Glad to help where I can. For me, it's paying it forward for folks teaching me how it works.

Glad it's helped!

Awesome, glad I could help! I made a lot of tutorials with the idea that I would move on to other games and do other things, but I'd need to learn how to do these things again, so I set them up to teach myself again too.

@@Brigand231 Lol you have no idea how much this has helped a lot of us beginners with resolving mod conflicts! I looked at a bunch and just needed small baby steps. Your tutorial was literally the missing plug for me. Working 12 days straight for 12 hours a day, I don't have as much time to research this in depth. This has helped resolve a 2-week issue I had in resolving Sim Settlements 2 with some other mods. Thank you!

@@JohnnyKimchi Anytime, just passing on and paying forward what I learned from folks who were happy to share their knowledge and experience with me. At least in my mind, that's what the modding community is all about.

A lot of modding is like that. Once you decide you're going to do it it's not so bad. Glad to help out!

Glad to help. Have fun!

Glad it helps. Happy modding and enjoy your game!

Glad to help where I can. Have fun!

Glad it helped!

Sorry, I have no idea what could be causing that for you. I haven't touched a Bethesda game for a few months now, so an seriously out of date. Sorry I am not of any help to you, but good luck!

Yeah, no worries. I've solved the issue. Valdacil's sorting was clashing with some other mods. I've installed the Bhaal's sorting mod instead and all is well now. But thank you for responding anyway.

Sure thing, glad it helped!

Glad you found it useful!

Glad to hear it!

Glad it helped!

Awesome, glad to hear it!

@@Brigand231 I uploaded my patch to Nexus and credited you for your video - thanks so much!

@@aevidaudi Cool, thanks for the shout out! May I trouble you for a link?

Glad to hear it!

@@Brigand231 With some experience in modding and XEdit, over the past year I managed to create a stable game with about 400 mods. However, it was only after watching your tutorial and scanning XEdit that I realized how much stuff that was added by some mods (like Wasteland Imports and Raider Overhaul for instance) wasn't actually showing up in my game due to levelled list conflicts... I guess I always assumed that a blank field meant something like 'no changes to this row, so no problem' or something like that. I've been making a few patches, which is actually quite fun and interesting, and is greatly improving my game. So thanks again!

@@guidodingemans Sweet, I love hearing stories like that! There is another "step" in learning about leveled lists, though you may not be required to take it, and that's realizing that some mods inject things into lists by script. The reason you'll never need to "worry" about it is that when things are injected by script they sort of virtually get tacked on to the end of whatever list they're added to so there's no conflict. Those additions are saved within your game save file even if you remove the mod (if the items added are removed when the mod is removed there's no problem as far as I know).

Any time. While I'm sure they exist, I've yet to hear from anyone who truly likes the Creation Club. I haven't looked in to how that stuff would interfere with AWKCR, but a simple workaround would be to copy and rename any CC plugins from .esl to .esm or .esp and disable the originals. That would also be my suggestion to anybody who mods using assets from CC mods to make them more compatible with existing and future mods.

The update made it so that .esms all invariably get loaded first, and there are some mods that are not .esm but have to be loaded before AWKCR or they overwrite parts of it -- Fallout 4 Unofficial Patch being one of them, but there are others too. So I either have to be able to turn those mods into .esms (I'm not a modder, so no can do), or use the method you showed here which creates a merged .esp which I can load after.

Gotcha. That is rather annoying for sure. I know Gambit's pretty sharp and will likely put out an official workaround so that it works the same for everyone. IF you're on PC it's extremely easy to add an .esm or master flag to a plugin even without changing its name. Even if you're not "a modder", it's quick and easy to do in Xedit by changing one entry. I'm sure there's tons of tutorials on that out there. ...but I'd just ask Gambit if he's got anything in the works on that front. ...unless I'm confusing myself on which mod needs tweaking, that's a possibility too.

It's a matter of taste, really. It's up to you to decide which change you want to "win". It might take some time and research on your part to determine which that is. There is no simple answer to that. If, for example, six different mods make edits to an NPC's appearance, you'll need to find which change you want to be in effect, an NPC can't walk around with six different faces at once.

@@Brigand231 hey this tool sounds helpful do have any idea of where I should start doing research in order to use xedit more officently?

@@Spicystachegamer One of my favorite sayings is "If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time". What that means is you might want to identify what you want to do with it, then you can learn how to do that. If you want to resolve conflicts there are many tutorials and an XEdit user manual that should be available form the same page you downloaded the editor from. I am more than happy to answer specific questions, most modders are. You can also ask for help on the mod page at the Nexus.

That's hard to answer without knowing more about the situation. Off the top of my head, I would guess that perhaps you might need to add masters to conflict fixer.

Yikes! Good luck, seriously! I know it's not what a lot of folks want to hear, but my best advice (that even I don't want to follow, now that I'm reinstalling Fallout 4 on a new PC) is to break daunting tasks up into chunks. Just work on patching in one mod at a time. Maybe tell yourself you'll patch in one mod each day. It might take longer that way, but you're a lot less likely to burn yourself out or procrastinate when the job at hand is "just one mod" instead of being crushed by a ton of bricks.

In short, if you have only done what this video covers, you will need to keep those plugins. This process only resolves conflicts, it does not merge the plugins themselves. If you have "only" patched mods to resolve a conflict, you'll need your patch and the other mods enabled. If you have merged mods you can disable the mods that have been rolled into your merged plugin, but be aware that any items from those mods will disappear in your active game(s) and need to be reacquired.

As the saying goes, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.". If you're determined to remove all conflicts, I'd suggest starting at the beginning of your load order and go through one mod at a time. If you want/need to break it down further, start with one category in the first mod and crawl your way through it. The thing is, a conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing. It simply means two plugins are trying to modify the same thing. If you made a mod that changed an NPC's name to something else, that creates a conflict, but it's a change you want to happen so there's no need to "fix" it.

Yes, that is correct at 6:09. The second mod (from the left) makes a change, but the third mod (from the left) makes a different change that ignores the second mod's change. That bit highlighted in red is what is conflicting - to clarify, that whole vertical column is the entry, not just the part in red; the entire entry is in conflict not just the text part. Once the fourth mod was created, the change that was red is copied to the fourth mod at 6:16 so that it incorporates the changes from both the second and the third mods.

@@Brigand231 Thank you that's very helpful!

Yes. In my load order I usually have an esp I call "LastWord" that loads last and works as a sort of final filter for all my mods, but if there's a chance your load order will be changing or you're likely to swap out a mod in the near future, a simple comprehensive patch would work just fine. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that some mods edit lists via script so you won't see their changes in the plugin and you won't really need to patch for them.

Great, glad you found it useful!

There are two possibilities here. The first, and possibly most likely, is that you're editing a vanilla value (something that already exists in the base game) or a value that has already been inherited from another master so it doesn't require a master to be added; the reason I say this is probably the most likely is that XEdit should inform you if your merged patch requires a master that it does not already have and will prompt if you want it to add it for you. The second possibility is that you might be trying to do things "backward" by directly editing the master and not your merged patch.

That's actually a somewhat deep question. This tutorial is only about resolving conflicts, not merging entire mods. Doing what is demonstrated here, you would not want to remove or clean anything. There are some good mod authors and some incompetent authors, but usually the first step to cleaning a mod is to ask the author about any edits you might suspect to be causing issues and give them a chance to address it. Not putting down users, but there are some issues that appear as conflictrs or XEdit reports as errors that are harmless or just the way the system works. FO4Edit is still in an alpha state, I believe or beta at best. If a mod author refuses to acknowledge apparent issues or is unavailable you can take matters into your own hands, but you're doing so even more at your own risk than usual. Definitely keep backups and tread carefully. Test thoroughly before declaring any changes as successful. As far as acquiring mods, sure, gather as many as you're interested in when they come out, but only install one at a time and again, test each one for a while before adding another one. If you install 10 mods at once and have an issue, you've made the job of tracking down that issue much harder on yourself. If you tell a mod author their mod is 1 in 10 that caused an issue for you and to look into it... I would kind of defend them if they laughed at you even if it might not be the nicest response. Personally, I'd say come back when you've got it narrowed down. As for what makes a "good" load order, that's almost a personal preference issue. I tend to load gameplay changes and mechanics first, then load settlement, building, and furniture mods. Quests are next, then companions - this is mostly to ensure navmesh edits from those mods take precedence over other stuff. Next in my load order is weapons, and then clothes. Last is my master override plugin where I fine tune anything I'm tinkering with or experimental items. Some folks will swear by load order managing tools like LOOT, BOSS, STEP etc. If the user knows what they do any how they do it, I see those as a good starting point, but there's no substitute for ripping open each plugin you add to your game and seeing what it does and placing it into your load order accordingly or patching it. Load order tools might be handy for getting a general idea, but for me if I'm going to have to check what they did anyway I might as well skip the step of running them. In the end, load order is all about priority and what changes are most important to you. Did that answer your question or did I miss the point? :)

Brigand231's Videos Thanks for the reply! It sort of answered my questions. I've already read quite a bit on load orders and modding, but I thought maybe I was missing something. I guess I should just give it a go. Thanks anyway!

Yes! Go for it, make mistakes and learn. That's how you get experience. If you're nervous back up your data/save folder or whatever will make you feel more at ease and cut loose! If you've got more questions, I'm more than happy to share what I [s]pretend to[/s] know.

You can, but I'd only do that with mods that are likely to be a permanent part of your load order. If you add references to a mod/plugin in your megapatch, but disable the plugin in your load order the patch will force that mod's plugin to activate anyway. If you completely uninstall the mod or undeploy it with a mod manager like Vortex that actually removes the plugin from your data folder that game will be stuck on the menu screen and prevent you from being able to play. If that were to happen the solutions are to edit your megapatch to remove any references to the missing plugin or reinstall the mod and let it effective hold you hostage to keep using it. Similarly, I would also suggest against adding mods that are in development or likely to change from a master megapatch. If you have only one mod in your patch, it will be easier to focus only on any changes or updates to that mod without getting wires crossed with other mods. It's also easier to see how changes to the one mod interact with other plugins if it's separate. There may some entries that you've edited to include changes from more than one mod and those kinds of changes are hard to track or remember unless you keep meticulous notes (I can admit I'm very lazy and do not do that). Does all that make sense?

@@Brigand231 then can you maybe marge the patches or do something similar to that so you don't take all your mod list with patches (the esp file limit)

@@dudeman9868 Absolutely. I'm not sure if I mention it in this video or not, but I'm fairly sure I mention in one of my videos that I tend to have a sort of "final word" plugin in my load order that I tend to merge things into when they get a permanent place in my load order.

Only if you copy literally every single entry from the original mod into your patch. Otherwise, your patch only overwrites the affected entries but does not copy everything else. If you deactivate the original, you lose all the unaltered entries from it. If the mod you're patching is guaranteed to NEVER update, you might be able to get away with that, but even then I wouldn't do it.

@@Brigand231 Thanks a lot for your kind and quick help! Happy New Year :)

Yeah, I'm sure there's some kind of way to filter by conflict or something, though I haven't ever really needed it so I'm not exactly sure how to run it. The trick is, going forward, to install one mod at a time and check it when you first install it. Good luck!

Not sure what to tell you, I'd need more of a description or to see what's going on to be of any help.

i have the same problem. whenever we 'new file' the window just disappears. we cant name it, and the merged patch area dosnt appear on the right.

The best advice I can give is to ask on the XEdit forum. I haven't been modding for several months, but last time I used it it worked as I demonstrated in the video.

Brigand231's Videos hmm, well, thanks anyway.

Are you guys running FO4Edit as administrator?

Could you ask a more specific question, please? I'm not sure what part of the video you're referring to. It's been many years since I uploaded it.

Not familiar with zhorizon, but if it's a large mod or worse, a total conversion, yes. You'll likely be updating your "final word" or "conflict breaker" mod at the end of your load order with each mod you add that includes a plugin. The silver lining is that once you work through your current load order, the hard part is behind you and you'll just be making simple updates after that.

Not exactly sure what you're saying. The merc pack shows up in lists, but the other mod's items do not?

If you wanted to change the actual list, just right click on the item you want to remove and choose remove or delete or whatever logically sounds appropriate.

If the item in question is "red", then yes, simply NOT copying it to the override patch will ensure it does not make it to that list. If the item is not in conflict (red) you could create or edit an override patch, copy any lists that item shows up in, and then remove it from those copies.

That's an inherent problem with any "overhaul" type mod - New Vegas Redesigned comes to mod... they make such huge changes that they become incompatible with pretty much everything and you need to have years of experience just knowing what is changed and how if you want to make your own compatibility patches for it. I can't imagine anybody would actually edit true bone data as that would affect every single model and animation in the game! Yes, for the most part, if you change a "race", you affect all members of it. I can't give you an answer without having the mod and looking at it myself with no real information to go on. Sorry. I am assuming that you've asked the mod author in the mod's forum about this already, as that is where questions about that mod should be asked first. Perhaps if you can relay what the author said I can have an idea of where to direct you next.

Sure, just open as many plugins in Xedit as you want to and work on them all at once if you'd like. There is also an automated process for creating a merged patch - should be in the Xedit training manual. I used to use it, but after learning how to do it manually I prefer to tweak things myself so I know exactly what is affected and how. Where the automated process will attempt to incorporate all the options from all the mods involved, I don't always want that.

@@Brigand231 Just a note, I think they removed the automated process from the current version - i see screenshots where the option should be, but when I get to the same screen, that option is gone.

Huh, that's annoying. Maybe it proved too buggy and was removed, I dunno. Thanks for the head's up on that!

nah nvm fam i forgot the information page was there xd

Cool deal, glad you got it figured out!

@@Brigand231 on 2nd thought i do have some question what does "ignored" mean, does that mean the mod is working or not? And lastly if the mod color was white what does that indicate? the newer version of f04edit actually changed the information for the color explanation P.S sorry for my bad english btw

I had no idea there was such a major update, things have changed a bit. Pressing the "Help" button on the top of the XEdit window will lead you to the guide - I think it's on page 5 that it begins to talk about colors referring to conflicts. The "mod color" could refer to a few different things - all mods appear white at first, but when you expand them and then further expand categories is when you begin to see colors that would indicate conflicts and stuff like that. Similarly, I don't know what context the "ignored" description is in, can you explain where you are seeing it? Your English is just fine. I understand the meaning of what you're typing. I would have never known you're not a native English speaker.

Anytime. If you have any questions, fire away!

@@Brigand231 bruh he just asked a question.. And you say ask a question instead of answering. Literal bruh moment

But thanks buddy nice video appreciate it

@@Confusedalien1133 Huh, not sure what happened there. Who knows what four years ago me was thinking. Glad the video is useful though. If you have any... you know what, not gonna say it this time. lol

@@Brigand231 haha a sense of humor too I like it. Might as well sub you.. If that matters to you still

No, not every conflict works the same.

Not quite sure I'm following... you have a missing master, but the game is still running? That's a minor miracle, to be honest. ....unless you're saying you want to remove a dependency? In that case, remove any references from the mod to be removed from your patch, then right click on your patch on the left side of Xedit and choose either "clean masters" or "scrub masters", I forget what it says exactly. Once you do that, if you have removed all the references, it will remove any unecessary masters from your plugin/patch.

I'm sorry, that is not something I'm interested in doing. I will gladly do my best to help out here or via email on the Nexus.

Glad to help where I can.

You can probably "get away" with editing pretty much any plugin except for the vanilla plugins, but I would strongly suggest against doing that (at least until you're more experienced) to any mod that is currently being developed or updated - if the mod author releases an updated plugin, you would need to make your edit all over again and, if you're dealing with multiple mods that edit the same record, you're making extra work for yourself that could be avoided. While it's not a big deal for smaller mods like simple weapon and armor mods, having a separate plugin can allow you to find your changes a lot faster without needing to dig through an entire plugin as well. If you make your own override plugin, you give yourself the ability to easily compare your changes to the updated version too. As with all modding, even slight and subtle changes can have unintended consequences down the road. You could even keep using the same "winner" mod to handle multiple conflicts so you're not bloating your load order with tons of override mods. At the very least, if you're set on altering original plugins, maybe you could make an alternate "winner" plugin and test it extensively for a while. Once you've determined all your changes and edits are safe and work as intended, then you could roll them into the original plugin.

Thank you for your answer and your video also, this is really helping. In the meantime I've been digging a little with TESSSE to check for mod conflicts and I've figured out it's best to leave original plugins how they are because of the updates. Happy modding :)

Yep. If an author declares a mod as finished or abandons a mod then you can probably safely edit it directly. Glad it helped and best of luck in the future.

I am sorry, I do not quite understand what you are asking.

@@Brigand231It's about "5:29", will it bad if I try to make that raw not conflict? the second question is does this method apply to every "conflict mods" ? cause I've heard about that some confict just can't resolve and have to choose one to use. Sorry, probably I didn't explain it clear enough.

@@mos1405 Ah, yes. It should be safe to copy that value. Just be aware of what that value is and what it does. For the second question, no. There are some mods that will force you to choose one option or another and those choices can potentially break one or more mods, but the change may not be obvious. For example, if a mod changes a container or item list to include more items in a chest that you gain access to as a reward and you need those new items later, but you have another mod that edits to simply change the amount of something (or is just a dirty edit) and you choose the result of the second mod, but not the first when you need those extra items the first mod would have added, they will not appear in the chest.

@@Brigand231 Wow! so it would be better to know the tag name stands for before I'm making patch or do something else.

@@mos1405 That's what I would do, my modding style is to learn as much as I can about something so I only have to fix it once or change it as few times as possible. Some folks aren't as patient and like to switch things around to experiment to see what happens. At least when I was actively modding, most mod authors that made themselves accessible were happy to discuss how their mods work and what things do if someone asks - I know for my mods when someone tells me they're modding one of them on their own to work with something, they're one less person demanding I make a new version of my mod or create a patch for them so I'm glad to help when I can. Failing that, if the author isn't around, many mods have dedicated followers that understand them rather well and they'll often try to help in mod comments/forums too.

I don't understand, that sounds circular.

and when i make my new conflictwinner.esp it doesnt ask to make fallout4.esm the master... dont know if thats automated nowadays or what

@@emp3950 Yes, what you propose will work, but there is something I'd like to throw in for you to consider... The reason for a separate "winner" patch is just in case any of the affected mods update. If you make all your changes to the plugin for a mod, and that mod updates with a new plugin, your changes are lost if you replace the old plugin with the new one. Further, if the changes you make to mod 2 require mod 1 as a master, that means you're in for a lot of extra work if you ever want to disable mod 1 but nod mod 2. As for the difference in my video, yes, the utility has updated many times since I recorded the video, but the core features are mostly unchanged. I'm not sure if it would auto-add the core game as a master or not - If you're not editing or overwriting a vanilla reference I suspect it's not even technically necessary for it to be a master.

@@Brigand231 well alright then, that makes sense... in a somewhat similar note, so if i then add alot of different masters to my conflictwinner.esp will that cause some sort of conflict there?

@@emp3950 No literal "conflict" that wasn't already there, no. As you say, in a similar vein, the only problem will occur if you want to disable one of the original plugins - you'll need to remove and references to that mod in your conflictwinner.esp and use the scrub masters command (I think that's the name of it, it's been a while) to remove the master from your plugin. If you don't do that, the game will hang at the title screen if the plugin no longer exists or it will enable the plugin even if you've disable it in your mod manager if the physical file still exists in your data folder.

@@Brigand231 sweet mama... this is turning out to be a bit more complex than i thought. well, i dont know if you're bored of my questions or not, but i had a single little last question that might sound stupid but really bugs me: when i make the override to a certain file that is the 2nd last file in that row, it adds the conflictwinner.esp inbetween the last and earlier 2nd last file, making itself the 2nd last file in that row, not as it is in the video. and if i move it, it just overrides the last file in the row with its own values and creates a conflict there instead of going to the end. any way i can just change the position of them without doing all that crazyness?

It all depends on what is being overwritten. That's all that "showing up as red" means, something is being overwritten. That is not inherently bad. What the user needs to do is compare all the items on the "left" to everything on the "far right". As long as everything you want to show up in the game is on the "far right", or the conflict winning side, things should be good as long as all the things that do shine through don't cause problems by being there.

thank you

Anytime!

Sure, as long as you set your patch to load after the mods it patches its changes will take precedence.

As long as you save your changes to a new plugin you should have no fear as you're not changing any original files. As the saying goes, you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. If you're afraid to change things, perhaps modding is not for you. All of the different types of conflicts are explained in the XEdit training manual and, if you click the "information" tab it will explain them all, visually. I mentioned that in this video.

It depends on the actual conflicts and what you want to happen.

I'm guessing MergePlugins is some kind of utility? If so, I couldn't tell you as I've never used it.

Not sure, you're probably best off getting support for that from the XEdit team themselves. My only guess is it might be a memory issue unless you have more than one instance of XEdit open.

No. the effects of scripts do not show up in the plugin at all. Dealing with script-injected things almost requires keeping notes or a separate spreadsheet to keep track of them. It's like 4D chess to me, that's why I stand in awe of folks like Roy Batty who deal with it routinely and in large amounts.

I don't think I've used either one, sorry. I can only guess they're both editing ISM's (Imagespace Modifiers) and if they are you're going to simply choose one or the other unless you want to take the time to start with one as your base and introduce changes from the other one at time and test them in game, then decide which you like better and go with it, then change one more and compare in game...

Yeah, I probably will just pick one over the other considering it's not that big of a deal to me. Thanks for the tip though.

Sure thing, sorry I can't be more help than that. Best of luck!

Yes, merging mods is the ideal solution that I'm aware of for avoiding the "magic threshold". I don't use LOOT, so I cannot comment on it or if it is necessary, but if you're merging mods you more or less take your load order into your own hands; most merge plugins tend to load later in a user's load order because they must load after all the mods to be merged. I highly recommend reading the XEdit training manual on merging mods; I find the "assimilation method" to be most effective. Some mods are more difficult to merge than others. Primarily weapon and armor mods are the best candidates, but if they introduce changes to lists via script you are looking at even more work and work that is not as simple as copy, paste, and renumber.

Well, I mean primarily I can't seem to get the merge patch to work to lower the total ESMs.. I have no idea what I'm doing.. do you have a guide on this somewhere? Pretty new to modding Bethesda games in general. Though I am similar with GIT and so on so I kind of get what's going on here with conflicts and so on but.. still not 100% sure.

I do not currently have a video on merging posted, though I'm sure there's plenty out there. Like I said before, though, I suggest you read the XEdit training manual section on merging. That's how I learned to do it As the saying goes.... RTFM :)

Please, feel free to make a new and better one. I don't think I've even played Fallout, let alone mod it in almost two years.

Not really, I'm fairly sure there are a few out there already. Most folks would just point you to Mator's merge script on Skyrim Nexus, but if I did make a tutorial it would be on using the old school assimilation method. If you can't find another tutorial or those you find are hard to understand let me know and I'll think about making one. Thanks for the interest!

Brigand231's Videos assimilation method? Are you referring to opening all the plugins in the CK and merging them into a single ESP/ESM there? If so I would love to see how that's done, I tried it a few times back playing Skyrim since I was constantly pushing the max for mods, but somehow always managed to botch things up and broke everything in the process.

Sort of, though I'd do it with XEdit. The main idea is to create a blank plugin or choose a plugin to add things to and set it to load before all the mods you want to merge. Make your receiving mod a master to the mods you want to merge, then highlight all the entries in a "donor" mod and change their FormID to match the recipient mod. This "injects" those items into your receiving mod. Lastly, "Copy as overrride into" on all the times that were injected into your receiving plugin. That's it in a nutshell.

oh wow sounds simple enough but changing all the FormIDs for what I want to merge would take ages, seeing that each has several thousands of IDs I.E. Homemaker to merge with Settlement Objects Expansion Pack and a few stragglers that just add new furniture's, I'm not sure if adding something that uses scripts is even possible though.

Your best targets for merging are armor and weapon mods. Anything more complicated should be left alone until you've got some serious experience. Having said that, if you hightlight multiple items at one one the left side via click and the SHIFT+clike, you can batch edit their ID's and it will just prompt you for the plugin to adapt them to. You can also batch add as override. Assimilating is a lot easier than it sounds, just needs doing once or twice to get it. It's actuall in the XEdit training manual, that's where I learned it from.

Could you give more information, please?

when checking for conflicts you click on the leveled list option right well what if theres no option for that for certain weapons does it mean its not added to leveled lists?

If I understand right and you're trying to filter by conflict and there's no result it could mean it's not added to lists or that it's added to lists and there's simply no conflict. That's a lot of why I prefer to just look at changes personally over relying on an automated system.

I started this project because I wanted the gatling laser to be useful end game, and my whole theme in-game is black+blue (so mainly darker armors and blue UI and reflex scopes etc..), but then when I got it to work it just really annoyed me that i still had to have the 3 old mods around, since I feel I've already copied their data into a new mod. But I'm new at FO4Edit, and such.. Any help would be much appreciated :)

If you truly have the mods merged, just disable all but your merged mod. If the concern is that the merged mods are listed as masters, right click on the plugin on the left side and choose an option that's something like "Scrub masters" or "Clean masters". If you have truly merged the mods and removed references to the originals, they will be removed as masters.

Well the part where u remove references to masters, I have no idea how to do yet :)

It is described in the XEdit documentation, the "training manual". I find their "assimilation method" to work best.

Cool, any chance you can provide a link? and thanks for even replying ^_^

Yes, otherwise it will have no effect on your game at all.

Brigand231's Videos i think i had broken my game doing this. Nuka world map wasnt showing & was stuck in commonwealth map, so reverted everything & all was good again.

Glad it's working properly for you now!

If you want me to give the disclaimer that you ALWAYS mod at your own risk and if you value your data you should back it up before changing anything, I will give it. As long as you're only copying existing records to your patch, in my opinion there is zero chance of damaging your "game". If you're worried, just make a save before using your patch and if there's a problem, stop using your patch and go back to that save.

@@Brigand231 hey I have another question can you make 2 mods add both their affects to the item of the targeted affect I have mods that affect drinks one makes them destructable the other makes you drunk when you ingest them and I want both to work alonside eachother instead of conflicting

Yes. How easy or difficult it is depends on the effect entry and whether or not it can accept two values. You might be able to just right click on the category and "add" a blank to copy/drag a second effect to. Otherwise you'll need to edit one of the existing effects to include the same stuff as the one you're ultimately deprecating. If the effects are scripted instead of simple values it might require editing the script in the GECK instead of XEdit.

@@Brigand231 can you give me some links to any video''s especially a download link for the geck

@@Brigand231 well it has a destruction script and an effect script numbered 1 to 8

You shouldn't "need" to, but you certainly can if you want to. Under extreme circumstances, like a conflicted list/item changed a startup script or something or you missed a critical piece of loot that can't be gained another way (and you're not wanting to use the console), sure. If it's just simple weapon or clothing/armor mod merges, there shouldn't be a need for a new game.

Brigand231's Videos Hey many thanks for the answer, I'll better start my 79th gameplay xD You're a light in the darkness :D

Not sure I'd go that far, but I'm glad to help where I can.

Unless you've done something crazy like make other mods dependent on it you should be able to just disable the plugin in your load order.

@@Brigand231 thank you! That helped

@@Kenjitheknight Great, glad to hear it!

I've got a lot going on.

You could call it that, but I think that title is an oversimplification. What I've demonstrated here simply removes conflicts, but a true merged patch does much more than that. Say for example that Mod A gives NPC A1 a certain item in their inventory that is needed for a quest, but Mod B introduces a script that replaces that vanilla NPC with a new, modded NPC B1 with a different reference ID. The quest that relies on the item NPC A1 was given in their inventory would effectively be broken because Mod B moved NPC A1 to someplace the player could not reach them (without conflict, I might add). A true merged patch for the two mods would account for this by putting the item from Mod A into the inventory of NPC B1. That is just a basic and simple example of something a true merged patch would do that this process would never catch or fix. Honestly, the best way to merge mods is to look at everything each mod does and understand how they do what they do - literally rear them apart and understand them - so that you can ensure they play nicely together.

thanks for the detailed reply. cheers

Anytime!

There's nothing to blame you for, though I'm curious why you ask.

Well "How to" videos that suck get more dislikes

Now thanks to mama suzan I must watch at least 3 videos to know which one is good

@@ghassanm6640 I see where you're coming from. 16 dislikes at the current moment. I thought they changed it so dislikes were visible unless we opt out of them. I'll see if I can make them visible.

@@ghassanm6640 Thanks, I hope it helped with what you're trying to accomplish.

The single vids was much better for me

What a dumb comment.

A few things. First, I have never used Mod Organizer so I cannot give advice on how to use it. Second, you should not ever ever ever make changes directly to vanilla files, make your changes in a custom mod/plugin. Many games will absolutely refuse to run if they detect vanilla .esm's have been modified; I am honestly surprised that XEdit allowed you to change and save them. I am not familiar with .strings files - are you possibly using a language other than English? You shouldn't need to involve MO at all aside from activating your winner.esp and ensuring it loads after the affected plugins, this is somehow more complicated than it needs to be.

Most likely you'll want to keep your DLC .ESM's active and also activate your winner.esp.

Sweet! Glad it helped.

They are all the same program. Renaming it is all it takes to let it know which game to handle.

The only way to really know is to open your entire load order in XEdit and take a look at what the different mods do. In all seriousness, I do that with each and every mod that I activate just to check for conflicts and dirty edits or ITM's (Identical to Master entries) that might overwrite stuff I've modded. Sorry I can't be more helpful than that, but it literally is an issue on your end with your installed mods. If you're not up to digging through your load order in an editor, you can deactivate all your mods - one at a time - and starting your game to check to see if the issue persists. When you load your save and it goes away, chances are it was the last mod you deactivated. Without trying to sound like a lecture, what you're experiencing is one of the simple dangers of modding your game. Just like downloading stuff to your PC, you're trusting stuff from someone else to modify your game. If you're not going to screen your mods before running them, at the very least you should only install and activate one at a time and thoroughly test it before installing another. Had you done that here, you could simply deactivate your most recently installed mod and be done with it. Good luck!

I'm not aware of one. I'll put some thought into making one since a lot of folks are asking. It's not an easy thing to teach, however, since some mods are easier or harder to merge than others. If it's simple armor and weapon items the merge is a snap. If there's placed items, it gets slightly more complicated. If scripts are involved it gets exponentially more complicated; same if form lists are edited, as the FormIDs of all the merged items change from their initial values.

It would be dangerous for me to say anything much other than "it would be best to talk to the mod author". Most authors are more than happy to give advice to users that are willing to do the work themselves.

Yep. it's the "Assimilation" method in the XEdit training manual. First make the esp a slave to the esm, then, in a nutshell, you will bulk change the RefID's of everything in the esp to match your esm, then copy them all as overrides into the esm. That way everything will be injected into your esm.

If you make one plugin each time you merge, yes. If you make one master merge patch that all your merges go into you only add one plugin for them all.

@@Brigand231 thank you i will try that