Help Request - Merging Mods

[Wasteland Geographic]

Hello Best Gaming Community On The Internet,

I need some help with something that I know some of you can do easily. It's about merging mods. I've tried a couple of tutorials and I fail fail fail. This hurts my self esteem and I know you don't want that.

I'm at my mod limit and the game will crash if I add just one more. I have almost every SS2 Addon and I would like to merge them, along with other mods like my weapons and clothing, so I can add more mods and more mods and more mods and more mods. Sorry. I also want to merge City Plans so I can begin using them.

Please share your easiest method or tutorial for combining mods. I'm asking here so that I can add follow up questions when I fall on my handsome face. My IQ score is just above labrador retriever, so I can do some things if they are spelled out clearly.

I am using Mod Organizer 2 on PC.

Thank you.

 

[comziz]

Hi we just had a discussion about this over here;

https://simsettlements.com/site/index.php?threads/any-advice-on-combining-esp-files.20083/

Vortex saved me for now, but there have been suggestions on zMerge which supports MO2 as well.
You can find tutorial links provided by Tinuvia there.

 

[Wasteland Geographic]

Thank you!

 

[msalaba]

Added my $0.02 https://simsettlements.com/site/ind...vice-on-combining-esp-files.20083/post-138294

 

[eldiablo]

If you're reaching the bsa (ba2) limit where your game crashes on the main screen, I'd recommend just using the bsa extractor to extract the bsa files into loose files. Guessing the mark light via Vortex has already been discussed in the other thread.

Merging mods is a pita. Mark light, removing excess mods, and extracting loose files has kept me below the limits for a long time now without trying to go through the arduous process of merging (which may or may not work, and it almost always sucks to do). Currently sitting at 249 esp and 184 light.

 

[sombran22]

There is a bsa limit? For what i know using loose files affects the game performance.

 

[eldiablo]

There is a bsa limit? For what i know using loose files affects the game performance.

Yes. If your game appears to load up fine then suddenly crashes to desktop right at the main screen, that's a sure sign you hit the limit. It's somewhere in the 400-450 ba2 file range or 50+GB. Varies a bit, but there's definitely a hard limit. Literally the only thing you can do to get around it and keep adding mods is loading loose files. Or remove mods. Or if you're crazy enough, merge mods and repackage into a couple of BSA files...which would take the creation kit and lots of time and patience. Honestly, I haven't seen a game performance impact with loose files, and I hit the BSA limit quite a while ago, and have been extracting and loading loose files since. Right now I have 24.6 GB in loose files and 62 GB in 422 ba2s which includes the vanilla/dlc, and everything runs pretty great. My computer is about 6 years old now.

 

[msalaba]

IIRC, the biggest issue to loose files is the management. You have to know which mod's file to use in the case of conflicts and you have to do it every time you update a mod that has loose files. Also loose files will be used even if a file in a ba2 is newer.