Merging 2 versions of the same pluign

[tomm434]

Hello everyone!

I'm working on a mod and one kind-hearted person agreed to help me to improve dialogue text. So, I sent him the current version of pluign and stopped working on mod because I don't know how to merge 2 pluigns. I tried using FNCedit but merging 2 mods requires adding master to the pluign(whatever option I choose:copy override, deep override, copy as new records).

I tried using FNVpluign but when I try to replace records program says that it will RENAME old records and add them as new records with prefix "Z".

 

The thing is - this person is not changing anything besides dialogue text(And I continue working on the mod by adding new dialogues). Is there any way to merge 2 mods? is it safe? Because in future it will save me a lot of time.

Thanks.

 

 

[astymma]

FNVPlugin is the correct way. You simply open the original plugin first in FNVPlugin then choose merge plugins. Choose the new esp as one you'll be merging. IF you are getting messages about renaming old records and such, it's because the new esp and the old esp do NOT have matching reference id's. The new esp SHOULD have the original esp as its master so the reference id's will be identical for edited records and different for new records.

 

The same is true when editing in FNVEdit. You set the new esp to have the original esp as a master and create a merged patch... OR drag and drop changes from the new to the old...

 

If the person who edited your dialogue did not have your original plugin mastered and is thus using completely different reference id's, the work may have to be redone... or you can copy records between them and hand edit the owning reference id's of dialogue and such to the correct quests and npc's.

[tomm434]

FNVPlugin is the correct way. You simply open the original plugin first in FNVPlugin then choose merge plugins. Choose the new esp as one you'll be merging. IF you are getting messages about renaming old records and such, it's because the new esp and the old esp do NOT have matching reference id's. The new esp SHOULD have the original esp as its master so the reference id's will be identical for edited records and different for new records.

 

The same is true when editing in FNVEdit. You set the new esp to have the original esp as a master and create a merged patch... OR drag and drop changes from the new to the old...

 

So, that means there is no way to avoid adding new master to the esp pluign? So now I always will have to work with two files instead of one?

[tomm434]

And I don't really know why do reference IDs change. I often make backup of pluign and I tried to merge previous version of the pluign with the very next one - Still FNVpluign says that all records should be renamed . (I have 1.7 version, I believe it is the latest)

[astymma]

You can add a master, copy the changes, then remove the master. Once one plugin contains all the data from both of them , remove the master dependencies and get rid of one of the plugins (they've been combined).

 

There are two parts to a reference id... the load order index and the unique id. LLUUUUUU where L is load order index and U is unique id.

If the UUUUUU part matches between two files but the LL part doesn't, they are DIFFERENT records. That indicates that the master dependency

is probably missing. once the master has been set, the records whose UUUUUU part matches but LL don't will be corrected to make the LL parts identical. The above assumes that the records were SUPPOSED to be the same. You can have UUUUUU be the same and LL different in records that are NOT meant to override as well.

 

Let's assume you are wanting to edit an existing plugin to make some changes and you'll merge them later.

You make a blank esp. You master it to the original. You then copy as override to the blank esp the records from the original that you want to edit.

You edit the new esp's copies of the records. Once done editing you decide to merge. You can now do a merged patch OR just drag and drop the changes to the original.

 

If you used some other method you may end up with mismatching reference id's... like you copied as new record instead of override (common mistake).

 

EDIT: I re-edited this a few times... I'm done... I swear...

 

[tomm434]

I understand. Thanks.