I see a lot of threads asking about conflicts so I made a small guide on how to detect them.
imgur.com/a/BhMrB
imgur.comPosted Aug 20, 2014, 7:47 PM UTC
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imgur.comIn your example how did you fix the conflict?
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Hello, maybe I can be of some assistance here. Not all conflicts should be be fixed, not all conflicts are bad. If you know for an absolute fact that something is being overwrote when it shouldn't then your best bet is to go to the top where it says [78] Combat Evolved.esp in the picture and right click on that. Selecting "copy as overwrite into..." and then making a new file which will become the "patch" for the mod. Then you can click and drag all the correct settings into the patch file which will now appear after these 3 mods in that screen shot.
For a longer more detailed guide you can go here and read the guide I made on how to make a merged patch (a merged patch is basically a bundle of self made conflict patches).
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I should have stated this somewhere. The word conflict makes it seem as though something is broken or messed up. Thanks for clarifying this. Also, nice guide on the merged patch. I didn't know that Bashed Patches only mess with leveled lists so I need to make a merged patch!
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Well bashed patches do a little more than just leveled list but nothing on the scale of what should happen.
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ah right. I've made a merged patch before but haven't messed with them in a long time simply because I have bashed patch. i'll keep that in mind.
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Thanks for the link. So can you expound on not all conflicts should be fixed? How do I know when? I appreciate any help you are willing to give.
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It mostly just takes some experience, make sure to google everything to find out what everything does. Some are simple like damage, crit damg, armor, weight, etc but some get to be a bit confusing. You should also read through the guide that is in OP's post and look into keywords.
This isn't really something I could explain even if I used all of the 10k characters in this post.
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That's fair enough. Thanks. I'm jumping in head first and perfectly willing to screw it all up and re-download. I've been wanting to do a clean install since I bought the DLC.
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This comment i made below might help you understand conflicts a bit better as well :)
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So thanks for the information. Just wanted to let you know that I didn't follow any of your advice and just started editing modules without doing a patch module. Needless to say, I did a fresh install last night. I thought that making things green would be good but that logic didn't work out.
I did learn a lot by just making changes and it helped to understand how skyrim can load modules and change zones so easily.
One question that I have left, why does the editor think there is a conflict when there are more than 2 values introduced by modules. Like, skyrim has a weapon that does 10 damage. Skyre makes it 12 and a weapon mod makes it 15. Being that the weapon mod is last, the value to use is 15 but the editor thinks there is a conflict. Why is that?
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Conflict =/= bad
The word "conflict" has the connotation that something is wrong. The truth is, many mods conflict and that is why load order and patches are so very important. If nothing conflicted then load order truly wouldn't matter.
To clarify even further, a conflict simply means that two mods are editing the same record. Let's look at your example with weapon damage values and expand on it a little.
So as you observed that a weapon has a dmg value of 10 in Skyrim.esm. Then SkyRe comes along and changes the same record to 12. Then a weapon mod changes the same value to 15.
In this case you can see they all attempt to edit the same record, thus a "conflict". Does this require fixing? Well...chances are that you want the SkyRe weapon value since it is meant to be balanced with SkyRe perks so yes...and in this case it might be as simple as adjusting the load order so that SkyRe loads after "weapon mod" and thus it's values "win" the conflict. (the two will still be in conflict but you have decided the winner)
Let's play pretend though and say that you do in fact want that weapons dmg value to be 15 as decided by "weapon mod". In this case, you don't have to touch anything. No fixing necessary. "weapon mod" is winning the conflict with SkyRe and thus you will see it's edits in game.
Hope this clarifies what a conflict is and how to go about dealing with them! For a deeper understanding I highly recommend checking out some of the resources linked in comments above...TES5edit is an incredibly powerful tool and with enough understanding and work put into will do wonders for stability. I mean...people with 400+ mods will tell you invariably that creating and editing a merged patch in TES5edit is the biggest factor in getting them all to play nicely.
:)
Edit: I left out some things...adjusting load order is the simplest fix for deciding conflict winners but it is not always that simple. In the example above we are only dealing with one conflicting record so adjusting load order is a viable solution.
But what happens if two mods have multiple records that conflict and you want some changes from Mod A to win but other changes from Mod B to win? This is where a patch comes in. For most of the major mods, patches already exist, but if a patch doesn't exist you can create one in TES5edit. Simply right-click the records you want to come through in game and select "copy as override..." and name your patch based on the two mods it is patching. Make your choices for any conflicts, copy them to the new patch and then save the patch. :)
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Conflict basically means there is a edit by a mod that is conflicted by another mod. That is why not all conflicts are a bad thing, just because 2 mods edit the same thing it doesn't always mean the 1st shouldn't be ignored.
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I second this!
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Hey for a little example of which conflicts are good to fix check this tiny tutorial http://tesgoons.wikidot.com/skyrim:tes5edit
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Not to sound like a bonehead, but honestly wanting to understand. Besides the ability to change the conflicts in TES5edit. Is this any different than the way Mod Organizer displays the overwriting conflicts? If you're just doing it to work out load order?
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Is this any different than the way Mod Organizer displays the overwriting conflicts?
Yes, it is entirely different. MO understands and manages conflicts between two files with the same name.
It doesn't know the contents of the files. It doesn't know that two mods may change the same variable within the Skyrim world. All it know is that you installed two iron sword textures and that it will use the last one on the list.
If you're just doing it to work out load order?
You may change the load order - or not. You may make a merge patch and cherry pick the items you want to carry forward into the game.
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Thanks for clarifying that for me. It makes a lot more sense now.
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I just finished Gopher's vid on TES5edit (from 2012), as well as Dirty Weasel Media's vid on LOOT and TES5edit (from Aug 2014).
I've installed about 104 mods through MO before installing either LOOT or TES5edit. Was running the game horribly, had no clue what I was doing. Much like a dress shirt at the bottom of a closet for years, it is taking me a while to iron out the wrinkles I created through ignorance.
That being said - I downloaded ENBoost and then RealVision ENB which cleared up a lot of issues last night. Today I've downloaded LOOT and TES5edit and added them as executables in MO.
I have just followed Gopher's instruction on cleaning the update file and was about to move onto the official patches (Dawnguard, Heartfires, and Dragonborn). My questions are these
Do I have to follow his instruction on every mod installed or only the official patches?
i.e. -apply filter for cleaning; Remove "Identical to Master" records; then Undelete and Disable References
With what you have posted, I still don't really know what to make of conflicts. How do I resolve them? Delete, or do I have to move them, or this more a load order issue, in which case I would have to move the conflicting mod after (a higher load order number) in the load order.
Sorry for my ignorance but I take 10 steps forward and 12 steps back... just a little annoying. I should have tip toed in or waited until Gopher finished all of his MO vids before even attempting this...
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Do I have to follow his instruction on every mod installed or only the official patches?
No. You only have to clean the official files (dragonborn.esp etc) and mods that show an ITM (or UDR). LOOT will tell you if there is an ITM record if you look at the details of the report it gives you. This is done by clicking on (Details) next to (Summary) if you are looking at your report.
With what you have posted, I still don't really know what to make of conflicts. How do I resolve them? Delete, or do I have to move them, or this more a load order issue, in which case I would have to move the conflicting mod after (a higher load order number) in the load order.
You don't have to do anything usually. Unless there is a mod that you do not want to override the settings of another, just leave it be. If you do want to get rid of the conflict, you can make a patch (I'll have to make a guide for that as well) or simply drag the values of the overridden mod to the overriding mod. Keep in mind, its best to back these up cause sometimes this may create unexpected results.
And yes, you can just switch up your load order as well.
Modding is a learning process. I have backed up my Skyrim installation into a .zip file because of how many times I've started over so you are definately not alone in messing up.
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Someone else already gave you a pretty good answer...if you want a better understanding of conflicts read This Comment I made above :)
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Well done, thank you!
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thank you!
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I'm just going to paste this as a disclaimer from the documentation - name change edits by me.
"One of the primary roles of
FNVEditTes5Edit is for conflict detection and resolution, so that multiple mods that modify the same records can work together successfully. Conflicts and Overrides are not always bad, and in fact the entire idea of “modding” is to make changes to the game that replace (and thus create a conflict or override for) the original records that came withFallout: New VegasSkyrim. That is why our goal is to detect conflicts, determine their nature and resolve the bad conflicts while leaving good changes in place.
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Exactly. A lot of conflicts are normal and nothing should be done about them. Unless you are getting CTDs or there are two mods that change the same cell because of a particular world edit there is usually no reason to worry about conflicts.
I've noticed how my bashed patch sometimes overrides some mods that I don't want it to so I will not include them in the bashed patch.
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For more information on TES5Edit, check out the FNVEdit Training Manual. Its relevant to TES5Edit and goes into much, much more detail.
Good to know. Always learning when it comes to fixing mod lists.
Yes indeed. By simply going through these steps in my guide, I think people will learn quite a bit about how mods work and how skyrim loads them. The aforementioned guide helps a ton too.
I should be able to create compatibility patches right?
Absolutely. Its super easy. There are guides out there but it seems everybody makes it harder than it really is. I think I will make a similar guide like this one next that is easy to understand. However, some of the patch stuff can be a little tricky for some mods because I am unaware of exactly what each record does. Also, when dealing with quests, navmesh data, and other things like that ~ things get a bit dicey.