Vilance's BA2 Merge Kit NG and Backwards Compatible

When and why should BA2s be merged?

Fallout 4's original mod cap with raw ESPs limit was 256, but thanks to ESL's and ESL flagging that cap is now over 2000 files. The new mod limit becomes the BA2 resource files, which is roughly 400-500. If you are running under 400 mods merging is not required.

Scripts now use both the old and new version of Archive2, breaking down mods packed with NG version Creation kit and repacking using the older archive2 allowing for Pre-NG Fallout 4 to be able to unpack the merges you create!

How to use:

After installing, it should place the kit directory in ... Fallout4\Data\VCM_BA2_Merge_Kit,

Navigate there in explorer or via cmd prompt if you know DOS.

You should see an InputBA2 & OutputBA2 directories, if you dont, run (or click) either the Repack_Input_*.bat. Either will regen those dir's for you.

Next copy the ...main. BA2 and/or ...texture. BA2 files into the InputBA2.

Repack_Input_Main-BA2.bat  and Repack_Input_Textures-BA2.bat (both mouse clickable):

As the names indicate, one is to process main.ba2, the other for textures.ba2.

Both takes BA2 files from the input directory inside: ... Fallout4\Data\VCM_BA2_Merge_Kit\InputBA2 and repack/merge them into a single BA2 file into the: ...\OutputBA2 folder.

Please note, that under the images tab, those images show an actual set of both main and textures from some CC content, that I ran these scripts on and had appropriate separate output files. Also note the timestamps and file size are consistent with the original files.

Click either or both depending on which kind of BA2 files you are merging.

The merge results go into the OutputBA2 folder.

You will have to rename the output file(s) to a paired ESM/ESL/ESP file.

Standard naming convention is "ESPNameWithoutDotESP - main.ba2" or "ESPNameWithoutDotESP - textures.ba2"

Load Order:

What you pair with your merged BA will affect when it loads.

Default loading order based on plugin type is as follows:

2nd - ESL (not ESL flagged, . ESL extension)

4th LOOT/MO2/Vortex rules

Logging: V1. 1 new logging is in place in the files:

merge_main.log

merge_texture.log

It uses timestamp and dates:

12-19-2022 23:40:19. 95 Log created, merge process begun

12-19-2022 23:40:19. 96 No input files found at this time.

12-19-2022 23:40:19. 96 Merge process complete.

It logs each BA2 file merged on a new line, with start and competition timestamps before and after, making it easier to cut and paste the file names.