I've been trying to find clear answer for these questions but so far i haven't been able to find them so i wanted to ask here

> I'm wondering if it is safe to merge mods with multiple files into one file

For example this mod which is texture replacer mod thats separeted into several files

Or this where the mod is separeted into two files where one is the object itself and the other is the script

I read that merging texture/script mods together are not recommended but im curious if it's ok to do so when it's from a same mod

> There are so many info about what override folder is for and im not sure which one is true

From what i understand override folder only should be used if the user wants to overwrite a mod with an another mod

Is this correct? If i download a mod from here that's on overrides section should i still put it on packages folder?

(Not native speaker sorry for the mistakes)

Hey there!
The answer to your question is yes...mostly.
If two packages are installed in your game at the same time, it should be okay to merge them together because the game reads the resources inside the package files, rather than the package file as a whole.

However, it's important to note what the creator says about the download. For example, if there are multiple files which replace the same thing, you can only have one installed and therefore shouldn't merge them together.
It looks like the first mod you linked has multiple files because there are different woods so you can pick and choose which ones you want - and merge them too!

You can merge script mods together even from separate mods. The reason you might not want to is that it makes it more difficult if you want to uninstall the mod but keep what you merged with it.
But for the second mod you linked, you should be fine to merge them together. The creator might have separated them in case someone makes a new storage box object, and downloaders want it to function (use the script) but don't want the original box object.

The Overrides folder generally only needs to be used if the creator specifies it. It will override resources of the same name that are in Packages. If something is in the override section, it could just mean that it overrides something in the game files, therefore it's fine to just put it in Packages, though it wouldn't cause any harm to put it in Overrides.

Hope this helps!

edit: just saw nitromon's post but hopefully my explanation is still useful :p
Actually, if you only install the script you need to edit another object's objk to make it use the script. So if you don't want to do that, you need the actual storage box object to have one that works in-game. But merging them is totally fine.

Thanks for the quick replies they do indeed help a lot and clarify things

Hey sorry for bumping this thread but i wanted to ask one more thing about conflicting mods

Currently i have several mods that are conflicting with each other for example:

ani_HaveCoffeeWithMe with UPDATE: 28-9-2015 Coffee Ingredients Made Choosable
BiggestLittleModForToddlers with NoAutonomousTellGhostStory
Sims 3 Hidden Stencils Unlocked + Fixed! with Less Obtrusive Country Cabinets

So i was curious what if i open one of these mods in S3PE and delete the conflicting files from one of the mods and then save would that work?

Probably no. I do not use those particular mods, but often, "tuning mods" use xmls and/ or ITUNs, and one or 2 values may be changed to adjust how certain interactions work. Often, different modders tune the same xmls and/ or ITUNs... so removing one from mod x would basically disable the mod anyway.

You could find which mods use the same resources, alter one to do the same things for both and then remove the extra, but 1) some xmls are incredibly big (social data) and 2) cannot promise that won't just break both mods.

Generally, it's a matter of which mod you want more, and removing the other.

If you delete the conflicting files then the conflict will stop, but it will probably mean that one mod won't work in some way. It might better to work out why they conflict (do they do the same thing, edit the same resource for different reasons...)
It also depends in what way they conflict, as some script mods conflict because they change the same interactions in-game and so it's more complicated than a matter of changing the XML to include changes from 2 tuning mods (also not picked up in Delphy's Dashboard if you use that)

However, for the coffee mods I think they should work together as they both add new interactions to the coffee machine and make the original one hidden. You could in this case delete the ITUNs of the ORIGINAL interactions in one of the packages as they both do pretty much the same thing. Hope that it works in-game anyway :p

For the second pair, rather than deleting the conflicting resource, you could edit the one in the biggest little mod to make the ghost story interaction not autonomous and then you don't need the other one, as you have both functions.

The third pair, you could delete the OBJD files from the cabinet fix mod, though they'd no longer be shiftable unless you checked that flag yourself in the other mod's OBJDs

edit: woops again just saw i took too long making this post :p

@zoe22 Thanks again i did get the said mods to work (i think)

@LadySmoks Thanks for the answer and like you said i ended up starting to just picking one and deleting another. I've been trying to get the conflicts to work with each other but i started to get chains of conflicts so i just started being more picky about it.

I learned the har way! ))) And although a wonderful tool, Dashboard does not catch everything as zoe22 or nitroman stated... but it's the best place to start looking. I mentioned social data xml for a reason. It is huge! And is used by a few mods to tune certain interactions. Do not recall which, but one of the vampire tuning mods that uses that xml, apparently causes the motive bars on Plumbots to go blank! Dashboard does not see the issue, as social data is supposed to be there. Not sure why it caused the problem, but I searched for a while before finding the answer in an older thread here on MTS. I was not going to go cross eyed trying to analyze that xml, and as I have several other vampire mods, and create CC for bots, I removed that one vampire mod. I really liked that mod, but liked other things more. )))

Not sure if you have a "Test" folder in your Mods folder, but I suggest having one.

I do wish there was an easier way to tell if a mod is working properly or not

I did have a test folder and i've been testing mods for 3 days now but with the amount of mods i have game turned out to be a mess and i can't find which mods are causing it

They mostly work but im getting random issues like where my sims was getting "Completely at ease" moodlet out of nowhere so in the end i just purged everything

Currently im making an another mod list where im only installing super popular / must have mods...

Saying that if someone has a working mod list that they can share with me that makes the game more challenging and fixes the annoying stuff (like sims heckling their children) i would highly appreciate it

Problem is that there is no 100% way to find all conflicts easily... aside from luck! 50/50 is the basic method, but time consuming. Take out half of your mods, start the game, see what happens. Put the other half in. Problem being that one conflict is in one group, and the other in the second group, so....
Preferred/ popular mods are mundane at best. Simming is about tweaking YOUR game to what YOU want. ))) Test folder is generally best option. I leave mods in my test folder for months. Partly because I am too lazy to merge them as I should, until the number begins to cause issues with game running smoothly.

Usually on other games deleting mods mid-playthrough is not recommended

Is this not the case for this game?

Generally, save your game. Remove files. Delete caches. Restart. Most mods simply overwrite existing EA scripts, xmls, ITUNs because of the way the game reads files. Program files first, then packages, then overrides, and uses whatever it reads last. If the package with a new script, etc, is not there to be read, the game uses the base files. This includes things like default replacement skins. They use the same "part number" as the base game files in programs, but are in packages folder, so read last and so used by the game. Remove those, and the game would just use the base game skins.

Exceptions can be core mods, as they go deeper into what and how things are saved. Removing those improperly can break your save.

Either way, do not use "save", rather "save as". This writes a new file, and leaves the old one untouched, although the back up file generated can be changed to become the save if necessary.