Using Creation Kit or xEdit to prepare a light ESP

When you tell the Creation Kit to compact the file FormIDs (to make into a light file or preparing for an ESL) it will change the order of the forms, renumbering stuff outside the normal ESL-space from 1 within the ESL-space:

For this example we'll use Raze My Settlement:

And the current set of FormIDs. Note that while they seem random, they are in fact numbered in the order that I created them:

Note above ^^^ the FE000E1E terminal object - it's totally different from the others. In fact this is because I just added this terminal to the mod tonight.

To test the compaction effect done by using the Creation Kit, we first get this warning:

And the following:

Looking in FO4Edit:

You can see that the RMS_Terminal_ZeroBudget has been shifted to FE000001 - the others have been left unchanged. (This is actually different behavior - from memory, in testing the last version of the CK would choose an arbitrary different start point each time and renumber randomly from there.)

Upon saving and running it again, we get the same dialogue notifications as above and no changes in the ordering in FO4Edit:

From (memory of) what someone else said, in the prior version of the CK doing this form compaction would scramble the ID's randomly within the ESL-set.

 

[Whisper]

Reverting to the older version of Raze, double-checking the RMS_Terminal_ZeroBudget object:

You can tell xEdit to renumber the formid's, from a chosen starting number:

We get some dialogues (choose yes, unless you're catering to an older version of Fallout 4):

I'm going to use a start value of 800, since that's where I started them from originally and I don't want to break people's games:

Dialogue to tell you exactly what it's going to do:

Note that the bold is for changed records:

In this case the RMS_Terminal_ZeroBudget has been renumbered from E1E to 820. The RMS_Terminal_SettlementBudget has had a pointer to RMS_Terminal_ZeroBudget altered. This keeps the objects in the same ordering as they were originally, tacking the new terminal onto the end.

Of the two methods I personally prefer the xEdit way. New items are tacked on the end, rather than starting at 1 (since Raze is an older mod it had to start numbering from 800 - so it "feels" cleaner to me).
--edit--
By keeping the renumbering in order from 800 there is an extra benefit - if someone wanted to use it in an older version of FO4 they can alter the version number in the header (from 1.00 to 0.95):

 

[Whisper]

@RayBo if worthwhile can this be stickied? I’d hate for it to get lost.

 

[RayBo]

@RayBo if worthwhile can this be stickied? I’d hate for it to get lost.

Maybe @Sirlach or @kinggath can do something. I either don’t know how or don’t have that kind of access.

hahaha, which is a good thing
I am mr. sticky.

As-is, I moved it to the educational guide section, thinking maybe that is what you wanted?

 

[Sirlach]

This post is now stickier than a stick insect that fell into a vat of glue at an adhesive forum!