With interiors it can be either, it moreso depends on who is doing it. Basically there is no set way to do it, they just get merged when someone merges them in.Is the merging into the section file done all at once or in batches or piece by piece as the finished claims come in?
With Exteriors we are in new territory since we haven't yet merged exteriors into a section file since we've restructured (and even i came into the project after), but for the current set of exteriors we're waiting on my exterior claim to be finished before merging anything, so it can be a continuous area, as there is one finished claim to the west of mine, and two finished claims to the right of mine. So, I think once we have a solid continuous base, we'll just merge finished exteriors that are adjacent to the ones we already have.
With Quests, it is basically as they get done, especially as most of them happen leading up to a release.
Please see my comment on my previous post for what that advanced behavior should be in the end for conflicting IDs:Unfortunately there is not much we can do about that in the merge tool itself, because from the merge tool's perspective the right thing to do would be to overwrite the old cell with the one newly merged in (that is if one is merged after the other). For many projects that is probably the desired behaviour. But it may be possible to add some editing scripting later on, that warns about such issues.
It can probably get even more advanced than this in certain cases, but this should cover pretty much all of the non-dialogue bases for conflicts in a useful, straightforward, and user-friendly way.Most CS objects in the Object Window (except leveled lists): just ask which one to keep (There may be room for more specification, but I can't think of any off of the top of my head)
Different types of things (like an interior and a book with the same ID): Ask which one to keep or to rename one of them
Interiors: Prompt to combine the cells into one worldspace or to rename one of the cells
Leveled Lists: like interiors, prompt to merge or rename one of them
Exteriors: Prompt to select which file's landscape (the 'LAND' record) wins and whether to delete the statics (and whatnot, basically the 'CELL' record) from the one that doesn't.
Dialogue nonsense: [shrug] You'll have to wait for a Quest/Dialogue person's input on this.