I am converting an account customization to a suiteapp. When I go to validate/deploy, i get an error that certain objects already exist. I tried this in a new account where the objects did not exist and am able to validate/deploy at will. Is the best path to CSV export the objects, delete the objects, re-deploy the Suiteapp (not account customization) and CSV import the data back? Would be cool if it just saw they already existed and ignored but it does not seem to be the case.

Under Home > Set Preferences > General, you can check the "Show App ID Field" box (it's under the SuiteCloud Development Framework). Then on your existing custom objects, you can click the "Change ID" button. This will allow you to set the app id for each customization to match your SuiteApp project (com.netsuite.whatever). After you do this, your SDF deployment should recognize those customizations as part of your app. Keep in mind, if you uninstall your SuiteApp later, those customizations will be removed even though they were there before you deployed your app.

Awesome thanks i'll take a look at that then. Appreciate it.