Sublime Text settings have a definite resolution order. I stumbled across this forum post on the exact order:

The user can override these globally (User/Base File), per-syntax, or per-project. The order that things would be searched would be (last match wins):

  1. Packages/MyPlugin/Base File.sublime-settings
  2. Packages/MyPlugin/Base File .sublime-settings
  3. Packages/User/Base File.sublime-settings
  4. Packages/User/Preferences.sublime-settings
  5. Project Settings
  6. Packages/MyPlugin/.sublime-settings
  7. Packages/MyPlugin/ .sublime-settings
  8. Packages/User/.sublime-settings
  9. Packages/User/Distraction Free.sublime-settings