Will Vortex ever run from a separate folder to Skyrim?

[vortexposer]

Can do same with vortex by importing game files to a designated mod folder - except unlike wabbajack, you don't have to invert the root folder structure. Just change the mod type to engine injector so that it deploys to root folder vs data

Edited March 20, 2023 by vortexposed

[showler]

Again, MO2 uses the same method as Vortex except that it is only visible while MO2 is running.

 

And, again, what you seem to be attempting is what Vortex profiles is designed to do automatically.

[Zanderat]

So Vortex does add to the data folder in the skyrim folder

No, it doesn't. Reading is a thing.

[showler]

It can appear to add things, because Windows can see the virtual links Vortex creates. But those are all removed on a purge command. And that's what the profiles feature does...purge all the links Vortex creates for Profile A and then deploy all the links for Profile B.

 

Anything else that gets added is done by the mods you've installed when they generate new files on the fly and in many cases only if they aren't configured properly.

[Tannin42]

Vortex does add "files" to the game data directory, the way it does that is special in two ways though:

a) it does not take up extra space, the actual data is shared with the file in the staging folder

b) unless you mess with the game directory outside Vortex, Vortex can 100% reliably identify the files it added and clean them up.

 

So while the game directory isn't "clean" while you have mods applied you can always return it to a clean state and that is perfectly reliable unless - again - you mess with the files outside Vortex.

 

The advantage of what Vortex does is that you don't have to run the game, or related tools, from inside Vortex, everything works as if you were modding manually and it works with all kinds of games, works with xbox store games, ...