[Feature request] Install mods in root directory

[okamiterasu]

After a few hours of using Vortex, one feature that I would like considered would be the ability to install mods in the game's root directory. This would make it possible to manage mods such as SKSE and ENB.

[HellKnightX88]

+1 to this. Would make swapping out ENBs a breeze.

[DFiNo]

You appear to be overlooking that the game engine is expecting some files, such as mods, to be installed in specific directories for them to work. Also SKSE is managed just fine by NMM and i expect Vortex will be the same. I can't speak to ENBs since I don't use them.

Edited February 5, 2018 by DFiNo

[HalfLazy]

It would be nice, but at least in Skyrim, uninstalling an ENB it's more than just removing files (If I recall it correctly).

 

Not a priority but maybe an extra

 

Also, I'm unsure about this because no mod manager (as far I know) does this, maybe there's another reason about...

 

 

 

EDIT:

Just noticed that there's an extension called "ModType Enb" in Vortex.

So it could be a planned features (or it's just the name of an archive used for a specific game, IDK)

Edited February 5, 2018 by HalfLazy

[Tannin42]

Vortex has a concept of "mod types" and it can handle different mod types differently.

E.g. enb is not a planned feature, it's technically already in there. If Vortex recognizes a mod as an enb then it will install it to the game root directory alongside the exe, not to data.

Same is true for mods that rely on hooking dinput8.dll.

 

That's a large "if" though, currently the detection of what's an enb mod is fairly dumb, iirc it requires the mod to contain an enbseries.ini file.

[ousnius]

Vortex has a concept of "mod types" and it can handle different mod types differently.

E.g. enb is not a planned feature, it's technically already in there. If Vortex recognizes a mod as an enb then it will install it to the game root directory alongside the exe, not to data.

Same is true for mods that rely on hooking dinput8.dll.

 

That's a large "if" though, currently the detection of what's an enb mod is fairly dumb, iirc it requires the mod to contain an enbseries.ini file.

 

It might be "dumb", but I can't think of a single ENB preset without an enbseries.ini file. So it should work rather well.

[kamikatze13]

 

Vortex has a concept of "mod types" and it can handle different mod types differently.

E.g. enb is not a planned feature, it's technically already in there. If Vortex recognizes a mod as an enb then it will install it to the game root directory alongside the exe, not to data.

Same is true for mods that rely on hooking dinput8.dll.

 

That's a large "if" though, currently the detection of what's an enb mod is fairly dumb, iirc it requires the mod to contain an enbseries.ini file.

It might be "dumb", but I can't think of a single ENB preset without an enbseries.ini file. So it should work rather well.

sweetfx and postprocess antialiasing libraries go into the root directory too

 

as for dumb autodetection, have users be able to tag mods as "this stuff goes into root directory" hidden away behind the "advanced users" knob

[XJDHDR]

One method I can think of for Vortex to tell whether a mod should go in the Root or Data folder is to check if there is a "Data" folder present in the mod's archive. If there is one present, install the mod's files into the Root folder. If not, install them to the Data folder.

[Tannin42]

But most mods don't have a data directory in their archive and still expect to be installed to data. This variant would require tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of mods to be repackaged by their mod author and it would install old files incorrectly. That's just not feasible.

[Grestorn]

The only way would be a heuristic. Like if there's a .dll in the top of the archive, it's in all likelyhood to be installed into the game's base directory. Same with some other file extensions (like the various enb config files).

 

I can understand why Tannin is uncomfortable with doing that, otoh, there are SO many people just completely out of their league because some mods need them to copy files here and there, that it would really help a lot.