Opinions please - Mod/Download directories

[Tannin42]

I'd like to hear a few opinions on a potential change to Vortex that may interest a lot of you

 

Current Situation

 

Right now you can configure the directory where vortex stores downloads and installed mods for each game individually.

When you download a mod from nexus, Vortex will put it into the directory of the game the download was for.

 

This way, if you're currently managing Skyrim inside Vortex but you download a mod from the Dragon Age section on Nexus, that file will be downloaded to the download directory of DA, not Skyrim.

 

Makes sense in this case, but we also have the situation with Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR (and in the future it might occur for total conversions like Enderal) that Vortex treats the game as a separate game whereas Nexus has (with good reason) no separate game section.

In this case when you're managing Skyrim VR and download a mod from the SSE section you probably expect it to appear in the download section for Skyrim VR but it ends up in SSE.

 

This problem becomes worse when SSE isn't even installed. In this case the file will always be downloaded to the default directory in %APPDATA% and you have no way of reconfiguring that. This definitively needs to change.

 

Potential Solutions

 

I currently see two solutions:

 

Solution A

 

This solution is probably the minimally invasive one, from the user perspective:

Internally we add a "compatible" flag to games, so we can mark Skyrim VR as "compatible to" Skyrim Special Edition. Now when you download a file it will first look if the managed game is the same or compatible to the file you're downloading. In the case of SSE mods being downloaded while managing Skyrim VR the answer would be yes and the file gets downloaded to VR but when you download a Dragon Age mod it still goes to the Dragon Age directory.

 

This is nice and simple to implement but it may not be transparent to the user how Vortex decides where to place downloads and it doesn't solve the problem that if you download a Dragon Age mod without having configured the game, the download ends up in a default location on C:.

 

Solution B Variant 1

 

A somewhat more radical change: We drop the per-game download directory entirely. Instead, you configure your download directory once and all games use the same directory. Each game could still have a subdirectory within that download directory.

Mods for SSE would still always end up in the SSE subdirectory, no matter what game you managed when you downloaded it and no matter if you even have SSE, but that's no problem anymore since the download directory exists and you know where it is.

 

This has the added benefit that it would make the vortex directory structure and configuration a bit more straight forward too.

 

One drawback is that this would require a transition, everyone currently using Vortex would have to move their downloads to the new location.

 

Solution B Variant 2

 

When we get rid of per-game downloads we could consider getting rid of per-game mod directories as well.

Instead of configuring a mod directory for each game you could configure one per drive. So for example if Vortex discovers some games on drive C: and some on drive G: you would be able to configure a mod directory on C: and one on G:

Vortex would then automatically place mods into one of those directories in such a way that the mods are on the same drive as the corresponding game.

 

Again, this would make configuration a bit more straight-forward and less error prone, it would enforce what most users are probably doing anyway.

However it may be a bit too limiting for non-bethesda games where symlinks (cross-drive) are an option so I would probably still provide an option to override the mod directory per-game but the default would work a lot better.

 

 

Which solution would you prefer? Maybe there are other solutions I didn't consider?

[sopmac45]

Hi Tannin,

 

I am voting for Option B, however, got a question related to the last sentence :

 

"One drawback is that this would require a transition, everyone currently using Vortex would have to move their downloads to the new location."" .... you did mean this would need to be done manually or just by clicking somewhere so Vortex does it automatically ? I am not clear about this last step, everything else is perfect for me. Are you saying that assuming this Option is implemented, I would have to move my current downloads to a new location ?

 

Thanks, :cool:

[Grestorn]

Would solution B mean, that SSE and VR mods would be in separate directories, no matter what? So I would have to download them twice if I want to use them in both flavors of the game?

 

In general I‘m always in favor of the solution that‘s better in the long run, even if the transition is more painful.

[sopmac45]

Would solution B mean, that SSE and VR mods would be in separate directories, no matter what? So I would have to download them twice if I want to use them in both flavors of the game?

 

In general I‘m always in favor of the solution that‘s better in the long run, even if the transition is more painful.

 

 

If that is the case, then I am voting for B ... I would prefer to download twice but knowing for sure that my VR mod will be placed in the right directory, meaning, that I would have absolutely control on what I am doing. I like this Option.

[SkunkMonkey]

I also like option B. This is alpha software and having to move files for a one-off reason is not unreasonable.

[Tannin42]

We would probably provide an automatic transition if just to ensure people don't break anything.

 

Regarding SSE and VR: No, you don't have to download twice. On the downloads page you can filter the downloads by game but you can also disable that filter to display and install the SSE downloads when you're managing VR.

The Mods page however only shows the downloads for the active game (as uninstalled) so in Solution B you would still not be able to install mods for Skyrim VR from the mods page.

[rmm200]

Vortex is still in Alpha. Transitions are OK - we can handle it.

 

I vote Option B and whatever is easiest to implement. What I do want, and does not seem to work now, is the ability to bulk copy mods to the chosen download directory. Maybe it is just that if you install from a file, no archive copy is kept so you can't re-install.

[Tannin42]

When you "Install from file" vortex doesn't copy the archive, that is true. Did NMM do that?
What you can do however is is drag&drop files to the download list (the drop zone below it) to import the downloads and then install them.

Both operation can be done in bulks (you can drop multiple files at once and you can select and install multiple files on the download page)

[Michelangelos]

SOLUTION C

 

The user specifies when downloading the file if this is for Skyrim SSE or Skyrim VR and you create separate downloads/mods directories for each game as it should be so it is not downloaded on the C: appdata dir like it is happening right now.

Also Nexusmods should create a new game called Skyrim VR to organize the mods that are compatible/native for VR.

[Tannin42]

To clarify: You want a selection dialog to pop up for every download when the active game is not the same as the game associated with the download?

 

I hoped we wouldn't have to discuss the decision to not have a separate game section on nexusmods but here goes:

NexusMods can't duplicate mods on a new game section, that would have to happen through the mod authors. Since many mod authors are not around anymore, wouldn't be capable of testing their mod with VR or may simply not care enough about VR to do the extra work, this new Skyrim VR section would be missing a lot of mods that actually do work.

Therefore you'd still have to get many (most?) of your mods from the SSE section, so what would be the point of the VR section? It's just more work for everyone involved and it would fragment the communities more.