199 replies to this topic

[Pickysaurus]

It doesn't feel like it's been long since we officially launched Vortex - our new mod manager - back in July but that was 4 months ago! Over that time, the Vortex team have been hard at work going through all the great feedback sent in by our community and building some exciting new features to make your modding experience even better. 

You can now update to the latest build (1.1.3) next time you open Vortex or manually install it from the Vortex download page.

So what's new? I've prepared a roundup of the most interesting new features added to Vortex since version 1.0.0.


New Games Page

In 1.0.0 Vortex had three different tabs on the games page to organise "managed", "discovered" and "supported" titles. We've revisited this design and added all games to a single scrollable page making it easier to see both your managed and other supported games in one place. 

[img width=602,height=356]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1574176363-695424069.jpeg[/img]

Managed games appear at the top, discovered and supported games appear in the "unmanaged" section. Supported games will be greyscaled until they are detected. You can also hide games from this view or use the search box to find a game by name. 


More power to Game Extensions with Harmony

Perhaps the most exciting change in this update. Our Vortex team have been working hard on integrating the Harmony library into Vortex, which will allow much more powerful mod manager support for games powered by Unity (and other engines). 

Using Harmony, modders can inject C# code and assets into the assembly of a game. This is especially useful in Unity games where they do not support mod management natively. If you have a good working knowledge of C# and JavaScript, along with knowledge of how the engine in your favourite game works, you'll be right at home creating a Vortex extension to take advantage of Harmony. 

We've made a couple of mods for Untitled Goose Game to give you a taste of what is possible using these new features. In addition, we'll be creating more extensions and updating support for existing games to take advantage of Harmony in the coming months. You can learn more about using Harmony in Vortex here.

[img width=602,height=339]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1574176370-2031893407.jpeg[/img]

As part of this project, you'll also be able to make use of the Vortex In-Game Overlay (VIGO, for short) in Unity games. VIGO displays information and toggleable options for your mods while the game is running.


Get extensions inside Vortex

With more and more developers creating new extensions for Vortex, we've made it much easier to browse and install themes, translations and other extensions.

[img width=602,height=356]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1574176368-1473073103.jpeg[/img]

In the Extensions tab, you'll see a new "Find more" button which will open a list of the approved extensions ready to download. Anything you install this way will be kept up to date automatically, meaning you won't have to wait for the next Vortex release for any fixes or enhancements to be available. 

There is already a good range of localisations, themes, addons and community created game extensions. Here are some great examples of what is currently available.

Game Extensions: 

• Red Dead Redemption 2? support by Tannin
• Final Fantasy XII support by ffgriever
• Fallout 76 support by wxMichael
• PayDay 2 support by Evanito
• Source Film Maker support by silveredgold

Themes:

• Better Compact theme by tesnexus8
• VUIX theme by Bassforce86

Addons:

• xEdit Cleaning Extension by Pickysaurus (shameless plug!)
• Fully Virtual Deployment by Tannin 

As an added bonus, new games and translations will automatically appear in the games tab and settings menu respectively so you won't need to open the extension browser to find them.

If you've created an extension and would like to include it in the extension browser, please upload it here and get in touch with Pickysaurus or BigBizkit. 


Mod and Plugin Grouping

A feature that many users in the community asked for is a way to group your mods by category, similar to the default view in Nexus Mod Manager. You can now group your mods (and plugins for Gamebryo games) by status, author, category and more. Each category can also be expanded and collapsed to help you keep things nice and tidy. 

[img width=602,height=356]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/2295/images/26/26-1574176365-1983086562.jpeg[/img]

That's not all

Vortex 1.1.3 also includes several other smaller fixes and enhancements, including new options to hide or close Vortex when starting the game, mod installers (FOMODs) are now compatible with most supported games and 11 new games have been added.

We're excited about the future of Vortex, so please keep telling us what you love and what you think could be better in the Vortex Discussion forums, our Discord or through Vortex itself.

[Veratai]

hm.. this is cool :3 although.. wonder if vortex could be able to install some things like script extender, that's directly from the game folder. that way the silverlight guys and us would have an even easier time with those, in both packaging and installing. + it would warn when some other mod is trying to replace something from said script extender

well, not that just copying/pasting is hard, but still, it would be nifty xD

Edited by Veratai, 27 November 2019 - 11:47 AM.

[Rooker75]

I see it's still missing the basic drag & drop load order functionality expected of any serious mod management software in favor of ego-based "I know better than you" auto-sorting that's tedious to override. One of these days, you will need to learn how to put that ego aside and acknowledge that maybe we know our mod loadouts better than you do.

[lonewanderer345]

In response to post #75207123.

Spoiler

Rooker75 wrote: I see it's still missing the basic drag & drop load order functionality expected of any serious mod management software in favor of ego-based "I know better than you" auto-sorting that's tedious to override. One of these days, you will need to learn how to put that ego aside and acknowledge that maybe we know our mod loadouts better than you do.

+1
That's the only reason i stopped using Vortex after giving it a trial run.
Loot doesn't do as good a job of sorting as you can do manually...so while I feel it is okay to have it available as an option for 'beginners' or those who feel 'lost' without it, for Vortex to appeal to more experienced mod users....as the option to build rules and priorities was just way too clunky and gave uncertain results. NMM is still superior in this aspect.

[BowmoreLover]

Hey, all the new features are cool. Of particular interest to me is the extension browser. I intend to support my localization. Many thanks.

[TheBottomhoodofSteel]

In response to post #75207123. #75207553 is also a reply to the same post.

Spoiler

Rooker75 wrote: I see it's still missing the basic drag & drop load order functionality expected of any serious mod management software in favor of ego-based "I know better than you" auto-sorting that's tedious to override. One of these days, you will need to learn how to put that ego aside and acknowledge that maybe we know our mod loadouts better than you do.

lonewanderer345 wrote: +1
That's the only reason i stopped using Vortex after giving it a trial run.
Loot doesn't do as good a job of sorting as you can do manually...so while I feel it is okay to have it available as an option for 'beginners' or those who feel 'lost' without it, for Vortex to appeal to more experienced mod users....as the option to build rules and priorities was just way too clunky and gave uncertain results. NMM is still superior in this aspect.

someone woke up entitled...

[JimmyRJump]

Still too many Vortex users show signs of nerveous breakdowns, to my taste. But I keep on watching the updates from my branch.

[AugustaCalidia]

In response to post #75207123. #75207553, #75208618 are all replies on the same post.

Spoiler

Rooker75 wrote: I see it's still missing the basic drag & drop load order functionality expected of any serious mod management software in favor of ego-based "I know better than you" auto-sorting that's tedious to override. One of these days, you will need to learn how to put that ego aside and acknowledge that maybe we know our mod loadouts better than you do.

lonewanderer345 wrote: +1
That's the only reason i stopped using Vortex after giving it a trial run.
Loot doesn't do as good a job of sorting as you can do manually...so while I feel it is okay to have it available as an option for 'beginners' or those who feel 'lost' without it, for Vortex to appeal to more experienced mod users....as the option to build rules and priorities was just way too clunky and gave uncertain results. NMM is still superior in this aspect.

TheBottomhoodofSteel wrote: someone woke up entitled...

"Let me guess. Someone stole your sweetroll."

[Klamactus]

In response to post #75207123. #75207553, #75208618, #75209013 are all replies on the same post.

Spoiler

Rooker75 wrote: I see it's still missing the basic drag & drop load order functionality expected of any serious mod management software in favor of ego-based "I know better than you" auto-sorting that's tedious to override. One of these days, you will need to learn how to put that ego aside and acknowledge that maybe we know our mod loadouts better than you do.

lonewanderer345 wrote: +1
That's the only reason i stopped using Vortex after giving it a trial run.
Loot doesn't do as good a job of sorting as you can do manually...so while I feel it is okay to have it available as an option for 'beginners' or those who feel 'lost' without it, for Vortex to appeal to more experienced mod users....as the option to build rules and priorities was just way too clunky and gave uncertain results. NMM is still superior in this aspect.

TheBottomhoodofSteel wrote: someone woke up entitled...

AugustaCalidia wrote: "Let me guess. Someone stole your sweetroll."

I clicked the link as soon as I saw the notification fully hoping and believing that this must be finally added.

Can't believe...

Edited by AlanPaul, 27 November 2019 - 02:15 PM.

[Pickysaurus]

In response to post #75207123. #75207553, #75208618, #75209013, #75209178 are all replies on the same post.

Spoiler

Rooker75 wrote: I see it's still missing the basic drag & drop load order functionality expected of any serious mod management software in favor of ego-based "I know better than you" auto-sorting that's tedious to override. One of these days, you will need to learn how to put that ego aside and acknowledge that maybe we know our mod loadouts better than you do.

lonewanderer345 wrote: +1
That's the only reason i stopped using Vortex after giving it a trial run.
Loot doesn't do as good a job of sorting as you can do manually...so while I feel it is okay to have it available as an option for 'beginners' or those who feel 'lost' without it, for Vortex to appeal to more experienced mod users....as the option to build rules and priorities was just way too clunky and gave uncertain results. NMM is still superior in this aspect.

TheBottomhoodofSteel wrote: someone woke up entitled...

AugustaCalidia wrote: "Let me guess. Someone stole your sweetroll."

AlanPaul wrote: I clicked the link as soon as I saw the notification fully hoping and believing that this must be finally added.

Can't believe...

Let's not turn this into that old argument - it has been done to death at this point. If you like to spend your time arranging your plugins in an exact order, that's your choice. Vortex uses LOOT and your custom groups/rules to build a working load order with far less effort. If you'd like to know more about the Vortex approach, BigBizkit wrote a very concise article about it.

I think it's more about trusting that the community knowledge from LOOT is often greater than one person's idea of a good load order. Every entry in the LOOT masterlist was contributed or updated by modders like you and me, so it's based on the collective experience of hundreds - if not thousands - of users. That said if you can find a combination of plugins Vortex sorts "wrong" every time and can provide steps to reproduce it, please create a thread over on the Vortex forums so we can look into it.

If it's your personal preference to do it your way, that is absolutely fine, just please respect that others have a different opinion to you about it.