Vortex v.s MO2 & a couple questions about switching over

[7oggle]

Okay so I've been playing Skyrim for a few years now, when I first started modding my game I did it the hard way via manual install. Then it started to become a huge headache once my mod list grew and grew. So of course I started using a mod manager. So I downloaded Vortex when it was still really new and have used it the whole time. Well I have MO2 installed as well and after poking around in it, it just seems like it has a lot more functions than Vortex, well maybe a lot more functions that are easier to find, I'm not sure.. Don't get me wrong Vortex is great and Super easy for the basics and when everything is working fine but when something goes wrong LOOK THE F' OUT. An example of this is due to using mods like Fnis that warn you not to install your game in ProgarmFiles because of permissions so I install my game to C\Games\Skyrim Special Edition.

Had that directory forever until I needed to have SSEdit installed and working correctly. Couldn't get it to work until I realized that you can't have spaces in the command line for SSEdit pointing to your Data folder....

Easy enough so I take the spaces out of the folder name and SSEdit worked fabulously, go to startup vortex to fix the file path and OMFG talk about a catastrophic meltdown it literally took me 3 frickin days to fix it and I had to reinstall everything on a new profile to get it to work. So Probably the most important question I have is there a way I can just move my Vortex virtual install to MO2's staging folder or would I have to reinstall it all again?

 

According to Vortex i have 251 active mods, 113 of which are light.

Sorry for the lengthy post guess I tend to ramble. :confused:

 

 

 

 

 

[Anselmp]

Basic programming here. Do not put spaces in names and avoid special characters except for their particular usages.

Vortex is the mod manager to use. If you go backwards you will have trouble later.

Make sure your computer organisation is correct before installing anything. Then reinstall Vortex, then reinstall your mods. You do not need to make a list as that is in your history of downloads on Vortex, but you are safer to do it anyway. This looks like a lot of trouble but it will save you much more in the long run.

[IsharaMeradin]

Transferring from one mod manager to another without uninstalling the mods in the old and re-installing in the new is just asking for trouble. MO2 is a decent mod manager to use. I have used Vortex and personal preference coming from a mod author perspective is that MO2 is the better tool. Ultimately what tool you use is up to you. I recommend that you fully uninstall any installed mods from the old manager. If you can locate the download location for the old manager you should be able to copy the 7z/zip/rar archives to the download location for the new mod manager and have access to installing them. Or you can copy them to a separate location and use any import from file feature on the new mod manager.

 

If you are concerned about being able to use your existing save files, you just need to make sure that you install all the plugins that your save file relies on and have them in the correct order. MO2 will tell you if any plugins are missing when you highlight a save file. Wrye Bash can tell you if the plugins are in a different order than what the save file is expecting. Between the two you can ensure that you have all of your plugins active and in the correct order that the save file requires. As far as non-plugin mods, if they are just mesh and texture replacers you can add them or not as they shouldn't affect whether or not your save file works. But if they were script replacers, you might need to ensure that they are included as well.

 

FYI - MO2 is not necessarily "going backwards" Yes, Tannin worked on MO2 before moving to Vortex but MO2 has been in continual development by a team of individuals since then. If you are primarily modding TES and Fallout games then MO2 works well as it is designed with those games in mind.

[7oggle]

Thanks to both of you for the replies. I figured as much with switching over (probably the real reason I havent yet). My mod list is quite extensive to say the least. Ive recently been doing a little dabbling with modding just kind of testing the waters I guess you could say. I have moddedd some other games like RTCW, CS Source (these were mostly mapping and some model replacers in Source) COD4, COD6 to name a few. I kmow Skyrim is a totally different beast but what Ive learned from personal experience is the basics are the same. So thats why I wanted to switch to MO2 it just seems like the more "modder friendly" friendly tool. That and 99% of all tuts that include a mod manager are done with MO2 or for MO2, at least the ones Ive found anyway. One thing Ive always done when modding games too is have 2 seperate installs, the one I play on, and the one I mod on. Ive found it to be a safe practice to always mod off a clean install.

And yes I agree spaces in coding is a huge nono, I just didnt realize I'd be pointing to my install folder with command line (well atleast when I installed it).. Lesson learned (the hard way) Lol.

[IsharaMeradin]

SSEEdit works just fine for me and my game folder itself is "Skyrim Special Edition". Not sure what your issue might be with regards to that. In fact, all my modding utilities work correctly with spaces in the folder name. Is your game installed through Steam?

[7oggle]

Okay so here's the reason, I have 2 installs. One is installed @ C:\Games\SteamLibrary\SkyrimSpecialEdition\ and the other is in the default location @ C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition. All I did was install through steam then copy that install to my secondary location located @ C:\Games.. Hence why there was even spaces in the path to begin with. The reason for the 2nd install is because when I first started modding my game I actually took the time to read the whole description, install instructions, etc. I noticed a lot of them said its not a good idea to use default install location because of the whole permission thing. Like Fnis says this on its description if I'm not mistaken. So anyway whenever I installed SSEdit it naturally points to the default install location. But I needed it to point to the install @ C:\Games. So in order to make SSEdit do that I had to add

-d:C:\Games\SteamLibrary\SkyrimSpecialEdition\Data

to the command line. Thats where the spaces became an issue, because SSEdit would fail to locate my Data folder, its just kept giving me an error that there was no data folder found at that location. It took me a while to figure it out though because SSedit didn't give an error about an invalid path or anything like that. It just said there was no data folder in that location.

[myztikrice]

Yeah... when your problem is "Program X can't find my files", telling people that you have two separate game installation folders should be the first thing you mention.

Edited June 9, 2020 by myztikrice

[7oggle]

Yeah... when your problem is "Program X can't find my files", telling people that you have two separate game installation folders should be the first thing you mention.

 

Actually I didn't have an issue with "program X can't find my files"... Maybe reread the post and don't skim through? I was explaining why have spaces in my install folder caused a problem in response to IsharaMeradin's question.. Thank you for your valuable input though, extremely helpful..