Mod Variants questions and maybe some suggestions

[HellKnightX88]

Is there any way of creating a variant from a mod that doesn't involve reinstalling it and selecting the Add Variant option?

Is there any way of creating an empty mod folder from within vortex?

Say I make a texture that makes a sword blue and install it as a mod in Vortex. Then I make another one that makes it red and I want to add that as a variant of the mod I already set up.
AFAIK there's no way of creating a new variant that doesn't involve re-installing the blue version, selecting "Add Variant" and then replacing the the blue files in the new variant with the red ones. It's weird that you have to reinstall the same mod to create a variant (AFAIK there's no way to tell vortex that a mod is a variant of another mod unless it can detect it automatically when you install it which doesn't work in certain instances).

Is there any naming convention for archive files to get vortex to realize they're variants?

Basically it would be nice to be able to:
1. Create an empty mod folder (that I can copy files into manually) instead of having to zip my files up and then install it.
I tried copying the mod folder to the mod staging folder but there's no way to get vortex to detect the new folder that doesn't involve restarting it (and getting a warning about it but that's fine).
2. Create an empty variant for a mod that I can manually copy files instead of jumping through hoops like installing the same mod twice to force the creation of an identical variant and then changing the files inside the new variant folder.

[Pickysaurus]

Variants are meant to be used for slightly different versions of the same mod. Primarily previous versions but also if you select different options in a FOMOD. It's not a system that you can really interact with, most of the grouping is done automatically based on mod ID and file name. If you send feedback via the Vortex app though you can submit the suggestion and see what the developers make of it :)

 

As far as creating an empty mod, that isn't currently very easy. You can go into your mod staging folder and add a new folder but you must restart Vortex for it to appear.

 

Why would you need it to be a variant anyway when you can have them as separate mods and use rules to decide which was around they should load?

[HellKnightX88]

Thanks for info!

 

Why would you need it to be a variant anyway when you can have them as separate mods and use rules to decide which was around they should load?

Reducing the amount of mods in the list where it makes sense basically without needing to create a FOMOD for example just to set it all up..

 

Right now what I have to do is:

1. Zip up a mod folder (because I can't create an empty mod)

2. Install it once.

3. Install it again in order to create a new variant (because there's no other way of doing it)

4. Go into the second variant and change things manually.

 

For example with Cyberpunk 2077 I can have a modVariantBlue.archive file in one variant and a modVariantRed.archive in another. These two files don't overwrite eachother but they affect the same thing which means there's a conflict there so I need to set up "Do not load with..." rules.

If I have a bunch of these like say 4 and set them up as separate mods I have to go and set up rules for each. Which if I'm not off with my calculations is 6 rules. If I add a 5th variant that goes up to 10, with 6 it's 15.

 

Just a QoL thing.