Managing two installs (different "platforms") of the same game

[Celebril63]

I've been playing Skyrim on the Game Pass Ultimate PC version and have recently bought the Steam version of the game. I have currently 90-100 mods being managed by Vortex on the Game Pass version and would like to have the same mod set on Steam.

 

For a variety of reasons I do not want to delete the Game Pass install.

 

I have figured out how to launch both games by adding a tool for the new Steam install, and pointing the target and location appropriately. Each tool starts the correct install of the game. However, I'm struggling to figure out how to handle and deploy the mods.

 

I was hoping that it could be simply a matter of having separate profiles and then just deploy and launch, but it doesn't look like that will do it. The issue seems that the deployment focuses on the original directory found by Vortex. Or maybe it doesn't... The Plugins tab shows all but the two mods I have installed for the game as disabled. That's actually correct for the Steam installation.

 

I suppose I could also simply use the Bethesda organizer built into the game to make sure the load order matches the looted order in Vortex. I don't expect to add any additional mods to the Game Pass installation. But then, I need to change the target for Vortex to the Steam install.

 

If anyone has any experience with a dual installation like this, any advice would be helpful. I'd considered MO2, but frankly I really like Vortex and I've heard complaints about MO2 and SKSE support.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Pickysaurus]

Vortex is only designed to manage one instance of the game at once. You can change the path to the game in the games section (change it from Xbox to Steam). If you want to do this, Purge Mods from the Mods section, change the path in the Games section and restart Vortex (the INIs and other data are in a different place and you need to restart the app for Vortex to find them). You should also copy the exact path Vortex shows for the Xbox version of the game in case you want to change it back (some of the validation to detect if it's an Xbox game relies on this path!).

[Celebril63]

Vortex is only designed to manage one instance of the game at once. You can change the path to the game in the games section (change it from Xbox to Steam). If you want to do this, Purge Mods from the Mods section, change the path in the Games section and restart Vortex (the INIs and other data are in a different place and you need to restart the app for Vortex to find them). You should also copy the exact path Vortex shows for the Xbox version of the game in case you want to change it back (some of the validation to detect if it's an Xbox game relies on this path!).

 

Thanks! I'm very close to the point where there will be no more mods made to the Xbox install, so this is very likely what I'll be doing as soon as that state is reached. I'll duplicate the Nexus sort order in the Bethesda mod manager so I know it will work and launch it from the desktop icon.

 

The Steam install is going to be my primary play, and any new mods are probably going to be SKSE dependent, so it "gets" to be Vortex managed and everything is good.

 

Thanks again for the help.