Backup a modded Game

[Marthilde]

Hello,

I have a question that not only Vortex concerns, but I put it here for lack of alternatives.
It is about the installation of mods or their storage / provision.
Vortex and many other mod organizers do not install the mods in the game directory but make them available via hardlink. This may have many advantages but also a decisive disadvantage, the backup of the game on another hard disk. If I copy the game directory to another hard drive then the mods are no longer per hardlink in the game directory but "real", which in turn means they can no longer be easily edited with a mod organizer. If you do not want to change anything in the game now that's ok but what if you want to change something?
I have Skyrim AE/SE (actually AE but by a patch back to SE V1.5.97) with 990 Mods
and a total of 170Gb and would like to save the game so that I can manage it again with the NexusModManager after writing back.
Can someone help me here or is this a thing that none of the mod organizer developers have thought of. And can I change the mod organizer without any problems, so would Vortex for example be able to take over the organization?

Since my English is not my native language I have written this text in German and translated it with DeepL, so I apologize for any incomprehensibility.

Thanks for reading

[Zanderat]

I backed up my modded SSE by making a collection out of it. You don't have to publish it. You can leave it in"draft" status and only you will have access to it. AFAIK, NMM doesn't work with collections.

[Marthilde]

I backed up my modded SSE by making a collection out of it. You don't have to publish it. You can leave it in"draft" status and only you will have access to it. AFAIK, NMM doesn't work with collections.

1) Many of my mods do not exist on Nexus, they come from different sources.

2) What do I do if I have no internet at the time of the restore or Nexus goes off?

3) A backup is a backup as a whole on a drive, so your suggestion is out, even if I had all the mods from Nexus would be no alternative because I do not want to "reinstall"!

 

Have a nice day

[showler]

Maybe try MO2 with a "portable instance" install. Then back up the install and the deploy folder and if you need to reinstall again down the road you should be able to restore them and then deploy the mods again.

 

You can do it with Vortex as well, but it requires a bit more work, care and ingenuity.