.esp files in games load order

[redskins1791]

Apologies but I am a complete noobie to PC gaming and moding (xbox before)

 

After hours of shouting and swearing I finally got Vortex to work with SKSE64 and downloaded lots of mods from here.

 

I noticed in the actual games load order (not vortex) a lot of the files say .esp after them, and have no description on the right hand side. also the file sizes are really small, is this normal ?.

 

They appear to be working in game (World Map, SkyUI, Hud Clock, Vanity Mirror, etc) bu I am concerned about the "Static Mesh Improvments" mod, its about a 1gb download but in game only shows as 92.41kb and is now named "SMIM-SE-Merged-All.esp" I deleted it and downloaded it again but the same thing happened.

 

I looked at ropes inworld and they looked quite good, but I dont know if thats just because I have better graphics on PC than consoles, I did disable the mod from within the game and the graphics didnt change, which is why im concerned it isnt working, but wondered if its only through Vortex the game actually takes notice of disabling and deletions.

 

Any Advice Would Be Appreciated

 

Redskins1791

[IsharaMeradin]

Not all mod data is stored in the ESP / ESM / ESL files. Many mods include additional assets such as textures, scripts, meshes, voice files, menu files, and the list goes on. These assets are either loose files or packed inside a BSA / BSA2. If inside a BSA / BSA2, they must be loaded with a corresponding plugin (ESP / ESM / ESL). Thus it is possible to run across mods that contain "dummy" plugins. These are plugins whose sole purpose is to load a BSA / BSA2 file. Without the plugin the BSA / BSA2 will not load and those assets not used.

 

SMIM contains a lot of loose asset files. However, it does have a few record changes that allows for some assets to be used properly and thus a small plugin is required.

 

I do not use Vortex so I cannot speak to whether any of what you have seen is associated with that or not.

[7531Leonidas]

The 93 kb .esp is what shows in my Vortex setup, no problems here for a long time, over repeated installs due to the Bethesda updates.

[scorrp10]

.esp files contain just the definitions of things they add to game, and are usually quite small unless you got a mod with massive amount of worldspace/dialogue etc. But even those weigh in at only a few MB. Heck, Skyrim.esm is only like 240MB.

 

If you are curious, you can go to your mod list, right-click on a mod and choose: Open in File Manager. This will open the deployment directory of the mod where you can browse all of its contents.

Well... not exactly all...

Goes like this: when you add a mod by either pulling it from Nexus or dropping a third-party archive file in that bottom box, the archive file of the mod is copied into Vortex 'Download' directory.

Then Vortex offers to Install the mod. Installing means it will uncompress archive contents into a dedicated deployment directory. Some mods include an xml-driven FOMOD installer which allows for conditional unpacking. I.e. a mod might include armor meshes for both UUNP and CBBE, which actually go into same place in the file structure, and you get to pick which.

Next step in to Enable the mod. This is when Vortex determines if new mod files conflict with any existing files (and asks you to indicate which should have priority), makes sure you have all the required masters, determines where plugin goes in the load order and enables it. Finally, it Deploys the mod which is the process of creating hardlinks to files in the deployment folder, under Skyrim's Data structure.