Starfield Extension has been updated to support load ordering and plugins.txt

[insomnious]

This implementation of the plugin management system in Starfield is temporary while we wait for the official creation kit from Bethesda. This means that we expect certain functionality to change in the future, yet we're confident enough to provide interim support.

A new "Load Order" page has been added to the extension to allow users to view their deployed mods and manage their load order. By default this system is disabled and can only be enabled through the Load Order page. The user can disable this feature at any time through the Settings -> Mods -> Starfield -> Manage Load Order Toggle.

Before enabling the plugin management system keep the following in mind:

• Vortex will download any required mods/tools for load ordering to function as soon as you enable the plugin management system.
• Vortex will migrate any "sTestFileX=" entries it finds in the INI files to the plugins.txt file located inside "%APPLOCALDATA%/Starfield". Any INI entries will block the plugin management functionality from working. This is by Bethesda's design.
• Game Pass version of the game will not be able to use SFSE or its plugins - the Ultimate-ASI-Loader is used to load plugins to the game instead.
• Native plugins are not serialized to the "plugins.txt" file.

Thanks,

insomnious

Download and Installation

This extension requires Vortex 1.9.10 or greater. To install, click the Vortex button at the top of the Starfield Extension page on Nexus Mods, and then click Install.

You can also manually install it by click the Manual button at the top of the page and dragging it into the drop target labelled Drop File(s) in the Extensions page at the bottom right.

Afterwards, restart Vortex and you can begin installing supported Starfield mods with Vortex.

If you've already got a previous version, the extension should auto update on a Vortex restart

What's New (full changelog)

• Fixed error when merging data folders as part of the directory junction functionality
• Fixed instance where plugins were still displayed as managed even when the mod was disabled
• Modified invalid/missing entries are no longer displayed in the load order page
• Fixed error/crash when installing collections w/bundled mods.
• Guess what, the native plugins are back visually - still not written to the plugins.txt file though!
• Fixed "sTestFile" pattern matching skipping every other entry.
• Fixed UI issue where plugins deployed relative to the game's root were not considered to be managed by Vortex
• Modified native plugins are no longer serialized into the plugins.txt file
• Added ASI Loader installer
• Added ASI mod support
• Added support for merging INI files for ASI mods
• Added automatic plugin enabled downloader
• Added load order page
• Added ability to migrate sTestFile entries to the load order page during deserialization
• Added ability to enable/disable Vortex plugin management through the settings page
• Added Starfield stylesheet
• Added button to allow users to reset their plugins.txt file
• Modified build scripts to deploy stylesheets

[MrZHDarkstar]

I cannot in good conscience recommend using the new load order functionality in its current state. 

1. It adds way too much extra processing time to completing the deploying/purging mods functions
2. Purging mods erases entries from the load order, and then redeploying mods afterwards causes the load order to be completely rearranged in alphabetical order.
3. No option to turn off automatic plugin enabled state.
4. Being limited to dragging entries as the only means of manual sorting means re-sorting your plugins.txt after it's been obliterated by Point 2 will add extra stress and time to the end-user.

The only good thing I can say about the load order screen is that it adds a button that brings you to the folder where plugins.txt is located. 

[AugustaCalidia]

Thank you for the updated extension.  For me, it worked as advertised.  I enabled plugin management, deployed, quickly sorted my mods, and then turned off plugin management, thereby retaining the load order that I had established.

[mrshadow116]

Running Win11 with GamePass version enabling mod order manager installed the wrong version of the ASI loader which caused a "Library Not Supported" error, disabled all of my mods and nuked several of my saves... I'm attempting to revert back to the standard manual plugin management...

I'm about ready to throw in the towel on modding this game... 

[ggood003]

I was happy I wouldn't have to manually add *[name].esm to the plugins.txt file anymore. I enabled the Load Order on Vortex & now when I attempt to launch I get, "This library isn't supported." I'm guessing the issue has something to do with me not removing the previously installed Plugins.txt enabler &/or ASI loader from github some mods with .esm list in their descriptions before enabling Load Order. Maybe the Vortex ASI loader treated bink2w64.dll like the original version unaware that bink2w64.dll is the one included with the ASI loader. The original bink2w64.dll became bink2w64Hooked.dll when I isntalled the ASI loader. In any event, if I can get the game to launch, I'll go back to writing the esm files into plugins.txt manually since getting Load Order working seems like way more of a mission. 

[Nagev]

Hi there!

So sorry you encountered this issue!

@ggood003 your assumption is correct - our ASI loader test had failed to ascertain whether the loader is already installed and caused a bit of a mess. Thank you for letting us know!

We should have a fix for it ready next week latest, but in the meantime you _can_  sort this out now by purging your mods and running the file integrity verification through the Xbox game store to re-instate the original assembly.

Then just start-up Vortex and enable the plugin management system again and re-deploy your mods.

Edit: we found the bug and will be releasing a new version of the extension today! @ggood003, @mrshadow116 - once you've been upgraded to version 0.6.5 of the extension - please purge your mods and verify the file integrity of your game installation through the Xbox Game Pass store; once that's done, hit the deploy button and the issue should be gone.

[Akopian]

How do I disable the plugin management system? I found it in the settings file.  It would be nice to do that from the load order screen as that is where we have to turn it on.  Or to put a reference to the settings on the load order screen at least.

Also, before continuing, in the load order it would be nice to add commented out lines for the load order to group plugins together if we are going to have to do a lot of manual adjustment.  In my own plugin text file, I have commented out category names in the text file where I group mods where load order will matter related to the same subject (like SHIPBUILDING).  Makes it easier for me to make sense of load order decisions to have the files organized.  Tagging files as belonging to certain groups for filtering purposes might be an alternative way of looking at them together in one place for relative positioning purposes.  Either way, a little organization to ease things for the user trying to make decisions would be useful.  

 

For the reason stated earlier by another comment on here about how Vortex seems to weigh alphabetical order as a default every time it orders things and then requiring a reorganization, the Vortex's plugin management system really does not work very well for me.  Particularly, a lot of ba2 files are loaded with esm files.  Vortex does not take into account that the order of those files might be set up in a particular way to favor textures and such from a specific mod over another.  

I know the management system is temporary anyway, but I do hope you are considering these problems.  Vortex does so well finding "conflicts" in loose texture files and allowing us to choose which ones we prefer.  It would be a step beyond manual ordering of plugin texts if it managed ba2 files as if they were loose files perhaps deploying a few pre-combined ba2 files that reflect choices of which texture is preferred instead of the originals based on user preferences.  Looking at ba2 combiners and such, it sounds like that might be a difficult process, but if it can be done, that would be a pretty big reason to prefer Vortex anyway.  

I am glad you are trying to address the load order plugin text issue, by the way.  Thanks for that. For now, though, I have to figure out what has caused the game to no longer load . . . I am pretty sure something has been enabled that I had disabled, but in any case, I will figure it out.  My careful load order was adjusted much more than I expected!  Still, I applaud the effort.

[Nagev]

Thank you for your feedback @Akopian & @MrZHDarkstar

I'm afraid that the alphabetical sorting when purging and then deploying highlights a flaw in our file based load ordering extension which is part of the Vortex core app and not the Starfield extension itself.

I'll create an internal ticket to ensure we track and fix this flaw in future releases of Vortex.

From a BA2 perspective - a more generic solution needs to be implemented to support all Gamebryo games and highlight those conflicts - we do have a ticket for this in our backlog but it may slow down conflict detection somewhat; we will gauge the performance impact and see if we can come up with something.

[mrshadow116]

10 hours ago, Nagev said:

Hi there!

So sorry you encountered this issue!

@ggood003 your assumption is correct - our ASI loader test had failed to ascertain whether the loader is already installed and caused a bit of a mess. Thank you for letting us know!

We should have a fix for it ready next week latest, but in the meantime you _can_  sort this out now by purging your mods and running the file integrity verification through the Xbox game store to re-instate the original assembly.

Then just start-up Vortex and enable the plugin management system again and re-deploy your mods.

Edit: we found the bug and will be releasing a new version of the extension today! @ggood003, @mrshadow116 - once you've been upgraded to version 0.6.5 of the extension - please purge your mods and verify the file integrity of your game installation through the Xbox Game Pass store; once that's done, hit the deploy button and the issue should be gone.

the update and your instructions fixed the issue!

[MrZHDarkstar]

Here are some suggestions for improving the Load Order management functionality

• Deploy Mods effect on Load Order as a setting: None, All non-native esm files present in Data folder, Only non-native esm files belonging to mods managed by Vortex (it's already capable of detecting whether or not esm files on the list are managed by Vortex, albeit not with 100% accuracy atm)
• Purge Mods effect on Load Order as a setting: None, Disable entries for missing esm files, Remove entries for missing esm files
• Keeping backups of plugins.txt so that the previous load order can be restored when users Purge & Redeploy (possible means of circumventing the sort issue in the Vortex core app)
• Default state of entries added to Load Order as a setting: Enabled, Disabled
• Additional means of sorting entries besides drag and drop: Edit entry number, Select entry and use arrow keys/Home/End/PgUp/PgDn, Right-click context menu with Move Up/Down/Top/Bottom options
• Means of manually adding/removing entries directly from the Load Order screen: Button added to toolbar that brings up a prompt to type in the name of an esm file to be added, Delete button added to the entry boxes themselves or as part of the aforementioned context menu.