Vortex creating arbitrary load order rules?

[Roanhorse]

I had a working Fallout 4 mod list going strong, but was trying to troubleshoot based on a hunch that issues w/ CBP could be from having DFS loading before instead of after the NPCs and race mods and forced DFS to the back. In the process, because giving it rules that would logically put it behind any of those NPC replacers ended up scrambling the order of the replacers, I got things a little mixed up and tried to force an order to those esps/esls that matched what I recalled them being in at the end of the load order before trying to move around DFS. The problem is, upon sorting, all those rules seemed to stick but stopped existing in any way I could view or manage them. Now, with DFS at the end and the game crashing to desktop every time I open it, I cannot go through and just get the original load order (with or with the tweaks to DFS) and see if those changes were the issue or not because opening manage rules on it's own or with all plugins selected at one time produces nothing to change despite Vortex clearly adhering to some amount of the rules I had created. Why does it work like this? Is there a way to undo all 'hidden' load order rules and have it try to sort things the way it had previously? I don't understand this behavior at all.

[Pickysaurus]

Vortex only uses rules from LOOT (if you're talking about plugins) and ones you set. You can review both plugin rules and mod rules using the relevant toolbar button.

[Roanhorse]

Right, but if I have created a rule, sorted, then remove the rule, and sort again, the consequence for the load order is not that it gets sorted without that rule. The resulting order from that removed rule remains and LOOT doesn't get used as a fallback, invisible and uneditable historical rules take precedent. They don't exist in the Manage Rules dialogue, they aren't accessible when selecting the plugins in the list, but they remain in effect after being removed. I have seen no documentation describing this but it has been the case for my vortex installation this whole time.

[showler]

If LOOT didn't have a rule for those mods and you created a rule then removed it, then Vortex won't have any reason to change the last load order it had for those mods.

Example:  Loot has no placement information for Mod A and Mod B except for their group.

                  You add a rule to make Mod B load before Mod A.  Vortex does so without issue because they are still in the same group.

                  You remove the rule for Mod B before Mod A.  When Vortex next sorts the mods are still both in the same group and now there is nothing telling Vortex that Mod A should now be before Mod B so the load order remains Mod B -> Mod A.

[Roanhorse]

8 hours ago, showler said:

If LOOT didn't have a rule for those mods and you created a rule then removed it, then Vortex won't have any reason to change the last load order it had for those mods.

Example:  Loot has no placement information for Mod A and Mod B except for their group.

                  You add a rule to make Mod B load before Mod A.  Vortex does so without issue because they are still in the same group.

                  You remove the rule for Mod B before Mod A.  When Vortex next sorts the mods are still both in the same group and now there is nothing telling Vortex that Mod A should now be before Mod B so the load order remains Mod B -> Mod A.

So you just, have to go and re-order everything using new rules and do so meticulously to avoid having it move a whole host of plugins back up instead of down to the end and all that? Ugh...

Is there an easier way to manually manage the plugin list because this whole mess started with assuming that I would not have to create 40+ rules, went with just a handful, and then watched as the list got borked. The current rules system lacks user feedback and doesn't make any outcome feel deliberate.

[vortexposer]

Avoid assigning individual plugin rules (unless required or convenient to share same default/custom group), then focus on creating custom groups to either work with existing LOOT default group system or your own independently grouped "template" that fits you.

 

Besides abiding by basic Bethesda master sort dependencies - there are virtually no limits to what custom user groups can do.
 

Edited June 25 by vortexposer

[Zanderat]

It's been my experience that LOOT doesn't sort anything it doesn't need to or is told to by a user.  Except for basic rules (patches come after the mods they patch or weather and lighting mods loading late, as  examples), very few mods care about load order.