LE Development Environment Setup Under Mod Organizer

[jaxonz]

Hi Everyone,

 

Thanks to a system crash I'm rebuilding my environment. This seemed like an opportune time to get cleaner separation of my mod source from Skyrim data.

 

My setup is as follows:

• Skyrim, all DLC, and Creation Kit installed to C:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Skyrim\
• Mod Organizer set up in a separate directory
• SKSE, SkyUI, SkyUILib and other helper scripts installed as mods under MO
• My own source in it's own directory
• A "mod" under MO for my source with a symbolic link back to my source directory (I really didn't want my own stuff under MO's file structure)
• An MO profile for mod authoring with SKSE, SkyUI, etc., and my source selected
• Creation Kit defined as an executable under MO

I've followed some guidelines for running Creation Kit under Mod Organizer. I can launch CK just fine and all of my content appears virtually in Skyrim's directory, thanks to MOs directory hook magic, but am still having some challenges:

• I'm able to edit script source files (using SublimeText 3 with Sublime Papyrus) but am unable to save them. The directory magic that MO performs won't let me make changes to my scripts. I see the error "unable to save... unable to create file... file exists" with no option to overwrite.
• I'm unable to launch some tools, such as my favorite script editor, PapyrusEd (just launches and dies without any error message or log. I'm using the CorFlags utility to ensure it launches in 32bit mode.).
• I can compile existing scripts and they go to the MO Overwrite directory only if I add the directories for SKSE, SkyUI, etc. scripts as Includes in the SublimePapyrus.INI file. It seems that should not be necessary if MO is making them appear virtually in the Skyrim directories.
• Seems that the process of folding overwrite's back into my source is going to be quite a hassle. This will especially be true when I create a new script that did not before exist in my source directory as the "sync" option won't recognize it and will likely force me to manually copy the files back to source or "create a new mod".

If you have worked past these issues, please share how you did it.

 

Otherwise, if you feel you have a good build environment, I'd love to know how you have things set up.

[Mattiewagg]

All I know is that I had the same issues with scripts and wanted to murder everything.

 

So I switched back to NMM. ;)

[ArronDominion]

I haven't tried this particular framework before so any trouble shooting I give might not be helpful. Have you tried using Notepad ++ to get around the editing/saving portion?

[sevencardz]

I don't run the Creation Kit through Mod Organizer, rather I run it directly from the Skyrim installation folder like normal. SKSE, SkyUI, and SkyUILib are installed manually into Skyrim directory as well. I edit all scripts in Notepad++ and compile them with a .bat file I wrote so the PEX files drop into the the Skyrim scripts directory and the mod folder in my MO testing profile. This way, I can run my project mods in a straight vanilla setup without MO, or run them in more of a Q/A integration testing setup in a fully modded MO profile.

One caveat I've found is since the ESP file for the mod will be in the Skyrim\Data directory, it then has to appear after the 'resources' for that ESP in the left panel of MO, if you also have the mod installed in MO that is. Otherwise, the ESP will use the resources found in Skyrim\Data rather than the ones in MO (presumably because they haven't loaded at that time). MO will slap an 'Unmanaged' prefix on the ESP, so it's easy to find, you just got to be aware of it.