Mod install order guide (Does a comprehensive one exists like the one that was made for FO3?)

[rasonage]

hun, Load order is a determining factor you can not avoid, and it is controlled by Loot's templates.

 

If you install mods out of order? then you have a mess. Your install order for correctness is that sorted load order.

 

This way, the correct data overwrites will take place and be in sync.

....

holy sh**... I feel so dumb, now

use LOOT to get the load order, then reinstall in that order... it's so stupidly simple and obvious.

Thank you! That's like... the perfect advice.

[k00rt1983]

I just wish there was some info about MOD Install Order that didn't require installing & reinstalling MODS. Ive learned from past FO3 & FNV that installing in an incorrect order is a FAST way to have to ReInstall the Game Entirely, and 96GB is a BIG Download.

[LucidLady]

A bit confused here.

There is a difference between Load Order and Install Order. Some mods do need to be installed after other mods - so that they can overwrite files within the previous mod. Those kinds of mods always go below the mod that they're overwriting in the Load Order.

 

Also, you should NOT use LOOT if you have more than a dozen or so mods. LOOT is still a helpful tool for identifying mods that need cleaning, and can help you find a good spot for a single mod if you're unsure where it belongs. But you absolutely cannot trust it to properly sort your load order if you have anywhere near a hundred mods. You will have to organize your load order yourself if that is the case.

 

And you should avoid installing UFO4Patch unless you have a very tiny load order as well. Unless you are personally organizing your load order - and you know exactly what you're doing - then UFO4Patch is likely to break more than it fixes. It should never be installed by default. The larger your load order - the more likely UFO4Patch is to break your game.

[Purr4me]

A bit confused here.

There is a difference between Load Order and Install Order. Some mods do need to be installed after other mods - so that they can overwrite files within the previous mod. Those kinds of mods always go below the mod that they're overwriting in the Load Order.

 

Also, you should NOT use LOOT if you have more than a dozen or so mods. LOOT is still a helpful tool for identifying mods that need cleaning, and can help you find a good spot for a single mod if you're unsure where it belongs. But you absolutely cannot trust it to properly sort your load order if you have anywhere near a hundred mods. You will have to organize your load order yourself if that is the case.

 

And you should avoid installing UFO4Patch unless you have a very tiny load order as well. Unless you are personally organizing your load order - and you know exactly what you're doing - then UFO4Patch is likely to break more than it fixes. It should never be installed by default. The larger your load order - the more likely UFO4Patch is to break your game.

#1. UFo4 Patch. interesting thing ,a tidbit of info about that. It gets released on Day 1 of game release within an hour of game release---BY modders?

Something stinks about the timing. Never ran anymore "Official" Unofficial patches once I seen that take place.

The same thing occurred with Skyrim Second Edition. Yeah, not gonna believe the privledged had access to OEM products or some how thrown out a magic trick.

 

That took place, removed said things and the game runs as provided clean.

IF the load order decides wat assets are to be used and the person installs said mods in a vanilla fashion ? the first mods assets got overwrote by the subsequent mods following that one, and the assets required are now missing. The Data folder in a vanilla game is not controlled by any outside managers.

Say the user wants ehem "adult" materials used in their game. ok, they decided to make sure they install and test those first.

ok tested looks great. Now they installed a whole bunch of other armor mods and different assets, go nut's, end up with say 200 mods and a massive amount of data.

 

they some how manage to get the game to load and-------All the work in the beginning is gone. a desperate search for those textures turns up zero.

?? where oh where did those textures go?

They go overwrote, and say all those custom Adult assets had a plugin associated with them as well.??

NO amount of load ordering will fix the problem. Now, lets say you introduce "Bodie slide?" now things get really messy.

you did not read the authors rules, instructions, things about a game being clean. and the order of things ...just some how slipped your mind.

OR this. .attitude means a great deal in modding. a bad attitude about how things work against how thing should work are far and few in-between.

you can't force your "will" and make it work, wishful thinking has no place in code function's.

you install like I said all your favorite toys, all of it. run loot, print out the information

delete the entire setup and reinstall the game from scratch just to make sure /Darn sure that game is clean.

Read your load out, the load order based on peoples input because the loot thing is made from peoples input. There's NO AI involved.

Look at the sorted mod list, think about what each mod comes with, what assets are involved within each.

did Loot sort your Adult mods plugins correctly? OR did some other body mod overwrite it?

xedit will not fix this problem. This can only be fixed by the user installing the mods in the appropriate manner and the appropriate order period.

Don't Blame Loot, or any other algorithm. this is solely on the users install practices and choices and lack of understanding HOW things work.

Like tree mods, weather mods, armor mods, face gen mods, quest mods, on and on it goes.

Loot is not responsible for your choices, you are to any one whom it concerns. It's just a tool to get you near to what you want.

 

Kitty Black.

[LucidLady]

It's crazy how often people throw around the "Never play without UFO4Patch!" mentality. As if the game won't function without it.

I play with over 300 mods. I don't use the UFO4Patch at all. And my game runs nearly flawlessly. The only flaws I do run into are related to mods, not the base game. And any little errors I run across which are caused by the base game can easily be fixed with the most basic console command or tiny individual fix-it patch mods.

 

When I first started using mods, the first mod I installed was UFO4Patch - because, like most people, I assumed it was a given. A prerequisite to using mods.

But I soon found myself dealing with gamebreaking bugs which i'd never encountered before - and could find no information for online.

After I removed UFO4Patch, I haven't had problems like that ever since.

And furthermore - the majority of the time when I suggest someone to disabled UFO4Patch - that ends up being the sole solution to whatever problem they were having.

 

It's not UFO4Patch's fault, per-say. It's just that it shouldn't be getting used in massive load orders - and they aren't warning people about that.

UFO4Patch came out very early after the game's release - when there weren't even that many mods floating around. Most load orders were tiny - so the patch wasn't a problem for a good while. But now? Years later? People are rockin' hundreds of mods on the regular. The UFO4Patch touches TONS of areas in the game, it's bound to conflict with a lot of mods.

 

Basically - don't fix it unless you know it's broke in the first place.

 

Moving on, you're kinda correct about the overwriting as time goes on. Sometimes you install a mod early on - but over time it seems to lost functionality. It may be because you're overwriting things without thinking. When you install a mod and get the pop-up prompt "This file has already been installed by x-mod, overwrite x-mod's files?" and you blindly click "Yes to All". It's a simple mistake. But you really should be wary - go through each prompt and carefully decide what to overwrite and what not to overwrite. This kind of prompt happens most often with Build-mode mods and Animation mods for me. But I imagine it also happens alot with Texture replacement mods - I just don't use any of those.

 

In cases like that - it really is the user's fault, not LOOT or anything else. However - LOOT really is messing people up nowadays too. Similarly to UFO4Patch - LOOT was fine back in the day when it was released. There weren't as many mods - and on average people had much smaller load orders. But now? LOOT simply will not work if you have a huge load order. It will organize things incorrectly - period. Yet people keep throwing out the "Never play without using LOOT!" mentality, like it's a default. And when you look up modding guides on youtube or whatever - you'll only find videos that came out years ago. When the game was new. Old, outdated guides. It's a real shame.

 

Let's look at the Full Dialogue Interface mod. It's OLD. When you install it, it comes with Strings folders. Fallout used to install with Strings folders, but it doesn't any longer. The whole reason Fallout stopped installing with Strings folders is because of the number of problems it caused. They eliminated the Strings folders from the equation. Unless you use Full Dialogue Interface, you won't have a Strings folder in your Fallout directory these days. However - to this very day - people still suggest removing the Strings folder as a fix for things. Because they're just repeating information that was relevant years ago, when the game was new. Then the people who need help end up running around looking for this folder that doesn't exist anymore. Or they find it - because they're using FDI - and delete it, making things break even more. I was trying to help somebody get the Creation Club dog mods to work - and I almost suggested they remove the Strings folder myself. Until I kept investigating and learned how outdated that advice was. And FDI is still a HUGELY popular mod. One of the most popular mods. Millions of downloads. It seriously needs a remake. Turns out their problem was related to FDI, though. They were simply missing one of a million patches for it.

 

So yes - you need to be mindful of the order in which you install mods. You need to be mindful of your load order. You can't just slap it with a LOOT or UFO4Patch and expect it to work if you're going to use hundreds of plugins. It's unreasonable. There's not really a single good guide that I know of to help people in this regard. I had to learn this through the hard and brutal road of ten thousand CTDs and trial and error - on all 3 gaming platforms.

Edited August 20, 2020 by LucidLady

[Purr4me]

The best influence's are users thoughts and required data for any particular game.

Then, there's yet still other issues that involve things unseen or spoke of.

Hardware.

I'm a fallout 3 girl my self, a relatively simple game.

I discovered some ssd drives and hardware / graphics combinations will not allow the old game editor to function correctly or simply crash.

Thankfully I own many rig's /Machines and test these weird things upon.

Gotta have a means to test things and be through enough to know why things work and fail too.

I have some custom made mods built my self on one machine and then tried to edit it further? where the GECK would CTD and some times delete the entire plugin.

An ssd drive is a load of transistors basically so when things get deleted? then don't end up in the waste bin, they're just gone !

I have out of those two spinner drives that do allow me to edit things in a more concise manner without data loss.

To be sure, hardware does have issues with modding. Knowing this, allow one to know where to look.

On the approach of the before mentioned "patches" no where is there any mention to use the patch as a DLC add on? IF hat were taken into consideration, thing's would have been different.

Thee way the code works for most game from Bethesda is the last file wins. That's the norm.

How ever, this changed by a select few, a logic that applies where it should not apply IF you do not include it as part of your mod in the first place.

The main reason is permissions to use said assets. The master files above are source information.

IF you consistently Override it and load up ram with nonsense? the game will always struggle to run.

Ok so, with some tools, we can alter the patches and make them simple plug-in's and load them last and see where all the conflicts lay.

Too many mods are built without this in mind. So, you have a solution to that very issue.

Knowing is half the battle.

On the Skyrim sse web sight, enjoy looking at all the custom made mods and pictures, some videos too have active hair mods. Outrageously good looking creations by some.

Then we do other games that don't use any tools at all for use on the publishers games.

 

Kitty