Managing the Load Order...

[folgore62]

I'm following a mod list and am being guided to put a mod and its patch at the bottom of load order. According to a Gopher vid , you should adjust a mod's global priority. But if I click on the appropriated plug-in, global priority doesn't appear. What should I do to change a mod's load order?

[Grestorn]

Simple: Don't follow that advice to put the mod at the bottom. That's just what EVERY mod author likes to tell you, because then his mod will win over any other that happens to overwrite the same records.

 

But it's not reasonable. There is just ONE bottom of the mod list, and so many mods... :smile:

 

The only reasonable advice is "mod x has to be loaded after mod y and z ". And that should - for common mods - already be known to LOOT and its masterlist, so Vortex should take that into account.

 

Don't worry so much about load orders unless you have certain problems or if you create your own patches.

 

 

But anyway, to answer your question: "Plugin Priority" has been replaced by "Plugin Groups". To force a plugin to be loaded as late as possible, you can set the respective group (I'm not at home right now, so I'm not 100% sure about its name, something like "Dynamic Patches" if I'm not mistaken).

 

But remember, that CAN create problems, if there's a plugin that *really* has to be loaded *after* the plugin you're flagged that way.

[sopmac45]

To second what Grestorn said, Gopher's videos are outdated I think. In the beginning, global-priority was a function available in Vortex but since the introduction of Plugin Groups, that function does not exist anymore.

 

Just to give you an idea, Scrap Everything ( Fallout 4 ) has been a mod advised to be placed at the bottom of your load order, otherwise, it won't work. False !! My Scrap Everything is now in the middle of my load order and in the Plugin Default Group and my game has not CTD'ed at all and this mod is working as it should.

 

Personally, what I do is :

- Install/enable mods

- Resolve rules in the Mod tabs ( I always place the last mod installed conflicting with others, to be "load after" all mods conflicting with ... )

- Let Vortex to auto-sort my plugins

- Place my patches into the Dynamic Patches Group ( exclusively for patches at the bottom of the load order )

- Play my game

 

I do not worry anymore about what mod authors said about : place this mod at the very bottom or your game will CTD or the mod will not work ..... bla, bla, bla ..... and to be honest, it took me some time to swallow the fact that I should trust Vortex and since then, I have not had any problem at all with my game. A couple of CTD in about 53 hours play time are related to WOTC ( War of the Commonwealth ) which is expected and I am OK with that.

 

Bottom line, forget about placing mods in the bottom, trust Vortex a bit and give it a shot.

[folgore62]

Thanks Grestorn and Sopmac45,

 

The Gopher vid on plugins and load order was from only 3 months ago. I can find no tutorials more recent than that. Is there any instructional material - video or written - that I could look at to help me figure out Vortex? I suppose I could read everything on this 19 page forum thread, but there's no guarantee that I'd find what I need or that information from the early pages of the thread won't be outdated the way my Gopher vid is.

 

Don't get wrong, I generally have favorable impressions of Vortex so far. I like the idea of a plugin group for patches that's always at the end. Of course, do you have to identify a patch as a patch for it to be placed in that group? Where should you go to find this out? I do appreciate the setting of rules in the mod window. Perhaps that will be enough...

[Grestorn]

The documentation is lacking, no doubt about that. Maybe Gopher would like to update some of his videos?

 

As there are many things still changed a lot, it's still too early for writing the final documentation, I guess. But that's why there's a forum, a place to ask if you don't understand how something is supposed to work.

 

 

Most plugins that are patches are listed as that on Nexus. Or even in the plugin name. Again, if it's a common plugin, chances are quite high that LOOT/Vortex know about them without your help and will sort it correctly anyway.

[SkunkMonkey]

Vortex is in an Alpha stage which means things can and will change, sometimes drastically (case and point; Global Priority and Groups). Trying to create documentation or tutorials at this stage is wasted effort. While some information may remain valid, more often than not the information will be flat out wrong.

 

This is something you have to always keep in mind when using the program. If working with little to no documentation is difficult for you, it might be better for you to wait until the program is further along in development. Working with Alpha stage software can be tricky and sometimes outright frustrating, but that is the price one must pay if one wants to be on the bleeding edge.

[folgore62]

Vortex is in an Alpha stage which means things can and will change, sometimes drastically (case and point; Global Priority and Groups). Trying to create documentation or tutorials at this stage is wasted effort. While some information may remain valid, more often than not the information will be flat out wrong.

 

This is something you have to always keep in mind when using the program. If working with little to no documentation is difficult for you, it might be better for you to wait until the program is further along in development. Working with Alpha stage software can be tricky and sometimes outright frustrating, but that is the price one must pay if one wants to be on the bleeding edge.

You make valid points. Still, at least some rudimentary documentation should be provided to testers so they are aware of where everything is so that they can test all functions and provide appropriate feedback. Does, perhaps the designer have some thread where he posts the latest developments and changes?

[folgore62]

I certainly remember what's been said before about "not every mod can be at the bottom" and to "trust LOOT." But what if you have a mod that REALLY needs to be at the bottom or very close to the bottom?

 

Specifically, I'm talking about Alternate Start mods. When following someone's lengthy mod list, these mods come in handy for testing how well all the mods you've installed up to that point are doing. Unfortunately, if they're not at the bottom of the mod list, they CTD the moment your PC checks inventory. Based on what I know about Vortex so far, I tried to make a connection between the Alternate Start mod and the very last mod I saw in the load order in the plugin section and set Alternate Start to load after it. This didn't work. Did I screw up or did function fail to work properly? Was there a better way to put Alternate Start at the bottom?

[Grestorn]

As I've written, if you insist on forcing a mod at the bottom (which I wouldn't recomment, even for a Alternate Start mod), you can use the LOOT plugin group feature, which replaced the old priorities.

 

As a matter of fact, there's already a group defined out of the box for Alternate Start mods with exactly that name. As you can see if you click the "Manage Groups" button on the plugin tab. This group is rather late in load order, later than Default and Core Mods. So if your mod has the group "Alternate Start" assigned to it (which you can see on the plugin's property sheet in Vortex) it should already be quite far down the list.

 

There are mods which should loaded after Alternate Mods still. As you can see in the "Manage Group" dialog, Leveled List Modifiers, Dynamic Patches etc. And that's for a good reason.

 

So the only thing you should do is to verify if your Alternate Start has the correct group assigned to it - and let LOOT do the rest. Don't worry so much!

[folgore62]

As I've written, if you insist on forcing a mod at the bottom (which I wouldn't recomment, even for a Alternate Start mod), you can use the LOOT plugin group feature, which replaced the old priorities.

 

As a matter of fact, there's already a plugin defined out of the box for Alternate Start mods with exactly that name. As you can see if you click the "Manage Groups" button on the plugin tab. This group is rather late in load order, later than Default and Core Mods. So if you mod has the group "Alternate Start" assigned to it (which you can see on the plugin's property sheet in Vortex) it should already be quite far down the list.

 

There are mods which should loaded after Alternate Mods still. As you can see in the "Manage Group" dialog, Leveled List Modifiers, Dynamic Patches etc. And that's for a good reason.

 

So the only thing you should do is to verify if your Alternate Start has the correct group assigned to it - and let LOOT do the rest. Don't worry so much!

 

Many thanks! A lot of good information about how Vortex works! Hopefully the finalized version will come out soon and with it, instructions and tutorials.