Vortex Alpha Release

[ers020]

Trying this out now. I'm used to the whole C Drive thing, that doesn't really bother me. I've seen a couple of posts about it not being "user-friendly", but I haven't had any issues so far. Admittedly, I looked around the application before I began downloading anything (nice to see a single area to set the external tools up for the game - that was a concern of mine).

 

So, my exploration, I started downloading some mods (140 so far). It's a little slow at times, but that's understandable given how much I'm throwing at it. There have been a couple of times where a SOCKETTIMEOUT or similar error has popped up, but just re-downloading the mod again took care of the issue.

 

Admittedly, I am still downloading mods (go big or go home approach), but I am liking the feel of it. Nice to know I could import from NMM or MO if I wanted to, but I tend to burn what I have and start fresh a lot, so I'm taking that approach.

 

I have to say, I am definitely liking it better than NMM, and am definitely looking forward to the continued progression of this new application. Awesome work all-around =)

[VincentPlays4Keeps]

My first impression after just a few hours of using it, this is very well thought out and Vortex will be everything MO users and NMM users want. They just might not know it yet. Seriously, I am very pleased with Vortex so far and once Gopher gets some videos out explaining how to use it from a beginners point of view, I expect Vortex will soon be adopted by the majority of users. Very nice work to all involved in the project. Thank you!

 

EDIT: removed my confusing words

Edited February 18, 2018 by VincentPlays4Keeps

[mcdanielskh]

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the plugin order correct.

Sort seems to do nothing at all. for example . Unofficial Skyrim SE patch.exp needs to come after Lanterns of Skyrim_All in One-Main.esm.

I know this and Vortex knows this, there is a rule already passed to Vortex in Unofficial Skyrim patch that states that it must load after Lanterns of Skyrim. However, Lanterns of skyrim is all the way down at Load order 13 and will not move ???

 

Edit:

now the DLC esm's are out of wack and will not sort either!!! I'm really starting to hate Vortex. I figured out MO in like 15 min. Its been 2 hours just make rules trying to get the plugin order of a few mods right. I could have fixed this in 10 sec with MO. Not happy so far.

 

Edit:

Somehow Vortex just lost its mind. I reloaded and now it seems to be sorting correctly again. I'm tired, will add a few more mods tomorrow and see if it loses its mind again.

Edited February 17, 2018 by mcdanielskh

[hati39]

Since I seem not to be the only one with this problem: do I install skse64 as a seperate tool like LOOT beside the games directory or do I install it inside the games directory (as described in the skse readme). And I remember some problems during my MO times, so: What do I do with the scripts of any mod that uses skse? Will I have to move them to skse/scripts or does Vortex handle them like any other mod file?

 

edit: the usage of FNIS reveals some questions in the same direction ;)

 

edit #2: ok, since I want to start testing and nobody has an answer for me, I've installed skse64 as I did with MO, so I installed the main files to the games dir and the data folder as a mod. I leave fnis uninstalled for now.

Edited February 17, 2018 by hati39

[sopmac45]

In response to post #57637336.

mcdanielskh wrote: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the plugin order correct.
Sort seems to do nothing at all. for example . Unofficial Skyrim SE patch.exp needs to come after Lanterns of Skyrim_All in One-Main.esm.
I know this and Vortex knows this, there is a rule already passed to Vortex in Unofficial Skyrim patch that states that it must load after Lanterns of Skyrim. However, Lanterns of skyrim is all the way down at Load order 13 and will not move ???

Edit:
now the DLC esm's are out of wack and will not sort either!!! I'm really starting to hate Vortex. I figured out MO in like 15 min. Its been 2 hours just make rules trying to get the plugin order of a few mods right. I could have fixed this in 10 sec with MO. Not happy so far.

Edit:
Somehow Vortex just lost its mind. I reloaded and now it seems to be sorting correctly again. I'm tired, will add a few more mods tomorrow and see if it loses its mind again.

Go to the Mods tab and you will see either on Lanterns of Skyrim or Unofficial Patch, a red bolt beside the dependency; click on that red bolt and it will pop up a small window with the files that conflict with the Mod red bolt you clicked before.
Now, here is a bit confusing but I figured out I guess : the mod listed has a square box on the left; if you click the dropping arrow on that little box, you will see : No rule, load before, load after, conflict with .... if you know for example ( and you need to read the mod description and this is now SUPER important for every single player to do before installing mods ) that Unofficial Patch must be loaded after Lanterns, then on that box you need to click : load after and save it. You are done.

Now, go to the plugins tab and sort your load order. Then you can run LOOT and you will see on the list of load order provided by LOOT, that Lanterns of Skyrim loaded first and Unofficial Patch loaded after.
Also, the list will be showed on the Plugins tab inside Vortex.

I do like the way Vortex helps you to do this the right way, but I do admit, that there is a learning curve. I am not a master modder nor a programmer, and I was able to figure it out, so if I can, you definitely can my friend. NOTE HERE : for those newbies that download 250 + mods at the same time, let me tell you, you are not doing it easier for you in the first place. Second, quantity is not better than quality. Third, the more mods you have in your load order, the more chances to have conflicts between your mods. Fourth, the more mods you download, the most difficult will be for you to fix dependencies thru Vortex. My recommendation is not to download ( try not to unless you know what are you doing ) two mods that does the same thing. For example, do not download mods that do the same thing. I use only Vivid Weathers + one ENB. I have seen load orders with Vivid Weathers, CoT, etc, etc, etc ... and IMHO, mods that do the same will conflict to each other and it will be most difficult to fix. If you are a newbie, and you want to use Vortex, download a few mods first, let' say : 25. Try to fix dependencies and once you get use to and learn it, download the rest of your mods and go from there. I am not saying that NMM was much better because you could download 250, drag and drop, run LOOT and your game was perfect. Wrong. The point is not to install two mods doing the same thing so it will be much easier for you to fix dependencies in Vortex. Once you know it, go ahead and download 1000 if you want ... lol ... ( just a joke ) ... but for beginners, I do not think it is a good idea to download/install 200 mods in Vortex ( a program you never used before ) and try to fix your mod dependencies. Go step by step and do yourself a favor. But again, it is a free world, if you like headaches, then go for and don't forget to take Tylenol ... lol ... :)


Also, another thing that you can do is to go to the Plugins tab and move the Unofficial Patch under Lanterns. A window will pop up. In the first field, choose from the list, the Unofficial Patch, on the second field choose Load After and in the third field choose Lanterns of Skyrim, click on Add ( this means that whatever you did, will be added to your load order and it will be permanent regardless if you use LOOT. That change only will be undone if you go re-arrange the load order using the same procedure. Save it before you close this window !!

Vortex will automatically tell you ( it will pop up a message in red on the right top corner ) if there are errors in your dependencies. Click on More ( on that red window that will pop up ) and Vortex will list the mods that have been arranged wrongly. Go to the first mod, ( under Mods tab ) and click on the red bolt and fix it. You need to either use No rule, load before, load after or conflict till Vortex does not give you any error. Once you fix it, the red bolt will turn to green, meaning that the conflict has been resolved.
Last night was the first time I dealed with this and I was able to fix all of my errors.
I can vouch now that I like this method of fixing dependencies much better than NMM. Here is the great confusion : in NMM we were able to drag and drop any mod in our load order and that specific procedure was very simple and beautiful ... BUT, BUT and BUT .... that simple procedure did not fix the dependencies of our mods. To fix this, you would have to use SSEEdit or the CK and manually move those red records to the right place and let me tell you ... I screwed up a couple of times trying to do this and creating patches for my game because it was time consuming and very difficult for me to figure out exactly which records to move and which one to leave. Another thing : I have not seen the video by Gopher. There is one but it does not explain all these things. I think that he is still working on it ... point is, I tried last night to figure it out by myself, so do you believe that I am a genius ? No I am not !! Otherwise, I will be working for NASA probably ... lol ... no, I am not a genius and I do have the same level of intelligence of the majority ( my intelligence coefficient is 95 so I am normal .. if you have more than a 100 -up to 130 I guess it is- then you are more intelligent than the great majority of people ) so my point is that Vortex is simple and the only thing you need to do, is to try it till you get used to and have fun in the process. Don't fight it for the sake of yourself ! I am a normal person but I like to learn and I am not a child expecting everybody to teach me everything. I already passed that stage of my life. I like to investigate, ask questions to those that are more knowledgeable than me, read and do things by myself. If I can do it, definitely you can do it.

The great difference with Vortex is that you do not have to go inside the CK or SSEEdit to manually move those red records anymore. The only thing you need to do is what I explained you above and Vortex will continue advising you there are errors till you try a different dependency setup and that is super much easier than what we had to before in NMM. With Vortex, we do not have to move records, just mods by choosing : no rule, load before, load after or Conflict with ... it is much simpler and if you handled before fixing dependencies via CK or SSEEdit, you know exactly what I am saying here. We can also drag and drop and Vortex will automatically tell you to setup your rule in relation to that drag and drop you did. So, it does allow you to drag and drop and at the same time, setup a rule between those two mods in a fly. Much better than NMM. NMM allows us to drag and drop .. BUT .. it does not advise you to fix conflicts or setup a dependency rule with that move. You have to go inside CK or SSEEdit to fix it manually and that is a PAIN IN THE BUTT. With Vortex : forget about moving records. Just drag and drop and set up a dependency rule. Done.
If you are a player that never dealed with patches and fixing dependencies using either the CK or SSEEdit, then, do not worry. Use Vortex in the way I tried to explain above and after some time ( I do not think that you will be trying more than 5 hours to be honest ) you will get used to and you will fix your dependencies.

Bottom line : once you deal with your dependencies, all those records that were conflicting with other mods, will be fixed automatically by Vortex. Before, it was simply a pain in the butt. I said before that I am not a master modder or a programmer, but I was able before to do my own custom mods, patches and fixed dependencies by just reading, investigating, asking questions and trying using SSEEdit. I learned a bit but that bit is helping me now to understand my load order much better than before. If you do not believe what I said, go and try to fix your dependencies with your mods setup in NMM. Use SSEEdit and try to fix all those red records and I can guarantee you that you will get a headache and most likely, your game will CTD.

Vortex is more simple and powerful than you can imagine. Just be patient, try and after a while you will be very happy. I am not going back to NMM and for those that continue thinking that dragging and dropping mods resolved conflicts before, they are wrong in the first place and need to move on and evolute by embracing Vortex. It is simpler, faster and more powerful than NMM. I do not have any experience with MO so I cannot compare Vortex with it.
But this is free world, if you do not like, then don't use it. One day, sooner than later you will be back ( like the Terminator ... lol ... ) to it because Vortex is now and probably for a very long time, the most simple+faster+powerful mod programmer out there and it will get better once LOOT is feeded by modders. :)
Edited February 17, 2018 by sopmac45

[SweatyCont]

I can't login to my nexus through Vortex, keeps giving me this notification,

 

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 12:51:21 GMT - error: Failed to validate API Key read ECONNRESET

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 12:51:41 GMT - error: Failed to connect to nexusmods.com Error: read ECONNRESET

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 12:52:19 GMT - error: Failed to connect to nexusmods.com Error: read ECONNRESET

 

Could use some help if its something on my end

[MrMason]

In response to post #57644446.

SweatyCont wrote: I can't login to my nexus through Vortex, keeps giving me this notification,

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 12:51:21 GMT - error: Failed to validate API Key read ECONNRESET
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 12:51:41 GMT - error: Failed to connect to nexusmods.com Error: read ECONNRESET
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 12:52:19 GMT - error: Failed to connect to nexusmods.com Error: read ECONNRESET

Could use some help if its something on my end

I can see that a key has been generated for your user at `2018-02-17 12:51:18` - so everything has worked from our end.

It sounds like your local firewall might be blocking Vortex from connecting to the service to grab your key.

[mcdanielskh]

In response to post #57637336. #57642081 is also a reply to the same post.

mcdanielskh wrote: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the plugin order correct.
Sort seems to do nothing at all. for example . Unofficial Skyrim SE patch.exp needs to come after Lanterns of Skyrim_All in One-Main.esm.
I know this and Vortex knows this, there is a rule already passed to Vortex in Unofficial Skyrim patch that states that it must load after Lanterns of Skyrim. However, Lanterns of skyrim is all the way down at Load order 13 and will not move ???

Edit:
now the DLC esm's are out of wack and will not sort either!!! I'm really starting to hate Vortex. I figured out MO in like 15 min. Its been 2 hours just make rules trying to get the plugin order of a few mods right. I could have fixed this in 10 sec with MO. Not happy so far.

Edit:
Somehow Vortex just lost its mind. I reloaded and now it seems to be sorting correctly again. I'm tired, will add a few more mods tomorrow and see if it loses its mind again.

sopmac45 wrote: Go to the Mods tab and you will see either on Lanterns of Skyrim or Unofficial Patch, a red bolt beside the dependency; click on that red bolt and it will pop up a small window with the files that conflict with the Mod red bolt you clicked before.
Now, here is a bit confusing but I figured out I guess : the mod listed has a square box on the left; if you click the dropping arrow on that little box, you will see : No rule, load before, load after, conflict with .... if you know for example ( and you need to read the mod description and this is now SUPER important for every single player to do before installing mods ) that Unofficial Patch must be loaded after Lanterns, then on that box you need to click : load after and save it. You are done.

Now, go to the plugins tab and sort your load order. Then you can run LOOT and you will see on the list of load order provided by LOOT, that Lanterns of Skyrim loaded first and Unofficial Patch loaded after.
Also, the list will be showed on the Plugins tab inside Vortex.

I do like the way Vortex helps you to do this the right way, but I do admit, that there is a learning curve. I am not a master modder nor a programmer, and I was able to figure it out, so if I can, you definitely can my friend. NOTE HERE : for those newbies that download 250 + mods at the same time, let me tell you, you are not doing it easier for you in the first place. Second, quantity is not better than quality. Third, the more mods you have in your load order, the more chances to have conflicts between your mods. Fourth, the more mods you download, the most difficult will be for you to fix dependencies thru Vortex. My recommendation is not to download ( try not to unless you know what are you doing ) two mods that does the same thing. For example, do not download mods that do the same thing. I use only Vivid Weathers + one ENB. I have seen load orders with Vivid Weathers, CoT, etc, etc, etc ... and IMHO, mods that do the same will conflict to each other and it will be most difficult to fix. If you are a newbie, and you want to use Vortex, download a few mods first, let' say : 25. Try to fix dependencies and once you get use to and learn it, download the rest of your mods and go from there. I am not saying that NMM was much better because you could download 250, drag and drop, run LOOT and your game was perfect. Wrong. The point is not to install two mods doing the same thing so it will be much easier for you to fix dependencies in Vortex. Once you know it, go ahead and download 1000 if you want ... lol ... ( just a joke ) ... but for beginners, I do not think it is a good idea to download/install 200 mods in Vortex ( a program you never used before ) and try to fix your mod dependencies. Go step by step and do yourself a favor. But again, it is a free world, if you like headaches, then go for and don't forget to take Tylenol ... lol ... :)


Also, another thing that you can do is to go to the Plugins tab and move the Unofficial Patch under Lanterns. A window will pop up. In the first field, choose from the list, the Unofficial Patch, on the second field choose Load After and in the third field choose Lanterns of Skyrim, click on Add ( this means that whatever you did, will be added to your load order and it will be permanent regardless if you use LOOT. That change only will be undone if you go re-arrange the load order using the same procedure. Save it before you close this window !!

Vortex will automatically tell you ( it will pop up a message in red on the right top corner ) if there are errors in your dependencies. Click on More ( on that red window that will pop up ) and Vortex will list the mods that have been arranged wrongly. Go to the first mod, ( under Mods tab ) and click on the red bolt and fix it. You need to either use No rule, load before, load after or conflict till Vortex does not give you any error. Once you fix it, the red bolt will turn to green, meaning that the conflict has been resolved.
Last night was the first time I dealed with this and I was able to fix all of my errors.
I can vouch now that I like this method of fixing dependencies much better than NMM. Here is the great confusion : in NMM we were able to drag and drop any mod in our load order and that specific procedure was very simple and beautiful ... BUT, BUT and BUT .... that simple procedure did not fix the dependencies of our mods. To fix this, you would have to use SSEEdit or the CK and manually move those red records to the right place and let me tell you ... I screwed up a couple of times trying to do this and creating patches for my game because it was time consuming and very difficult for me to figure out exactly which records to move and which one to leave. Another thing : I have not seen the video by Gopher. There is one but it does not explain all these things. I think that he is still working on it ... point is, I tried last night to figure it out by myself, so do you believe that I am a genius ? No I am not !! Otherwise, I will be working for NASA probably ... lol ... no, I am not a genius and I do have the same level of intelligence of the majority ( my intelligence coefficient is 95 so I am normal .. if you have more than a 100 -up to 130 I guess it is- then you are more intelligent than the great majority of people ) so my point is that Vortex is simple and the only thing you need to do, is to try it till you get used to and have fun in the process. Don't fight it for the sake of yourself ! I am a normal person but I like to learn and I am not a child expecting everybody to teach me everything. I already passed that stage of my life. I like to investigate, ask questions to those that are more knowledgeable than me, read and do things by myself. If I can do it, definitely you can do it.

The great difference with Vortex is that you do not have to go inside the CK or SSEEdit to manually move those red records anymore. The only thing you need to do is what I explained you above and Vortex will continue advising you there are errors till you try a different dependency setup and that is super much easier than what we had to before in NMM. With Vortex, we do not have to move records, just mods by choosing : no rule, load before, load after or Conflict with ... it is much simpler and if you handled before fixing dependencies via CK or SSEEdit, you know exactly what I am saying here. We can also drag and drop and Vortex will automatically tell you to setup your rule in relation to that drag and drop you did. So, it does allow you to drag and drop and at the same time, setup a rule between those two mods in a fly. Much better than NMM. NMM allows us to drag and drop .. BUT .. it does not advise you to fix conflicts or setup a dependency rule with that move. You have to go inside CK or SSEEdit to fix it manually and that is a PAIN IN THE BUTT. With Vortex : forget about moving records. Just drag and drop and set up a dependency rule. Done.
If you are a player that never dealed with patches and fixing dependencies using either the CK or SSEEdit, then, do not worry. Use Vortex in the way I tried to explain above and after some time ( I do not think that you will be trying more than 5 hours to be honest ) you will get used to and you will fix your dependencies.

Bottom line : once you deal with your dependencies, all those records that were conflicting with other mods, will be fixed automatically by Vortex. Before, it was simply a pain in the butt. I said before that I am not a master modder or a programmer, but I was able before to do my own custom mods, patches and fixed dependencies by just reading, investigating, asking questions and trying using SSEEdit. I learned a bit but that bit is helping me now to understand my load order much better than before. If you do not believe what I said, go and try to fix your dependencies with your mods setup in NMM. Use SSEEdit and try to fix all those red records and I can guarantee you that you will get a headache and most likely, your game will CTD.

Vortex is more simple and powerful than you can imagine. Just be patient, try and after a while you will be very happy. I am not going back to NMM and for those that continue thinking that dragging and dropping mods resolved conflicts before, they are wrong in the first place and need to move on and evolute by embracing Vortex. It is simpler, faster and more powerful than NMM. I do not have any experience with MO so I cannot compare Vortex with it.
But this is free world, if you do not like, then don't use it. One day, sooner than later you will be back ( like the Terminator ... lol ... ) to it because Vortex is now and probably for a very long time, the most simple+faster+powerful mod programmer out there and it will get better once LOOT is feeded by modders. :)

sopmac45

You did a great job of explaining a few things that many may not have figured out already. I understand what you are saying, but you don't understand what I was saying. I did not have a red bolt on anything. The dependency rules were already made. However, Vortex was not moving them. No matter, its working now. Had to Reload Vortex and it started working as you described, but for 2 hours I tinkered around with rules and the drag method that opens a rule as you explained but it would not move.
I am hoping this was a one time thing. Also I thought the DLC ESM's were not sorting correctly either. However, I was wrong. I turned on the load order columb to see the actual load order after sorting, and the ESM's had not moved. Now I realise that looking at the load order will show the proper load order visually for esp's but not esm's. ESM show no load order in that column. However, the order in the Mod index was correct. Now today I reload Vortex and it is also visually in the correct order as well, but last night it was not??? So something is a little glitchy if you look carefully perhaps you will also see what I have been seeing. I also now see that you can move the install order but only if there is a conflict. I just did not have any conflicts yet :)
I finally downloaded a mod that had a conflict and thus was able to move the order to resolve.
However, this method does not appear to be as full featured yet as MO was.

For example let's take two Texture packs, and lets say Pack 1 has texture examples a, b, f, g, h. Pack 2 has a, f, g, i, and j. Let's say I want Pack 2 a, Pack 1 b, Pack 2 f, Pack 1 G, and Pack 2 i, j. I could select this with MO by using a combination of install order and hiding textures from the overwriting pack that I don't want.
With Vortex, its either Pack 1, or 2. that it. Yes, I will still get the textures from pack 2 that pack 1 did not have but with the ones that they both have it's a "one or the other" deal only. So without this feature that I had with MO now I will have to manually repackage the textures as a Mod before I can install! Actually, I have to install both to "find the conflicts", repackage the two mods as one with the textures I want. Uninstall the original two and then install the repackages mad. Thats a lot of extra steps. To me, this is a step backwards from MO. Granted many people do not need this ability and many will just get confused, but advanced users and probably mod creators when testing textures really need this feature to be available. Edited February 17, 2018 by mcdanielskh

[mcdanielskh]

In response to post #57637071.

VincentPlays4Keeps wrote: My first impression after just a few hours of using it, this is very well thought out and Vortex will be everything MO users and NMM users want. They just might not know it yet. Seriously, I am very pleased with Vortex so far and once Gopher gets some videos out explaining how to use it from a beginners point of view, I expect Vortex will soon be adopted by the majority of users. Very nice work to all involved in the project. Thank you!

P.S. To clarify certain questions I've seen people wondering about...
Vortex does not put mods in the games data folder, it puts hard links. To get a clean data folder just disable your mods within Vortex.
Also, you only have to install vortex to the same drive your steam installed game is on. So if steam is on the D: drive for example, you install Vortex on that drive, not C. Anyways, just clarifying, I hope.

Really? did you find a way to hide texture files in a overwriting mod that you might not want to overwrite? What I see is a one or the other deal. To do what I could do with MO to have the texture diversity that I want I have to repackage my textures manually..

[mcdanielskh]

In response to post #57639276. #57697701, #57699261, #57703476, #57727756 are all replies on the same post.

hati39 wrote: Since I seem not to be the only one with this problem: do I install skse64 as a seperate tool like LOOT beside the games directory or do I install it inside the games directory (as described in the skse readme). And I remember some problems during my MO times, so: What do I do with the scripts of any mod that uses skse? Will I have to move them to skse/scripts or does Vortex handle them like any other mod file?

edit: the usage of FNIS reveals some questions in the same direction ;)

edit #2: ok, since I want to start testing and nobody has an answer for me, I've installed skse64 as I did with MO, so I installed the main files to the games dir and the data folder as a mod. I leave fnis uninstalled for now.

lued123 wrote: You can just install the entirety of SKSE as "vanilla" files. MO required the scripts to be installed as a mod because the VFS was weird, but Vortex uses highly compatible features that come with Windows, so you don't have to do that.

mcdanielskh wrote: Let me get this straight, We should just install in Vortex as packaged?
Or dont use Vortex?
I want to use Vortex so I can easily remove them by purging.
Can Vortex install stuff outside of the Data folder?
If not then I'm back to doing it as I did it.,

DarkDominion wrote: Install SKSE64: dll and exe go into the game file ( afaik Vortex can’t do this ) and I would suggest to zip up the scripts and install those through Vortex as any other date file dependent file ( so its easier to remove ).
That’s how so do it and it never fails

mcdanielskh wrote: OK, that what I thought and what I originally did. :) Which happens to be how I use to do it in MO as well.

disregard. accidental post. Sorry
Edited February 20, 2018 by mcdanielskh