Simple manual load ordering plz

[Grestorn]

If a mod author explicitly writes âload a after bâ and Loot doesnât honor that (which, in itself, is quite unlikely, since the Loot masterlist is maintained by the community) then, and only then you can create a specific custom rule or that.

 

Thatâs still a rare and very specific case, though.

[Tannin42]

Unless the game crashes immediately it can take many hours before you realises something is screwed-up, especially if you've not used the mod before. So if mod-author has said anything specific like "if you uses mod a, b and c, put them in this specific order and my mod in this order" I would expect mod-author does know what he's doing and I'll try following this order.

 

Now of course, many mod-author says "load last" and this advice I won't even try to follow.

Yes, of course, if the mod author gives specific instructions like this it's safe to assume he tested it. But instructions like this are exactly what LOOT is perfect to enforce and there is a good chance that if it's already been determined that plugin x has to go after a, b and c that there is already a loot masterlist rule so it gets automatically set for all vortex users.

 

If you find a mod with specific load order instructions like these where loot does not order them accordingly it's of course a good idea to set them up as rules in vortex and then submit them to the loot masterlist so everyone else gets them autosorted correctly.

 

If the mod author says "load last" that's still a good indication where the plugin should end up, even if sorted through loot, it probably means that it's a script-heavy plugin. But users shouldn't take it to mean "any load order that doesn't have this last is wrong and you should panic" but "it's safest to load this plugin late, but other positions may work too".

[LawrenceFB]

 

 

 

 

Ok you and Tannin have me confused again.

My current understanding is that load order on the 'Mods' tab affects which loose files are loaded on a last loaded wins. This being controlled by Vortex and the files it chooses to place in the data directory. Also any loose file wins over any file in a .bsa.

Then we come to the plugin tab. Here the mod index indicates the order and which .esm,.esp,.esl, etc are loaded. If there is are .bsa associated with the plugin they are loaded (unless affected by some voodoo .ini file) in the same order. So if you have resources in .bsa that you want to resolve, and Loot rules allow it, you can use user rules to choose the winning files. But you have no way, as the game is designed, of overriding any loose file with a file in a .bsa.

All of that is correct, at least for the newer games.

From what I have read in comments elsewhere there are subtle difference between different Bethesda games and if there are I have failed to get an explanation of what they are and to be honest I only care about Skyrim and SkrimSE at the moment. I do hope to have another go at Oblivion in the future.

To be perfectly honest, there are people better suited to answer this than me, but in general the changes are more in the details, for example how you tell the game in which
order to load plugins or what gets stored in your save game (e.g. Skyrim copies scripts to your savegame so changing the install order later or disabling a mod may not have
an affect on it or break the savegame in some way, earlier games were more robust in that regard).

The load order has always confused me. This seems to reflect the order plugins would load if they where all enabled. For me the sorting of this column is a hit and miss affair where only about half the time does it bear any relationship with the mod index. Indeed it often has Skyrim.esp at a load order of 20 or more. I have always taken this as a UI issue and relied on the mod index.

Sorting tools like loot will order all plugins, whether they are enabled or not, but only an enabled plugin can have a mod index. On the other hand, the
base game files (e.g. Skyrim.esm) are loaded by the game engine in a certain order so they have a fixed mod index, so Vortex doesn't show a load order for them because
you can't affect the order in which they are loaded. That's why I don't see how skyrim.esm should appear at load order 20, it doesn't have a load order at all.

Am I wrong in thinking only the .bsa of enabled plugins are loaded?

Yes, the bsas of disabled plugins aren't loaded.

 

 

 

 

 

Tannin

 

Yes, I agree that skyrim.esm should not have a load order value, but it did. As I said this could be some form of UI issue. If I see it again I will take a screen shot and add it to feedback.

[4estGimp]

Attempting to set a load order became an extremely frustrating whack-a-mole game. Make a rule... watch the changes... make another rule... watch some more load order changes... make a rule... stab yourself in the temple. I could not even get the UI section of my mod list set up. I'll check back for changes in a few months.

[sopmac45]

Attempting to set a load order became an extremely frustrating whack-a-mole game. Make a rule... watch the changes... make another rule... watch some more load order changes... make a rule... stab yourself in the temple. I could not even get the UI section of my mod list set up. I'll check back for changes in a few months.

 

 

I agree, it has been very frustrating for me. I have been trying several load orders, copy-catting load orders when I was playing Skyrim via NMM ( I probably had 1 CTD every 20 hours game time which was acceptable with such buggy game ), I have started Skyrim from fresh several times since using Vortex and I have made a lot of questions using this forum about what to do with this and that; Tannin has helped me to understand Vortex more and now I do have a better idea what to do with it ... however ...

 

... DISCLAIMER .... I am not, I AM NOT implying here that Vortex is the problem. Back with NMM, Skyrim was not crashing that much in compare with how many times my game has been crashing via Vortex .. because I did not know what to do with it ( I am pretty sure about that ) ... but the thing I would like to point out ( and I do not know if Nexus, Tannin or somebody else ) have some information about Skyrim being so unstable lately ( since the last update ).

 

It is ridiculous the way is behaving and there are users already talking about this in the Skyrim forums. For a new Vortex user, this could be problematic because that person would probably believe it is Vortex the cause / root of the problem and not the game that is probably buggier than it was before or probably it is SKSE not performing properly. I do not know, but I have done all that is in my little knowledge to ease the pain and still my game ( the one I just recently started ) has crashed 4 times in less than 12 hours and in places that I never had any crash before. I never had this kind of performance with NMM, never !!

 

At this point, I hope that when we get out of Alpha state, Vortex developer team give us some kind of instructions on how to work with it, video tutorials if they are necessary for different level of users, because I do believe that will help everybody to faster understand it and be able to overcome any problem. For me, instructions are necessary. So far, all of my questions have been answered by a lot of folks in this forum and by Tannin and I really appreciate all of their help but I am still a rookie, I admit. But instructions will let us determine very fast ( to a certain point ) where is the root of the problem.

 

Regarding making a rule, watch for changes, etc, etc, .... please, it has been said by very knowledgeable users and modders that changing load order mid game will cause problems and will crash your game eventually. So, If I change a rule, my load order will be different the next time I launch the game, so I will be breaking an important rule here and my game will crash and the frustration will continue .... I do agree with you 100% .... unless I am mistaken, about changing rules is not affecting anything else but improving the stability of this game, then I do apologize in advance for believing something that is not true.

[Grestorn]

The idea to want to have a definitive load order is flawed to begin with.

 

The absolute order is not important. The only thing thatâs important is that certain plugins are loaded after certain other plugins.

 

But Vortex/Loot does a good job to manage that out of the box, and the rare cases where youâd have to make adjustments, can be resolved with one or two rules.

 

I have to say, that everyone who insists on a specific load order just has a wrong understanding of the mechanisms of Gamebryo .esm and .esp files and how they interact.

[4estGimp]

These Require a specific load order:

 

DEF_UI

DEF_UI Translation FIles

Valdacil's Item Sorting

VIS - Armor by Class'

VIS - Cosmetics by Type

VIS - Weapons Update

Gold Kit for Pipboy Anti-Black and White

Status Effect Fix for Gold Kit for Color Pipboy

Updated ICONLIBS2 for DEF-UI

Uto's usability Enhancements

Uto's Armorsmith Extended esp

HUD Framework

DEF-UI compatibility patch
HUD Plus Plus

Hud preset

 

Should a person really have to create a rule for every single one of those? Sections like these DO require a specific order and LOOT fails to sort them correctly. This section cannot be corrected with one or two rules. My understanding of the game and/or Vortex mechanics has no relevance to whether or not Vortex can produce a functional result.

[Tannin42]

So your claim is that Vortex/LOOT produces a non-functional order. This should be easy ot verify. What order does Vortex generate and which of the mods don't work then?

[euph]

Attempting to set a load order became an extremely frustrating whack-a-mole game. Make a rule... watch the changes... make another rule... watch some more load order changes... make a rule... stab yourself in the temple. I could not even get the UI section of my mod list set up. I'll check back for changes in a few months.

 

This.

 

I have a lot of merged mods, own mods and all kinds of mods that depend on each other. Pardon me if I don't want to spend 2 days setting rules and dependencies and instead just want to drag the mod to where it needs to be. Also, I don't give a rat's about LOOT. Lost count to the times it's "correct" order made my games crash even without merged/own mods in the mix.

 

Being able to drag and drop mods is being requested by a lot of people, the people that are supposed to use Vortex. Maybe it's time to start listening to us a bit more instead of just hammering on the rules and dependencies as if we're nothing.

[Grestorn]

Mods depending on each other DOESN'T imply a sort order. Mod a depending on mod b doesn't mean that a has to be loaded after b.

 

There is no special ordering necessary for merged plugins. In fact, merging plugins implies a "load order" when you were merging them.

 

Mod order is ONLY relevant if plugins are overwriting parts of each other (scripts, cells or other objects). If two mods don't share any objects, the order in which they're loaded is completely irrelevant.

 

So I really don't see your point.