Why does Vortex put mods into the Data folder?

[QaxeIsKaze]

What I want to know is, why Vortex stores mods in the Data folder. In my experience, putting mods into the Data folder is a recipe for overwrites. It was the case with NMM, why wouldn't it be so with Vortex? I have read that the "actual" mod isn't really in Data, but rather something akin to a virtual file, but that doesn't clarify the issue for me.

 

Aside from the overwrite issue, there is a secondary reason that I wouldn't want to put all mods into one big folder (Data): it makes for a very cluttered "work environment" for mod authors. I used to have trouble differentiating my own Dialogue Views and Scripts from those added by other people's mods. That is why I started using Mod Organizer to manage other people's mods. Mod author needs are more specific than those of other people, but I think it is relevant.

 

Yes. I can continue using MO and MO2 alongside NMM or Vortex, but I am curious WHY, when they built Vortex, they decided to continue putting mods into the Data folder. I thought the consensus was that it was "bad".

[fuzzydemon]

It depends on your settings. If you set it up to use hardlinks, for exemple, your mods will be in a different folder, but windows and the game and your whole file system will think that the files are in your data folder .

 

You can then deploy or purge your mods which will makes them appear or disappear from the data folder almost instantly, because they never were there, it was all just an illusion mixed with a bit of dark magic.

 

There are a lot of advantages to having mods setup like this, but in the end this is all up to personal taste and the mods you want to install.

 

If you're interested, there are a bunch of videos on YouTube explaining the differences between deployment methods and the advantage / disadvantages of each. The (currently 4) official tutorials accessible from inside vortex are also much better than I am at explaining all of this, and bonus point for the neat English accent.

[Pickysaurus]

There's a section comparing hardlinks (Vortex default) to VFS (MO2 default) here: https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Deployment_Methods

 

I personally still use MO2 for development and Vortex for actually playing. If you turn on advanced mode in Vortex, you can "Purge" the data folder which removes all files managed by Vortex.