How to configure Vortex for a D:/ Drive Install?

[Acacophony]

I would like to use Vortex to manage my mods for Fallout 4. (For anyone who is going to yell "DON'T USE VORTEX FOR FO4" Thank you in advance for your input, you need not comment below as I am already aware of your opinion.) I have used Vortex quite successfully for Fo4 with my previous computer, but I recently got a brand new one and I am installing everything from scratch.

 

My new computer has 2 drives, and this is the first time I've used a 2 drive set up. My goal is to make sure that Vortex stages and downloads mods on the D: drive, as my C: drive is a little bit small and I tend to download a lot of mods.

 

I downloaded the custom install location version and installed Vortex to the D:/ drive. When I launched Vortex for the first time, I was given a "Mods cannot be deployed" error. I ended up selecting "Hardlink deployment" and then setting the Mod Staging Folder path and the Download Folder path to the same setting. This made the error go away.

 

I downloaded a few basic mods and successfully tested the game. However, the mods I downloaded first were subtle texture improvements, so I'm not totally sure they actually worked with this setup.

 

When I went to install some more mods, I noticed a dummy "mod" of sorts in Vortex's mod list, which was disabled. When I opened its location in the file manager, I realized this "mod" was actually the download folder itself, containing all the zipped mods I downloaded, inside the staging folder.

 

I assumed this was a bad thing, so I attempted to change the file path back to a new designated download folder outside of the staging folder, and then restarted Vortex. The "Mods cannot be deployed" error returned, and now half the mods are not properly installed and I will need to scrub and start over.

 

No biggie, I made a mistake and have no problems cleaning up my mess. This time, however, I would like to make sure I know how to configure these settings properly.

 

 

 

TLDR; If I want to make sure Vortex, and everything it downloads, is on the D:/ drive, what should I set my "Mod Staging Folder" path and "Downloads Folder" path to, in order for everything to work properly? Steam is installed on D:/ as well.

 

Thanks in advance for you help.

[Acacophony]

Update: Would the best solution be to simply download all mods manually and then add them to Vortex from my browser's download folder? I used to do that a lot anyway with NMM to get faster download speeds, so that's not a big deal to me.

[HadToRegister]

On my system I have

Mod Staging Folder

D:\Games\Mods\Skyrim SE

D:\Games\Mods\Fallout 4

D:\Games\Mods\Fallout 3

D:\Games\Mods\Fallout News Vegas

 

----------------------------------------------------

 

Downloads Folder

 

D:\Games\Vortex Downloads\

 

And of course Vortex adds the Game Subfolder to that so

 

D:\Games\Vortex Downloads\Skyrimse

D:\Games\Vortex Downloads\Fallout3

D:\Games\Vortex Downloads\Falloutnewvegas

D:\Games\Vortex Downloads\fallout4

 

All are on the same drive as the games are.

 

If you download the mods manually, you can just make sure your browser has the "ALWAYS ASK WHERE TO SAVE" (or whatever it says) checked.
That way, you can just save the mod to the folder you specified with Vortex.
I do that all the time, and fortunately, Vortex seems to detect the mods added to the folder automatically.

Don't set your download and Staging folder to the same thing, because you'll be downloading files into the same folder the mods will be extracted and deployed to which will really screw up Vortex.
I just recently reinstalled Skyrim SE and used Vortex to download, and the Nexus Download Speed gods were with me that night, everything downloaded without a hitch.

I did all three methods, I downloaded with Vortex, I manually downloaded, and even copied and pasted or MOVED Mods I already had, from my old MODS folder, and moved them to my "Vortex Downloads\Skyrimse" folder
Vortex found them all

[AugustaCalidia]

 

TLDR; If I want to make sure Vortex, and everything it downloads, is on the D:/ drive, what should I set my "Mod Staging Folder" path and "Downloads Folder" path to, in order for everything to work properly? Steam is installed on D:/ as well.

 

 

The most important step is to ensure that the Mod Staging Folder is on the same disk partition as the game. (But do not put the Mod Staging Folder inside the game folder, as some have mistakenly done.) As for the Downloads Folder, it can go anywhere. Ideally, the location for Vortex itself would be your C:/ drive in Program Files. Vortex itself doesn't take up a lot of space.

 

The above information is what I have gleaned from the gurus who frequent this forum. I myself keep my gaming life simple by using the Vortex defaults.

 

Update: Would the best solution be to simply download all mods manually and then add them to Vortex from my browser's download folder? I used to do that a lot anyway with NMM to get faster download speeds, so that's not a big deal to me.

 

Yes, by all means download your mods manually. I say this as a biased manual mod downloader who has done this since Oblivion first came out. (Of course, back then, that was the only way you could download your mods.)

 

Edit: I've just now seen HadToRegister's excellent post. Study it carefully. There's good information there.

 

[Acacophony]

On my system I have

 

Mod Staging Folder

D:\Games\Mods\Skyrim SE

D:\Games\Mods\Fallout 4

D:\Games\Mods\Fallout 3

D:\Games\Mods\Fallout News Vegas

 

----------------------------------------------------

Thanks! I'll give this a go

[Acacophony]

Well, I thought this was working, but now I'm getting the issue where plugins of installed and enabled mods aren't showing up in the plugin list. I noticed some other people have been having this issue as well...

[Guest deleted34304850]

im currently building out a new system, and i have my games, steam-managed and others, including fallout76 on D:\games.

yesterday, i downloaded vortex, and installed that in the default location here:

C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex

 

After starting Vortex, I set up the various directories for fallout 4 like this;

Mod staging folder: D:\{GAME}\mods

Deployment Method: hardlink deployment

Download folder: D:\games\Downloads

 

Once that was all done, I dragged/dropped mods that I'm using in Fallout 4 from a shared drive to my local drive and had Vortex install them. i enabled auto-sort and auto-deploy to do the heavy lifting for me.

Took me about an hour to pull in and deploy about 180 mods. I have one mod which requires a navmesh fix, so i made sure to re-add my rule to load the fix after the main mod and that was that. I let vortex sort everything else out because it knows what its doing.

 

Then I copied my latest save from a shared drive to the local drive, fired up Fallout 4 on the new system, it loaded, no messages about missing mods, job done.

[Pickysaurus]

Just in case you encounter it, we found an issue with FO4 and Vortex which requires editing your Fallout4Custom.ini to get mods to work properly (this will be done automatically in a future update).

 

https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Fallout_4_Mod_Installation#How_To_Enable_Fallout_4_Mods

[sopmac45]

Couple of months ago I also got a new computer and my setup is everything in my C:\ drive :

 

- Game ........................... C:\ProgramFiles(86)\Steam\Steamapps\Common\Fallout 4 and SkyrimSE

- Vortex mod manager ... C:\ProgramFiles\Black Tree Gaming LTD\Vortex

- Mod Staging ................ C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\Vortex\Fallout4 and Skyrim\mods

- Download Folder ......... C:\Users\myname\Documents\VORTEX DOWNLOADS

- Deployment Method .... Hardlink deployment

 

No issues of any kind with Vortex.