Vortex: Load before vs load after

[AugustaCalidia]

 

 

 

load after to overwrite. so if you want mod A to be the dominate file then load it after mod B

Thank you for the information, could you also tell me if this is universally true for both ESM and ESP? As an example which I mentioned earlier, in NMM it worked the other way around- You had to put the mod you wanted to dominate above of the others, instead of below like you would do with ESP. So in Vortex, does that translate into putting the mod that should dominate, to "Load Before"?

 

I hope my question makes sense!

 

 

In Bethesda games it's universally the case that the "load after" .esp and/or mod wins. That is true for Vortex, for NMM, and every other mod manager that I know of.

 

I mean, yes, but you do know that for example in NMM the ESMs that come before, win? So I was wondering if that is the case for Vortex, so in essence if for ESMs I should pick load before, to give them higher priority over other ESM... Hey, maybe I am not phrasing it right, I don't know, English is not my primary. Sorry.

 

 

I'm assuming we are talking here about ESM's created by mod authors, for neither Vortex nor NMM manage Bethesda game ESM's. Their order is hard coded into the game itself.

 

With that proviso, we agree that all ESM's load before anything else not an ESM. However, as for the claim that a prior ESM in NMM wins out over a later ESM, that's not always true.

 

In the case of ESMs created by mod authors, if one requires another ESM as a master, then of course the latter will load before and "win." But that is not a case of "winning" a conflict; it's a case of satisfying master requirements.

 

However, in the case of ESM's where there is plugin and/or assets conflict, then the "load after" ESM wins. (Many times these ESM conflicts can be resolved by patches.)

 

The above explanation is as true for NMM as it is for Vortex.

Edited May 11, 2020 by AugustaCalidia

[AugustaCalidia]

 

 

Criticism follows, don't take me wrong but.. If I try to do any of this within Vortex, I have to work without visual clues, since I see nothing visibly reflecting what I do. With NMM I could see the list of my ESPs and their order, simple and easy

 

 

If your game uses plugins, then open the Vortex plugins page. There you'll find all the information you want and more.

 

I get that, but... "One is LoadOrder and the other is PlugIn, and they look almost completely identical" as I described. Of course my game uses them, but which one is the actual load order is what I'm asking. Thank you.

 

Look in the column "Load Order." That is the actual plugin load order.

[HadToRegister]

 

 

 

load after to overwrite. so if you want mod A to be the dominate file then load it after mod B

Thank you for the information, could you also tell me if this is universally true for both ESM and ESP? As an example which I mentioned earlier, in NMM it worked the other way around- You had to put the mod you wanted to dominate above of the others, instead of below like you would do with ESP. So in Vortex, does that translate into putting the mod that should dominate, to "Load Before"?

 

I hope my question makes sense!

 

 

 

The main focus of Vortex is more about loading Textures, meshes, and BSA BA2 properly, so let Vortex manage the ESPs, and ESMS and only do something about them if Vortex tells you there's a problem/conflict

There's no need to micromanage your plugins like you had to do with NMM

 

Same with the MOD part of the Mod, the textures, meshes etc, only fix things if Vortex complains about them by reporting a conflict.

 

I would gladly let it handle ESP/ESM except it doesn't do so properly, I need certain things it insists should not be low my order, to actually be low. And I know that is the case because I've had this set up and I've used those particular mods. It does place Realistic Water Two to the bottom as it should, same for DSR, but I have others which Vortex insists shouldn't be too low. And some ESMs that need to take priority over others, don't. So Vortex's auto sorting is quite good but not good enough for me.

 

TLDR me asking for a way to manually set my load order, and you telling me I shouldn't do it, is not exactly a conversation pertaining to the matter ;3 But you're right that in terms of textures especially, it handles things nicely and obviously I do let it do its thing and it works. But that's not the question here.

 

 

 

All you need to do for that ESP to be at the bottom of your load order in the PLUGINS TAB, is to double click the ESP, a panel open up from the Right, then pick DYNAMIC PATCHES from the GROUP drop Down, and you're done.

 

 

 

[Violence]

 

 

 

Criticism follows, don't take me wrong but.. If I try to do any of this within Vortex, I have to work without visual clues, since I see nothing visibly reflecting what I do. With NMM I could see the list of my ESPs and their order, simple and easy

 

 

If your game uses plugins, then open the Vortex plugins page. There you'll find all the information you want and more.

 

I get that, but... "One is LoadOrder and the other is PlugIn, and they look almost completely identical" as I described. Of course my game uses them, but which one is the actual load order is what I'm asking. Thank you.

 

Look in the column "Load Order." That is the actual plugin load order.

 

 

 

Bear with me please, maybe I'm just stupid but bear with me and my weird, apparently, English at this point because I want to be absolutely sure;

 

ESM Example!

 

1.ESM

2.ESM

 

To make 2 have priority over 1, I set 2 to "LOAD AFTER" 1?

 

ESP Example!

 

1.ESP

2.ESP

 

To make 2 have priority over 1, I set 2 to "LOAD AFTER" 1?

 

 

Do I understand Vortex's sorting correctly here? I am not talking special case ESPs and ESMs. I am asking if this is how it works as a general rule.

 

 

Furthermore, are the following true or false?

 

- No immediate, direct visual representation of what I do, as in the ESPs moving around within Vortex's UI in the PLUG IN tab as they did in NMM's PlugIn list in NMM's UI.

- Vortex will still attempt to sort every ESP I have not created a rule for, essentially attempting to adapt the whole Load Order to each change I make to individual ESP rules regarding loading after or before another individual ESP. If true, can I stop that?

- If I want to manually edit my Load Order, as in literally go into the text file and rearrange my ESPs however I want and have Vortex respect those changes, I can do so by editing one the text files in my AppData/Roaming/Vortex/Skyrim/Profiles and Vortex will abide to it once I finish arranging and save. If that's true, which of the two text files is that?

 

Thank you.

[Tannin42]

Yes, independently of the file type, the one that loads later has precedence over the one that loaded before. There is no special case for esms, it all works the same.

 

- correct, the visual load order is only updated once sorting has happened which doesn't happen automatically and may take a few seconds.

- I'm not sure what you mean here. Vortex has to write a plugin list that contains all the plugins, so yes, every plugin gets assigned a position in the load order. I don't really understand what the alternative would be?

Maybe something needs to be clarified: Vortex (or rather: LOOT which works under the hood) uses heuristics to determine which plugins conflict and makes an educated guess how they should be loaded, the masterlist is curated by experienced modders and mod authors and overrule the heuristic where necessary. So every pair of plugins that are in some way in conflict/dependent on each other are assigned a load order relative to each other that is most likely to give you a stable game experience.

Every other pair of plugins, plugins that have no relation/conflict, the order does not matter in the slightest. And I mean absolutely. exactly. zero. +/- nothing. guaranteed. you can take it to the bank. stop arguing. god please, can people stop arguing this point. If you have, say, 200 plugins, LOOT could probably give you a completely new load order every minute of every hour of every day for the next million years by rearranging all the unrelated plugins and it would not have an effect on your game.

However: LOOT doesn't, it does try to avoid unnecessary changes to the load order "stable" from one sort to the next but there is no practical reason this is necessary.

- If you disable auto-sorting you can edit the plugins.txt file, that's what the game uses. Vortex is out at this point, it does not sort the plugins any more. It will show you your manually modified list but it has no effect on anything, the load order is between you and the game alone.

If however you keep auto-sorting enabled then Vortex/LOOT will continue to rearrange the load order according to its heuristic and rules and that may override the manual changes you made. And the changes it would not override are those that have no effect which means you're wasting your time and why do you want to waste your time?

[Violence]

Yes, independently of the file type, the one that loads later has precedence over the one that loaded before. There is no special case for esms, it all works the same.

 

- correct, the visual load order is only updated once sorting has happened which doesn't happen automatically and may take a few seconds.

- I'm not sure what you mean here. Vortex has to write a plugin list that contains all the plugins, so yes, every plugin gets assigned a position in the load order. I don't really understand what the alternative would be?

Maybe something needs to be clarified: Vortex (or rather: LOOT which works under the hood) uses heuristics to determine which plugins conflict and makes an educated guess how they should be loaded, the masterlist is curated by experienced modders and mod authors and overrule the heuristic where necessary. So every pair of plugins that are in some way in conflict/dependent on each other are assigned a load order relative to each other that is most likely to give you a stable game experience.

Every other pair of plugins, plugins that have no relation/conflict, the order does not matter in the slightest. And I mean absolutely. exactly. zero. +/- nothing. guaranteed. you can take it to the bank. stop arguing. god please, can people stop arguing this point. If you have, say, 200 plugins, LOOT could probably give you a completely new load order every minute of every hour of every day for the next million years by rearranging all the unrelated plugins and it would not have an effect on your game.

However: LOOT doesn't, it does try to avoid unnecessary changes to the load order "stable" from one sort to the next but there is no practical reason this is necessary.

- If you disable auto-sorting you can edit the plugins.txt file, that's what the game uses. Vortex is out at this point, it does not sort the plugins any more. It will show you your manually modified list but it has no effect on anything, the load order is between you and the game alone.

If however you keep auto-sorting enabled then Vortex/LOOT will continue to rearrange the load order according to its heuristic and rules and that may override the manual changes you made. And the changes it would not override are those that have no effect which means you're wasting your time and why do you want to waste your time?

 

Thank you!! You have no idea, thank you so much! Now I understand! ^_^

 

What I meant with my second point was whether or not Vortex would try to sort things after I edit the text file manually, which you answered in two ways, the one covering me instantly was that "..If you disable auto sorting Vortex is out..." which was part of your answer to my 3rd point.

 

Hey, thank you again!!

[Violence]

Yes, independently of the file type, the one that loads later has precedence over the one that loaded before. There is no special case for esms, it all works the same.

 

- correct, the visual load order is only updated once sorting has happened which doesn't happen automatically and may take a few seconds.

- I'm not sure what you mean here. Vortex has to write a plugin list that contains all the plugins, so yes, every plugin gets assigned a position in the load order. I don't really understand what the alternative would be?

Maybe something needs to be clarified: Vortex (or rather: LOOT which works under the hood) uses heuristics to determine which plugins conflict and makes an educated guess how they should be loaded, the masterlist is curated by experienced modders and mod authors and overrule the heuristic where necessary. So every pair of plugins that are in some way in conflict/dependent on each other are assigned a load order relative to each other that is most likely to give you a stable game experience.

Every other pair of plugins, plugins that have no relation/conflict, the order does not matter in the slightest. And I mean absolutely. exactly. zero. +/- nothing. guaranteed. you can take it to the bank. stop arguing. god please, can people stop arguing this point. If you have, say, 200 plugins, LOOT could probably give you a completely new load order every minute of every hour of every day for the next million years by rearranging all the unrelated plugins and it would not have an effect on your game.

However: LOOT doesn't, it does try to avoid unnecessary changes to the load order "stable" from one sort to the next but there is no practical reason this is necessary.

- If you disable auto-sorting you can edit the plugins.txt file, that's what the game uses. Vortex is out at this point, it does not sort the plugins any more. It will show you your manually modified list but it has no effect on anything, the load order is between you and the game alone.

If however you keep auto-sorting enabled then Vortex/LOOT will continue to rearrange the load order according to its heuristic and rules and that may override the manual changes you made. And the changes it would not override are those that have no effect which means you're wasting your time and why do you want to waste your time?

 

Going to quote again to pick up where we left - No matter which of the two text files I edited and saved, even with auto sort disabled, Vortex doesn't care and reverts everything to what it wants. In essence there is NO manual sorting allowed of any kind. At all. I'm moving back to NMM, still thank you for helping me understand.

 

"...If you disable auto sorting you can edit the txt file, that's what the game uses. Vortex is out at this point, it does not sort any more. It will show you your manually modified list but it has no effect on anything..."

This statement is 100% false and I tried on 2 different PCs in fact. If that is a glitch, that's a very consistent one. To me it looks like that's a design choice.

[Guest deleted34304850]

vortex doesnt "want" anything.

what mods, in particular are you having issues with that are not placed exactly where you want them to be?

[HadToRegister]

 

 

Going to quote again to pick up where we left - No matter which of the two text files I edited and saved, even with auto sort disabled, Vortex doesn't care and reverts everything to what it wants. In essence there is NO manual sorting allowed of any kind. At all. I'm moving back to NMM, still thank you for helping me understand.

 

"...If you disable auto sorting you can edit the txt file, that's what the game uses. Vortex is out at this point, it does not sort any more. It will show you your manually modified list but it has no effect on anything..."

This statement is 100% false and I tried on 2 different PCs in fact. If that is a glitch, that's a very consistent one. To me it looks like that's a design choice.

 

 

 

The problem is, is you're trying to force Vortex to be NMM, and ignoring the optimal sort order that LOOT (Built into vortex) is giving you, and instead trying to force your will on Vortex to make it sort the things you want sorted incorrectly, sorted incorrectly.

 

You're better of with NMM, because you can make it do what YOU want, even if it's wrong or bad for your load order, which is EXACTLY WHY Vortex was changing the load order you kept changing, because it was trying, despite your attempts, to repair your load order and turn it into a working and functional load order.

 

 

[rick0307]

In FO 4, there's a mod called NoraSpouse. For this mod, there's a patch that allows Looksmenu changes to be applied to Nora and persist.

 

My--and the patch author's --problem is that Vortex keeps appropriately ordering the patch before the primary, because that's alphabetical, and there is no inherent conflict between the patch and the primary. Thus, I cannot resolve the conflict in favor of the patch because there is no conflict. Plugin order is appropriate, because the primary is an ESM.

 

So, a different question: How can I generate a conflict, or manually rearrange the Mod load order? I suspect Vortex won't allow the latter.

 

To generate a conflict can I manually DL, change the name, and then use Vortex to install? If so, how much of the name needs to be identical?

Other users are apparently using MO2, and don't have the problem of Vortex always being correct (I mean that sincerely, no sarcasm), so they can choose a different mod load order manually.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/45591/?tab=posts&jump_to_comment=82080128

 

Is there something I can tell the patch author so he can make the patch not appear to be unrelated?

 

Thank you!