What does vortex do differently than manual installations?

[Dashutt]

I get it can look for updates and stuff which is great just curious as to how it installs different,

 

Mainly as I had a mod for bannerlord that refused to work when I manually dropped it in the folder but when I used vortex it suddenly started to work... but it seems to just drop the file in the same place anyway?

[HadToRegister]

With other games, if you install mods manually, and textures from the wrong mod end up overwriting the textures from right mod mod, then you manually have to delete both mods and start over again, OR go through each texture one by one, and extract those textures from the mod's zip file to overwrite them correctly.

With Vortex, all you have to do is tell Mod A to LOAD AFTER Mod B, and Vortex automatically deletes the wrong files, and restores the correct ones.

Most likely the reason the mod didn't work when you installed it Manually, is because it was zipped up incorrectly and has an extra folder at the top level, and whomever wrote the Bannerlord extension for Vortex, knew this could be a problem, so made it so that when Vortex runs into the wrong file structure, it corrects it and installs it properly.

[Dashutt]

With other games, if you install mods manually, and textures from the wrong mod end up overwriting the textures from right mod mod, then you manually have to delete both mods and start over again, OR go through each texture one by one, and extract those textures from the mod's zip file to overwrite them correctly.

 

With Vortex, all you have to do is tell Mod A to LOAD AFTER Mod B, and Vortex automatically deletes the wrong files, and restores the correct ones.

 

Most likely the reason the mod didn't work when you installed it Manually, is because it was zipped up incorrectly and has an extra folder at the top level, and whomever wrote the Bannerlord extension for Vortex, knew this could be a problem, so made it so that when Vortex runs into the wrong file structure, it corrects it and installs it properly.

Thanks for the reply! Nice to know how it works and if it's worth it so I'll definitely keep using it ty :)

[Tannin42]

There are several things Vortex may be doing automatically for you depending on the game you're using, for example:

a) there may be logic that understands which files need to go where and rearranges the mod appropriately, instead of just unpacking it

b) some games require mods to be merged with existing data files, so you can't just extract a bunch of modded files to the game, you have to run separate software to bundle it all together

c) some games require mods to be registered (e.g.: there is a text file that needs to contain a list of all the mods that should be enabled), Vortex might do that automatically

d) Vortex may be updating game ini files or start the game in a special way to make sure it actually allows modding

 

I haven't worked on Bannerlord myself, IDCs built the support for it but it is one of the more complex games. Afaik the point c) in particular applies to Bannerlord, I think there is a .xml file where you have to list the mods you want to use.