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I have searched and found a lot of results that miss the mark by a tiny bit.  Many mod description pages have specific load orders and, believe me, I read them.

 

My problem is the conflicting information concerning load order.  Some say it doesn't matter, some say this pack must be loaded before that pack, others recommend using MO or BOSS or LOOT.

 

Unfortunately, all these answers are right some of the time and all are wrong some of the time.

 

Take these very popular and largely compatible mods/frameworks:

 

SOS

SEXLAB

ZAZAnimations

DEVIOUS DEVICES

 

In WryeBash, I see that DD Assets and DD Integration esms and esps expect ZAZ to be loaded after Sexlab.  However, DD Male addons. DD FTM, Devious Deviants and others expect ZAZ after Sexlab.  In the same vein, I've seen recommendations for SOS before ZAZ and/or Sexlab and the reverse.

 

I'm a bit old fashioned and remember when the phrase "garbage in - garbage out" was coined, so I'm leery of letting a third party program hack at my load order whether it tells me it recognizes my mods or not.  What I mean is, if the metadata isn't there or the mod author hasn't updated their info for these 3PP, they are no help anyway.

 

The upshot of all this is that I love the mods, I love the 3PP when they are up to date, but modding moves too fast for one program or load order to rule them all.

 

My questions are:

  • Is there a rule of thumb?
  • Is there a sticky I have blindly stumbled past on my way to make this topic?
  • Is there even a consensus on the "correct" load order?
  • Could it be possible that it really DOESN'T matter?

 

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Is there a rule of thumb?

Understand the mods and what you are doing.

 

  • Is there a sticky I have blindly stumbled past on my way to make this topic?

No as far as I know there isn't .. the only things are suggestions. In the end you have to decide what is needed for your play through

 

Is there even a consensus on the "correct" load order?

The correct load order is the one that works. With various mods and authors you might find that you have to raise a mod or lower a mod to get others to work. Recently I had to raise SOS above Sexlab to get Sexlab to work properly in my game.

 

Could it be possible that it really DOESN'T matter?

No, load orders matter however it requires you to understand a bit of what is going on. MO has been advised for those more experienced and readers like yourself because you can check for the conflicts in a tab. If there is something there that you don't want conflicted you can move that mod down until that conflict has been resolved. Move the files up and down on the Left side for file overriding and up and down on right for the traditional load order. Move things around and test until you get what you want and play.

 

Bottom line on what goes where.

understand what files are in the mods and what they are doing. Then move them up or down in order to get your desired results ( of course masters still have to go above those mods that require them) I have dozens of texture mods in MO. Lots of conflicts and I occasionally move an installed texture mod up or down to see If I like this or those textures/ meshes better. Play a bit and do the process over again. Ad a few mods and make some changes. Always making the last files loaded be the ones that I want to see in the game.

 

Oh and BOSS is no longer supported and outdated. LOOT is the new load order manager now. It only checks masters and orders the mods accordingly. You still have to make a few changes to suit those minor conflicts and such as needed.

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Thank you!  You've clarified several things for me.  It's good to know the reason behind the uncertainty.  I spent a lot of time modding Morrowind and the load order rules have a lot less wiggle room in that game.  Now I feel like I can relax and play around with it a bit.

 

Thank you for explaining how LOOT works, as well.  I didn't know it was just looking at the masters.

 

I have to admit, I've so many texture replacers I could never recreate this setup, but I've always felt safe layering those.  It's a nice surprise to find Skyrim will let me move them around.  NMM has become my dirty little secret weapon.

 

It's good to know there isn't really any controversy, too.  What works for one won't necessarily work for someone else, so I won't be looking for hard and fast rules any more.

 

Thanks again!

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I have dozens of texture mods and even put a weather mod and a fog mod together that weren't suppose to be put together because it covered some areas of Skyrim that the other mod didn't. I had to put up with a few minor locations where there were some glitches until I found a better solution. :D.

 

Bottom line. You are responsible for your modding and files. If you desire to try to combine a few different solutions with MO ( so that you can see the conflicts)  or you can do the same with NMM by watching what you are overwriting and then trying to remember what was what in each mod.. lol.

 

Just have fun. If you are aware of what files you have and generally what they are doing you should soon be able to make that judgment so long as you are aware of conflicts actually are overwrites of other files. ( for the most part.) So if you have a sword on one mod that you like and an axe on the other you just need to be sure that the sword isn't overwrittien by the mod with the axe or vice a versa. Really easy once you allow yourself to understand the basic process of how the files work in Besthesta games. ( same for Oblivion Fallout, and yes Skyrim)

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One very helpful Tool for ajusting your load order, providing you plan to do it your self is Tes5Edit.

 

1. run it with your current load order.

2. if it sees a mod that needs to be above or below another it will stop

"It is up to you to move it Tes5Edit only informs you"

3. And it will tell you which mod and if it needs to be above or below another mod.

4.It is about 98% dead on, actualy I think better than that, but I am sure there are exceptions.

 

<<I personaly never used Boss, or Bash patches, or any other "I will sort it for you Tools">>

 

<<But I very much depend on Tes5Edit, and trust what it tells me.>>

 

<<<<<<<<<<<<Another problem People have>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

     <<<<Back Up The Mod First To Be Safe>>>>

 

5. Many people like to take someone Else's mod and maybe change the dialogue to there taste's, Modify a script, add something that was not there, they wanted like a door to there house, what ever.

 

6. This is Kool I do it too, and modifiy them, and change things about them for myself. Not to upload anywhere.

 But to play it for my self, and personalize it a bit.

 

7. NOTE>> if you do this you stand a chance of making a dirty mod of one that was clean.

 

8. Again test5edit to the resque.

 

9. Load Up tes5edit.

 

8. right click on one of the checked Mods, and "select none", This will un select all mods in the window.

 

10. Now put a check in the mod you edited, and only that mod. and "Click Ok" [Note to be there it might need to be activated]

 

11. Once Tes5Edit is loaded Highlight the mod you edited, Only that mod do nothing with anything else that was loaded with it.

 

12. Now right click it, and in the drop down menu select "Apply filter for cleaning"

 

13. Once that is finished Right click it again, and select "Remove"Identical to Master" Records"

 

14. A window pops up in a moment the Right button will be selectable, Select it.

 

15. now highlight the mod you edited one last time, and right click, and select "Undelete and Disable references"

 

16 your done when you go to close Tes5Edit a window will pop up allowing you to save your cleaned mod.

 

  This is not a perfect clean, some things could be there, that you not being the mod maker can not be sure if you should delete them or not. But it is pretty darn good, and pretty well will take care of most any normal dirty edits. { Like grass growing out of the floor of you home, and other strange, and upsetting things a dirty mod can cause}

 

This information is all over the place, but I thought it might help you some with what you were asking, Maybe not

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refer to this topic made here at LL:

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/31389-why-loot-is-much-better-than-boss-ever-could-be/

 

Edit: i starting using loot recently after issues with mods not loading in mcm properly, before that i was a manual install person, but looks like galgat's idea might be the best method of manual load order setup (never messed in the editor yet myself)

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Thanks again ritualclarity.  Thank you galgat; I was aware of most of that, but had forgotten it.  The reminder was very helpful.  Thank you, CliftonJD, I'm pretty sure I only used BOSS once or twice before I realized it didn't recognize half my load order anyway.

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