Organizing Mod lists in MO

[Corsayr]

Are there any guides out there that kind of walk through how you should organize mods in MO?

 

I have recently changed from using NMM to using MO and I want to make sure I am putting the mods in a good order. 

 

So I am kind of looking for something that not only says "do it like this" but I was hoping for something that kind of went into the theory and reasoning behind why they should be in the order suggested.

 

 

(just to clarify I am talking about the organization of the Mods themselves not the ESP/ESM files for that I am using a combination of LOOT and suggestions from mod authors when they feel LOOT doesn't load their mod correctly)

[LazyBoot]

Are there any guides out there that kind of walk through how you should organize mods in MO?

 

I have recently changed from using NMM to using MO and I want to make sure I am putting the mods in a good order. 

 

So I am kind of looking for something that not only says "do it like this" but I was hoping for something that kind of went into the theory and reasoning behind why they should be in the order suggested.

 

 

(just to clarify I am talking about the organization of the Mods themselves not the ESP/ESM files for that I am using a combination of LOOT and suggestions from mod authors when they feel LOOT doesn't load their mod correctly)

You should in most cases try to make the left list (mods) match the right list (load order, esp/esm).

The reasoning being the same for both lists, whatever is lower down (has the higher priority number) will win any conflicts and overwrite any files present in multiple mods.

The only real exceptions would be xpmse, tool outputs, and papyrusutil/jcontainers and similar which should be near the bottom of the list to ensure they don't get overwritten with older versions etc.

[karlpaws]

MO lets you add categories to mods so you can only show the armor mods or housing mods, make your own category for Sexlab stuff if you want to disable it all quickly to start a new, cleaner game to test something, etc.

 

I do tend to clump various "like" mods but then try to keep stuff somewhat in Esp order if there are any conflicts.  I will also add name tags or other shorthand to the end of a mod's folder name so the filter name box at the bottom can easily show much just what I want (ex making sure "tat" is in all of the slavetat and racemenu overlay mods, SLAL in all of the pack mods, etc).

 

If you do use LOOT and keep that in mind, all you need to then watch is which mod overwrites which other mod's textures or meshes, replacers are after when they change, or other things that LOOT might not handle.

[Corsayr]

Sub question: The crash fix type mods where in the list should they go? (or does it matter, they don't have esp files and do not appear to overwrite or be overwritten by anything.)

 

 

[LazyBoot]

Sub question: The crash fix type mods where in the list should they go? (or does it matter, they don't have esp files and do not appear to overwrite or be overwritten by anything.)

In those cases ordering shouldn't matter at all. So you can put them wherever you want.

[Nazzzgul666]

It's all about what overwrites what else. So, with few exceptions already mentioned by Lazyboot i always start with general game fixes like unofficial patch, modern brawl patch,... 

Then the requirements for other stuff, realistic ragdoll, SkyUI,...,sexlab, DD,...

The assumption behind this is that if any mod overwrites those it's intentional and should be that way. It's more a "fire/install and forget" method as anything else . MO shows you if something is overwritten, and by which other mod. If a mod overwrites another one and you suspect it should not be that way, try to switch them and see if that works. Load order by Loot might also give you a clue here. If a mod doesn't overwrite another one it really shouldn't matter, though.