Migrating from NMM to MO2. An AAF Success Story!

[WandererZero]

There's a lot of people who have issues with AAF, MO2, NMM, and any combination thereof. We hear a lot of negatives about it all sometimes.

 

However, I have a bit of a success story, as well as some things I have learned along the way. 

 

I had a stable NMM install. Well over 200+ mods, not counting ESL's. However, lately, I have been working with @EgoBallistic on some mod development, and I quickly realized with the amount of testing and retesting...I was going to need some more in depth mod management, and a mod manager with some sanity checking. Conflict resolution had to be a part of the workflow going forward. It's not that NMM was bad. It worked quite well, and with my mod load....it was still stable. It was definitely a known entity. 

 

Vortex is what Nexus is pushing these days, buuuut, I personally don't think it's ready for prime time. Not my cup of tea, really. I didn't want to fight with a mod manager. I wanted to be able to get things done in a mod manager. I've heard good things about Mod Organizer 2, and it's well supported. So, I went all in. Upon reaching the shores of this new world, I backed up all my mod archives, settings and settings files...then, like Cortez...I burned my ships. I deleted Fallout 3, NV, and 4. Reinstalled them from scratch to have absolutely clean installs. I uninstalled NMM. There would be no going back. I would be building an all new paradigm. 

 

This now day 4 or 5 of my migration. I have AAF, most of the animation packs working now pretty well. SEU and Violate are working great. I do need to get DEF_UI and HUDFramework working next. I had them sort of working before....I just need to spend a bit more time figuring out how and why they're interconnected within the MO2 install base. Having worked with MO2 now for a bit, the best way to describe it is: Mod Organizer 2 is the GitHub of modding. It really is. Moving forward or backward within the virtualized landscape that MO2 works off of is very elegant, efficient & clean....and fast. That said though, here are some issues I ran into: 

 

Older mods, or mods that haven't needed to be updated in awhile will cause you a headache or three. Realizing you have to move things around in the file tree, and using Manual Install from within MO2 is really a "come to jesus" moment. Once you realize you can not only install by merging, but you can control every aspect of it once you know how to is amazeballs. This made things a snap. 

 

Once you learn how overwrites work, you really unlock some of the real power behind MO2. Namely: you never really need to touch your base game directory again, for the most part.

 

AAF was the easiest install out of all of the mods I have been going through and installing. Once I had my instances set, F4SE working, it really was a double click install....and it wasn't a lot of hassle at all. I could even edit the AAF_Settings with a right click from within MO2. This made tuning things up a real snap! 

 

Installing anims slowed me down a bit, as I said...it kind of came down to realizing that not all mods get packaged the same, and many mods sometimes don't need, and thus do not get updates. Realizing you have to take some steps to do things the MO2 way is a one time cost in terms of the time you spend learning how to do mod management in MO2...and it's a cost well worth spending. 

 

If you're planning to migrate from NMM to MO2, here's some tips: 

 

• Take it slow. Do not go into MO2 thinking you're going to just double click all your mods sequentially and be up and running in no time flat. MO2 has its own workflow, and it's own way of doing things. Take your time to re-learn how to manage mods. Be prepared to read and re-read directions, both on mod pages and MO2 guides. 
• Learn how instances work. I rolled my Fallout 3, Fallout NV, and Fallout 4 into MO2. MO2 even has a separate instance type for TTW which, makes things really nice. I can essentially play regular 3, regular NV or TTW...without polluting my game directories.
• Gamer Poets made some really good, really helpful step by step vids that are easy enough to follow along with. I used these to get the basics down. These were invaluable. 
• If you use CBBE, Body Slide, and Outfit Studio: See where I said Take it Slow above? Shift two gears lower than that before installing these and getting them working. You need proceed carefully, because....while the method of using these hasn't changed, the way MO2 deals with folder paths, and the virtualization makes it a bit tricky the first time you set it up. Google is your friend here. Just remember: CBBE is set to initially draw from and build to the base game directory. You need to make sure you draw from and build to your MO2 userland. 

 

In closing, AAF was actually the easiest mod to install in the grand scheme of things. The anims and patches weren't bad, but there was some learning involved. @dagobaking should be commended for keeping AAF as up to date and as stable as possible. 

 

Cheers folks, and I would wholly endorse MO2. Would set fire to my NMM ship again. In a heartbeat. ?

[WandererZero]

6 minutes ago, Lone survivor said:

Do you use NismoMan's adult texture replacer project ? If so did it cause you problems like me ?

I don't use this mod, but it's plain to see why it causes issues. 

 

It's packaged really obtusely. Had it been me, I probably would have unzipped the fomod, and re-arranged the folder structure into something...sane. 

[Tentacus]

On 1/31/2019 at 8:08 PM, Lone survivor said:

Thanks for the reply. That's beyond my skill level. I'm new to pc. I"ll experiment and see if I can get lucky. Thanks again.

It's probably a lot easier than you think. Imagine each Mod organizer left pane folder is it's own little Data folder. Whatever you put in there should have the same structure as the Fallout 4 Data folder. (Meshes, Textures, Scripts etc... folders with esps, esms, and archives loose).

 

As somebody who used MO with New Vegas and skyrim for years and has had great success with MO2 since the project was taken over by the new guys. Nothing else comes close for versatility and convenience. The only minor issues I've had go around using the Fallout 4 CK through MO2, as sometimes the compiler gets confused by the virtual directory.

 

I really REALLY tried to like Vortex especially given Tannin's involvment but man oh man nothing about that thing makes any sense.

[Lone survivor]

Well the problem was not Nismo's mod but my stupidity. I was hiding overwrites in MO2 not knowing that it would disable the texture.Thought it was hiding the warning. Again i'm an idiot! Lol !