aaf [AAF] "The Fucking Manual" ~ Adult oriented setup guide ~ 30/June/2026).

[vaultbait]

1 hour ago, acacdf said:

Actually, it is not recommended to use Vortex to configure mods with complex associations. Vortex's poor sorting mechanism makes it nearly impossible to manually adjust the correct order of mods....

 

I don't find that to be the case at all, in fact it's quite good at doing that in my experience. It probably boils down to what interface you prefer, but I like the fine-grained ability to specify precise relationships between different plugins and the fact that it will notify me and refuse to sort them if I accidentally define a circular dependency between multiple plugins.

 

But it's a religious topic. People are going to believe what they want to believe about software they have already decided they don't want to use, and often cling to outdated or inaccurate information recirculated by others who don't bother to read documentation or follow changelogs.

[lee3310]

1 hour ago, vaultbait said:

 

I don't find that to be the case at all, in fact it's quite good at doing that in my experience. It probably boils down to what interface you prefer, but I like the fine-grained ability to specify precise relationships between different plugins and the fact that it will notify me and refuse to sort them if I accidentally define a circular dependency between multiple plugins.

 

But it's a religious topic. People are going to believe what they want to believe about software they have already decided they don't want to use, and often cling to outdated or inaccurate information recirculated by others who don't bother to read documentation or follow changelogs.

When you edit a plugin then choose revert changes during deployment, do you end up with a broken 0 KB plugin like me ? i can't believe such a huge bug can go unanswered all this time (started after an update 6 months ago) so probably something wrong on my end.

Edited March 15, 2023 by lee3310

[vaultbait]

1 hour ago, lee3310 said:

When you edit a plugin then choose revert changes during deployment, do you end up with a broken 0 KB plugin like me ? i can't believe such a huge bug can go unanswered all this time (started after an update 6 months ago) so probably something wrong on my end.

 

You mean you've edited a plugin outside Vortex and it's alerting you to changed files since the last deploy and asking whether you want the changes kept or undone? If so, I pretty much only directly edit plugins for mods I'm creating and I don't ever tell Vortex to undo those, for any mods that aren't mine I create new ESPfe plugins to patch them instead of directly changing the plugins themselves because that's easier for long-term maintenance, but no I haven't noticed Vortex creating corrupt 0-byte plugins. I can test that pretty easily though...

 

Edit: I just used FO4Edit to change the description field of a MESG record in the FPAttributes.esp from Sex Attributes and saved that, then clicked Deploy in Vortex and it notified me about the changed file. I selected "revert the change (use staging file)" and continued with the deployment. The plugin is back to what was shipped in the Sex Attributes archive, not truncated/corrupt at all from what I can tell. This is with Vortex 1.7.8 from last month, but it's software and bugs do happen, so it's possible there's something unique to your configuration that's tickling a problem I'm not seeing. I recommend opening a bug report about it if there isn't one already.

Edited March 15, 2023 by vaultbait

[lee3310]

38 minutes ago, vaultbait said:

 

You mean you've edited a plugin outside Vortex and it's alerting you to changed files since the last deploy and asking whether you want the changes kept or undone? If so, I pretty much only directly edit plugins for mods I'm creating and I don't ever tell Vortex to undo those, for any mods that aren't mine I create new ESPfe plugins to patch them instead of directly changing the plugins themselves because that's easier for long-term maintenance, but no I haven't noticed Vortex creating corrupt 0-byte plugins. I can test that pretty easily though...

 

Edit: I just used FO4Edit to change the description field of a MESG record in the FPAttributes.esp from Sex Attributes and saved that, then clicked Deploy in Vortex and it notified me about the changed file. I selected "revert the change (use staging file)" and continued with the deployment. The plugin is back to what was shipped in the Sex Attributes archive, not truncated/corrupt at all from what I can tell. This is with Vortex 1.7.8 from last month, but it's software and bugs do happen, so it's possible there's something unique to your configuration that's tickling a problem I'm not seeing. I recommend opening a bug report about it if there isn't one already.

I did report it on their discord IIRC and yes, when i make some changes to my plugin (xxx.esp) located in game DATA folder then decide to close CK and use the esp in vortex staged folder as backup, i always find that vortex already updated it without deploying ( i can tell by the "last changed" timestamp) and if i deploy and choose revert changes, Vortex goes haywire and replaces it with a 0Kb plugin instead then it tells me that "xxx.esp" is not a correct plugin (and whose fault is that ??).

Anyway, now i just make a manual backup every time i'm working on a mod.

Edited March 15, 2023 by lee3310

[vaultbait]

2 minutes ago, lee3310 said:

I did report it on their discord

 

I didn't even realize they had a Discord, I've just always used the ..., send feedback, bug report option from the top of the Vortex window.

 

1 minute ago, lee3310 said:

Anyway, Now i just make a manual backup every time i'm working on a mod.

 

Highly recommended anyway. I've had the CK go haywire and eat plugins too, but most of the time backups are there to save me from my own ditzy airhead mistakes.

[Guest]

vortex has the latest version of loot built into it for sorting and updates it as needed so gg for not knowing all the info

[vaultbait]

1 minute ago, RandomKhajiit said:

vortex has the latest version of loot built into it for sorting and updates it as needed so gg for not knowing all the info

 

Well, even setting LOOT aside (I know some people think it's horrible, though it's not been a problem for me), Vortex allows you to set very precise rules saying what other plugins a particular plugin needs to load before or after. I rely on that all the time to deal with things like previs conflicts between a dozen different mods all fighting to add things in the same cell.

 

I think MO2 users are accustomed to being able to set exact load order positions for every single plugin, while the idea with Vortex is that you define rules to inform its sorter how to create the order you want without needing to worry too much about the exact position of every single plugin. Of course, it will also let you specify the exact position in the load order for a plugin too with the "locked to index" option under the plugin's properties, but it's a bit antithetical to what's intended so I don't really ever use that feature anyway.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, vaultbait said:

 

Well, even setting LOOT aside (I know some people think it's horrible, though it's not been a problem for me), Vortex allows you to set very precise rules saying what other plugins a particular plugin needs to load before or after. I rely on that all the time to deal with things like previs conflicts between a dozen different mods all fighting to add things in the same cell.

 

I think MO2 users are accustomed to being able to set exact load order positions for every single plugin, while the idea with Vortex is that you define rules to inform its sorter how to create the order you want without needing to worry too much about the exact position of every single plugin. Of course, it will also let you specify the exact position in the load order for a plugin too with the "locked to index" option under the plugin's properties, but it's a bit antithetical to what's intended so I don't really ever use that feature anyway.

 

managing mods in vortex is beyond easy and it makes overcomplex nonsence null really, thing that baffles me half the time is when people use 3 mods that do the same thing or a known mod that causes issues and CTD's then swear by it, sure i had an issue with FG and BT3 then i reviewed the mod page for FG and its auther lists the looksmenu mod as optional LOL solved it self, i'll never drop vortex for mo2 the difference in the quality of the management is night and day to me

[acacdf]

On 2023/3/16 at AM2点42分, vaultbait said:

 

我发现根本不是这种情况，事实上，根据我的经验，它非常擅长这样做。它可能归结为你喜欢什么界面，但我喜欢细粒度的能力来指定不同插件之间的精确关系，如果我不小心定义了多个插件之间的循环依赖，它会通知我并拒绝对它们进行排序。

 

但这是一个宗教话题。对于他们已经决定不想使用的软件，人们会相信他们愿意相信的东西，并且经常坚持由那些懒得阅读文档或关注变更日志的其他人重新传播的过时或不准确的信息。

For mod packages with numerous and complexly interrelated components like AAF, after countless configuration errors, the mod may even run only in certain random situations. As a result, I eventually gave up on Vortex. At least for beginners, its configuration is like a tangled ball of yarn. Based on this, many mod authors in China also tend to prefer using MO2 instead of Vortex.

[vaultbait]

3 hours ago, acacdf said:

For mod packages with numerous and complexly interrelated components like AAF, after countless configuration errors, the mod may even run only in certain random situations. As a result, I eventually gave up on Vortex. At least for beginners, its configuration is like a tangled ball of yarn. Based on this, many mod authors in China also tend to prefer using MO2 instead of Vortex.

 

I can see where it might be daunting to newcomers, but I'm happily using it without issue for a significant subset of the popular AAF ecosystem mods. My primary profile in Vortex combines over 500 mods with around 400 plugins. It's worked quite well for wrangling very complex sets of mods in my case, anyway.

[eflat01]

On 3/15/2023 at 5:40 PM, lee3310 said:

I did report it on their discord IIRC and yes, when i make some changes to my plugin (xxx.esp) located in game DATA folder then decide to close CK and use the esp in vortex staged folder as backup, i always find that vortex already updated it without deploying ( i can tell by the "last changed" timestamp) and if i deploy and choose revert changes, Vortex goes haywire and replaces it with a 0Kb plugin instead then it tells me that "xxx.esp" is not a correct plugin (and whose fault is that ??).

Anyway, now i just make a manual backup every time i'm working on a mod.

You know, Vortex only actually only deploys when asked - or a mod is auto-installed after dl - and It only updates files in the staging directories when launching and noticing the change then it actually, at least mine does "asks the user" - albeit in not so concise words - should it use the newer file (newer date) or the one in the mods staging directory?  All the same the original file should be in the archive - in the directory where it keeps it's dl'd and those added files via drop in.  

 

Also. Loot is a great tool but there are times you want some mod to load after another mod even though they do not conflict nor even have anything in common aside from being in the same game... Also Loot only knows what the devs of loot know - it relies mainly on checking forms and itm records along with rules they add.

 

i.e. in fnv I wrote a simple small mod to inject weapons onto the cowboy perk by way of collecting all the revolvers type pistols, shotguns (except combat) and lever action firearms into it's own forms list and then inject that list into the cowboy perk form list via a one time script which fired up on start up (game load) - dynamically. Did so because so many weapon mods which altered the perk's weapon list did so adding their own weapon directly to the perk's weapons list by replacing the entire list - overriding previous mods which did so too (or with many mods not all all) and I kept trying out varying  weapons from other mods, so I did not want to keep patching - overriding the previous, but loot seemed to have no clue what or how my mod was injecting more form ids onto the that list and so where to place it among others that did ( I suppose because I approached the design via script? So, How could loot know? The mod starts with an empty forms list, looked through the weapons forms appends those meeting the criteria into its own list and then takes that list and looks at the perks list removed those weapons no longer existing - as a cleanup - and then injects others into the perk list from its own list if not already there.),  Anyway my mod just needed to be last among all weapon mods added but loot had no clue where to place it so it just moved it randomly in the load order - when it needed to be after all other weapon mods.     

 

Many times when playing Skyrim or FNV I would edit scripts in mods for my own liking, Then again in doing so sometimes I would also at times edit the timestamps of the file to be that of the original file personally in order to fake vortex out... (if the timestamp is the same vortex has no clue it changed) of course my desktop was full of esms and esp as backups.   No Vortex does not play well in a development env - should be a backup directory in game directory which stores the previous version on compile, least my setup for Geck and CK for Skyrim did so, but sol if use xedit or some other tool to change a mod. 

 

Vortex handles the deploy order decently enough and will force you to apply the rules but Yes setting up a precise plugin load order in vortex is a complete Pain In The Arse,  it can be done though on the plugin tab though (having to scroll up and down that list and dragging a line via mouse - Terrible design of interface for it). Yes is not anyway as easy as MO2 or even any other tool. I usually move things around in Bash or the simplest way is directly edit the loadorder.txt and plugins.txt... as long as the first line in those files is "# Automatically generated by Vortex" Vortex seems to believe that is the manifest it created when it loads up and even leaves things in that order on a redeploy - until you add another mod then you need to just check it again for the most part it will often maintain that order - unless it's picked out by loot as out of order - so usually just adds the new plugin into the file somewhere. 

 

Personally I dislike vortex but it is Nexus' baby - integrated well with their site's web interface code - and they seem to be unswerving in a they know best rather than taking any user's advice - well at least mine.  When it first came out I left many a chastising post to them ... stated to them if I designed and implemented anything like that plugin interface for ordering, I'd be told by the users to scramble and revert all my code changes and eventually likely out of a f'n job.

 

 

Edited March 17, 2023 by eflat01

[vaultbait]

7 hours ago, eflat01 said:

setting up a precise plugin load order in vortex is a complete Pain In The Arse,  it can be done though on the plugin tab though (having to scroll up and down that list and dragging a line via mouse - Terrible design of interface for it).

 

Overall fair criticisms, but for this one in particular it gives you several ways to go about it and the drag-to-connect UI is but one. You can right-click a plugin's relationship icon and go into edit mode, then mark the checkboxes for all plugins you want loaded before that one. You can also use the rules editor to define load-before/after relationships between arbitrary plugins via drop-down select boxes. I'll grant none of these lacks complexity, but it's a complex task and a UI can do only so much to hide complexity from the user.

 

The reason I much prefer having a clearly defined relationship policy between plugins is that it is robust against adding/removing/reordering other plugins without having to worry myself about making sure those defined relationships continue to be reflected in my load order afterward.

[lee3310]

9 hours ago, eflat01 said:

You know, Vortex only actually only deploys when asked - or a mod is auto-installed after dl - and It only updates files in the staging directories when launching and noticing the change then it actually, at least mine does "asks the user"

That's exactly what it is supposed to do and also what makes it weirder. I still get the notification that a plugin has changed every time i deploy but when working on an ESP in DATA folder, Vortex is editing the mirrored copy in the staging folder as well (like a real time synchronization that monitors the source folders ).
PS

This problem never happened with anything other than plugins (nif, DDS, BGSM, BA2... are fine)

Edited March 18, 2023 by lee3310

[vaultbait]

12 hours ago, lee3310 said:

That's exactly what it is supposed to do and also what makes it weirder. I still get the notification that a plugin has changed every time i deploy but when working on an ESP in DATA folder, Vortex is editing the mirrored copy in the staging folder as well (like a real time synchronization that monitors the source folders ).
PS

This problem never happened with anything other than plugins (nif, DDS, BGSM, BA2... are fine)

 

If you go to Settings->Mods->Deployment Method do you have it set to Hardlink Deployment or Move? Not sure if those are options in the version you're using, but if it's Hardlink then that could explain why you observe edits to plugins in the game data also showing up on the staging copy (because they're not actually separate copies of the file, merely the same file presented in two different places on the filesystem).

 

Granted, I use Hardlink Deployment (default in the version of Vortex I'm running) and have been unable to reproduce the zero-byte corruption you're seeing.

[lee3310]

3 hours ago, vaultbait said:

 

If you go to Settings->Mods->Deployment Method do you have it set to Hardlink Deployment or Move? Not sure if those are options in the version you're using, but if it's Hardlink then that could explain why you observe edits to plugins in the game data also showing up on the staging copy (because they're not actually separate copies of the file, merely the same file presented in two different places on the filesystem).

 

Granted, I use Hardlink Deployment (default in the version of Vortex I'm running) and have been unable to reproduce the zero-byte corruption you're seeing.

Well, after a closer look at "Hardlink Deployment", maybe that's how it is supposed to act ? since it's not really a copy of the file but just a pointer (Move Deployment could solve my issue).
PS

Do you have this setting enabled ?

[WynnterZii]

Thanks for the guide, it worked fine, until i installed a custom weapon and crafting pack that had absolutely nothing to do with AAF and now AAF's finicky fuckass wont work at all, not even on a fresh character, or fresh install of all the mods, why is it this used to work so well and now if you look at it wrong you gotta reinstall the whole freaking game =(

I went through most of the pages here looking for something to fix it, tried about 20 things, and nothing =(

[vaultbait]

1 hour ago, lee3310 said:

Do you have this setting enabled ?

 

Hard to know, since you only refer to it with an image that LL is refusing to serve to me (404: not found). Maybe a description instead of a screenshot would suffice?

 

Edit: Now it's displaying, LL's file backend must have been experiencing problems. I have that turned off (I think it defaults to off).

Edited March 18, 2023 by vaultbait

[vaultbait]

9 minutes ago, WynnterZii said:

Thanks for the guide, it worked fine, until i installed a custom weapon and crafting pack that had absolutely nothing to do with AAF and now AAF's finicky fuckass wont work at all, not even on a fresh character, or fresh install of all the mods, why is it this used to work so well and now if you look at it wrong you gotta reinstall the whole freaking game =(

I went through most of the pages here looking for something to fix it, tried about 20 things, and nothing =(

 

Reinstalling mods rarely does anything useful other than waste your time, at least with modern mod managers that have the concept of file conflicts and overwrites. If reinstalling does fix something, it's by chance and not because you actually discovered the problem.

 

Unfortunately, "AAF's finicky fuckass wont work at all" is not a helpful description of the problems you've encountered, nor does "tried about 20 things" give us any idea as to what you've already attempted (and what things you blindly did which you thought might help but were actually destructive and only dug the hole deeper).

 

Please take some time to cool down and check your 'tude and then, like the manual says, join the AAF Discord where very patient people hang out in the help channels who can walk you through precise troubleshooting steps in an attempt to scientifically track down the conflict you're experiencing rather than treating it all like an inscrutable black box and randomly trying whatever comes to mind.

[lee3310]

1 hour ago, vaultbait said:

 

Hard to know, since you only refer to it with an image that LL is refusing to serve to me (404: not found). Maybe a description instead of a screenshot would suffice?

 

Edit: Now it's displaying, LL's file backend must have been experiencing problems. I have that turned off (I think it defaults to off).

yeah, something is amiss with LL (can't download attached files too)

[WynnterZii]

8 hours ago, vaultbait said:

 

Reinstalling mods rarely does anything useful other than waste your time, at least with modern mod managers that have the concept of file conflicts and overwrites. If reinstalling does fix something, it's by chance and not because you actually discovered the problem.

 

Unfortunately, "AAF's finicky fuckass wont work at all" is not a helpful description of the problems you've encountered, nor does "tried about 20 things" give us any idea as to what you've already attempted (and what things you blindly did which you thought might help but were actually destructive and only dug the hole deeper).

 

Please take some time to cool down and check your 'tude and then, like the manual says, join the AAF Discord where very patient people hang out in the help channels who can walk you through precise troubleshooting steps in an attempt to scientifically track down the conflict you're experiencing rather than treating it all like an inscrutable black box and randomly trying whatever comes to mind.

Nah when i say reinstall, i dont mean via vortex,  i mean fresh, i wiped the game files, i wiped the vortex files, i wiped them all, i reinstalled the entire game from nothing, all to make 100% sure. i cant really give you more description then it being finicky either, i installed a freaking weapon, with 0 conflicts with anything and aaf told it my file save was fubar, np, happened before and i was only about an hour into it so remaking a character for it all to start over it fine. Just doesnt want to work, doesnt matter, i have moved on at this point. Just going on without for now. 

[kraoro]

It's hard to search because "VR" is too short, but is there any chance this is working in Fallout 4 VR? I know that the script extender was ported not too long ago.

[SkywolfDragon]

If anyone would like, i have remade the Bad Dragon Radio mod

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/69959/

It does not use any F4SE and should be compatible with everything.

[Omicr0n]

I'm working on getting my mod list up and running after following this guide, and I finally started a new game earlier to test if everything was working correctly. I got the messages about AAF being initialized, but when I tried the Home key the menu for it never appeared on screen.

 

I went through my mod list disabling mods to try and figure out if there was a conflict somewhere. After disabling pretty much everything except AAF and it's requirements, I remembered seeing a message during the AAF initialization that mentioned something about checking the compass and cursor to see if some HUD mod was interfering. I didn't have any HUD mods enabled, but I did remember I had disabled the compass via the ini setting. I went back and enabled the compass and sure enough the AAF menu started working.

 

Is there a reason why the compass is required for AAF to function? I was planning on doing a playthrough without it visible.

[vaultbait]

6 hours ago, Omicr0n said:

I'm working on getting my mod list up and running after following this guide, and I finally started a new game earlier to test if everything was working correctly. I got the messages about AAF being initialized, but when I tried the Home key the menu for it never appeared on screen.

 

I went through my mod list disabling mods to try and figure out if there was a conflict somewhere. After disabling pretty much everything except AAF and it's requirements, I remembered seeing a message during the AAF initialization that mentioned something about checking the compass and cursor to see if some HUD mod was interfering. I didn't have any HUD mods enabled, but I did remember I had disabled the compass via the ini setting. I went back and enabled the compass and sure enough the AAF menu started working.

 

Is there a reason why the compass is required for AAF to function? I was planning on doing a playthrough without it visible.

 

Checking whether the compass is visible is basically just a check for UI widgets working. There is even an option in AAF_settings.ini called hide_compass that you can use to disable the vanilla compass widget.

 

If the Home key isn't bringing up the AAF interface, then you either have something preventing its widget from displaying or it hasn't completely loaded. You might try turning on the debug logging option in AAF's FOMOD installer menu which will stream the startup log for it along the left side of the screen when loading a save. It's also just possible that the Home key you're pressing doesn't emit the same scancode as the Home on a 101-key US English layout. If it's a problem of not having a key to emit an equivalent scancode, you can adjust the toggle_key_1 entry in the hotkeys section of AAF_settings.ini to use the scancode of whatever key you prefer.

 

Also, as the beginning of the manual says, seek assistance in the help channels of the AAF Discord if you get stuck.

[Omicr0n]

5 hours ago, vaultbait said:

 

Checking whether the compass is visible is basically just a check for UI widgets working. There is even an option in AAF_settings.ini called hide_compass that you can use to disable the vanilla compass widget.

 

If the Home key isn't bringing up the AAF interface, then you either have something preventing its widget from displaying or it hasn't completely loaded. You might try turning on the debug logging option in AAF's FOMOD installer menu which will stream the startup log for it along the left side of the screen when loading a save. It's also just possible that the Home key you're pressing doesn't emit the same scancode as the Home on a 101-key US English layout. If it's a problem of not having a key to emit an equivalent scancode, you can adjust the toggle_key_1 entry in the hotkeys section of AAF_settings.ini to use the scancode of whatever key you prefer.

 

Also, as the beginning of the manual says, seek assistance in the help channels of the AAF Discord if you get stuck.

I'm not actually seeking assistance, and I hate Discord. As I said, the home key does bring up AAF now that I've toggled the compass back on in the game's normal ini files. I was merely curious why the AAF menu doesn't work without it. Good to know that there's an alternate way of disabling the compass through AAF's ini file though. I'll check that out.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Omicr0n