Vortex

[khumak]

I finally got around to trying Vortex tonight and I'll have to say for an alpha I'm pretty impressed.  It does still have a few quirks but I'm probably going to switch to it from MO2 even at this stage in development.  Definitely worth taking for a test drive if you haven't tried it.  Especially if whichever mod manager you're using now is giving you issues with something.

 

Pros:

- It can handle all of my DLL plugins flawlessly, and I have a lot of them.  MO2 won't even load the game unless I disable about half of them.

- The Dependencies handling for assets is REALLY good, better than MO IMO.  Much easier to fine tune the position of your asset files according to which ones you want to win conflicts compared to MO.

- Conflict winners are determined by load order just like MO, not install time.

- For some reason, it loads the game MUCH faster than MO (MO takes several minutes to load the main menu for me, Vortext takes about 10 seconds or so).  This is for an install with about 150 GB of mods and about 10 SKSE/DLL Loader plugins.

- 3rd Party tools are much easier to get working properly (no work arounds needed for anything, everything just works).  Only tested Loot, SSEEDIT, Wryebash, Bodyslide, FNIS, and SKSE so far but zero issues with any of them.

- Seems to handle instaling big mods better than MO (Qax's Questorium for example flat out will not install on MO unless I split it up into about 10 separate files, Vortex installs everything no problem)

- 1 click migration from MO actually works

- Purge mods actually works relatively well to give you a clean install.  I used it several times to wipe out all my mods and it only missed 1 file once.  Redeploying is also a single click and it works great, although it does take awhile.

 

Cons:

- Can't disable individual files in a mod like you can in MO, you have to unzip it and delete them if you don't want individual files

- Sometimes purge mods fails to nuke everything and you have to go and manually delete stray files in the data directory (have only had to do that once so far)

- Seems to get slow if you're doing a several hour marathon session of installing all your mods from scratch.  If you close it and reopen, it's fast again.

- No way to manually install mods like in MO so you can tweak the file structure or remove unwanted optional plugins before installing, again you have to unzip it and delete those first to do that.

- Vortex seems to get quite slow if you're downloading from within Vortex.  It's MUCH faster to just download manually and then copy the mod into the download directory.

- No option to enable all plugins with 1 click like MO has.  If you auto deploy when installing your mods it will auto enable each one, but if you purge your mods and redeploy they will all be disabled and you have to click on each one to enable it again.  Should be easy for them to fix that but I find it annoying. (You actually can do this already you just have to use hotkeys that aren't documented, click on a plugin, hit CTRL-A and it selects all, then you can enable/disable/check for upgrades/etc on all plugins at once.

 

Edit:  2 of the items on my Cons list were incorrect.  Just had to figure out that to do it you have to install, but NOT enable the mod.  Then you can alter the mod however you want.  Then Enable it.  So this works similar to MO.  If you install and then enable it before modifying the mod, Vortex will revert your changes.

 

For people wondering about how well Vortex can get you back to a clean install and then reinstall here is my experience so far.  Purge mods seems to remove all of the hard links and usually catches all of the files put into the SkyrimSE/data directory by Vortex but it does not remove files put there by third party utilities. 

 

So for instance I recently set SSELODGen up wrong and it output all of it's LOD output to my data directory.  So I purged my mods and went back in and checked to see what was left.  In the main data directory, nothing but the vanilla files plus my Bashed Patch and a few log files which I deleted manually.  Textures had a ton of crap from SSELODGen which I deleted manually.  SKSE plugins was cleared out except for the ini and log files generated by those plugins (the DLLs were gone) as well as the json files used by Campfire/Frostfall/FISS/JCDATA/Simply Knock which I would want to stay there anyway.

 

Then I click deploy mods and everything is restored to the condition it was in before I ran SSELODGen.

[hatternumber0]

1 hour ago, khumak said:

Cons:

- Can't disable individual files in a mod like you can in MO, you have to unzip it and delete them if you don't want individual files

 

You can do this while the mod is in its 'Disabled' state. It's already unzipped but hasn't been transferred to the Data folder yet. While it's 'Disabled', click the orange drop down arrow to the right of the mod and click 'Open in File Manager'. It'll only move all the files over once it's been enabled and deployed.

 

Aside from the slow downs you mentioned, i'm finding it good too. Sorting dependencies is easier.

[LazyBoot]

1 hour ago, khumak said:

- No way to manually install mods like in MO so you can tweak the file structure or remove unwanted optional plugins before installing, again you have to unzip it and delete those first to do that.

You can do this quite easily, just go into the folder you told vortex to store your mods in and change the files around there. You'll obviously need to deploy them again after.

[worik]

@khumakI agree. For an alpha it sounds promising.

Your cons #1and #4 wouldb e my priority needs for the Vortex team to implement. The others would have surprised me if they were not there in any alpha software. In fact I would expect them in any commercially sold software anyway. (So far my experiences with that crap industry )

 

Now, I will lay down again until around christmas and see how far they evolved it

 

[Contessa]

How does conflict and problem installation resolution compare to Mod Organizer? The fact that I can simply uncheck a mod on a whim with zero repercussions and no having to clean out a data folder is a huge bonus to me in MO. 

 

I may wait until/if Vortex is released officially and gets a plugin to have the same VFS as MO. If it's anything like NMM I want nothing to do with it. 

 

Edit: If I come across as surly I'm not trying to. MO ticked all the boxes I could want in a mod manager but I'm concerned about the future of MO2 even though it's still being developed. Vortex has me curious though but I'm mostly wondering if it touches my game data folders at all.

 

At any rate, your pros seem nice but I may have been "spoiled" by having a completely detached area to work with in terms of mods with MO/MO2.

[khumak]

6 hours ago, LazyBoot said:

You can do this quite easily, just go into the folder you told vortex to store your mods in and change the files around there. You'll obviously need to deploy them again after.

The only way I've found to do it is to remove the files I don't want from the zip file entirely.  It's not difficult, I just haven't found a way to do it from within Vortex.  I would like an option when I install a mod to uncheck optional ESPs so they don't show up in my plugins tab.  Some mods have optional folders as well that you can get optional patches or ESP versions from and it would be nice to just drag those into the main folder like I can in MO while installing instead of having to tweak the zip file.

 

If I go to the mods folder and remove them, when I deploy mods Vortex puts them back again.  Same if I delete a file from the data directory in Skyrim SE.  If it was in a mod I installed, Vortex puts any missing files back.

 

4 hours ago, Contessa said:

How does conflict and problem installation resolution compare to Mod Organizer? The fact that I can simply uncheck a mod on a whim with zero repercussions and no having to clean out a data folder is a huge bonus to me in MO.

 

There's a conflict colum where your assets are installed and Vortex checks for conflicts every time you install anything.  When it finds one you'll get a message that says there are 1 or more unresolved conflicts.  When you scroll down you'll see a little red lightning bolt next to any mods with conflicts.  If you click on the lightning bolt it will show you exactly which files conflict with each other mod.  Once you fix the conflict the lightningbolt turns green.

 

You can then set conditions that say this mod requires that mod or this mod must load before or after that mod and Vortex will automatically reorder your load order to match whichever rules you just set.  It will also give you a message if you've managed to create an infinite loop with your rules show you all of those conflicting rules in 1 popup that you can disable.  You can't hide individual files when there's conflicts like you can in MO but it's a lot easier to see all of the conflicts.  Also when you're making rules for mods with multiple conflicts with multiple other mods it shows a tool tip next to the conflict if you already have a rule for that conflict in another mod so you'll know you don't need to make another rule for it.

 

In the plugin tab it does something similar for missing masters, etc for your plugins.

[khumak]

Actually I'm happy to say I was wrong about not being able to change the mods folder.  If you change something in the installed mods folder and then deploy mods, that will update the real Skyrim Data folder with your changes.  It's only when you uninstall or reinstall a mod that it reverts your changes.  So that's just as tweakable as MO.

 

I ran into an issue with this for Enhanced Character Edit.  The english translations are messed up and initially I went into the real data folder and fixed them.  Vortex immediately reverted it back.  But changing it in my mods folder and redeploying fixes it.

[LazyBoot]

59 minutes ago, khumak said:

If I go to the mods folder and remove them, when I deploy mods Vortex puts them back again.  Same if I delete a file from the data directory in Skyrim SE.  If it was in a mod I installed, Vortex puts any missing files back.

If Vortex puts a file back, then you can just purge, delete the file, and then deploy again.

[khumak]

2 hours ago, LazyBoot said:

If Vortex puts a file back, then you can just purge, delete the file, and then deploy again.

So after testing this some more what happens for me is that if I add files to the mod after installing it in Vortex, that works fine.  For instance adding the ini for FNIS works fine.  Redeploying does not change or remove the file I added. 

 

But if I delete a file, Vortex puts it back no matter what I do.  The main issue I have with this is patches.  I have way more than 255 ESPs when you include patches and other mergeable ESPs.  For some of those I can just uninstall the mod or patch once I've merged it but for others there are other files besides the ESP that need to remain installed.  So the only workaround I've found for that so far is to unzip all of my mods with mergeable ESPs, copy all of those ESP files into a separate mod to install, and then delete all of those ESPs from the original mods and zip them up again and reinstall those.  Then I can install everything, merge whatever is mergeable, then uninstall the ESP files while leaving the rest.  In MO I would just move the ESP to the optional folder but with Vortex if I do that it's still in my plugins tab, same thing if I delete it.  I suppose I could just leave it there disabled but I find it annoying not being able to clean up plugins better.

[khumak]

Ok I found out what I was doing wrong as far as removing things from a mod that's installed and getting it to stay that way when deployed.  I was installing my mods and immediately enabling it.  If you do that and then go delete anything from the mod directory in Vortex, Vortex will put it back. 

 

If you want to remove anything from a mod without having to redo the zip file you can install the mod but NOT enable it, then you go to the mod directory and change whatever you want.  THEN you enable it.  At that point deploying doesn't undo anything you've done.  So for my merging examples above all I'll have to do when done merging things is just reinstall those mods and delete the plugins before re-enabling.  So that's almost as easy as MO.

[zax]

How do you actually handle dependencies and position for assets in Vortex? There doesn't seem any way to move installed mods up/down.

[khumak]

53 minutes ago, zax said:

How do you actually handle dependencies and position for assets in Vortex? There doesn't seem any way to move installed mods up/down.

It only matters if there's a conflict.  When there's a conflict just click on the lightning bolt and you can make rules for it and that will move it into a position that matches your rules.  For the plugins you can either use dependency rules to have it's built in sorter reorder the plugins or you can use loot.  Either one works.  I prefer Loot since I already had all my rules saved for that in the metadata for my mods.

[on1wl]

The "Purge Mods" button leaves an old previously deleted mod in my plugins.txt, and load order.  The esp is not in the data folder, yet Vortex is keeping it.  Is there any other way to purge it?

Edit:  I went to the mods tab and disabled the last two remaining mods that purge had left and that seems to have fixed the issue.  I re-enabled those two and the phantom mod is now gone. 

Edit 2:  aaaaaaand its back.  :-(  The deploy mods button brought it back. 

[khumak]

3 hours ago, on1wl said:

The "Purge Mods" button leaves an old previously deleted mod in my plugins.txt, and load order.  The esp is not in the data folder, yet Vortex is keeping it.  Is there any other way to purge it?

Edit:  I went to the mods tab and disabled the last two remaining mods that purge had left and that seems to have fixed the issue.  I re-enabled those two and the phantom mod is now gone. 

Edit 2:  aaaaaaand its back.  :-(  The deploy mods button brought it back. 

I think the only way to get rid of it when that happens is to go and manually delete the file from the file manager (outside of Vortex).

[most_wanted]

Interesting feedback, thank you.

[khumak]

I did run into an annoying issue with Vortex last night that is finally resolved and I really can't figure out what was going on but I thought I'd describe it in case other people run into something similar.  I was getting some missing textures (purple LOD) in my game and couldn't figure out where it was coming from so I started disabling and re-enabling mods, reinstalling mods, etc and couldn't figure out where they were coming from.  If I disabled all mods, LOD worked so it wasn't the base game.

 

This is where things took a turn for the worse.  I ran through various situations with some, but not all of my mods installed, purging and redeploying mods frequently and eventually decided I need to actually uninstall everything and start from scratch.  I decided to try selecting all of my mods and click remove file, but not archive.  BAD MOVE.  What this did in my case was put all of my mods into some weird hidden state where they were disabled but still installed but they no longer showed up within Vortex at all.  They were still in the relevant directories if I looked via the file manager and if I went to the dashboard, it still said I had hundreds of mods, but if I went to downloads or mods there was nothing there.

 

So I went about trying to install from file and started getting conflict failures like this whenever I would try to install something:

 

ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir 'D:\Games\Vortex\skyrimse\mods\Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch-266-4-1-3'
Error
    at Object.res [as readdirAsync] (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\util\fs.js:45:23)
    at Object.walk (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\util\walk.js:9:15)
    at Promise.map (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar.unpacked\bundledPlugins\mod-dependency-manager\index.js:10332:34)
    at tryCatcher (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\bluebird\js\release\util.js:16:23)
    at MappingPromiseArray._promiseFulfilled (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\bluebird\js\release\map.js:61:38)
    at MappingPromiseArray.PromiseArray._iterate (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\bluebird\js\release\promise_array.js:114:31)
    at MappingPromiseArray.init (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\bluebird\js\release\promise_array.js:78:10)
    at MappingPromiseArray._asyncInit (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\bluebird\js\release\map.js:30:10)
    at Async._drainQueue (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\bluebird\js\release\async.js:138:12)
    at Async._drainQueues (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\bluebird\js\release\async.js:143:10)
    at Async.drainQueues (C:\Program Files\Black Tree Gaming Ltd\Vortex\resources\app.asar\node_modules\bluebird\js\release\async.js:17:14)
    at <anonymous>

 

So something within Vortex thought I still had things installed, but if I ran the game I got a vanilla game with no mods.  I have no clue why nothing was showing up in downloads or mods within Vortex.  I tried exiting and reloading, tried changing the settings to use different directory names (it actually moved the files even though it said it couldn't see them).  This morning my download and mod directories had reset back to their original condition and suddenly all of my mods were showing up again but I was still getting conflict errors like the one above even when installing the very first mod (the unofficial patch).  So I uninstalled everything again, did another purge mods and deploy mods, and now finally I can install mods again and they're correctly showing up in both the dowload and mod directory.

 

So I really have no clue what happened but I recommend you never use that option to remove a file but not the archive.

[khumak]

I think I have finally fixed the issues I mentioned in my previous post by enabling profiles, creating a new one, and deleting the default profile.  That seems to be the way to completely remove all vestiges of any previous installation.  Purge isn't enough sometimes.

 

The default profile seemed to be completely hosed.  Even when I removed all files from both the download and mod directory, did a purge, and verified that the real data directory was clear of anything that wasn't a vanilla file, the dashboard still showed that my default profile had 15 active mods.

 

The new profile is working great now and those 15 mystery mods from the default profile were not there when I created it.  No more issues with conflicts or errors in the new one.

[Ruffled Pigeon]

Aside of the UI being absolutely horrible and seemingly designed for touchscreens which makes no sense at all, it's actually pretty nice desu.

However, I still prefer MO because of the virtual file system. In Vortex you most likely won't fuck up your installation, in MO you definitely won't.

[khumak]

10 hours ago, Pigeon the Feathered said:

Aside of the UI being absolutely horrible and seemingly designed for touchscreens which makes no sense at all, it's actually pretty nice desu.

However, I still prefer MO because of the virtual file system. In Vortex you most likely won't fuck up your installation, in MO you definitely won't.

 

I got through reinstalling everything from scratch today with no issues.  Just don't ever use that remove file without removing archive option, or at least not til they fix it. 

 

Vortex actually does a surprisingly good job of fixing the directory structure of incorrectly packaged mods automatically.  It mostly only gets things wrong if the mod relies entirely on third party tools and has zero files that match the vanilla directory structure.  For instance in my case, it put some of my bodyslide files, and 1 of my DLL loader plugins in the wrong place (/data/data).  Anything that has a texture/mesh/etc folder that actually matches what's in the vanilla game it will put in the right spot even if it's buried under multiple layers of incorrect directories.

 

Overall setting everything up from scratch in Vortex was a lot faster and easier than it was in MO aside from that major glitch with the remove file thing.

[t3h0th3r]

I can just share my brief experiences with it, take from it what you will.

 

So i started with MO2 when it didn't yet support VR, and before getting the vr-plugin i tried vortex, because it was compatible with VR. so i tried to import my SSE(but really VR) MO2 profile into vortex. vortex said no. Then i found the vr plugin for MO2 and uninstalled vortex. also the new MO2 supports VR out of the box.

 

Also vortex UI is pretty finnicky, and sorting mods isn't straight forward (read: i didn't find out how, in my short time with it).

 

Also generally: if i have to chose between an alpha quality software and something that has matured for quite a bit, i'll stick with the latter.

 

/0.02 septims

[Yoxgg04]

Can someone tell my why i cant launch skse64 in our out of vortext now?  I cant even load the regular skyrim after mod installs.

[khumak]

4 hours ago, Yoxgg04 said:

Can someone tell my why i cant launch skse64 in our out of vortext now?  I cant even load the regular skyrim after mod installs.

You can set SKSE loader up as a tool in Vortex if it's not already there and run it that way.  You don't really need to though, you can just run the loader without having Vortex running at all once your mods are set up.  It's not using a VFS so you don't need it to actually play, just to get your mods set up.  If the game won't load you probably have a master conflict or incorrect SKSE version.

[Yoxgg04]

3 minutes ago, khumak said:

You can set SKSE loader up as a tool in Vortex if it's not already there and run it that way.  You don't really need to though, you can just run the loader without having Vortex running at all once your mods are set up.  It's not using a VFS so you don't need it to actually play, just to get your mods set up.  If the game won't load you probably have a master conflict or incorrect SKSE version.

Thank you, it was also because i was behind on a windows 10 update and that helped resolve it.

[khumak]

Finally found an easy way to get a printable plugin load order when using Vortex as your mod manager.  It was driving me nuts not being able to but it's saved in your skse64.log file every time you save your game.  Haven't found a way to save it from within Vortex though.  You may need to enable writeminidumps in your skse.ini for it to do that.  Just add this to the end:

 

[Debug]
WriteMinidumps=1