MO2 Progress

Have to paste this from the doc since it's open for commenting to the MO2 devs. This is a Patreon only post. Not allowing the general public to see this so please leave it here. Just wanted to show you folks that I am moving things forward if you care to see how its going = )

Guide: Mod Organizer 2 : Start to Finish

Playlist: Mod Organizer 2 : Official Series

Text by: Michael of GamerPoets 

Additional Resources: AL12, GrantSP, Roy Batty, STEP wiki & Tannin (MO1)

-Installation & Setup

-Mods & Mangement

1.0 Installation & Setup

1.10 Preface

Welcome to the official Mod Organizer 2 series. 

MO2 is a mod manager in constant development . When the creator of MO1 left to join Nexus Vortex he made the code open source for others to pick up and improve upon. Since then persons from all over the world have been donating their time and abilities to this tool that they believe in. If you feel that you could help the project it’s official contact information is provided. The MO2 repositories are also linked for reference. 

For every Elder Scrolls and Fallout game from Oblivion onward MO2 is and most likely will remain my mod manager of choice. Deal breaker bugs of the past have been fixed and advancements are consistently being made. 

1.11 About the Games

-Oblivion requires additional tweaking for MO2 to work with it 

-FO3 and FNV receive benefits in how the archives are handled compared to MO1

-Skyrim LE works perfectly with MO1 but I have no reason to not to use MO2 for it

-64bit games are not manageable by MO1 at all

1.12 What to expect from Mod Organizer 2

-Easy plugin and asset management via left and right pane load order 

-Simple and straightforward functionality

-A physically and visibly clean data folder

-The ability to see and troubleshoot conflicting files from one mod to the next 

-Profiles for different mod configurations of the same game

-The choice to use 1 installation for all games that MO2 manages

-A single location for the majority of our modding tools to be launched from

… and the list continues.

Everything that I’ve mentioned and more is covered in this series. Videos will be updated  pending major advancements and adjustments.

1.20 PreInstallation

Videos for each of the following subtopics are provided for reference.

1.21 Game Prep

-This series assumes that you have properly installed and tested your games prior to downloading Mod Organizer. 

1.22 Archival Program

-An archival program is needed to extract MO2.

1.23 Register with Nexus

- If you have yet to do so create an account with Nexusmods.com.

1.30 Installation

-Navigate to the Mod Organizer 2.

-Download the Main Standalone Version.

-Locate the Mod Organizer 2 archive that was downloaded.

-Right-click it and select Properties. At the bottom of the General tab, if present, activate the Unblock checkbox to assure that all files extract properly in the next step. Apply then select OK.

-Open the archive then drag and drop the contents into a folder of your choosing. I create an MO2 folder on my storage drive and place the files there. 

-Send a shortcut of the ModOrganizer.exe to your Desktop and launch it. 

-At the Select window there are 2 options:

1. Create a New Instance, which allows the usage of 1 executable to manage all of your games by later creating additional instances when needed.
2. Create a Portable Instance which requires a new installation of MO2 per game like MO1 does.

For this guide we are going to use 1 instance to manage all of our games. A short playlist for MO1 is provided for reference. 

-At the Enter Instance Name window you can select a title from the dropdown menu or enter a name of your choosing: Enderal, Tale of Two Wastelands, your characters name, so on. Once you have given this instance a title select OK.

-Select OK at the Data directory window then choose the first game for MO2 to manage.

1.40 Initial Setup

1.41 Pathing

By default MO2 uses AppData to store it’s files. Here we change those directories to meet our storage needs. You can create a directory anywhere that you like excluding Game folders. Once you start installing mods and tools do not change these paths. Changing paths does not automatically move old files and what was previously installed will need to be reinstalled in the new directories.

-From the Toolbar open Settings (the Wrench and Screwdriver icon) and then the Paths tab. -Selecting the ellipses to the right of the following directories allows you to choose a new location for them.

1.411 Directories

-Base Directory contains a few miscellaneous files as well as all of the following file paths. Setting the following paths to %BASE_DIR% allows them to all be moved with the Base Directory and kept inside of it. I suggest choosing a location on your storage drive if you have one.

-Downloads is where unpacked mod archives are stored. If available choose a location on your storage drive to save disk space as archives use a lot of it. 

-Mods is where the actual mod files, Loose Assets, Plugins and Bethesda Archives, are stored and from where they are loaded into the game. These are the files that can be seen by double-clicking a mod in the left pane of MO. This directory should be placed on the same drive as the game to assure the fastest possible read speeds. 

-Caches is where MO2 stores data to help maintain smooth processing. This uses little space and should be left in the Base Directory.

-Profiles contains all the modded setup information such as ModLists, LoadOrder, Profile inis and Saves, so on. The location should not impact performance. I leave it in the Base Directory.

-Overwrite is where MO stores newly generated files that would generally be placed in the games Data directory such as those created by xEdit. I put this on my game drive with the Mods directory as it is treated like a mod at the bottom of MO’s left pane.

Files such as CrashDumps, Logs and Mod Organizer’s ini file will always remain in AppData. This is because these files have to be available even if the Base Directory has not yet been read from MO’s .ini file.

1.42 Linking MO2 w/Nexus

-Select the Settings from the Toolbar. 

-Open the Nexus tab and activate  Automatically Log-In to Nexus. 

-Enter your nexus Username and Password. 

-Select Associate with “Download with manager” links. This, as well as entering your Log-In info, allows you to utilize Nexusmods MOD MANAGER DOWNLOAD function. Select OK.

-From the Toolbar, select the Nexus Network (Globe Icon) to be brought to Nexus via Mod Organizer. 

-To prepare for the next step download a mod via a Mod Manager Download option. Any mod. It doesn’t matter what one. We aren’t even going to install it. We do this to allow Mod Organizer to register the available nexus servers covered in the next step and to finalize the connection between MO2 and Nexus.

-Open Settings again and then the Nexus tab. 

-The Known Servers window should now display servers that are available to you. If you don’t have a Premium account you may only be able to use the CDN (free) option. 

-Highlight the Known Server closest to your geographical region. Drag and drop it into the Prefered Servers window. From now on M.O. will attempt to use this server before any others to assure the fastest possible mod downloads. Once finished select OK.

-From the main interface select the Downloads tab. Right-click the mod archive that we just downloaded and Delete it. 

1.43 Archive Invalidation

Archive Invalidation allows mods to override the official files in Bethesda’s Archives. This may not be needed at all for 64bit games. However, performing the following task as a precaution won’t cause any issues.

-From the Toolbar, select Configure Profiles (ID Icon). 

-In the Profiles window activate the Automatic Archive Invalidation checkbox. Remember to do this for each new Profile that you create in the future if you decide to do this at all. 

1.44 Anti Virus Exclusion List

If you use an AntiVirus program, to prevent it from blocking or deleting MO2 files, you should add MO2 to it’s exclusion list. I don’t use one so I couldn’t show you how it’s done.

1.50 Additional Games

Now that you have established the basic setup for your first game you can do the same for others on your system. 

-Select the Game Selection Dialogue icon at the top left of the Toolbar and then OK.

-Create a New Instance and continue forward exactly like we did for the first game. Repeat all of the steps for this new game including file path setup by creating and selecting new folders. 

-To switch between established games, from the Game Selection Dialogue, simply select an Instance previously created, signified by an arrow.

2.0 Mods & Management

2.10 Downloading Mods

Here we cover the various ways to download mods from Nexus, the Steam and other various places as well as the basic installation steps for each.  The different installation Pop-up windows are covered in the following section.

2.11 Nexusmods.com

2.111 MOD MANAGER DOWNLOAD

Each mod on Nexus has a Files section, which is where mods are downloaded from. The MOD MANAGER DOWNLOAD option, if setup properly in the previous guide, will download the mod to M.O.’s Downloads directory. The archive will then be displayed in the Downloads Tab, which you can double-click to install the mod. Once installed the mod will appear at the bottom of the left pane where you can activate it by ticking the checkbox and then drag its position anywhere that you like within your Asset Load Order. Load Order is covered a bit later. 

2.112 MANUAL DOWNLOAD

This option is not only helpful for some but necessary if Mod Organizer and Nexus are having issues linking to each other. Selecting MANUAL DOWNLOAD downloads the mods archive to your systems default location. From here there are two options:

1. Leave the archive where it is. From M.O.’s Toolbar select the Install from Archive icon. From the explorer navigate to the mod. Double-click it. One of M.O.’s various install options windows will open. Install the mod accordingly. I prefer to not use this method as it’s easy to lose track of the archive and or accidently delete it.
2. The prefered manual method is to navigate to where the archive was downloaded to. In a second window navigate to Mod Organizer’s Downloads directory created in the previous guide. Drag the mod archive in question into it. The archive will now appear in the Downloads tab just as if you used MOD MANAGER DOWNLOAD. This option can be applied to any mod archive on your system and not just those downloaded from Nexus.

2.113 Downloads Tab Note

If you delete a mod from the Downloads tab it will also be deleted from the Downloads directory. Deleting mod archives is not advised because many mods, at some point, may no longer exist due to their authors removing them. Delete mods with caution. If you can help it don’t delete them at all unless you are sure that you will never want to use them again. 

2.12 Steam Workshop

2.121 Downloading Process

-From the Steam application. Expand COMMUNITY. Select Workshop. Search for your game. Once you come across a mod that you want to install, to do so, you have to Subscribe to it.

-Once subscribed to a mod RUN the <Game> Launcher from within Mod Organizer. Wait for a synchronization message to appear at the bottom of the menu. Let it complete it’s process. Once complete Exit the launcher. 

-Scroll to the bottom of the left pane. Open Overwrite. Notice that the Steam files are now located here. Close Overwrite. 

-Right-click Overwrite and select Create Mod. Name the mod anything you wish, preferably the mods official name so that you know what it is, then select OK. 

-Activate the mods checkbox at the bottom of the left pane.

2.122 Issues with Steam Mods

If you RUN the <Game> Launcher after a Steam mod has been updated the new files will automatically download whether you want them to, or expect them to, or not. If a Steam mod is activated when the launcher is RUN, without warning, it will auto-update all its files and delete the old ones. This can cause all sorts of issues in a current playthrough. If the Steam mod is not activated the updated version of the mod is placed in Overwrite. In this scenario, even though the old files still exist, issues can arise. 

What you need to know here about Overwrite is that everything inside of it is always activated at all times as if it were a mod itself. Overwrite acts as a mod that always has highest priority and it overwrites all matching files in your load order. 

To avoid issues with Steam mods, after you install one, unsubscribe from it so that it cannot auto-update. Doing this may not be appreciated by the mods author but it’s the only guaranteed way to protect your save file and load order. 

------info beneath here transitioning from MO1 vids in progress--------

2.20 Installation Pop-ups

Different mods and different download methods cause various windows to pop-up during installation. Here we will cover what the windows mean and what to do in each situation.