MO or MO2 for FNV?

[MeanJim]

The short story:

 

I was going to post in the MO2 support forum, but it says to only post questions in there dealing with FO4 and SkyrimSE.  Does that mean MO2 isn't recommended for other games?  I'm having a problem with MO 1.3.11 so I "upgraded" to MO2, which fixed the problem, but INI Tweaks aren't functional in MO2.

 

 

The long story:

 

I started a heavily modded game of FNV over a year ago using MO.  I've taken a breaks and come back to it off and on.  It has been a long game and I still have lots more to go (366 hours so far according to the save).  I was planning to resume my game this weekend, so I fired up MO last night to check for mod updates.  There were a few, so I downloaded and began updating them.  When I tried to update JIP LN, which uses a FOMOD script, I got an error: "Unable to obtain public key for StrongNameKeyPair; installation failed (errorcode 5)."  I tried to re-install the old version, but I got the same error.

 

All of the other mods installed fine, but they were just loose files where the JIP LN has a FOMOD script in it.  I tried installing another mod that is FOMOD scripted and it gives the error too.  I had no problem just a few months ago, and the only thing that has changed was MS managed to sneak the Fall Creators Update on my system, so I think that update broke something.

 

Searching for a solution I found this old post that was pretty much what was happening to me, except I'm installing mods for FNV.  I tried the suggested solution linked at the bottom, however the beta version 2.0.7 wouldn't install.  It gets to a point where it looks like it's trying to download something, but after a minute or so it gives an error and doesn't install.  I couldn't find a stand-alone package for the beta versions, which I prefer.  I tried downloading the fix anyway and dropping it in the MO 1.3.11 directory, but it still wouldn't install JIP LN.  It didn't pop up an error, but in the log window at the bottom, it said "no files in installed mod."

 

I was reading another post somewhere with the same problem and someone mentioned MO version 2.1.1 working for them, but the latest version I saw was 2.0.7 beta.  Searching 2.1.1 lead me to discover the stable MO2 release is on SkyrimSE Nexus.  I didn't even know MO2 had come out of beta because all of the links to download MO on the Wiki here lead to the MO page on Skyrim Nexus which is MO 1.3.11, and there is no mention of MO2 there either.  I knew of the beta versions, but I there hasn't been an update to them on the GitHub page in almost 2 years so all this time I thought MO had been abandoned.

 

I install MO2 and it works.  I got all of the mods updated, but when I ran it, the fonts were messed up and the mouse acceleration was back (all of which I had setup and fixed with INI Tweaks).  I checked to make sure my INI tweaks didn't get disabled in the transition, and then I saw the INI Tweaks box grayed out with "INI Tweaks *this feature is non-functional*" above it!

 

I tried replacing NCC directory in MO 1.3.11 with the one from 2.1.2, but it too gives me the "no files in installed mod" error when installing JIP LN.

[GrantSP]

The MO2 that was beta and which was current when STEP recommended sticking with MO1 for FNV was that maintained by @Tannin. Since his departure to take a position as Nexus's Vortex developer many others have developed MO2 into a stable manager that is now very capable of handling ALL the Bethesda games, including FNV.

 

We feel very comfortable recommending MO2 as the manager of choice.

[Adonis_VII]

I will most likely be moving to MO2 for the TTW guide when I update it for the  3.1 launch.

[MeanJim]

We feel very comfortable recommending MO2 as the manager of choice.

I have had to go back to the old MO.  There are a couple of problems I have with MO2.  I will have to keep both around, and move the mods and profiles directory to MO2 to update FOMOD based mods and move them back to MO1 to run the game because MO2 doesn't support INI Tweaks.  That seems like a step backwards from the old MO.  Is this just temporary, will this feature be coming back?  For me to migrate to MO2 I would have to go through each mod to find which ones I've setup INI tweaks for and manually merge them into the main game INI files and hope they don't get overwritten.

 

I ran into another minor annoyance with MO2.  One of the mods that updated required disabling the mod, starting the game and making a clean save, then update and enable the mod.  I installed the update and disabled the mod by unchecking it from the plugins tab.  When I ran FNV to make the clean save, after exiting, all disabled mods were moved to the bottom of the list rather than keeping their assigned load order.  There are a couple of other mods I have installed that are disabled because they don't need to be enabled all the time.  They that fix certain things, and I only need to occasionally enable them to apply the fix, then I can disable them until needed.  When enabled, they need to be loaded before other mods, so I want to keep them in their assigned load order even when disabled so all I have to do is toggle them on and back off and not have to sort them.

[GrantSP]

Yes INI Tweaks will return in the future.

 

As for your other issues, since you've returned to MO1 it is a moot point now but if you do actually want to use MO2 and help with finding and eliminating these rare bugs the Discord server is available to anyone.

[GSDFan]

The ini tweaks are gone and most likely will not return, that was a function of old VFS and is not included in the new usvfs system. I believe that the mod ini tweaks are still collected in the active profile in initweaks.ini. they can be copied from there and pasted into the custom ini.

 

I have not had any unchecked mods move on me, but I am only running Fallout 4 at the moment. If this is repeatable for you I would encourage you to make a ticket on the github site.

[MeanJim]

As for your other issues, since you've returned to MO1 it is a moot point now but if you do actually want to use MO2 and help with finding and eliminating these rare bugs the Discord server is available to anyone.

I have them both installed.  If mods that have FOMOD script installers get updated, I need to use MO2 to install them.  I moved everything back to MO1 for launching the game due to the INI Tweaks not being in MO2, but if GSDFan's solution works, I can move to MO2 and not jump back and forth between them.

 

The ini tweaks are gone and most likely will not return, that was a function of old VFS and is not included in the new usvfs system. I believe that the mod ini tweaks are still collected in the active profile in initweaks.ini. they can be copied from there and pasted into the custom ini.

 

I have not had any unchecked mods move on me, but I am only running Fallout 4 at the moment. If this is repeatable for you I would encourage you to make a ticket on the github site.

They are indeed all collected in an initweaks.ini file in the profile.  In MO2's INI Editor I saw, besides the fallout.ini and falloutprefs.ini, a falloutcustom.ini and custom.ini, but I was unsure as to what they were for.  I will try copying the contents of the INI tweaks into custom.ini and see if that works.  Does it matter if it goes in falloutcustom.ini or custom.ini?

 

If that works, I can use just MO2, but I still think INI Tweaks are more convenient.  With INI Tweaks, if I disable a mod, then its INI tweaks no longer get loaded, but using the custom.ini, I would have to remember to manually remove any custom settings from the custom.ini.  This isn't a big deal now since my mod list is unlikely to change.  I'm just keeping what I have updated and not adding or removing anything, but it was very useful when testing mods out to see which ones I wanted to use and was switching between different mods.

 

As for the disabled plugins moving, it happened several times.  I have the preorder DLC plugins disabled as well as the mod that needed to be disabled for updating and one I only enable when I need it to fix something.  Whenever I launched anything from MO2, the game, FNVEdit, etc., the disabled plugins would be moved to the bottom of the list when exiting back to MO2.  I will try the custom.ini tonight if I get a chance, and if it keeps moving the plugins, I will submit a ticket.  There is another post below this one where another user was having plugins getting rearranged, but for me it's only moving disabled plugins.  I just re-loaded the backup sort order.  I didn't test if it happened when launching the game from a desktop shortcut either.

Edited April 22, 2018 by MeanJim

[MeanJim]

I think I have MO2 working, but ran into some weird problems along the way.  I first copied the contents of the old fallouttweaks.ini to the custom.ini, but it did not work.  When I copied them to falloutcustom.ini it did work, so I guess that's the place for them.  However, when I launched the game, it said no save games found, but they showed up on the saves tab.  I am using local savegames for the profile.  The save games were working in MO2 the other day when I first tried it.

 

After exiting the game, not only did the unchecked plugins get put at the bottom again, it reset the profile settings.  I opened the INI editor to check that nothing was messed up, and noticed it said: "Editing Global INIs (in 'myGames' Folder).  Local games settings is Disabled."  In the Profile Editor, Local Savegames was checked, but Local Settings and Automatic Archive Invalidation were both unchecked.  These were checked before.  I re-checked them, but got an error when enabling Automatic Archive Invalidation: "failed to change archive invalidation state: failed to set archive key (errorcode 0)."  I restarted MO2, edited the profile unchecked Automatic Archive Invalidation and re-checked it and did not get an error.  I started the game and still had no save games, and upon exiting, both Local Settings and Automatic Archive Invalidation were both disabled again.

 

I deleted all profiles in MO2, ran MO2 to let it re-create the Default profile and closed it.  I copied my modded profile from MO1 over, removed all other .ini files except for fallout.ini and falloutprefs.ini.  I had to create the custom.ini and falloutcustom.ini before they showed up in the editor.  I copied the contents of the old fallouttweaks.ini to falloutcustom.ini, and I made sure Local Saves, Local Settings and Automatic Archive Invalidation were enabled.  I ran the game, but it acted as if no mods were loaded, but my save games were there.  I exited and loaded backups for both the plugins and mod list and it all seems to be working now.

 

It still moves unchecked plugins to the bottom of the of the load order if I start the game with the MO2 window open.  It doesn't do that if I create a desktop shortcut and run the game from it though.