Question about installing a mod with a lot of loose files with Mod Organizer

[apav]

Hello! I haven’t played or modded Skyrim in a while, so I just did a fresh install and I am going to switch to Mod Organizer and download/install both old mods that maybe have been updated since I stopped playing a year ago and new mods. I am switching to Mod Organizer for various reasons, but I would love having profiles where I can pick and choose which mods I want to load without manually uninstalling/reinstalling them every time. I definitely won't be going back to NMM for the forseeable future! But I have a question about a mod I’m using.

 

I probably shouldn’t mention its name, but it’s a very old version from before they stopped publicly releasing the files since it is still in development. It doesn’t really conflict with anything, but it’s a lot to load (takes about 2 minutes of black screen before it gets to the main menu) and I won’t be using it constantly like I am with my other mods, so there’s no point of loading it unless I am going to use it. That’s why I like Mod Organizer's profile system, when I want a distraction from my modded game, I can just turn enable the profile I made for the mod, and when I’m done I can go back to my default profile where it’s disabled and I don’t have to worry about installing/uninstalling it or having a seperate Skyrim installation just for the mod. The problem is there are a lot of loose files, a few .esp files, a few .bsa files and a .esm file. Even worse, it isn’t all just one mod technically. There is the main mod that has loose files, a .bsa, 2 .esp and a .esm file, and there are a bunch of miscellaneous mods (that add to the main mod) with their own loose files, .esp files and .bsa files. Normally to install it I would have to drag it into my Skyrim/Data folder and uninstalling would be a pain since I have to find and take out every file that corresponds to the mod. But because that's such a hassle, I used to have 2 seperate Skyrim installations and I'd rename the one I want to use to "Skyrim". So, using it with Mod Organizer, how can I take care of all these loose files? I could pack them into individual .bsa files, but the problem is some of them have both loose files and a .bsa file, plus I don’t know how to make the .esm and .esp files point to those newly created .bsa files instead of the loose folders the data was originally in. Basically what I’m wondering is, is there a better way I can install these mods with Mod Organizer? Or can I just add each mod to a zip file and call it a day? Is that possible? I haven’t done this in a while so apologies if it’s that easy.

 

Thank you!

Edited August 26, 2014 by apav