MO Warns me of my LO even though it's Loot sorted

[Spock]

Hey,

 

I just finished my reinstall. I applied all the Loot rules suggested on the 2.2.9 wiki and ran loot as an external program. MO now warns me about errors in my load order. Is there a way to update the internal Loot of MO (it might also not get through my fw even though I think I allowed the key programs)?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Spock

[GrantSP]

The warnings MO give are not related to the load order managed by LOOT. That dialog clearly says it is the left hand pane order that needs attention, not the plugins in the right hand pane.

[xwhiteninjax]

Loot as external tool and inside LOOT have their own sorting order - mostly they just change the loadorder "out of fun"... meaning, if there is a working load order for your install you cant trust LOOT anymore if there are ini's to overwrite (racecompatibilty and better vampire, for example). In every sorting process it will be changed even if you don't install any mods.

 

but there is a "working solution"...

 

just lock the loadingorder when you have found "your working loadorder" for the special mods... then you have only to look for the new ones, if there is a confict between your imagination what skyrim has to do and what is realy going on *sorry for my bad english - not my native language...

[Tannin]

Loot as external tool and inside LOOT have their own sorting order - mostly they just change the loadorder "out of fun"... meaning, if there is a working load order for your install you cant trust LOOT anymore if there are ini's to overwrite (racecompatibilty and better vampire, for example). In every sorting process it will be changed even if you don't install any mods.

 

but there is a "working solution"...

 

just lock the loadingorder when you have found "your working loadorder" for the special mods... then you have only to look for the new ones, if there is a confict between your imagination what skyrim has to do and what is realy going on *sorry for my bad english - not my native language...

This is WRONG

 

LOOT sorts according to an automated algorithm that can be overwritten by a masterlist and then a userlist.

The algorithm is right most of the time. If it isn't the masterlist will have a rule unless the mod is very new.

If the mod is very new and you disagree with the ordering then you should contribute the corrected order.

If the mod is not very new and you disagree with the ordering then you are almost certainly wrong!

And finally, if you absolutely cannot believe you are wrong and you absolutely cannot contribute to a community project then you make the changes in the userlist so that loot will always apply the order you (mistakenly) want for that mod.

Do NOT use the lock mechanism to fight the loot ordering, that's not what it's there for!

 

But all of this has nothing to do with the topic because GrantSP already gave the correct answer and there isn't anything else to say on that.

[xwhiteninjax]

I agree - I am wrong in some points and apologize... MO is very new for me (4 days) and I had to do a lot of installs for having a working skyrim ... within the several installations I got for the same Mods different loading orders... and mostly for mods like rcrn where the author is proclaiming a special loading order (for example at the very bottom).

 

So I was a little frustrated to arrange several mods manually having unknown mistakes during install (maybe my faults)... the locking order was a workaround for me... I did not read the whole features of MO because getting a working game was the main target...

 

So my comment was wrong in tune and concept - I promise I will learn the tool MO better... for contributing ... I will try to gather some sorting-lists ( I change mostly every week the mods just for fun) and if there is need for working-mod-lists I will sent them ...

 

Again I am very grateful that a project like S.T.E.P exist and honor the work... it was not my intention to start a flame war...

[Tannin]

No worries, I didn't intend to flame you, I just wanted to make it very clear that your suggestion (overwrite loot order manually using lock mechanism) is not a universally accepted technique. It's difficult for users to see which suggestions are established "community knowledge" and which are preferences of individuals.

 

LOOT is about relative ordering of plugins (this goes before that, this requires that, ...) to provide the best compatibility.

The lock mechanism in MO is about absolute positioning of plugins. It tries to keep a plugin at a specific index in the load order while the other plugins may be re-ordered around it. This also means that locking may break the correct relative order and should therefore be used carefully and selectively.

 

Some mods require to be re-initialized if their index changes and locking in MO is intended to "freeze" a plugin in place so the mod doesn't get re-initialized whenever another plugin gets added before it. That's the only reason the locking feature exists.

[Spock]

Huh? This is an entirely new concept for me. I never thought that mod order changes anything if there are no file conflicts. Is there a forum post with a more in depth explaination for this?

[GrantSP]

There probably isn't a dedicated forum post that outlines this as the 'problem' only really becomes apparent when MO is used. However the online documentation that MO links to, the wiki here at STEP, does contain a wealth of information.

 

By this I am not saying MO has introduced a problem to how we mod games, rather by separating the elements that make a mod into plugins & assets (right & left panes), MO has provided a greater amount of flexibility.

 

Mods are constructed of a number of things:

 

• Plugins - esp/esm files that contain records that the game engine uses to either run scripts or place NPCs or construct buildings
• Assets - textures/meshes/audio/menus/etc. that the game uses to create the 3D world or the UI that we interact with

 

ModA may contain only a plugin that uses the existing assets provided by the vanilla game and/or other mods. Its position in the left pane has no bearing on how the game runs. Only the right hand pane, the one sorted by LOOT, determines if the mod runs correctly.

 

ModB is a texture overhaul and contains no plugin. The position in the left-hand pane is crucial as you want these textures to used and this mod needs to have the highest priority or order. The right hand pane has no control over this mod as it doesn't have a plugin to load its assets. LOOT, BOSS or MO's 'Sort' will not place this mod in ANY order. You need to do this by hand. This is where the messages from MO's 'Potential Mod order Problem' dialog comes into play.

 

The order in which these mods in the left-hand pane are placed could be likened to the instructions mod authors give about installing their mod before or after other mods. The difference here is no assets ever get overwritten and nothing is ever lost because of the order you "install" mods with MO. Simply reorder the left-hand mods and you can have ModB's textures in game.

If at some point you install ModC which also is a texture overhaul (As an example. It could be a replacement for anything.) You can simply switch the order to see which mod you like the best.

 

This, in my opinion, is the greatest benefit of using MO. The VFS it employs means we have a much greater freedom over what goes into our game.

[Tannin]

Huh? This is an entirely new concept for me. I never thought that mod order changes anything if there are no file conflicts. Is there a forum post with a more in depth explaination for this?

I'm not sure we (Spock, GrantSP and me) are on the same page here.

Are you refering to "Some mods require to be re-initialized if their index changes "?

 

This is absolutely not a new problem or something related to MO, this has been true at least since Oblivion and with or without MO.

If a esp has mod idx 1f then all id (for example for items) have the ids starting with 1f, so the new armor added by the mod might have the id "1fbaddad"

Now obviously if you reorder mod and the mod idx becomes 1a then the armor id becomes "1abaddad". The game can usually cope with that keeping your inventory intact but the custom scripts in many mods can not and have to be reinitialized.

[Spock]

I am referring to "Potential mod order problem":

 

 

The conflict resolution order for some mods containing scripts differs from that of the corresponding esp.
This may lead to subtle, hard to locate bugs. You should re-order the affected mods (left list!).
There is no way to reliably know if each of these changes is absolutely necessary but its definitively safer.
If someone suggested you ignore this message, please give them a proper slapping from me. Do not ignore this warning
The following changes should prevent these kinds of errors:

• Move When Vampires Attack after Even Better Quest Objectives
• Move Thieves Guild Requirements - No Auto Quest Start Brynjolf after When Vampires Attack
• Move Complete Crafting Overhaul Remade after Thieves Guild Requirements - No Auto Quest Start Brynjolf
• Move Non-Essential Children after Complete Crafting Overhaul Remade
• Move The Choice is Yours - Fewer Forced Quests - Improved Dialogue Options after Non-Essential Children
• Move The Paarthurnax Dilemma after The Choice is Yours - Fewer Forced Quests - Improved Dialogue Options
• Move Alternate Start - Live Another Life after The Paarthurnax Dilemma

 

This sounds rather important. I don't understand it though because looking at the conflicts tab many of those mods show no asset conflicts at all.

[Tannin]

That shouldn't be the case. The suggestions should only list mods that have conflicting scripts and the moves should simply put the mods in the same order as the corresponding esp.

 

This is because mods with bsas would (if the bsas weren't extracted and you weren't using MOs archive order handling) load in the same order as the esps no matter what your "installation" order is and some mod authors may rely on that.

[Spock]

Hmm... seems like some things may not work the way intended. Non-Essential Children already is loaded after CCOR.

 

Side question regarding the matter: Does the conflicts tab under mod information take files packed in a bsa into consideration for conflicts? If yes then most of the mods MO lists me have no pex file conflicts.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Spock

[GrantSP]

To test this situation I DL'd and installed Non-Essential Children, as it wasn't in my load list, and then ran MO's 'Sort'.

The "Potential mod order problem" result should display only problems related to the position of that mod alone, as prior to installation there were no issues.

However my warning list contained:

Move Timing is Everything - Quest Delay and Timing Control after Non-Essential Children
Move Traps Make Noise - More Dangerous Traps after Timing is Everything - Quest Delay and Timing Control
Move UFO - Heartfire AddOn after Traps Make Noise - More Dangerous Traps
Move Ars Metallica - Smithing Enhancement after UFO - Heartfire AddOn
Move The Choice is Yours - Dawnguard after Ars Metallica - Smithing Enhancement
Move Smithing Perks Overhaul after The Choice is Yours - Dawnguard

Simply stated the result description for the newly installed mod is wrong. The last five entries in this list are in the positions they are being told they need to be moved to. The only difference is the new mod which, as it was just installed is last in the list.

 

Moving that one mod, Non-Essential Children, to before Timing is Everything - Quest Delay and Timing Control results in all the errors being flagged as in the correct order and the warning disappears.

 

So, while I won't say the error-checking is wrong, there does indeed appear to be some tweaking of the results that are displayed.

[GrantSP]

...

Side question regarding the matter: Does the conflicts tab under mod information take files packed in a bsa into consideration for conflicts? If yes then most of the mods MO lists me have no pex file conflicts.

Yes. The files inside bsas are also taken into consideration.

 

As for no script conflicts. Well I am actually coming around to believe there may be an error with the 'error-checking'.

 

Using this mod in question, Non-Essential Children, manually moving that mod to another priority immediately triggers the PMOP dialog even though there are no conflicting assets contained within that mod and the mod the PMOP says it conflicts with.