LOOT not showing mods installed via MO?

[xendrus]

https://i.imgur.com/mAQi4QW.png LOOT is showing 8 mods, ignoring distant decal fix etc. Is LOOT supposed to ignore all mods and only function for the original 8? The STEP wiki instructions are very sparse and leave you guessing in many places. I'm haven't installed 3 mods yet and I've already ran into many many issues that the guide ignores entirely and gives 0 instruction for.

Edited June 2, 2015 by xendrus

[GrantSP]

According to that screengrab, you only have the original vanilla plugins loaded! What are you expecting to see in LOOT?

LOOT will only sort the list of plugins you provide it with, in your case, nothing is added.

 

Unrelated, but you don't need the HiRes plugins to load, disable them and have MO manage the BSAs by itself, and then sort the left hand pane to have them load after the other unmanaged data.

[xendrus]

I have no idea at all how to load the mods then. Something else the STEP guide did not specify. Also have no idea how to do the second thing you mentioned.

 

Also just spent 30 minutes trying to add a plugin. Either this is literally the most unintuitive software on Earth or.. No I'm going to go with that.

Drag and drop to the right panel? Nope. Right click the mod to add it? Nope. Any buttons on the right panel to add plugins? Nope. Anything up top? Nope. I've clicked every button, right clicked everything, dragged and dropped everything. Nothing.

 

Ooo, install mod! ... No. that just adds another .zip file to the list of mods that apparently are not installed, so the button should be called "do not install mod, but put it on this list that doesn't do anything"

 

Enable all visible? Nothing happens.

Edited June 2, 2015 by xendrus

[thommaal]

There is a whole series of videos on how to install, set up and use Mod Organizer and the most important third party tools within it (including LOOT). They might do a better job to help you than any verbal explanation.

 

You can also access GamerPoets whole S.T.E.P. video series on youtube.

Edited June 2, 2015 by thommaal

[xendrus]

Not really worth spending a week watching videos for 1 game's mods, I was under the impression the guide on the wiki was a guide is all.

[thommaal]

It is. And it usually works quite well. But not everyone prefers verbal information, and some people have an easier time to process new knowledge (audio-)visually.

[xendrus]

I absolutely cannot stand tutorial videos, I much prefer a text document I can scan and refer back to. But the wiki guide simply ignores steps constantly and is unusable, is there an actual written step guide anywhere?

[thommaal]

Well, you can access a printable version of the STEP guide under TOOLBOX in the Wiki - but that just contains the information that didn't help you in the first place.

 

You could install Neovalen's Skyrim Revisited instead. His pack doesn't depend on a STEP installation but is an alternative. And his guide is usually considered one of the best (it was the foundation of my first modded Skyrim experience). However, he uses different mods (which might not be to your liking) and the hardware required to run his load order needs to be more potent.

 

But to answer your initial question wrt. "Distant Decal Fix". I just downloaded it to see what it contains and there's only a mesh-folder. Since there is no esp or esm, LOOT ignores it.

 

If you want meshes or textures included in one mod to overwrite other mods (or be overwritten by other mods), you use the priority list in MO to place the mod where you want it to go.

 

And the STEP guide tells you where to put it:

 

 

This mod is installed before USKP to allow USKP to override where there are conflicts.

Added:

 

And that's why "Distant Decal Fix" is placed even before the Unofficial Skyrim Patch in the table that contains all the mods that you install when you follow the STEP guide.

 

Basically, the table tells you when and how to install the mods included in STEP.

 

Of course, it's easier to just install mods via the STEAM Workshop. The problem is: plenty of mods overwrite files from other mods or don't agree with each other. That's why you need conflict resolution. And the STEP guide and all the additional packs that can be found here put a lot of effort into this essential step toward a smooth gaming experience.

Edited June 2, 2015 by thommaal

[Tannin]

The confusion stems from the fact people are very inprecise when talking about mods.

 

A mod is a bundle of things that change the game, including textures, meshes, audio and plugins.

Plugins (in this context) are changes to the game world.

Plugins have the file extension esp (elder scrolls plugin) or esm (elder scrolls master) but let's not go into that detail.

 

LOOT orders plugins NOT mods.

 

It's very possible for a mod to consist only of - say - textures. In this case LOOT doesn't do anything for that mod and it doesn't have to.

 

You have three mods installed but none of them contain plugins so nothing new shows up in LOOT.

There is no problem there, everything is good (unless one of the mods was supposed to contain a plugin which I can't say from over here)

[thommaal]

The confusion stems from the fact people are very inprecise when talking about mods.

 

True enough. So, to elaborate a bit further:

 

MO allows you to easily (re-)order installed mods in two ways:

 

In its initial setting, the window on the left lists all the mods in the order in which they were installed. You can also order mods by name or flags etc., but when you click on the column "Priority", you'll see the installation order. Usually, installation order is set by the order in which you install mods, not so in MO. Since no Mod physically overwrites files from another mod in MO (unless you specifically allow it to do so) you can switch the installation order any time by changing priority numbers - the lower the number the earlier the place of the mod within the installation order. So, files within mods are usually just virtually overwritten, prevalence of one file over another can be changed any time (though it's generally not advisable to do so mid-game).

 

The plugin-window on the right allows you to order the position of esps and esms. This is the often mentioned Load Order (LO).

 

As Tannin mentioned, not all mods include an esp or esm. Which means, that they are not plugins and therefore ignored by LOOT or BOSS.

 

Installation and Load Order determine dominance of one file over another. If two or more mods change the same file, the last one in the order is going to be loaded into the game.

 

Ordering mods and plugins is the basic step of conflict resolution. The STEP Guide and the additional or alternative packs give you an order that has proven to resolve conflicts among the installed mods as much as possible. It's not enough, but it's the foundation of more elaborate efforts done later (see here for an example).

Edited June 2, 2015 by thommaal