I've hunted around for a how to, but most posts that I've found are oriented around games from Bethesda and discuss LOOT, ESMs, Plugins, none of which (as far as I can tell) apply to Kenshi. Also, I haven't been able to find any posts/videos/guides that address the title topic in Vortex 1.11.7, so I'm breaking down and posting for some help/feedback to help me understand what I'm missing here.
Load Order
I realize Kenshi is a old game and likely has an approach that most games on Nexus abandoned, but since Nexus is hosting mods specifically for Kenshi, I assume there has to be enough compatibility between Vortex and the mods hosted on Nexus for it be relevant. The load order for modding is summed up in a guide on Steam authored by Atlas here if you wish to read the full article. It instructs one to open the mods.cfg file in the data folder and be aware of the "Overwrite Rule" which stats mods lower in the order overwrite those above it. Summarized, the load order is based on categories that are as follows:
- UI, Graphics, Performance (I.E.World Texture,weather effects, ground clutter & foliage, map, UI changes).
- Animations
- New Races, Race Edits, combination starts/race mods (I.E. game starts, recruits, animal additions and support, overwrites for minor characters).
- Faction Edits & Simple additions (I.E. Minor faction edits that change spawn mechanics, minor faction additions such as bounties, new minor factions).
- Buildings (I.E. additions, changes to furniture (texture, recipes, models) standalone mods, overhauls, stat edits to buildings)
- Armor Weapons
- Overhauls & Big Additions/World Changes (mods that add a small town, item overhauls, weapon/armor overhauls that add in quests, locations & bosses unlike the section above, total world overhauls, mechanic and item overhauls).
- Patches
- Economy
So I get that well enough, and prior to making use of Vortex/Nexus, I used Steam's subscribe feature and would manually organize the load order via Atlas' guide to the best of my understanding of where a subscribed mod fit into. I ran with 43 mods for around 80 hours without issue, leading me to believe I had a functional grasp of how to sort the load order. But this manual method doesn't let me use profiles, a feature of Vortex I'm quite fond of. So I unsubbed from everything on Steam and used Vortex for my mod manager, but I ran into a clusterpuck regarding load order and not having kept up with Vortex for a couple of years, I'm a bit lost as to what's going on. Below is a image of what Vortex's mod panel is showing me:
As you can see, there is no plugins tab to sort a load order. From what I've been able to find from reading various posts, the "Deploy Order" = Load Order, which Vortex goes against Atlas' guide on managing this. From reading the Github site on the matter, it informs that there are 2 ways to do this, the first is to use the "Manage Rules" button. When I do this, it says I have no file conflicts, and only gives me the option to cancel or save. This is completely at odds with the example image on the Github guide, where the instructions show an example where one is able to instruct Vortex to load Mod A after Mod B (these are esps though, so perhaps that's not applicable to mods for Kenshi?).
The guide then goes on to say that I can use groups to sort plugins. Unfortunately, the image the instructions refer to is broken, it only stats a "I06.png" label, so i'm left to guess what that button looks like. The image below that missing image provides a example of dragging lines between group nodes. I (somewhat) understand the concept explained there, my take on it would be that that I would create groups based on the list above, and then put any mods in the appropriate groups. Unfortunately, Vortex's menu doesn't have anything even remotely matching the Gitbhub guide, the only thing I could find thatseemedto match was the "Categories" button. While I can drag the categories up and down, and allows me to add childs, there is no documentation on the Github of what this does or how to use it.
Again, I get that the tool is for games in general, but if you're going to point me at the Github as the go-to source for how to use the tool, I expect to find up to date instructions matching the new interface, and since that isn't the case, I have to come here and ask how on earth do I manage my load order via Vortex?? What is up with the Categories button and why isn't it documented on the Github site?
This dovetails into my primary reason for wanting to use Vortex which is the use of profiles. I'd love to try out the collections on the site, but I'm not going to do so without the profile feature. if I can't even get the load order correct, I'm left to doubt that Vortex can handle different profiles since from what I've been able to deduce from looking at the mods.cfg file, that doesn't get a separate entry. I.E. if I have 3 profiles with different mods, they all would just get piled into the same cfg file. Or am I mistaken in that?
Any feedback and/or instructions would be much appreciated.
