[RELz] LOOT - Load Order Optimisation Tool

[M00nP1e]

Got it, took me a while to see the Filters bar bottom left of the screen.

"Hide Official Plugins Cleaning Messages"

[JacobTaylorME2]

The hosts of the Viva New Vegas modlist recommend outright against using LOOT with Fallout New Vegas. (To paraphrase: use our load order and don't touch it if you don't know what you're doing.)

I'm writing a small personal mod. Every time I hit save in the Construction Kit, my mod goes to the bottom of the load order. I've been using LOOT to move my mod a few steps up the load order. Until recently, it's been quick and automatic. But, with the latest version (LOOT v0.22.0 64-bit) LOOT has also been placing NevadaSkies.esp near the top of my load order. Nevada Skies needs to be at the very bottom.

I'm wondering 1) what's going on with the Nevada Skies placement all of a sudden? and 2) there's a lot of text to wade through when I follow the instructions in your error message (attached) - can you give me an idea how to sort through it and find what I need to find? I have difficulty reading text on screen and the quicker I can find what I need the better.

[sibir]

48 minutes ago, JacobTaylorME2 said:

The hosts of the Viva New Vegas modlist recommend outright against using LOOT with Fallout New Vegas. (To paraphrase: use our load order and don't touch it if you don't know what you're doing.)

I'm writing a small personal mod. Every time I hit save in the Construction Kit, my mod goes to the bottom of the load order. I've been using LOOT to move my mod a few steps up the load order. Until recently, it's been quick and automatic. But, with the latest version (LOOT v0.22.0 64-bit) LOOT has also been placing NevadaSkies.esp near the top of my load order. Nevada Skies needs to be at the very bottom.

I'm wondering 1) what's going on with the Nevada Skies placement all of a sudden? and 2) there's a lot of text to wade through when I follow the instructions in your error message (attached) - can you give me an idea how to sort through it and find what I need to find? I have difficulty reading text on screen and the quicker I can find what I need the better.

Update to the latest release of LOOT & see if you still get the error.

[JacobTaylorME2]

I thought that was the latest release? Can you tell me what is? Or link it? Thanks.

[WrinklyNinja]

24 minutes ago, JacobTaylorME2 said:

I thought that was the latest release? Can you tell me what is? Or link it? Thanks.

https://github.com/loot/loot/releases/tag/0.22.0

That's the latest release - you say you're running it but it looks like you aren't, because if you were you wouldn't get the errors you're seeing.

[JacobTaylorME2]

Sorry about that. MO2 was still pointing to the old installation, which was still in a separate folder. I pointed MO2 to the right folder, and the new version seems to have fixed it. Thanks very much!

I've been using LOOT with Skyrim a lot longer than I've been playing New Vegas, so it's not a tool I'm going to stop using because some Fallout guys also don't like it. The VNV guys don't like that I'm using Nevada Skies instead of their recommended weather mod. They also don't like Gamerpoets, but beyond their basic modlist (performance & stability, UI and QofA) I take everything they say with a grain of salt. LOL 

Edited October 30, 2023 by JacobTaylorME2

[M00nP1e]

On 10/29/2023 at 5:32 PM, sibir said:

We're caught up, that's why there's a filter to hide those cleaning messages. However, some people think there's still utility to cleaning them, so we've kept the messages around. It's almost certainly not going to make a difference either way these days, but I'd personally just avoid cleaning them & use the filter.

I have a request :

1. As I imagine an experienced / advanced user of LOOT will be aware that the DLCs initially have not been cleaned, if they want to clean them and check all is good with LOOT, then they could disable the filter.

2. Whereas a new user such as myself takes those warnings as accepted practice that actions need to be taken to clean the DLCs.

If the current advice from advanced users is not to clean the DLCs, then supressing those warnings should be the by default setting.

In scenario 1 worst case is an advanced user forgets the DLCs have not been cleaned for whatever imagined purpose. Advanced user should know better.

In scenario 2 LOOT is perpetually advising new inexperienced users they need to clean DLCs which is advice which has now fallen out of favour as a good practice.

Personally I have seen in researching best practices there are legacy tutorials all over the place saying cleaning DLCs is a good thing to do, and LOOTs warnings were the reason I sought out how to go about cleaning them. Supressing those warnings by going to the filters bar at the bottom left of the screen, and putting a tick in the box is not an intuitive thing to do, a new user even finding that setting will assume the default settings are best practice and not touch it.

So shouldn't LOOT default to not presenting warnings for the DLCs, and steer new users on the correct path?

 

Personally after Arthmoors advice I just did a File / Cache Verify with GOG Galaxy to get the original plugins back, but I also had to restart a new game in case what I had done previously became embedded in my saves.

So the warnings led me on a bit of a merry journey that was not necessary.

lmstearn led me to a conversation, MadCat221 posted here https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4978860-unofficial-skyrim-special-edition-patch/page-1043#entry109338978

Garymmorris5976 further on in that conversation says he too was influenced by LOOT warnings to clean the DLCs

Edited October 31, 2023 by M00nP1e

[sibir]

At this point, it's such an established practice across nearly all games that hiding them by default is just going to cause more confusion than it's worth. Some users are going to think we're missing the cleaning data & report it to us unnecessarily, & some users are going to be confused about why LOOT is counting more warning messages than appear in the UI. Also, the chances of cleaning vanilla plugins causing any more issues is slim to none, so we're not actively causing issues by continuing to show them. LOOT is hardly the only place people get advised to clean vanilla plugins, so I don't think it's going to have a huge impact either way. I'd therefore favor the status quo, but I'm not completely opposed. However, I'll just defer to the other maintainers if they have stronger views on the topic.

Edited October 31, 2023 by sibir

[Akopian]

I also was led to believe that I needed to clean the dlc masters as I have been away for a long time, and it still said to clean it, so I did.  If I had seen a message in loot that said it was no longer necessary with maybe a link to a more in-depth discussion, I would not have cleaned them.  I like to stay on top of things when I mod, so I would have liked knowing that it is no longer necessary.  Always hated that step anyway as it annoyed me that it had to be done . . . Anyway, that is my take on this issue for what it is worth as an occasional user.  Thanks for all your work, whatever you decide to do or not do.   This is no kind of demand for change, just a little more data for my personal experience for you to consider when you decide what to do.  Either way, I am amazed that LOOT even exists!  In my book, beggars can't be choosers, and you are the chooser.  Fine with me.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Akopian
I realized that this would not appear as a direct reply to a specific message without quoting it.

[Akopian]

On 8/31/2017 at 2:16 PM, pStyl3 said:

For the next ~44 hours I can test anything you want wrinklyninja, then I'm without a real internet connection once again for some time.

Regarding the Creation Club, apparently everyone who has Fallout installed will automatically download any and all .ba2 archives from all CC-mods, regardless if they where purchased or not. Gopher also talkes about it (see 0:54). Cartogriffi also answers some legal concerns here.

Also, to quote hlp:

 

 

I was interested in seeing the bit about legal concerns, but it appears the link is broken.  I would love to know more thought.  

[M00nP1e]

20 hours ago, Akopian said:

I also was led to believe that I needed to clean the dlc masters as I have been away for a long time, and it still said to clean it, so I did.  If I had seen a message in loot that said it was no longer necessary with maybe a link to a more in-depth discussion, I would not have cleaned them.  I like to stay on top of things when I mod, so I would have liked knowing that it is no longer necessary.  Always hated that step anyway as it annoyed me that it had to be done . . . Anyway, that is my take on this issue for what it is worth as an occasional user.  Thanks for all your work, whatever you decide to do or not do.   This is no kind of demand for change, just a little more data for my personal experience for you to consider when you decide what to do.  Either way, I am amazed that LOOT even exists!  In my book, beggars can't be choosers, and you are the chooser.  Fine with me.

I dont think we will influence the developers on this.

I think they are taking the path of least resistance, with a happy medium.

It would be more noble to change the default to not showing the warnings for DLCs, but then the established practice and the many legacy advice topics advising to clean the DLC masters for so long is going to have the majority of users doubting the advice, and complaining that LOOT is getting it wrong.

So I can understand sibir's response to my question, its going to take balls to go with a new idea which seemingly does not have any support from even the xEdit team, who still show you how to clean DLCs in their documentation, and indeed provided a new .exe to simplify the process.

Edited November 2, 2023 by M00nP1e

[Arthmoor]

People shouldn't be using those legacy guides anyway as they're almost all out of date in everything they advise. That's part of the problem with the BGS modding community. A lot of static information that never gets updated.

[pStyl3]

In my opinion showing the xEdit cleaning report even for the official files (by default) is more beneficial than not showing it (by default). Here's an example how these reports are stored within each masterlist:

  - name: 'DLCRobot.esm'
    group: *dlcGroup
    dirty:
      - <<: *quickClean
        crc: 0xD69027EA
        util: '[FO4Edit v4.0.3h (Hotfix 1)](https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/2737)'
        itm: 49
        udr: 38
        nav: 1

We have two different messages that can be used to display an xEdit cleaning result: &quickClean and &reqManualFix

&quickClean
A guide to cleaning plugins using xEdit can be found [here](https://tes5edit.github.io/docs/7-mod-cleaning-and-error-checking.html#ThreeEasyStepstocleanMods).

&reqManualFix
It is strongly recommended not to use mods that contain **deleted navmeshes** as they''re known to cause crashes. **Deleted navmeshes** must be corrected manually (a complex process that should be done by the mod author). More information on **deleted navmeshes** is provided [here](https://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Fixing_Navmesh_Deletion_Tutorial).

&quickClean is displayed with a yellow background, indicating that it is a message of type "warn" (warning), and &reqManualFix is displayed with a red background, indicating that it is a message of type "error".

The first thing to mention here is that &quickClean is assigned to plugins that have ITMs and/or UDRs, but no NAVs. Once xEdit finds that a plugin has deleted navmeshes, we assign the &reqManualFix message to a plugin.

The official plugins are treated special in this regard, as we only assign the &quickClean message to them. So while DLCRobot.esm from the example above should normally have the &reqManualFix messaged assigned to it (as it includes 1 deleted navmesh), we "downgraded" that to &quickClean because people won't fix navmesh errors in the official files anyway.

When it comes to "best practices", the advise to not clean the official files .. in my opinion it is a subjective opinion what the best practices really are. In the same way that some people prefer to use Vortex, some prefer MO, some prefer Wrye Bash as their mod manager, best practises can greatly differ from person to person. I for one, do not share the viewpoint that it's best to not clean the official files. But others do, and for those the filter to hide the cleaning messages for official files has been introduced (in v0.21.0).

There's also the meta behind showing the cleaning reports for the official files, that people are actually informed about them being a thing in the official files - which then enables them to make a decision for themselves, whether or not they want to clean the official files. If we wouldn't show them, many people wouldn't know in the first place, that the official files include ITMs, UDRs and NAVs.

All in all, I'm okay with the things as they are.

Edited November 5, 2023 by pStyl3

[WrinklyNinja]

FWIW I don't have an opinion on what LOOT's default for the official plugins cleaning filter should be: it's disabled by default right now, but I'm equally happy to change it to enabled by default as I am leaving it as it is.

[Godis1]

Since the last release, LOOT v0.22.1, my sort button remains greyed out. I've tried to reset LOOT, un- and re-installed it, but it still doesn't work.

[sibir]

15 minutes ago, Godis1 said:

Since the last release, LOOT v0.22.1, my sort button remains greyed out. I've tried to reset LOOT, un- and re-installed it, but it still doesn't work.

Please read the changelog, sorting has been disabled for Starfield.

[Godis1]

26 minutes ago, sibir said:

Please read the changelog, sorting has been disabled for Starfield.

Oh, I'm sorry! Missed that one :/ 
THX

EDIT: I use LOOT mostly only for adding newly installed plugins to plugins.txt automatically. So, would it be possible to temporarily add an option, so LOOT would add an Asterix (*) in front of all newly added plugin names, and also ignore the very first line in plugins.txt, since it starts with "# ...", which is required in order for Plugins.txt Enabler SFSE plugin to work properly. Currently, LOOT removes that line, when performing "fix ambiguous load order" option and new added plugins must have the * added manually afterward.
I think these would be simple additions, but they would come in very handy until Starfield receives official mod support.
Also, I would love to be able to drag and drop plugins in the load order, like it's possible in Wrye Bash. Do you consider adding this, too?

Edited November 6, 2023 by Godis1

[sibir]

On 11/6/2023 at 11:16 AM, Godis1 said:

Oh, I'm sorry! Missed that one :/ 
THX

EDIT: I use LOOT mostly only for adding newly installed plugins to plugins.txt automatically. So, would it be possible to temporarily add an option, so LOOT would add an Asterix (*) in front of all newly added plugin names, and also ignore the very first line in plugins.txt, since it starts with "# ...", which is required in order for Plugins.txt Enabler SFSE plugin to work properly. Currently, LOOT removes that line, when performing "fix ambiguous load order" option and new added plugins must have the * added manually afterward.
I think these would be simple additions, but they would come in very handy until Starfield receives official mod support.
Also, I would love to be able to drag and drop plugins in the load order, like it's possible in Wrye Bash. Do you consider adding this, too?

LOOT doesn't activate or deactivate plugins (i.e., add the asterisk), use your mod manager for that. It also doesn't allow manually reordering plugins within its UI as sorting would likely ignore those changes. Use custom rules to make sure LOOT preserves them instead. However, as previously noted, sorting is disabled for SF anyway, so there's little point to using LOOT with SF until it gets official mod support (there's not much in the SF masterlist either).

[Wolfie0201]

curious, are Cleaning reports still posted in here or elsewhere? the "Three Easy Steps to clean Mods" pointed me to this website.

[pStyl3]

40 minutes ago, Wolfie0201 said:

curious, are Cleaning reports still posted in here or elsewhere? the "Three Easy Steps to clean Mods" pointed me to this website.

Posting them here is fine. People post them also on our Discord server, as well as on GitHub.

[WrinklyNinja]

LOOT v0.22.2 released!

The changelog can be found here.

This just fixes a couple of ini file parsing errors.

[Wolfie0201]

alright. i have been using the experimental updated version of FO4 edit and haven't noticed any issues. however, i removed all of the mods and started fresh since the game files were becoming corrupted and what not for some reason. so i found a mod, shown in LOOT, that needs to be cleaned. i do so, as shown in the guide with FO4 Quick Clean, yet it still keeps coming up as needing to be cleaned in LOOT. below is the cleaning report from it. it is DLCWorkshop02.esm for Fallout 4 (and yes, i have all the DLCs)

Edited December 2, 2023 by Wolfie0201
adding info

[pStyl3]

Thanks, I've pushed a fix for this, so please update your masterlist.

[WrinklyNinja]

LOOT v0.22.3 released!

The changelog can be found here.

This just fixes compatibility with the recent Skyrim SE update.

Edited December 7, 2023 by WrinklyNinja

[Fiery]

Hello, I have installed the GOG version of Skyrim and when I launch LOOT through MO2 it cannot find it, I have tried changing so the default opening game is set to Skyrim Special Edition GOG, changing the file path name has no effect, tried rebooting but didn't help, does anyone know any m/p/f codes I can pop into the arguments so it can recognise it?
The game is stored in F\GOG Games\Skyrim Anniversary Edition and as I use MO2 with it's own inis I have to use a load of codes for my tools to get them to work. I did have have both the Steam and GOG versions installed and it worked then, but it stopped working once I had uninstalled the Steam version. Can anyone advise?

EDIT.

Resetting the Install Path again and instead of typing in the location I browsed for it and it found it and now loads up.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fiery
Fixed the problem, said how I did it.