Vortex has proven unusable so far. Every time I try to switch to the games tab I get a red screen saying ‘failed to render’. The alternative seems to be Mod Organizer 2 but I’m not familiar with the tool. Is it best to just bite the bullet and use MO2 learning along the way or is there another way to get vortex to work?
Or perhaps another modding tool that would be more effective for Steam titles.
Any advice or recommendations would be much appreciated.
I normally try to mod games without these sort of tools and just back up the directory before making changes. I think the best experience I had when I did have to use a tool like this was with Bottles when I was modding Fallout 3 but that was quite a while back now so I cannot recall what I used.
Mod Organiser 2 is pretty much the only tool use for installing mods for around a decade. One game I mod manually is Morrowind with many mods but this is the only one.
Worked fine for my games with hundreds of mods on them, it’s been very robust for me so far especially since the files from mods never overwrite each other permanently so you can remove and add mods any time and making changes non-destructively as the mod load order manages the overwriting process.
That being said I haven’t used Vortex or other tools (unless you go back to ones in early or mid 2000s made for a single game) MO2 is the only one I use.
Stardew Valley is one exception where I use it’s own mod tools rather than MO2. There are probably other games like this too but I just don’t happen to play them.
I’m unsure of the Linux installer for MO2 as my MO2 is the Windows version. I won’t be much help in terms of the linux install process, but the software itself I am very familiar with so in terms of recommending MO2 as a program to @crilglay and others it is something I can approve.
A lot of my MO2 setups were from a long time ago (2018 and 2021) when I was still using Windows, but I backed up all the configs and directories for MO2 and the game directories so my modded games work just by copy and pasting the files and directories in to the WINE prefixes other than installing the dependencies for MO2 and the game/mods to run. This is the main reason I still have the windows version, but it works though.
Probably not considered the correct or best way of installing MO2 fresh on Linux, and I would have to use a guide if I were to install MO2 the linux way for a new game (unless MO2 windows version still works but I haven’t tried).
This is an image of MO2 running and working, version 2.4.4 from 2021. And The game running with all the mods including the third party ENB and script extender tools. MO2 is probably one of the best modding tools I’ve used, non-destructive and can highlight which mods conflict with others, which in some cases could be a single texture, and great tool for troubleshooting because if a mod causes a crash you can just uncheck it again to go back to normal or for finding a troublesome mod can be done by just unchecking and checking a mod back. It’s a worthwhile tool to learn.
Is this after selecting the option to create a new instance?
It has been a while but MO2 used to manage a lot more games than that even though I never played most of them, Mount and Blade II Bannerlord for example was a game I used Mod Organiser on a long time ago.
At least for my MO2, although it is about 5 years old for my version of MO2 (Although I still use it to add and manage mods for the games I have it set up for) so maybe something changed since then. I assumed they would have added more games since then which is why I recommended it. Unless of course this is a difference between the Windows and Linux version but I haven’t tested the linux one and my current version for Windows is pretty old so I don’t know if something changed with newer versions in terms of game support but I haven’t updated it since all the mods work at their current state and I use it offline.
As it says this version will manage one game only, and part of the install process is selecting that game. When I installed it I chose an arbitrary game because my game was not in the list. i think M02 got tied to the game I chose, and beings it could not find it, it would not work. It just showed a “could not find” message. Maybe I should look for an older version
Actually they link the version, Mod Organizer 2.5.2-ML1.5 Installer, from Nexus Mods website. I installed it with Steam as a non steam game. We will see how it goes.
I did get the new instance dialog box, so it is looking promising.
If all u want is to install one mod, just manually installing it without using a mod manager is the way to go. Mod managers are only really beneficial when you have a large mod collection of like 20+ mods at least
Looking at that versions page it does seem like the Linux version supports fewer games currently. In this case depending on the game and the number of mods (and complexity of even one mod) being installed it could end up being best to manual install, or that game may have it’s own mod manager, or use vortex if it works correctly but I don’t used Vortex since the games I play have other alternative mod managers. But these would be the only options if the game isn’t listed or doesn’t work with MO2.
My Morrowind does have a couple hundred mods despite being fully manual install other than plugin management and is extremely stable but I have to back up the whole game before adding a new mod or group of mods in case of issues and then test the new mod carefully so it’s not quite a smooth process or with safety nets as using a mod manager.
