OpenMW Vortex integration

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ajira2
Posts: 55
Joined: 30 Oct 2017, 14:27

OpenMW Vortex integration

Post by ajira2 »

I recently discovered Vortex mod manager from Nexus mods. After always installing mods manually, I feel this is a blessing.

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I'm modding Skyrim to the max. The features that I like the most are:

— It optimizes the load order automatically with LOOT integrated.
— It tells you if a mod is redundant.
— It tells you if a mod has conflicts with another mod and lets you choose which one loads later (for translations, for textures, for NPC replacers),
— It tells you when a mod is updated on the nexus (I think), etc.
— It tells you if a mod is missing masters or important resources to work (in Morrowind would warn you if you try to load a mod that needs OAAB or Tamriel Data without those being installed).
— Nice menus for choosing mod's options (do you want it 2k, 4k? do you want to apply this patches? DETECTING AUTOMAGICALLY which mods do you have already installed and marking the correct patches), CHECK OUT IMAGE:

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etc.

With manual installing I had to do frequent backups, in case I messed up, and it was hard to detect the culprit. Here you can disable a few suspecting mods and find the culprit very easily, and you don't need to make backups.

So, my point is, wouldn't be nice for Open MW to be supported by Vortex, officially or with an extension? Skyrim is supported officially, Cyberpunk 2077 with an extension.

I lack the knowledge to do this. Someone has or can point to a tutorial to do this?
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AnyOldName3
Posts: 2668
Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25

Re: OpenMW Vortex integration

Post by AnyOldName3 »

I'll provide some background for how useful these things are for OpenMW, plus a comparison with the only existing GUI mod manager with some OpenMW awareness, Mod Organizer 2.

Bear in mind that you don't strictly need direct OpenMW support to use Vortex with OpenMW - if you tell it you're modding Morrowind, and then use it as you normally would for Morrowind, then tell OpenMW to import your Morrowind setup at the end of the process, it'll work, but won't be aware of OpenMW-specific stuff.
It optimizes the load order automatically with LOOT integrated.
This isn't really a thing for Morrowind, as LOOT only has really basic support. MO2 has MLOX integration (an older tool that does work), and LOOT integration for the later games which could be used for Morrowind once it becomes useful.
It tells you if a mod is redundant.
MO2 does this.
It tells you if a mod has conflicts with another mod and lets you choose which one loads later (for translations, for textures, for NPC replacers),
MO2 does this. You can also do the reordering if you use OpenMW's built-in VFS, although there isn't visibility of what conflicts with what.
It tells you when a mod is updated on the nexus (I think), etc.
Yep, Vortex does that. So does MO2.
It tells you if a mod is missing masters or important resources to work (in Morrowind would warn you if you try to load a mod that needs OAAB or Tamriel Data without those being installed).
MO2 does this and so does OpenMW's launcher. You also get an error at runtime if you try and actually run OpenMW.
Nice menus for choosing mod's options (do you want it 2k, 4k? do you want to apply this patches? DETECTING AUTOMAGICALLY which mods do you have already installed and marking the correct patches),
This is mostly down to how the mods are packaged. For the later games, mods with options are usually packaged as FOMODs, which let the mod author describe these menus in a way different mod managers can understand and present nicely. Most Morrowind mods aren't packaged in a format like this - you'll get a BAIN with several subpackages if you're lucky, but usually a mess in a plain zip file. Currently, MO2 can cope with more mod packaging formats than any other mod manager. E.g. Vortex can't do scripted OMODs or BAIN wizards (not the same thing as a BAIN with subpackages), which will begin to matter once OpenMW expands to support the later games.

Annoyingly, there are a silly number of these formats and many of them are ridiculously complicated, so it's not going to be viable to support them directly in OpenMW's launcher.
With manual installing I had to do frequent backups, in case I messed up, and it was hard to detect the culprit. Here you can disable a few suspecting mods and find the culprit very easily, and you don't need to make backups.
If you're using OpenMW properly (i.e. making use of the multiple data directory feature) you can do all this directly with OpenMW and skip the mod manager.
So, my point is, wouldn't be nice for Open MW to be supported by Vortex, officially or with an extension? Skyrim is supported officially, Cyberpunk 2077 with an extension.
For now, everyone on the OpenMW team with the aptitude to make an extension and a meaningful awareness of Vortex doesn't like it one bit, so support on our end isn't going to happen any time soon. A third party could make an extension, or if someone working for Black Tree Gaming contacted us for an explanation of what data needs feeding to OpenMW, they could add built-in support.
I lack the knowledge to do this. Someone has or can point to a tutorial to do this?
I think there's documentation for making Vortex extensions somewhere on the Nexus or its GitHub page. There are also Black Tree Gaming developers on the Nexus' discord server who'll be able to point you in the right direction if you want to do it yourself. The main technologies involved are Electron, TypeScript and Node.js, which should give you a basic idea of what you need to know to get started if you've got any programming experience.
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