Mastodawn

PenisWenisGenius

How do you install mods for Skyrim Special Edition?

https://lemmynsfw.com/post/13514333

How do you install mods for Skyrim Special Edition? - Lemmy NSFW

Seriously. I don’t know that it can be done on Linux. There was a user on protondb that claimed the game works “even with lots of mods” but there’s no way to message people on there and ask them how the fuck they got something to work. Every single mod requires “Unnoffical Skyrim Special Edition Patch” just about. That mod has esps in it. Esp mods cannot be installed without LOOT which can’t run on Linux. Even if I add my mod load order in plugins.txt and write protect it, the game still somehow erases it and refused to load any mods. Any advice?

FluffyPotato Jul 4, 2024

This is what I use: github.com/…/modorganizer2-linux-installer

GitHub - rockerbacon/modorganizer2-linux-installer: An easy-to-use Mod Organizer 2 installer for Linux

An easy-to-use Mod Organizer 2 installer for Linux - rockerbacon/modorganizer2-linux-installer

GitHub

PenisWenisGenius Jul 4, 2024

I really don’t want to use a mod manager but I guess if no one posts a better fix I’ll do it. The fix to get manually installed mods to work is going to be just 1 secret config file change I know it

FluffyPotato Jul 4, 2024

Well you can just manually install everything, activate and organize it in skyrim’s own mod loader, it’s a huge pain on both windows and linux but you can do it. I don’t think plugin.txt has been in use since Bethesda added their own internal mod loader, that’s probably why it’s not working. Also LOOT isn’t required, it just does the load order for you.

PenisWenisGenius Jul 4, 2024

Where can I find resources that may lead to figuring out how that stuff works? Where is the Skyrim built in mod manager? Google is no good these days. Every mod loader I’ve tried so far as borked my game to the point it won’t even launch. Manual installation might be my only way.

FluffyPotato Jul 5, 2024

I have always used mod organizer since it has always worked perfectly so I never used the internal one more than just look at it once. You can access it by launching the game and the main menu should have the option to access it.

DarkThoughts Jul 4, 2024

I'm sorry but not using a mod manager is just stupid and asking for all sorts of trouble. It's downright impossible to manually keep track of all the mods you install in case of updates or potential removals.

I use this version of MO2 in Starfield just fine, just had to use the pipx version of Protontricks since the one from the Fedora repos & the Flatpak version were both borked and caused an error during installation.

PenisWenisGenius Jul 4, 2024

Help me understand why installing mods without a mod manager is such a bad idea. Is the argument that it’s too complicated to possibly keep track of it all which is why it can’t be done? Or can you actually not do it? As in there exists hardcoded measures in place to make it actually impossible to install mods without some kind of hack.

I’ve heard the argument for using a mod manager so that it’s easier to uninstall stuff but I don’t really care about this. I only want cbbe, alternate start and maybe a lightsaber mod. I fucked with mod managers for hours earlier today and got nowhere. I fail to see how any of that is easier than copy and pasting files.

I play Starfield without a mod manager. At no point do I ever have to deal with mod managers that don’t work on Linux or programs I know nothing about borking my game files in ways I don’t understand. I don’t install a zillion mods or anything but i never have problems installing Starfield mods and would like to install my Skyrim mods the same way, I’ve been doing it this way, since non special edition Skyrim after all.

So. Did Bethesda actually put code in their game to make mods not possible to install manually, or are there just config files mod managers are editing to allow mods to get loaded? I think it’s the latter.

Linus_Torvalds Jul 5, 2024

I have the same setup with SE working. Why does it fail to run on your system? Did you install protontricks like it said in the MO2 installer readme?

PenisWenisGenius Jul 4, 2024

Also, MO2 seems to work by replacing SkyrimSELauncher.exe with I guess the mod menu. Even if this worked on my machine, how would you get SKSE to work? You have to replace SkyrimSELauncher.exe with the SKSE executable to get it to run…

-> @[email protected]Jul 4, 2024

Add SKSE manually, add it as an executable option in MO2.

Montagge Jul 4, 2024

That’s how I did it

FluffyPotato Jul 5, 2024

Mod organizer has options to select what exe to run, including SKSE. That can also be used to launch things like Nemesis to build animations.

bigmclargehuge Jul 5, 2024

Bethesda had absolutely nothing to do with “ruining skyrim mods”. Bethesda built the game for Windows, not Linux, it’s bot their fault the game has issues running mods on a platform it wasn’t intended to run on. This is like saying “fuck toyota” because your gasoline car won’t run on diesel.

As an aside, you absolutely can mod Skyrim on Linux, with USSEP and SKSE. With one quick google search I fou d multiple guides.

charizardcharz Jul 4, 2024

I haven’t tried it myself but LOOT has a native Linux version on Flathub. flathub.org/apps/io.github.loot.loot

Install LOOT on Linux | Flathub

Modding utility for Starfield and some Elder Scrolls and Fallout games

Flathub - Apps for Linux

PenisWenisGenius Jul 4, 2024

I really don’t want to use tools. How do I know a mod installer tool isn’t going to mess things up even more? I’ll try it anyway just due to lack of options though, thanks.

Appoloin Jul 4, 2024

Is use wrye bash and loot (windows version)

PenisWenisGenius Jul 4, 2024

wrye bash is the closest to a working solution that I’ve found so far.

I can run the exe via wine. It works but file browsing doesn’t. Some of the file paths contain 2 “/” characters which cause errors and the “Open Folder…” dialog is missing an “OK” button and can’t be used.

I managed to solve the dependency issues of the python version but then it runs into other errors.

Both seem like dead ends to me. How did you get yours to work?

Appoloin Jul 5, 2024

There shouldn’t have been a dependency error with wrye bash it has all in one installer. I’ve not seen path problems, for the larger mod I let wrye bash unpackage/extract the mod before installing.

K0W4L5K1 Jul 4, 2024

You need a tool to edit mod load order you can easily manually mod but once you get a list the needs ordering you need a sorting tool and MO2 and vortex do work on linux there’s many guides on how to set it up. But yeah its not easy to mod on linux still. Chrkc out steam tinker launch it will set up MO2 or vortex for you read the inyrustions though

PenisWenisGenius Jul 4, 2024

Does there exist a file on the filesystem that stores the load orders? Where the thing that replaced Plugin.txt?

kbal Jul 4, 2024

If you're using steam, it's probably steamapps/compatdata/489830/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Skyrim Special Edition/Plugins.txt. All the various tools will just try to modify that file for you.

I have ~500 mods working well on linux just by manually installing them one at a time over a couple of years.

PenisWenisGenius Jul 4, 2024

Plugins.txt gets overwritten each time the game starts. In Starfield you have to download this thing called plugins enabler and then you can add mods the thr Plugins.txt file like that.

What did you do/what mods did you download in order to get the game to load mods based off of Plugins.txt instead of clearing the contents of Plugins.txt on each launch?

Also, I tried making the file not have write commands and then I tried making it readonly by everyone except superuser. The game still somehow erased the file.

kbal Jul 4, 2024

Yeah there is no "plugins enabler" required, that's just a starfield thing.

If something is overwriting your plugins.txt it probably isn't Skyrim. Maybe you're launching something other than the actual game? Such as a mod organizer type of thing which isn't working correctly. Skyrim itself definitely should not do that, nor should skse64_loader.exe which is what you'd want to run instead if you have skse (a very widely-used mod).

DishonestBirb Jul 4, 2024

NexusMods is working on their new post-vortex mod client, which does have Linux support. It can be found here on github.

GitHub - Nexus-Mods/NexusMods.App: Home of the development of the Nexus Mods App

Home of the development of the Nexus Mods App. Contribute to Nexus-Mods/NexusMods.App development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

PenisWenisGenius Jul 4, 2024

There’s is no way to activate Skyrim mods with this. There is no way to link it to my game directory, there is no way to open downloaded mods and the login feature doesn’t work.

filister Jul 5, 2024

Or you can directly put the mods in the corresponding directories. No need to use some tool, just to perform some copy paste of those files.

Tattorack Jul 5, 2024

This is an incredibly wrong way to do it and absolutely terrible advice.

The point of a modding tool is that it keeps your actual game directory clean, and that mods don’t end up physically overwriting either the game’s files or each other’s files.

loo Jul 5, 2024

Finally. Some good fucking news.

UnhappyCamper Jul 4, 2024

It’s not as easy as dragging and dropping some files due to how the game works, whether its linux or windows. You kind of need mod tools to properly make everything work well together, at least if you have more than just texture packs, anyways.

It’s definitely annoying and tedious to mod this game past using a couple mods. I personally keep my dual boot almost just to play modded Skyrim becuase I dont want to have to think about whether or not my game won’t run becuase of a molding error, or becuase I’m using non-native Linux molding tools on Linux. That way I can also just use the Wabbajack program as well to just auto mod the game for me since I’m tired of doing it myself at this point.

FreeLikeGNU Jul 5, 2024

The modding is the true game

sevan Jul 5, 2024

I don’t have a Linux PC, but I have Skyrim heavily modded on my Steam Deck. It has been quite a while since I set it up and I know very little about Linux, but if you search for tutorials for Steam Deck instead of Linux, you might find what you need.

I’m definitely using SKSE and this may or may not be the guide I used to add it: retroresolve.com/…/install-skse-on-steam-deck/ (I don’t remember the details, but I spent several evenings getting all my mods set up when I first got my deck).

Skyrim: How to Install SKSE on Steam Deck (With Pictures)

Learn how to install SKSE on Steam Deck and how to re-add the launcher afterward.

RetroResolve

ober Jul 7, 2024

Maybe a little late to reply but I use steamtinkerlaunch. You can set it as a compatibility tool and it’ll open a menu whenever you use it that’ll have an option to install/open Mod Organizer 2. Manually modding does work but I can’t remember exactly how I used to do it since it was a few years ago and I’m sure things have changed since.