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.
Has anyone here got Skyrim special edition mods working on Linux? How did you hack the mod loading and the load order to work without LOOT?
WHY THE FUCK DO THEY HAVE TO MAKE THINGS MORE COMPLICATED THAN DRAGGING AND DROPPING SOME FUCKING FILES
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 likely going to be just 1 secret config file change, I just have to figure out what it is.
Edit: MO2 replaces the executable with an executable that I assume is the ui for MO2 which fails to run on my system. This doesn’t patch out the Plugins.txt getting replaced either. I’m not sure that MO2 helps here. This is Skyrim special edition, not the original release. They made the mod situation shittier like they did in Starfield so not all of the same fixes and workarounds that have been working on Linux for the past decade still work.
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.
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 all the files, with their updates and compatibilities you have to pay attention to, 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 can keep track of 3 mods worth of files myself.
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? Because I think it’s the latter. And if I ever find what config files those are, I’m posting it somewhere so that other people that only want to install a couple of mods can do so without fucking with mod managers for hours.
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.
Where can I find resources that may lead to figuring out how that stuff works? Where is the Skyrim built in mod loader? 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. After trying flatpak loot I actually have to re-download, it borked things real good. Manual installation looks like the only way.
When manually installing mods, what do I have to do besides putting all the respective folders in the correct location? I think that’s the million dollar question here.
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.
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?