Mod Load Order

[Llaith]

Hey All =)
New to the game, and over the last week or so, got my first few games in, loaded up some mods and got to work on creating a bunch of unique races for my games.

Then like a derp, the other night, I randomly moved Forgotten Queens in my Load order, and now my game wont start, (Crashes at about 15% on new game start).

Sadly, this caused me to lose like 40 hours of work on my races, and I havent been able to figure out my Mod Load issue. Ive looked at the guide, have tried moving things around, and my game still wont start a new game. Ive cleaned up the remains of all my unique races as well, and have perused my crash logs. In my estimation, it seems like its one of the graphical mods interfering with something else, but I just dont know.

Can anyone help? I only use like 23 mods, mainly PD, and things that give more Traits/Perks/Picks/Origins, etc. I do us MEM, and DPE.

If any of you are running a large mod load successfully, and can post a Screenshot, that might be most helpful.

Thanks for the read, dying to get playing.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Tried simply setting it to alphabetical order, usually it's the recommend

[Llaith]

for real? lol
Ok, here goes nothing. =)

[Ryika]

Alphabetical Load Order is the worst thing you can do.

It's like asking: "Which movie in this franchise should I watch first?" and then someone answers: "Watch them alphabetically." - there's no coherent logic behind it whatsoever, and if the result is good, it's purely by coincidence.

Generally speaking, you want UI mods first, then overhaul mods / mods that override things, then compatibility patches for mods, and then standalone mods. This still doesn't guarantee that things work out nicely, but it's a good start as long as you don't subscribe to 20 mods that all try to edit the same base files.

For a more complex set of mods you probably don't want to rely on the load order, but rather want to use a tool like the Irony Mod Manager[bcssov.github.io] to avoid compatibility issues as much as possible. It's a lot more complicated than just putting mods into a neat order, but used properly, it'll prevent a lot of problems.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Mods that require certain orders have prefixes intended for that, usually it won't matter and if it does the mod descriptions usually mention that.
I tried irony but I found it complicated and sluggish, and that whole "just merge everything" didn't make sense to deal with conflicts

[Llaith]

Actually, Alphabetical order worked, generally as far as I can tell, however, the issue apparently was, and has been the 99 Points and Picks mod as its a 2.81 version. However, one of the Paradox folks suggested crosspatch play, however that didnt work.

Does anyone know how to enable greater Point/Picks, whether by mod, or by just permanently altering the game code? Im more interested in Point Balance, and could not care less about balance in total picks.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

Mods that require certain orders have prefixes intended for that, usually it won't matter and if it does the mod descriptions usually mention that.

It matters for any mod that overrides base game files, since only the first/last mod in the load order will have its changes actually be represented in the game depending on the folder. Of course it only matters if you have multiple mods that try to override the very same file, so usually that won't actually pose any problems.

And the thing about prefixes is incorrect. The only prefixes you can really use are the old "load first" prefixes such as as row of exclamation marks, since in older versions of the game, the files were just loaded alphabetically.

This doesn't mean that a mod that doesn't have a prefix doesn't need to be put in any specific place.

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

I tried irony but I found it complicated and sluggish, and that whole "just merge everything" didn't make sense to deal with conflicts

Yeah, it's somewhat complicated, but it gives you the best results if you're dealing with a large mod collection. Again, not necessary in most cases, but for complex mod sets, it's absolutely the preferred method. Manual load orders work most of the time, even if the person doesn't quite know what they're doing - until they don't.

Originally posted by Llaith:

Actually, Alphabetical order worked, generally as far as I can tell, however, the issue apparently was, and has been the 99 Points and Picks mod as its a 2.81 version. However, one of the Paradox folks suggested crosspatch play, however that didnt work.

Does anyone know how to enable greater Point/Picks, whether by mod, or by just permanently altering the game code? Im more interested in Point Balance, and could not care less about balance in total picks.

They're defined in:
steamapps\common\Stellaris\common\species_archetypes\00_species_archetypes.txt

You can simply open the file with a text editor and make the changes you want.
Patching the game will reset any changes you make though.

[Llaith]

Originally posted by Ryika:

They're defined in:
steamapps\common\Stellaris\common\species_archetypes\00_species_archetypes.txt

You can simply open the file with a text editor and make the changes you want.
Patching the game will reset any changes you make though.

Gotcha, so Id basically have to make my own mod to do the same and run it last...
Any help on that? lol
Guide for beginner modding etc, or do you happen to know of one?

Thanks for the help!

[Elitewrecker PT]

Directly editing the files wouldn't show as a mod but basically, yes.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Llaith:

Gotcha, so Id basically have to make my own mod to do the same and run it last...
Any help on that? lol
Guide for beginner modding etc, or do you happen to know of one?

Thanks for the help!

As long as none of your mods make changes to that file, you can just edit it directly, and it shouldn't cause any problems.

If you want to do it "properly" and turn it into a mod, that's quite easy, too:

First, open the Launcher, create a new mod and name it whatever you want.

Once you've done that, the game will place an empty folder for your mod in:
Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\mod

Now all you have to do is copy the file you wish to edit over into your mod, but keep the folder structure intact. So in this case, you want to copy 00_species_archetypes.txt into:
<your modname>\common\species_archetypes\

Then all you have to do is add the mod to your playset, and the game should load it.

[Llaith]

so if I drop all the mods that affect the number of points and pics, and just edit the game file, Id be set?! hmmmmm

[Llaith]

Ryika, Thanks so much! Ill see if I can do this, on a Mac...

[Llaith]

Ugh, cant seem to find the original location for 00_species

[Llaith]

Found it! Silly Macs - Ok, so What do I actually copy into my mod. Never really done this.
And are you saying I need to leave the mod folder where its at or move it?

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Black Goat:

This is wrong. I get what you go on to say and you are generally correct BUT barring the need to sort specific mods for compatibility/desired overrides = ABCD is always going to be the best for a "default" or fallback sort or even a starting point

In situations where ABCD is "good enough", ANY load order is good enough. Not sorting them at all is "good enough" as long as you don't need to worry about overrides or compatibility.

Sorting mods alphabetically does absolutely nothing, unless the mods are specifically named to be in the right order - which the vast majority of mods is not.

Originally posted by Black Goat:

almost all modpackers do this and most tools like Irony recommend ABCD.

Where exactly do you think Irony recommends ABCD? The official documentation makes no recommendations at all as far as I see, and essentially just tells the user to sort as they see fit.

Originally posted by Black Goat:

Obviously when you know certain recommended orders or conventions for certain modding communities, you can follow them and when you get more advanced you can go your own way but telling noobs not to do ABCD is a bad practice that leads to people 'just winging it' which makes them harder to help when something inevitably goes wrong.

Sorting alphabetically IS "just winging it". It's putting them in an arbitrary order and hoping for no conflicts or problems to arise. For small modpacks, this will work most of the time, but again... if that's what you're doing, you don't need to worry about load order at all. You're achieving nothing by sorting them alphabetically.

But if you want to sort them, then the chance for things to go wrong when sorting alphabetically is much higher than for things to go wrong if you know the approximate order you want things to be in. Yes, if you follow a logical load order you might still misjudge the situation and put the mods in a bad order, but by following logical guidelines of how mods should be sorted you'll mess up a lot less often than you'll mess up - without even knowing it - by putting them in an arbitrary order, such as sorting them alphabetically.

[Llaith]

On the A-Z Thing: It was funny when I first saw that option in the launcher, b/c I was like "How ludicrously arbitrary!" then I realized after hearing about this in the forums, that it makes perfect sense, as the modding community wouldve realized and come up with an internal mechanism to deal with mod conflicts.

Secondly, I found Species_Txt, and copied it to my Mod folder, and its working as intended, the problem is I need to apply the Points and Picks modification to the other sub species types like slaves, and origins pops.
Where do I find these?