[Sarah Knight]

LOOT

A plugin load order optimiser for TES IV: Oblivion, TES V: Skyrim, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.

Introduction

Setting the right load order for your mods is a crucial step to enjoying a stable modded game. The Load Order Optimisation Tool (LOOT) can help with that, by providing automated load order sorting that's simple to use and fully customisable.

While sorting, LOOT checks for load order errors such as incompatibilities and missing requirements, and notifies you of any issues that it detects. It also provides thousands of plugin-specific messages such as usage notes and bug warnings, to help keep your game healthy.


Downloads

LOOT can be downloaded from its http://loot.github.io/. Unstable snapshot builds may also be available https://www.dropbox.com/sh/scuvwwc6ovzagmd/AAD1TodBAwGQTuV1-4Z2d0sCa?dl=0.

See the http://loot.github.io/docs/0.8.0/LOOT%20Readme.html for more information.


Previous threads:

Spoiler

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1457784
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1474045
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1486582
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1490680
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1492334
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1496381
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1498392
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1499946
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1501586
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1503686
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1504835
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1506584
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1507988
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1509883
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1511411
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1512502
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1513925
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1516193
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1519842
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1531778

[Dustin Brown]

Hi.

I re-cleaned the vanilla masters according to the new instructions, including the three wild edits, but it made no difference. Then I had a thought:

You know I said I was sure I had done something glaringly obvious and stupid? Well, I was certain I had the latest separate Unofficial patches, but I actually had slightly out of date ones. So I updated those and Dawnguard is now being sorted in the correct place. I'm surprised I got no error message, though. And it's still scrambling all my other mods. So I'd better make sure they are all updated before I do anything else.

Cheers!

[Laura Samson]

The Fallout 4 masterlist now contains its first entries鈥?now we just need a LOOT release with FO4 support. 馃榿

[Spencey!]

I'll aim for a 25th of December release date then.

[Alyce Argabright]

How do I make this damn thing work properly?

DLCLIst

Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp

Dawnguard.esm

Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp

HearthFires.esm

Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.esp

Dragonborn.esm

Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp

HighResTexturePack01.esp

HighResTexturePack02.esp

HighResTexturePack03.esp

SkyUI.esp

iHUD.esp

Run For Your Lives.esp

When Vampires Attack.esp

The Paarthurnax Dilemma.esp

_shb_WalkSpeedFix2.esp

Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp

World_Map_No_Fog.esp

World_Map_Height_Pitch_Tweak_250.esp

Plugins and LoadOrder.txt EMPTY.

Run LOOT

LoadOrder.txt

Spoiler

Skyrim.esm

Update.esm

Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp

Dawnguard.esm

Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp

HearthFires.esm

Unofficial Hearthfire Patch.esp

Dragonborn.esm

Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp

More Interactive Items.ESM

More Interactive Items [Dawnguard].ESM

Mine and Cut Gems.esp

ImmersiveContent.esm

More Interactive Items [Hearthfire].ESM

ReadBooksAloud.esm

SPIKE.esm

HighResTexturePack01.esp

HighResTexturePack02.esp

HighResTexturePack03.esp

SkyUI.esp

iHUD.esp

Run For Your Lives.esp

When Vampires Attack.esp

_shb_WalkSpeedFix2.esp

World_Map_No_Fog.esp

ImmersiveContentExteriorLighting.esp

Life In Prison.esp

SkyTEST-RealisticAnimals&Predators.esp

Coins.esp

SoS - The Wilds.esp

Birdsofskyrim.esp

Guard Dialogue Overhaul.esp

Weapons & Armor Fixes_Remade.esp

EnhancedCrafting.esp

RealShelter.esp

SoS - The Dungeons.esp

SkyrimSewers.esp

The Haunted Tower.esp

RealisticNeedsandDiseases.esp

Druidessentials.esp

LocalizedGuildJobs.esp

BirdsHFclean.esp

Rebirth Monster.esp

skyBirds - Airborne Perching Birds.esp

RPQuestAssist_2dot0.esp

TheChoiceIsYours.esp

UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul.esp

Cloaks.esp

1nivWICCloaks.esp

1nivWICSkyCloaksPatch.esp

83Willows_101BUGS_V4_HighRes.esp

abotFiresHurt.esp

AchieveThat.esp

AlwaysPickUpBooks.esp

AMatterOfTime.esp

Axes, Picks and Firewood.esp

trulyundead.esp

Bag of Holding.esp

BardsCollegeBed.esp

BardSoundsMalukah.esp

barteringmod.esp

becomeahighwayman.esp

Better Dynamic Snow.esp

Better Stealth AI for Followers.esp

BHWarPaints.esp

Bully brawlers.esp

Traps Are Dangerous.esp

BurntCorpse.esp

BuryTheDead.esp

Cloaks - Dawnguard.esp

Craftable Jester Clothes.esp

dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp

dD - Realistic Ragdoll Force - Realistic.esp

dD-Dragonborn-Dawnguard-EBT Patch.esp

dD-No Screen Blood.esp

DivinePunishmentForArrowsToTheKnee.esp

DragonCombatOverhaulDragonborn.esp

Dual Sheath Redux.esp

FISS.esp

Footprints.esp

Footprints - Ash.esp

Ghosu - SkullHelmet.esp

GrassOnSteroids_NaturalEdition_Vanilla.esp

Headtracking.esp

ImmediateDragons.esp

MasterIllusionCapRemover.esp

moveit.esp

MultiSack.esp

ReadBooksAloud - Skyrim + 3 DLC's.esp

NoAutoSkillBooks(Better).esp

RaceMenu.esp

Realistic crime report radius.esp

Realistic Gold Weight.esp

Realistic poison.esp

Really Unique Uniques.esp

realrainextended.esp

RND_USKP-Patch.esp

RunesMax4.esp

Sensible Item Breakdown.esp

SIDT - Skyrim.esp

SkyTEST-RealisticAnimals&Predators-Dawnguard.esp

WeaponsArmorFixes_GuardDialogueOverhaul_Patch.esp

Smithing Perks Overhaul_Remade.esp

SplashofRain.esp

TakeNotes.esp

The Dance of Death - Ultimate Edition.esp

Thieves Guild Requirements.esp

TradeBarter.esp

Traps Make Noise.esp

TwoRings.esp

UFO - Dawnguard AddOn.esp

UFO - Heartfire AddOn.esp

UFOtweak.esp

UnreadBooksGlow.esp

vinis_crime_gold.esp

WetandCold.esp

WetandCold - Ashes.esp

WTM_Walking Through Molasses.esp

YourMarketStall.esp

_pocketempirebuilder.esp

Hidden Shadows V3.esp

Shadow's Place.esp

Atlas Map Markers.esp

Reachwind Eyrie2.esp

SkyTEST-RealisticAnimals&Predators-Dragonborn.esp

RiverWood Home(v2).esp

BR_HoodCirclets.esp

Chesko_Frostfall.esp

DungeonQuestAwareness.esp

ImmersiveContentEXTLightDawnguard.esp

Provincial Courier Service.esp

HunterTraps.esp

Drinking Fountains of Skyrim.esp

Morthal Tweaks.esp

JBS_banking_redux.esp

Prometheus_BeastSkeletons.esp

Journeymans Nook.esp

Shortcuts.esp

The Paarthurnax Dilemma.esp

Atlas Dawnguard.esp

FishingInSkyrim.esp

Atlas Blackreach.esp

Atlas Dragonborn.esp

Bards&Merchants.esp

Chesko_WearableLantern.esp

ConjurationMadnessModv1.esp

d_b Whetstone.esp

RND_DrinkingFountains-Patch.esp

Sneak Tools.esp

Sneak Tools Vanilla Hoods.esp

Sneak Tools Vanilla Masks.esp

wizDynamicThings.esp

_shb_DH_AmuletSmithing.esp

_shb_DH_Smithing.esp

_shb_SWSQ_SilverSmithing.esp

_shb_Sunray.esp

CP Apple Trees.esp

TheChoiceIsYours_Dawnguard.esp

Atlas Hearthfire.esp

Wrath Of Nature.esp

battleflute.esp

ImmersiveContentVeryLateLightPatch.esp

_shb_SWSQ_ScimitarPriceReset.esp

_shb_TransmuteOreOverhaul.esp

Magelight Multi Cast.esp

RedMountainErupts.esp

ScarabHearthstone.esp

Upgrade Leveled Items Spell.esp

Alternate Start - Live Another Life.esp

World_Map_Height_Pitch_Tweak_250.esp

Bashed Patch, 0.esp

Dual Sheath Redux Patch.esp

Why has this thing just enabled a bunch of outdated mods I JUST deactivated and don't want used?

How do I make it do what BOSS does?

Surely I don't have to actually UNINSTALL them all?

[Tanika O'Connell]

loadorder.txt is a list of the load order for all mods detected on the system, plugins.txt is for the active mods.

[pinar]

Why did it fill both files with every mod on the system, when DLCList has a small subset of the mods on the system which I expected LOOT to use to tell it what mods I had?

I can manually paste in the mods I want to use, but that is not the point as I am not learning how to use LOOT if I do that.

So If I paste the mods I want to use into plugins.txt, LOOT will use that and not enable any others?

Cheers

[Jonathan Windmon]

There is something I am missing here as it stated 21 active plugins and when I sorted them it filled loadorder.txt again with every esp in DATA, but still says only 21 active when I ran it again, so I cancelled out.

So is that working properly? The game uses PlugIns.txt for load order, not LoadOrder.txt?

[Harinder Ghag]

I have no idea what DLCList.txt is used for, but I assume that like SteamModList.txt it is used and managed by the Steam client because it's not used by the game itself.

The loadorder.txt file is LOOT's own list of all mods you have installed and is also not used by the game. (LOOT considers all mods you have installed when picking a load order not just those that are active.)

The plugins.txt file is the only one of those files that is used by the game itself. It has the list of active mods (as selected by the game's own launcher or some other mod manager). The original game launcher has a tendency to auto-activate mods and I've never seen LOOT do that but it might if the plugins.txt file were actually missing when you ran LOOT the first time.

You should not need to be editing or even looking at any of those files manually. Run LOOT to sort your mods and run the launcher or other mod manager to activate and de-activate them.

Yes, it's working correctly. And yes, plugins.txt is the file used by the game itself.

[Jonathan Montero]

Cheers.

I never use Mod Managers and I always check those files to manually place things which are in the wrong order. With BOSS, unknown mods would just go at the end, but with LOOT it's scrambling most of them and putting some things far too high up. Some of my own, unreleased mods are being partly reverted to Vanilla because of being way too high. So I thought I'd disable everything except the updated ones and reactivate them as I update them and learn how to tame LOOT. But it seemed to be working against me!

DUH!

At least I can now dump any unnecessary mods. Read Books Aloud was a great gimmick, but I don't really need it. I have a few like that.

[Arrogant SId]

I actually have the current version of LOOT working with Fallout 4.

I made educated guesses about what needed to be in place and selected base game as Fallout 3.

Guessed correctly on the name for the masterlist depository.

[matt oneil]

One of the major and defining differences between BOSS and LOOT, is that LOOT does not, per se, have "unknown mods". LOOT actively looks at the records in the various plugin files to determine which ones are likely to be more intrusive (ie., affect more records) and place those higher than conflicting plugins that are less intrusive (ie., affect less records). Obviously this is not a fool-proof algorithm, which is why we still have a masterlist. Read the https://loot.github.io/docs/ and become familiar with the concepts of "priority" and "load after" to learn how to make LOOT handle your custom mods properly (hint: it's in the LOOT Readme) - and while you're at it: be sure to also read the https://github.com/loot/loot.github.io/wiki/Introduction-To-Load-Orders on the https://github.com/loot/loot.github.io/wiki/.

Edit: Oh, and the https://github.com/loot/loot.github.io/wiki/LOOT-FAQs wiki page has a bunch of good information too. E.g., "How can LOOT not have unrecognised plugins?"

[Mason Nevitt]

Yes, I have a friend who absolutely swears by LOOT and thinks it's much better. In my experience, though, BOSS worked far better as it left the unknown mods for me to place myself and did not get the load order wrong for 80% of them. But I suspect (and I have no idea if I am right) that it may be because I have not updated my mods for a long time. EG, I had the Unofficial patches ver 2.0.0 instead of 2.1.3b, so I updated those, TES5Edit, LOOT and Arthmoor's mods (which always require the latest USKP etc) and disabled all the others until I have upgraded. Then I need to decide if I want to use USLEEP instead of the separate patches.

I think it is deeply flawed, actually. My Alchemy WIP changes the Perk Tree, adds a new Perk, changes many of the existing perks, creates new ingredients, new recipes, new potions and modifies every potion and ingredient in the game as well as allowing all sorts of normal food, drink and junk items be changed into new ingredients using a new contraption available to the player. LOOT placed it about 10th in the list instead of number 165, and had some other, minor Alchemy mods after it, so my perk tree was messed up. Easy to fix, of course, with manual placement. It seems more sensible to me that major changes by a mod should go lower, so they don't get reverted by wild edits or other mods that make minor changes that are supposed to be overwritten, while keeping the more important parts of the other mod as I have not touched that part of the game or the other mods. I have a patch for RND as well, so those foods and drinks still work with that and can also be used in my recipes. Now, I'll probably have to look at iNeed, anyway.

Well, I've been playing Skyrim since March, 2012, and I made mods for Morrowind years before that, so I am quite familiar with mod dependency and load order, but thanks for the suggestion and thanks for the helpful reply. I know it can be tiring dealing with noobs all the time.

PS I'm going to check the read me again right now, in case you meant something specific to LOOT rather than general load order knowledge.

[Dewayne Quattlebaum]

That may find and read your plugins, but I think if you set the load order it will set Fallout 3's instead.

Results may vary^TM but my own (albeit limited) testing puts the success rate > 98%. The difference is that LOOT aims for a load order that isn't broken, not your ideal load order, so if you've got a hand-crafted load order (or partially so, if you used BOSS), LOOT will generally do a worse job, but it will also generally give you a load order that works.

It's not the first time that flaw in the algorithm has come up, but placing smaller mods after larger mods when they conflict is still generally the correct thing to do, because that results in a larger total impact on your game from each mod you have installed. You say it makes sense for large mods to override small mods, but there's a proportionate effect on the smaller mod's impact, because there's a larger chance that the mod's changes will either be broken or wiped out by the override. At the end of the day, if you've got a breaking conflict, it's going to break something one way or the other, and load order will almost always be insufficient (ie. you'll need a patch of some sort), so you should aim to get as many things working as possible.

Another way of looking at it: large, overhaul-type mods make wholesale changes to your game, to make it generally better than it would be without them, but then you customise that further by installing additional, smaller mods that change bits of the overhaul or the un-overhauled game. If you've got a smaller mod that breaks the overhaul, then it needs a compatibility patch of some sort, and there's no way around that.

And yes, "priority" and "load after" are LOOT metadata terms.

[Eliza Potter]

Well, the load order loaded and did not seem to cause crashes, but the main mod was messed up, so it didn't "work" for me. I did not check anything else. I was not aware of whether any of the others had any edits to the Alchemy perk tree when I downloaded them, which is why I think there may some wild edits somewhere. But even if they did change the tree, that was not why I had them in. MY Alchemy Perk tree is the one I want running, therefore it goes after any other alchemy mods that may add unique ingredients, new recipe books, portable tools and apparatus etc as my unique items will not affect their unique items as they are different forms. But if they edit any Vanilla content of any kind at all, MY mod is to take priority.

Which is exactly what I wanted to do. As I say, small mods that add new, unique forms will not be affected by my mod coming last, but my mod can be screwed up if they also change any Vanilla thing in a way I do not want changed. An example could be a mod for portable alchemy equipment so you can make potions on the move, but also does something to Vanilla forms. Would you want that before or after Requiem? If it comes after Requiem, it could spoil the Requiem Alchemy tree, for example, as well as adding the portable Alchemy equipment, which is all you actually want from it. Or it could revert ingredients and recipes to Vanilla or make custom changes you don't want to stuff you've already modified.

All my mods (usually) add new things with unique forms, so they can't affect anything else or be affected by anything else (except maybe mods that change the Smithing tree for my crafting mods). But this one is a sort of overhaul and, amongst other things, all reagents, food, drinks, crafting materials etc are also renamed for better sorting, so I have changed a lot of Vanilla and DLC forms.I always prefix anything I change with _shb_ for the Editor ID, so it keeps the same Form ID but I can tell it apart, and any new, unique stuff has _shb_xx so I can work out what the hell I have done if I have not touched it for a year. It also makes things easier to uninstall as any textures, meshes and scripts have the same prefix.

Anyway, I'm still getting back into the flow and working out exactly what I am doing with LOOT, as it's been quite a while. I did check those other mods with TES5Edit and they did not have any edits to the perk tree, so the answer it must lie somewhere else.

Cheers!

[Maeva]

wrinkly loot is still putting falskaar and wymstooth above hearthfires,

here is what i am talking about

Active Mod Files:

Spoiler

00  Skyrim.esm01  Update.esm02  Dawnguard.esm03  Falskaar.esm04  Wyrmstooth.esp  [Version 1.16]05  [JmV]LTTF.esm06  HearthFires.esm07  Dragonborn.esm08  Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch.esp  [Version 3.0.0]09  sixLab.esm  [Version 1.60]0A  PubicMeshColorRE.esm0B  Schlongs of Skyrim - Core.esm0C  Havok briast Physic.esm0D  AH Hotkeys.esp0E  AHZmoreHUD.esp  [Version 2.1.3]0F  Dawnguard Halfsized.esp10  Dragonborn Halfsized.esp11  Hearthfire Halfsized.esp12  Immersive Interiors.esp13  Merged Armor and Clothing.esp14  AV1AlluringEyes.esp15  FNISsixyMove.esp16  FreckleMania.esp17  SkyrimsUniqueTreasures.esp18  SMIM-Merged-All.esp19  Skyrim Shadow Striping Fix.esp  [Version 2.1]1A  Immersive detection of NPC.esp1B  JaxonzMCMKicker.esp1C  NoFurnitureActivationWhenSneaking.esp  [Version 1.1]1D  RaceMenu.esp1E  RaceMenuFreckleOverlays.esp1F  RaceMenuOverlayCompilation - CBBE.esp20  RaceMenuOverlays.esp21  RaceMenuPlugin.esp22  SOSRaceMenu.esp23  Gamefever 1st Person Items Fix.esp24  LiFEv1.1.esp25  Auto Unequip Merged.esp26  Skyrim Halfsized.esp27  SkyUI.esp28  titkit.esp29  Unique Uniques.esp  [Version 1.8]2A  HDT Havok Object.esp2B  RaceMenuMorphsCBBE.esp2C  12FemaleBrows.esp2D  WM_WidgetMod.esp2E  FNIS.esp2F  BDSchlongs.esp30  Skyrim Schlongs Merged.esp31  BGsomethingFishy.esp32  Dead Body Collision.esp33  FNISspells.esp34  Real Clouds.esp35  ShowRaceMenuAlternative.esp36  XPMSE.esp

i am having to manually move them to below the usleep mod

i am thinkng that i will leave it there so i dont have to keep moving it

this is not all of the mods i have installed just the ones i have active till i get outside helgen

if you need a list of all of the mods i have installed i will post them

[Ana Torrecilla Cabeza]

Which is why LOOT provides an option to https://loot.github.io/docs/0.8.1/LOOT%20Readme.html#usage-editing beyond what is "shipped" in the masterlist. Everyone gets to have their cake and eat it too! \o/

"small mods that add new, unique forms" will not be sorted relative to other mods (and it does not matter where they are in the load order either). LOOT only sorts mods relative to each other if they have conflicting forms. And there the larger one will usually be some kind of overhaul while the smaller one(s) will be tweaks to that overhaul. You don't want to load the tweaks to the overhaul before the overhaul itself, as that will make the tweaks get lost. That your instance is different is either a case of the masterlist needing to be updated with some information, or, if it's a personal, non-published mod, that you should utilise the option to add local metadata into the mix, so LOOT knows how to deal with it. I would give your overhaul mod a negative `priority`.

Also note that plugins with https://github.com/loot/loot.github.io/wiki/Dirty-Edits%2C-Mod-Cleaning-%26-CRCs should be cleaned with TES5Edit. If you discover a plugin that needs to be cleaned which LOOT does not know about, https://loot.github.io/docs/0.8.1/LOOT%20Readme.html#contrib.

What version of LOOT and what version of the masterlist? AFAICT, the masterlist (on the v0.8 branch) is set up correctly with `priority` values. Providing log files as per https://github.com/loot/loot.github.io/wiki/How-To-Report-Issues-Helpfullymight be helpful too.

[Harinder Ghag]

Sorry, I haven't looked at this in a while. It's almost certainly a bug, but IIRC I couldn't replicate it last time I tried.

Remind me which version of LOOT you're using?

[Brad Johnson]

Does LOOT auto-updates when its running or I've to download and replace some file for the most accurate information and lists?

Thanks btw, amazing tool!

[krystal sowten]

Hi, when I apply LOOTs sorting nothing happens. I open flash and my load order is the same. Do I have to run loot as admin or something?

[BRAD MONTGOMERY]

Fallout 4 support has now been implemented in LOOT's development code, with snapshot builds now available. The next release will therefore be v0.9, and feature the support for the new game.

I've got no estimate for a release date, partly because without official modding tools using mods is still a Bad Idea, and everything is still subject to significant change, and partly because I've got a list of things I wanted to get done before the next release, and I don't know how much of that is feasible to fit in.

LOOT won't auto-update itself, but it will by default automatically update your masterlist when you sort, and you can always update without sorting by clicking the download arrow button in the header bar. Whenever there's a new application update, the masterlists get updated with a notification message too, linking you to the download.

If your plugins are protected by UAC, yes.

[Melly Angelic]

If your plugins are protected by UAC, yes.

Well, it makes no difference if I run LOOT as admin or not, nothing will change my load order, so I use BOSS. UAC is disabled, does anyone know how to fix this? Also FO3 is not in my program files directory.

[Kanaoka]

Thanks http://www.gamesas.com/user/359506-wrinklyninja/!

Integrater: If you're using wrye flash, you need to RIGHT-click on "file" (it will be the header above your mods) and uncheck "Lock Times" if its checked (I dunno why the program comes with this by default).

After that, the next field to the right of "file" in the same header should be Load Order, just click and you should be fine, or close wrye flash and sort mods with LOOT then open wrye flash again.

EDIT: Also if you're doing a FO3 setup, this guide is good and has more info on wrye flash and bashed patch: http://wiki.step-project.com/User:Kelmych/Fallout3

[Brooks Hardison]

Thanks man, that fixed it. I've heard BOSS is better for FO3 than LOOT, is that true?

[Kim Bradley]

I did a complete playthrough of Fallout 3, extensively modded with a load order set by LOOT, just a couple of months back and had no problems.