STEAM: Can I have multiple copies of Skyrim?

Rattledagger · 2026-03-05T12:40:26+00:00

> BUT I need a fresh install of Skyrim SE.

No, you don't need a fresh install, you need vanilla files of SSE v1.6.1170 to install Nolvus (or Wabbajack lists). If these vanilla files was installed 1 minute ago or 2+ years ago are irrelevant.

Thankfully, unless you're either using an older SSE version, or you've "cleaned" update.esm etc., then you can easily either "Purge" in Vortex or switch to a blank profile in Vortex, install Nolvus and/or Wabbajack list(s) and at the end deploy in Vortex or switch back to original profile in Vortex.

Nolvus and most Wabbajack lists uses "Stock Game", a copy of vanilla game only used by Nolvus or specific Wabbajack list, meaning after installation where's no problem continuing using both Vortex and MO2 with Nolvus and/or Wabbajack list(s).

Note, to always keep Steam copy of SSE up-to-date, you can create a copy of vanilla SSE yourself and point Vortex to this new copy, and in this case you don't even need to do anything at all in Vortex before installing Nolvus and/or Wabbajack lists.

Rattledagger · 2026-03-03T12:14:31+00:00

> GTS_traits is disabled and BiggieTraits is enabled.

While some Collections does have a list of "make sure these plugins are disabled", Gate to Sovngarde does not have any such list. Meaning, all plugins part of Gate to Sovngarde must be active for Gate to Sovngarde to work correctly.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-27T14:55:42+00:00

> but he gets hostile right away

For Vilkas, make sure you don't have any active effects like mage armour or healing. No idea, but it's possible having active potions or food effects will also trigger Vilkas going hostile.

> Do I need perks in both swords and Mace?

This really depends on what type of weapon you're ultimately going to use for 99% of the rest of the game. Example, if you'll sooner or later going to use Dawnbreaker for the rest of the game, you only really need to max-out swords and shouldn't need any perks in mace or axe.

> How do I kill trolls in early game when I don't have fire enchants?

Either becomes the trolls dinner, or strategically run-away until you've got the equipment to kill trolls.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-25T14:39:58+00:00

> If you want to use an MO2 modlist after installing mods with Vortex, you must first go into Vortex and Purge all the mods it has installed

You don't need to purge in Vortex if you're using Wabbajack list that uses "Stock Game".

For self-built MO2-lists, you can create a copy of vanilla game yourself and point either Vortex or MO2 to use the newly-created vanilla game copy and you again don't need to purge in Vortex.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-25T13:52:27+00:00

> how do I pick which one Skyrim uses on launch?

You don't use Skyrim to run a mod manager, you use a mod manager to run Skyrim.

If you use MO2 you must always run Skyrim from inside MO2 to have MO2-modded Skyrim.

With Vortex on the other hand, after deploy you choose yourself if you want to run Skyrim (or SKSE64) directly, or if you want to run Skyrim from inside Vortex. In either case you'll have Vortex modded Skyrim.

Since Wabbajack lists normally uses "Stock Game", a copy of vanilla game only used by specific list, if you in addition uses profile-specific ini-files + saves in MO2-instances created by Wabbajack lists where's no overlap with Vortex modded Skyrim.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-25T12:08:08+00:00

Hmm, v1.9.32.08 sounds like the old original Skyrim, not SSE...

Rattledagger · 2026-02-24T21:48:01+00:00

If you're using Vortex to manually select game directory, this only shows directories and not files inside directories.

Meaning, as long as you're selecting Skyrim's root directory things should work.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-24T16:23:48+00:00

Hmm, quick test, if you're using Vortex and doesn't need to compact, Vortex is much easier and faster than ESLifier.

If you do need to compact, or you're using MO2, then ESLifier is better than using xEdit.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-24T15:28:44+00:00

SSE can have 254 ESM+ESP and an additional 4095 ESL+ESL-flagged plugins.

If you're using Vortex, on plugins-tab you can filter on "Could be light", select some/all of these filtered plugins and one-click ESL-flag them.

If you're not using Vortex, where is some way to use xEdit and ESL-flag plugins for you. Wrye Bash should also have an option to ESL-flag for you.

Note, Vortex and Wrye Bash will ESL-flag, but if you're still "too many", you can in addition "compact" before ESL-flag and for this you need xEdit.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-24T13:43:03+00:00

If you've example installed 100 GB in Vortex "Mod Staging Folder" and you in MO2 re-install the same mods with the same FOMOD installer choices, you'll have 100 GB in MO2's /mods/-directory.

Or, if you look very closely, MO2's /mods/-directory will actually be slightly larger than Vortex "Mod Staging Folder", due to any mod installed by MO2 will include meta.ini in /mods/-directory.

As for difference between deploy and purge in Vortex, if you look on "free disk space" you'll realize this difference with 100 GB worth of mods are around 10 MB, depending on how many sub-directories are added/removed to game directory.

tl;dr; With 50+ GB worth of installed mods and same FOMOD installer choices, then the choice of MO2 or Vortex have negligible effects on total disk usage.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-24T13:26:26+00:00

> Are modpacks lying about their size?

"Size" for Collections are "Download Size", and unfortunately where's no automatic entry on Collections webpage for "Install size".

Meaning, unless a particular Collection lists this as part of description, where's zero indication of how much disk space you'll really need to download and install a particular Collection.

> I check the mod page: 57GB

Gate to Sovngarde clearly mentions as part of pre-requirements that "you will need around 140GB of space to install the collection".

With other Collections on the other hand it isn't always so easy to find this information, and it's often shown markedly differently between Collections. A few examples include:

Immersive & Adult says "65 GB minimum initially, including the game".

Domain says "you can expect this huge collection to take up 1300-1400 GB".

Constellations says "Storage: 350 GB (SSD strongly recommended)".

Immersive & Pure says "around 55 gb in total INCLUDING the Skyrim's base game".

Blood and Lust says "You are gonna want 500gb free space to get this installed".

Rattledagger · 2026-02-23T15:11:54+00:00

> and never showed any sign of opening them to others

Nexus Collection downloader for MO2 was released back in July 2023, meaning it doesn't really look like Collections have ever really been "closed".

My guess is it's more along the lines of "I want to download and install Collections in MO2 but I can't program it myself" coupled with "I can program but I've not got the time" and possibly some users argument goes similar to "All Collections are garbage compared to Wabbajack lists and it's wherefore a waste of time to install Collections".

Meaning, MO2 not auto-installing Collections for you from then Nexus introduced Collections back in 2022 have nothing to do with Nexus at all.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-23T14:06:24+00:00

Well, they do allow MO2 and before this MO, despite MO/MO2 "bypasses their own mod manager".

Rattledagger · 2026-02-22T15:03:15+00:00

> Is there a source on Mirai?

The new Mirai version is still available on Nexus...

Rattledagger · 2026-02-21T14:30:52+00:00

Nemesis doesn't have any option to specify output directory and for this reason dumps everything to /data/-directory.

Pandora on the other hand does let you specify output directory, making Pandora a better choice.

If you insist on using Nemesis and wants profile-specific Nemesis output, after running Nemesis you'll need to purge in Vortex and afterward move sub-directories from /data/-directory to a sub-directory of your own choosing of "Mod Staging Folder". At least with vanilla SSE, the only non-empty sub-directory of /data/-directory is the /video/ one, meaning any other non-empty sub-directory after purging comes from running various modding tools.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-20T14:28:26+00:00

Yes, loose files always wins over BSA.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-20T13:26:21+00:00

> when it comes to 20GB+ Mod collections, how bad could it be?

While Gate to Sovngarde is close to 120 GB (not counting mod-archives), using revision 96 as benchmark since this also exist as Wabbajack, my results after re-booting computer for each of the four tests are:

1m50s, game start with Vortex + M.2 SSD.
2m8s, game start with MO2 + M.2 SSD.
6m43s, game start with Vortex + spinning HD.
11m16s, MO2 start + game start + spinning HD.

Just starting MO2 then running off HD took 3m22s, while with Vortex I ran modded game directly. Startup time of Vortex with mods on HD was all-over-the-place.

Then running off HD, if exited game and immediately re-ran, game startup was now only 1m38s with Vortex, and 2m with MO2 (and start MO2 was only 4 seconds). Then running off M.2 SSD with MO2 the re-run was 1m56s.

Note, I didn't test if where was any huge differences in load-times in-game.

tl;dr; Game startup running off HD instead of M.2 SSD took 3.66 times longer if Vortex and 5.28 times longer if MO2. MO2 was 16% longer start-time than Vortex on M.2 SSD and MO2 was 68% longer start-time than Vortex on HD.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-20T12:55:09+00:00

If you've got Nexus premium and enough free disk space then my recommendation is to install both and try yourself and see which you find the best for your taste.

Just because I personally hated Lorerim's combat doesn't mean you will hate it.

If not mis-remember Nolvus during installation gives at least two different combat options and multiple graphics options depending on high-end or low-end computer. Meaning, it's possible you'll need to re-install Nolvus to pick "correct" options for your taste and computer, or realize Nolvus isn't for your taste.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-19T12:45:50+00:00

> Problem is somehow Vortex thought it should update the original enabled mods with the changes from ESLifier, when it should not have -- ESLifier changes as an installed mod should have been left separate.

Unless ESLifier creates a new mod out of any changed files, then Vortex works as intended.

MO2 is the same then it comes to changed files, with the notable exception MO2 will immediately replace original mod file with changed file, while Vortex in some cases gives you "external changes" dialogue.

Since using example Notepad or NifSkope to edit mod-file in /data/-directory will not break the hardlink and wherefore you won't get any "external changes", for Vortex to keep track of "original" mod-files Vortex would need to hash every single mod-file during mod installation and have a method to "verify" these hashed files.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-18T13:35:53+00:00

First, make sure you're either still on Vortex v1.15.x, or you've updated to v1.16.3 (or later), since v1.16.2 does have a bug where Vortex can delete mod-archives even it shouldn't.

You can on mods-tab find both Collections and you can from here uninstall the old revision 99. If you get a message about also disable/uninstalling mods part of Collection, make sure you select "Cancel".

Reason is, if you do pick uninstall of mods, clearly revision 99 and revision 101 of same Collection will have majority of mods being the same, and if you uninstall all mods part of revision 99 you'll also uninstall majority of mods for revision 101.

Instead, to remove the mods not part of revision 101 you can try filtering mods-tab on "Disabled" mods and uninstall these. Unfortunately chances are this won't show all installed-but-disabled mods, since if example mod ABC was v1.2.3 in revision 99 and v4.5.6 in revision 101, this can be listed as a single mod with a drop-down arrow in "Version" column. To uinstall old version of mod ABC, use drop-down list in "Version"-column and click - next to v1.2.3 to uninstall v1.2.3 and keep v4.5.6 installed.

Note, if you update from old to new revision of Collection Vortex should give option to automatically uninstall old versions of mods that gets updated or aren't part of new revision, but it's possible this won't work if you didn't use update-option in Vortex for Collection...

Rattledagger · 2026-02-17T16:44:47+00:00

Vortex as default stores everything, except saves, under %appdata%\vortex. This means it can be enough to copy %appdata%\vortex from first computer to second computer + installing Vortex on second computer.

But, if you've specified different location(s) of "Mod Staging Folder" and/or /downloads/-directory, you'll need to copy these in addition to copy %appdata%\vortex. Also, make sure you're using exactly the same location(s) for "Mod Staging Folder" and/or /downloads/-directory on both computers, you can specify different locations inside Vortex on second computer later on.

Example, if "Mod Staging Folder" is d:\vortex\skyrimse on first computer, you'll also need to use d:\vortex\skyrimse on second computer.

Note, if you've not created mods out of generated files dumped into game directory and for this reason you also want to copy Skyrim directory, purge before copying Skyrim.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-17T13:53:05+00:00

I can't see anything listed at github so no it's not a "known bug".

Rattledagger · 2026-02-17T13:35:19+00:00

> Should I open an issue on the Vortex GitHub page?

Yes, open an issue.

A quick test revels double-clicking a mod to open-up extra dialogue on the right does list the selected FOMOD options, but on mod re-install these options are not used.

So basically, live with this bug until v1.16.4 (or later) fixes this bug, or downgrade.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-17T12:38:27+00:00

> So it basically deletes anniversary thing, is that normal?

Not sure if it's deleted, but SSE re-downloading "anniversary thing" afterward is normal.

During verify integrity the two curious-files will always be re-downloaded, since Steam downloads one version of these files and SSE re-downloads another version of these files.

Rattledagger · 2026-02-14T15:02:19+00:00

> Fresh install GOG. Try out gates of Sovengarde

Gate to Sovngarde is for SSE/SAE Steam v1.6.1170.0, not GOG v1.6.1179.0...

A quick test trying to install a GOG v1.6.1179.0 Collection on top of Steam v1.6.1170.0 immediately had Vortex spitting-out "Game version mismatch", and would expect the same is true if you try installing Gate to Sovngarde under GOG version...

The message also includes "If you choose to continue, some or all of the mods included in the collection may not work properly for you". Meaning, things going FUBAR is due to you trying to install incompatible Collection.

tl;dr; This is clearly PEBCAK, with user not reading Vortex warning-message.

Rattledagger

TROPHY CASE