I have installed a few mods using Vortex but as far as I can see they are not loadin.
They are:
Better Inventory.
Lockpicking Bar.
Ultimate High Detailed Map.
Glowing Items
Perk Loadout Manager.
All enabled in Vortex so no idea what to do next?
I've never used Vortex (I still use the old NMM for FO4 - it still works) so I can't be sure what it does, but I'm not sure it works properly with FO76 since modding is not really supported in FO76. Any mod manager for FO76 will have to edit ini files for you, preferably creating one if it doesn't already exist. My
guess is that Vortex doesn't.
I can see one issue with that list, assuming you want to
save perk loadouts. To do that, PLM requires another mod, SFE. You can
load loadouts without it, but you can't save them. There's a workaround using the Nukes Dragons website and manually editing config files for PLM, but I forget the details.
Note that SFE is installed completely differently to other mods. It's a dll swap - you download it, decompress it and you get a dll. dxgi.dll IIRC. You have to replace the existing version of the DLL (it's in the main FO76 folder,
not the FO76 data folder where the other mods go) with the SFE version and you have to do that every time the game is updated by Bethesda but only after the author of SFE has created a new version of SFE for the new version of FO76. It's less fuss than it sounds - it's just a simple copy and replace job and PLM will continue working without SFE, just without the option to save new loadouts.
For general mods, there are two steps.
This assumes you've downloaded mods as archives in the BA2 format, not as loose files. I forget how to handle mods as loose files. Most mods are either BA2 only or available as a choice between BA2 and loose files.
First step:
Decompress the downloaded file to wherever you like. I created a folder for FO76 mods, to keep things all in one place neatly. You should then have a BA2 file that's the mod. Maybe some other files, e.g. a readme, maybe not.
Copy or move that BA2 file to the FO76 data folder. By default on Win10, that's Program Files(x86)\Bethesda.net Launcher\games\Fallout76\Data
Second step:
Add a correctly formatted entry to an ini file, referencing that BA2 file by name.
You can add entries to default ini files, but it's better to add them to the ini file specifically for customising settings.
By default, at least on Win10, the ini files are in documents\my games\Fallout 76.
In there you will find 2 or 3 ini files. Fallout76.ini and Fallout76Prefs.ini for sure. You might or might not have Fallout76Custom.ini there. If you don't, create it in there. It's a straightforward text file, so notepad is just the job.
In the early days you had to copy&paste references to files from the unmodded game, but a patch some while ago changed that. Files listed in a setting in the custom ini (and I
think also in the other inis) are now appended to those for the unmodded game, so now you can just put references to your mods in your custom ini and that part of the job is done. Much less faff.
Here's my current Fallout76Custom.ini as an example. It would usually have Better Inventory in there too, but I still haven't got around to downloading the post-Wastelanders version. You might see other people's ini files putting the references to the mod files into a different list, not sResourceIndexFileList. Works the same, but I found that when I used a different list I had to edit the ini after most updates because the references in the unmodded game had changed. I don't think that's still the case due to the change to custom ini entries being appended to lists rather than replacing them. AFAIK, the only issue now is if the number of entries in the list exceeds the limit. I forget what the limit is, but you're unlikely to reach it. I'd still recommend sResourceIndexFileList because Bethesda has hardly anything in that list so there's even less chance of whatever you add to the list causing it to reach the limit. I have also read that some mods have to be put in a specific list, but I don't recall any details. Something to do with mods that change textures.
[Archive]
sResourceIndexFileList = Power Armor Clean HUD.ba2, IntRaw.ba2, BetterPALight.ba2, PerkLoadoutManager.ba2
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=2.0000
It's also a good idea to read the mod desc to see if that particular mod has to be installed in any particular way.
There's also a bit of a question mark regarding Lockpicking Bar. Some people argue that it gives a player an advantage in play over players without that mod, which probably isn't allowed by Bethesda's vague semi-defined rules about mods in FO76. Technically, Bethesda might ban you over it. Maybe. Perhaps. Probably not, but with Bethesda's sterling track record of customer service, who knows? The same might be said for Glowing Items.
