Starfield Vortex Extension

This is an extension for Vortex to add support for Starfield. The Steam and Xbox versions of Starfield are both supported, although there are differences between the two.

Features

• []Check (and ask to fix) bare minimum setup of StarfieldCustom.ini[/]

  []Can support both /Data folders through the use of a folder junction. Defaults to off but is asked to enable with necessary warnings. Please read this page on modding.wiki for more information.[/]

  []Supports SFSE, BethINI and SFEdit[/]

  Installation

  This extension requires Vortex 1. 9. 10 or greater. LOOT sorting functionality requires Vortex 1. 12. 0 or greater.

  To install, click the Vortex button at the top of the Starfield Extension page on Nexus Mods, and then click Install.

  You can also manually install it by click the Manual button at the top of the page and dragging it into the drop target labelled Drop File(s) in the Extensions page at the bottom right.

  Afterwards, restart Vortex and you can begin installing supported Starfield mods with Vortex.

  Game detection

  The Starfield game extension enables Vortex to automatically locate installs from the Steam and Xbox apps.

  It is also possible to manually set the game folder if the auto detection doesn't find the correct installation. A valid Starfield game folder contains:

  • []Starfield.exe[/]

    If your game lacks this file then it is likely that your installation has become corrupted somehow.

    Important note if managing the game through Xbox game pass:

    Currently the game discovery will resolve to the game's default WindowsApps location - Vortex's access to this directory is very limited due to the game store locking the files in a system owned virtual file system. As a workaround, please install the game into an external location, e.g. C:/XboxGames/ and manually set the game folder inside Vortex to the C:\XboxGames\Starfield\Content folder. You should then be able to create the folder junction and mod your game.

    Mod Management

    By default, Vortex will deploy files to the game's root folder and extracts the archive while preserving the folder structure.

    Starfield breaks the Bethesda-game trend by having a secondary data folder at Documents\My Games\Starfield\Data which, in most case, overrides the regular \Data folder within the game installation. This has caused quite a bit of confusion in the community with different mods providing instructions to install to the two different folders and a number of community workarounds - some that worked and some less so.

    To get around this, Vortex can create a specific type of shortcut (called a folder junction) between the regular Data folder and the one in the My Games folder. This tricks the game engine into using the same Data folder and simplifies mod installation. As an added bonus, this also works for both Steam and Xbox versions. The My Games Data folder is tested on startup and if it isn't a junction already, then the user is notified about potentially enabling this feature along with documentation as to why the user may not want to.

    IMPORTANT: Things aren't all perfect though. Using a file syncing\cloud drive service such as OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox are known to cause issues with this method due to the inconsistencies in how they handle folder junctions. The most severe of these issues can lead to the loss of data. For compatibility information about individual services, please read this page on modding.wiki for more information.

    Similar to Fallout 4, Starfield requires certain INI tweaks to be set in order to properly load loose files (i.e. those not packed in BA2 archives). There are a lot of mods out there which provide instructions for users to add these tweaks to a StarfieldCustom.ini file in the Documents\My Games\Starfield folder. If Vortex detects that this ini doesn't exist or is incorrect, it will notify the user and ask to fix it. If fix is requested, it will add or adjust the "bInvalidateOlderFiles" and "sResourceDataDirsFinal" values without changing any other settings you might've added manually.

    Additionally, Vortex will apply a tweak to re-route your Photo Mode captures to Data\Textures\Photos (unless you've already set it to something else) and there is now a button inside Vortex to quickly open this folder. This was removed in version 0. 6. 7 of the extension due to a bug in Starfield that was introduced when the game updated to approximately version 1. 10. 31