Question about modding, steam, and separate HDDs

[Stg-Flame]

I plan on doing a fully-modded playthrough of Fallout 4 but I'm wondering if I'm going to run into any issues since I have three separate drives on my PC. My OS is on a 128GB SSD, Steam is on a 256GB SSD, and all my downloads go to a 2TB HDD which I use for storage. I recall having issues when trying to mod Oblivion via Steam because some of the software like BOSS and Wrye Bash couldn't find the file paths because the game and the system files were on different drives.

Is there any easy way to do this or are programs advanced enough now that I don't have to worry about file pathing issues? Take note I haven't modded any game since Oblivion, so I am a bit rusty. All of the tutorials I've found are assuming we are doing everything from one drive.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I plan on doing a fully-modded playthrough of Fallout 4 but I'm wondering if I'm going to run into any issues since I have three separate drives on my PC. My OS is on a 128GB SSD, Steam is on a 256GB SSD, and all my downloads go to a 2TB HDD which I use for storage. I recall having issues when trying to mod Oblivion via Steam because some of the software like BOSS and Wrye Bash couldn't find the file paths because the game and the system files were on different drives.

Is there any easy way to do this or are programs advanced enough now that I don't have to worry about file pathing issues? Take note I haven't modded any game since Oblivion, so I am a bit rusty. All of the tutorials I've found are assuming we are doing everything from one drive.

You should be mostly okay, just bear in mind sizing. If you've got 4GB left on that Steam SSD after FO4 is installed, you might be in bad shape when you start texture modding.

Most of those BOSS/Bash systems nowadays can have a location for repository separate from the game install directory, they're all just options in the program. I've done similar with Skyrim (backup/source repository on one drive, Skyrim + mods on another).

 

[Stg-Flame]

I know all too well how large your folder can become once you start modding (Oblivion reached 19GB for mods alone), but I rarely keep more than three games installed at any given time, so my Steam SSD has around 138GB free at the moment.

 

[TechBoyJK]

look into something like the Nexus mod manager

 

[Stg-Flame]

Does FO4 require anything other than a mod manager and maybe a sorting utility like LOOT? The worst part about modding Oblivion was that it generally took three to four days to get everything working 100%. The last time I delved into FCOM and the hundreds of other mods I usually ran, I kept it installed for three years simply because I didn't want to go through that process again. I know FCOM was a major overhaul and therefore it required a large amount of resources, so I'm hoping FO4 mods (some of the ones in the top ranked on Nexus) won't require that much going back and fourth.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Does FO4 require anything other than a mod manager and maybe a sorting utility like LOOT? The worst part about modding Oblivion was that it generally took three to four days to get everything working 100%. The last time I delved into FCOM and the hundreds of other mods I usually ran, I kept it installed for three years simply because I didn't want to go through that process again. I know FCOM was a major overhaul and therefore it required a large amount of resources, so I'm hoping FO4 mods (some of the ones in the top ranked on Nexus) won't require that much going back and fourth.

Depends on how far you extend past texture mods. In Skyrim SE for instance, you can get up to a good 50-75 mods with zero real conflict that requires anything beyond sorting... If you get into core game elements however, like drops, spawns, locations, skills, bonuses, etc... gonna run into conflicts if you don't deconflict them somehow.