Use an existing save game to inform sorting

[Ghostwalker71]

When updating some mods that do not have a requirement set in loot nor an obvious need to sort to a specific slot, they can often times end up with a considerably different ordering after sorting with loot. While this can be mitigated on a case by case basis this is not a desired method because as the mod develops it might then need to be sorted differently by rule submitted by the mod author or indicators within the LOOT coding.
It would be most helpful if LOOT could accept the mod list embedded in a save game file as a source for sorting order so that any file listed in the save game would be sorted to that ordering unless other rules or indicators would need to move it's position.

[Ortham]

LOOT already uses the current load order wherever it doesn't have any rules about how two plugins should load relative to one another. That won't help if you've changed the load order since you last saved, but is that not enough?

If not, how do you suggest the user select the save file, i.e. what would the user experience / interface be? How would the user tell LOOT to stop using that save file, what should the behaviour be if no save file has been selected? This would not be a small change, and those are just a few questions about the UI, the LOOT API would also be affected, and it would need to learn how to parse save files, etc.

[Ghostwalker71]

The instance that would cause this to be needed occurs when the user updates a mod that doesn't trigger any pre set sorting criteria. for instance, Advanced Animation Framework and Sim Settlements. Both are ESM and when updating whichever one is updated last will end up below the other in the mod list. This negates the previous mod list as they are both large mods and due to limitations in NMM they must be uninstalled and then the newer version installed to be certain that all files are updated properly.
As for the UI I would think that something similar to Wryebash would work well. So rather than imbedding the function into the main LOOT sorting code. The function could be a separate option. Possibly another tab that would show the list of save games and allow you to select one and have the mod list sorted to match the order of any matching mod names in the savegame mod list.

[Ortham]

The instance that would cause this to be needed occurs when the user updates a mod that doesn't trigger any pre set sorting criteria. for instance, Advanced Animation Framework and Sim Settlements. Both are ESM and when updating whichever one is updated last will end up below the other in the mod list. This negates the previous mod list as they are both large mods and due to limitations in NMM they must be uninstalled and then the newer version installed to be certain that all files are updated properly.

So they need a specific load order, why not add metadata to ensure that load order? There are some unknown rules that's encoded in the save's load order positions for those mods, instead of relying on a user to correctly position them and then adding a feature to LOOT to carry that load order forward, those unknown rules should be turned into metadata so they're known rules that LOOT can use to position them correctly without a save file.

[Ghostwalker71]

No the mods do not have a specific ordering requirement in and of themselves. It is my understanding that once a group of mods are loaded in a specific order in a save they need to stay in that order. The mods do not have any reason to be ordered in a specific manner until they are recorded in the save file. This is because scripts from the mod are embedded into the save and when that save is loaded the game expects them to be in the order specified in the save. When they are not ordered as expected the game can fail to initiate the scripts associated with those mods correctly. Adding new mods does not appear to have a negative effect on saves but shifting the order or removing mods will frequently result in corrupted saves.

[Ortham]

Oh, so just the usual considerations then. Well, what you're asking for is a huge amount of work involving significant changes to the application as a whole, and I'm not interested in doing it.

If I were in your shoes, I'd just manually put the plugins where they were before as part of the upgrade process after reinstalling them. If I wasn't sure I could get that right, I'd take a copy of plugins.txt before upgrading, then after upgrading I'd overwrite plugins.txt with the copy I took.

[Ghostwalker71]

That's understandable, Thank you for considering the request.