Open
Description
A user reported that on Linux the Limo mod manager installs plugins using symlinks, and that they weren't showing up in LOOT when using it with Skyrim SE. I'm not surprised that it didn't work, because when LOOT (and the libraries it uses) iterate over directories it looks for regular files only.
However, this got me to investigate the different games' support for symlinks.
On Windows, with symlinks created using mklink <symlink> <target>:
| Game | Regular file works | Symlinked plugin shown in launcher / load order menu | Symlinked plugin works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morrowind | Y | N | N |
| Oblivion | Y | Y | N |
| Oblivion Remastered | Y | N/A | Y |
| Skyrim | Y | Y | N |
| Skyrim SE | Y | Y - but trying to activate it shows a message saying it dependencies are missing | N - the plugin is automatically deactivated and removed from plugins.txt on launch, and trying to also symlink its BSA caused my whole PC to freeze on launching the game |
| Fallout 3 | Y | Y | N |
| Fallout NV | Y | Y | N |
| Fallout 4 | Y | Y | N |
| Starfield | Y | N | N |
| OpenMW | Y | Y | Y |
On Linux:
| Game | Symlinked plugin works |
|---|---|
| Morrowind | Y |
| Oblivion | Y |
| Oblivion Remastered | Can't test, my Linux system's GPU is too old. |
| Skyrim | Y |
| Skyrim SE | Y |
| Fallout 3 | Y |
| Fallout NV | Y |
| Fallout 4 | Y |
| Starfield | Y |
| OpenMW | Y |
So it looks like it's worth supporting symlinks on Linux, and for Oblivion Remastered and OpenMW on Windows.