Good day Flatskins! This is a WIP article on mod load order and how it affects your game.

First off, if you are thinking “What? The order of my mods list matters?”

Then go here and read this now. Do not install any more mods or continue on your Kenshi modding path until you read this article. Trust me, I’m saving you potential troubles down the road. Why are you still here, go read!

Proper Load Order and You!
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1850250979

Ok, so if you are reading this far, then you know that the load order matters and it matters a lot.

Mods lower in the order will overwrite mods above them.
Submods that patch or affect other mods need to be below them in order to “see” them.
Mods that change a lot of things, like Genesis, UWE etc. need to be very close to the bottom of the list.
Read the mod description(!!) as the author will often give you guidance on where to put it.

Let’s walk through assigning IWK+ and its related mods in your mod load order. I will be using some of the mod organizers found below and I suggest you look into this as well:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3467083847

IWK+ is a submod of Interactive World.
Interactive World, though it does not affect world states or factions, is an overhaul mod. It adds many buildings, items, weapons, armors and more to Kenshi. But most importantly, for us in this discussion, it also adds foliage and zone data. So it needs to be low on the list, maybe 90% near the bottom.

Like so:

Mod1.mod
Mod2.mod
…..
Mod 80.mod
[8.2]--------------------(Overhaul).mod
[8.2.7]--------------------(IWK+ Overhaul).mod
Interactive World.mod

IWK+ goes directly under interactive world because IWK+ needs to “see” and modify things in OG IW.

[8.2]--------------------(Overhaul).mod
[8.2.7]--------------------(IWK+ Overhaul).mod
Interactive World.mod
iw-compat-vanilla2.mod

Any IWK+ submods go directly after IWK+, in a big block. If there are nothing but IWK+ submods in this section, then their order doesn’t matter. They just need to see IWK+, then IW, then the mod they are modifying somewhere up above that.

[8.2]--------------------(Overhaul).mod
[8.2.7]--------------------(IWK+ Overhaul).mod
Interactive World.mod
iw-compat-vanilla2.mod
[9.4]--------------------(Building Patches).mod
[9.8]--------------------(Items and Tools Patches).mod
IWK+ AdvancedCamping++.mod
IWK+ Kenshi Basic Workbench.mod
IWK+ Animal Variations.mod
IWK+ Drugdealers.mod
IWK+ ChopTreeNeedAxe.mod

And finally, the mods that IWK+ submods affect, well they go higher up in the list wherever they would normally go, even if you didn’t have an IWK+ submod installed.

Mod1.mod
Mod2.mod
…..
[4.3]--------------------(Animals).mod
Animal Variations.mod
……
[6.2]--------------------(Building Additions).mod
Advanced Camping.mod
Kenshi Basic Workbench.mod
……
[8.2]--------------------(Overhaul).mod
[8.2.7]--------------------(IWK+ Overhaul).mod
Interactive World.mod
iw-compat-vanilla2.mod
[9.4]--------------------(Building Patches).mod
[9.8]--------------------(Items and Tools Patches).mod
IWK+ AdvancedCamping++.mod
IWK+ Animal Variations.mod
IWK+ Kenshi Basic Workbench.mod

I hope this helps, and plan on cleaning this up and adding more at a later time.


Team_on’s Kenshi Load Order Organizer
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3458934029

Kenshi Mod Manager Application
https://github.com/millerscout/Kenshi-Mod-Manager