- Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/
- Amethyst-Mod-Manager: https://github.com/ChrisDKN/Amethyst-Mod-Manager
So I’m new to modding PC games. I wanted to recommend a way using a mod manager called Amethyst-Mod-Manager, which installs and manages game mods from Nexus Mods. It has native support for almost 100 games listed at https://github.com/ChrisDKN/Amethyst-Mod-Manager/wiki#supported-games . But one can add manually more games to the list, but I didn’t test that out. Just tried out modding Stardew Valley for the first time, and plan on trying Cyberpunk 2077 too.
My little documentary of the steps and what is needed:
- Download and install the application. Choose from https://github.com/ChrisDKN/Amethyst-Mod-Manager#install options, I chose the AppImage for testing. If it doesn’t have self updating, I might go for Flatpak later.
- To download and manage mods from the app, you need an account on Nexus Mods. There is a free tier (which I use) with limitations such as download speed, but it does not cost any money. A new account can be created at: https://users.nexusmods.com/register For me it took a few minutes before the verification email landed, so have this in mind.
- If not already connected, in the Amythyst App go to Settings > Connections and click “Login via SSO”. You should be connected to Nexus Mods now and can start adding mods.
- Add a game to the list. But first you need to download the game, in order it to be detected. I play on Steam and downloaded Stardew Valley in Steam (because its small, and I wanted to test it quickly). Then come back to the Amythist App and add the game, it should automatically find the location and configure it.
- Then I clicked the “Wizard” button on the app and installed “Install SMAPI”.
- On the main page of the App, click “Nexus” button, and choose “Open Nexus Mods”. This will open a new tab in the App, listing all mods for the game. Choose what you want to install, in my case I chose “SMAPI” again, the “Content Patcher” and “CJB Cheats Menu”. Click the “Install” button for the mod.
- This should open the page in your external web browser (in my case Firefox) and ask you to open the link. Click it and select “Slow download” (if you are on free tier) and the download process should start. It will install the mod for you.
It’s exciting to finally be able to mod PC games as well. And I hope this helps you figure this out, if you are new to this too. Especially so on Linux, where modding was always a bit problematic before. But this makes it so much easier for me to finally try it out. Have a nice day.
I recently started using Amethyst Mod Manager with a collection of 2000 Skyrim mods. Its UI and operating procedures are a bit different to what I’ve used before, but since figuring out the basics, it has been working pretty well.
- It feels a little bulky, but not outrageously so. I’m not sure how much of that is from being an AppImage, or whether AI-generated code has anything to do with it. Whatever the cause, it feels lighter than Mod Organizer 2 and every Electron app I’ve ever seen.
- It offers three ways of installing mods: hard links, symlinks, and some kind of virtual filesystem. (Maybe overlayfs?) I like having the choice. I also like that installing with links means the mod manager only has to run when changing the mod setup (not when playing) which avoids game launch lag and leaves more RAM free for the game.
- The developer seems pretty active and responsive.
Can it run wine prefix in the background?, having to wait 10-20sec for wine to start every time is kinda annoying, especially if a mod requires configuring the files a lot.
Amethyst is amazing, so happy with it so far, have used it for both Nexus mods and some BepinEx Thunderstore mods, works great for each. So nice to have a native option.
