You seem to be over complicating things.

On the recommendation of people on this board, I went to Nexus, installed Vortex for the first time and installed around 25+ mods in 15 minutes.

I sill know very little about Vortex and mods and have no idea how to install anything manually. But why bother if Vortex handles it for you.

Still not as bad as 1996 RealPlayer.

Hi,
I'm fine with basic modding as I mod Skyrim/Fallout 4 and others.
I can use Vortex and MO2 in those games

I know from the past that it's easy to mess up so I try to read all mod descriptions etc.
Just bunging in loads of mods usually ends in tears

But I'm new to modding this game although I do have a few friends who are expert modders who are playing this game on their server. they all manually mod.
I'm basically just getting a feel for it atm as there's a few little differences from the other games I've modded.
I'm about 80 hours into it so I'm ready to make a few more changes to the game.

I was just trying to find out if whatever the reason was that I'd been advised to give Vortex a miss ... which was something to do with the mod Valheim plus (I think) had been fixed.

This stuff about installing dll's into the BepinEx folder is a bit new to me so I'm more than happy to let a mod manager take over.
Load order doesn't seem to be as important in this game but i still want to be sure I don't have any conflicts.

Still think you're massively over complicating.

You say you're "new", but based on what you've written you have spent far more time and have vastly more experience than me in terms of effort and time spent. (Although pretty sure I've got more experience in terms of practical results)

Mod conflicts and load order are a fact of life if you load up 25+ mods like I did in 15 minutes. Sure you can spend huge amounts of time, even months, trying to research to prevent and asking on forums to prevent this, and end up doing nothing - which appears to be what your approach.

Or just do it quickly and deal with conflicts by reordering in a few seconds and trying again - which is my preferred approach. I personally think my approach is more efficient, but whatever works.

Maybe mods aren't something for you if you're a super cautious perfectionist.

I've been using Vortex just fine. There may be an occasional mod that needs manual install but the other 95% are handled just fine.

Originally posted by Black Album:

... has the game caught up with the tools yet?

lol, EPIC

Yes, I have been using it for modding valheim.