Today we’re going to do a .DAI Mod installation tutorial for Dragon Age: Inquisition. As a fair warning, this tutorial is going to go step-by-step into modding, so it’s as beginner friendly as possible. I also have a companion video to it on YouTube that walks you through everything as well!
Preparing To Mod:
You’ll need a few things before we get started. The first is some kind of compressed file opening program. You’ll run into both .rar and .zip files while modding this game. Personally, I suggest using 7-Zip, as it’s a free and easy to use program. You’ll also need to create a few new folders for mod storage and your mod manager. I’d personally suggest creating one big ‘DAI Modding’ folder, and inside of it creating a ‘DAI Mod Manager’ folder, and then a “DAI Mods” folder inside of that. ‘DAI Mod Manager’ will be used for the Mod Manager itself, and ‘DAI Mods’ for the mods that you’ll be using. You can put this folder anywhere you’d like, but I’d suggest somewhere easy to access and not in your game folder.
Downloading & Installing the Mod Manager
Now that that’s done, you’ll want to download and install DAI Mod Manager. In my previous tutorial, I mentioned downloading it from Nexus Mods and using the tools suite loader to get the mod manager up and running — however, a lot of people are getting an “error occurred while getting p roject list” message. Which is why, today, we’re going to skip all of that. We’re going to download the Mod Manager from Tapatalk. If you look at the first post in the thread dated August 29, 2015, you’ll see a Download Location Section (6th section down). You’ll want to use the Dropbox link for the ‘Direct Link (64 bits)’ download.
When you get to that Dropbox link, click the download option at the top of the page. If you get a ‘save it for later’ message, you can just hit the x in the upper right corner to close out of it, and then for me I had to hit the download option again. You should now either be downloading or have the option to download ‘ModManager(x64).zip’.
Once it’s fully downloaded, open up the zip folder using the method of your choice (7-Zip or WinRAR), and drag and drop the contents into the ‘DAI Mod Manager’ folder that you created at the start of this tutorial.
Double click the ‘ModManager.exe’ file, and it should now pop up the prompt to find the ‘dragonageinquisition.exe’ file, which is located in your Dragon Age: Inquisition game folder.
If you don’t know where that is and you’re on Steam, you can right click the game, go to Manage, then browse local files, and it should pop up the game folder for it. To make it even easier, you can highlight the address bar at the top and hit ctrl+c to copy it, and then highlight the address bar in the mod manager window and ctrl+v to paste it, and then hit enter. It will then bring you to the game folder — you can select dragonageinquisition.exe and then select open.
For Origin, EA’s old gaming client, the best way is to go to the top of the program, hit ‘Origin’, then ‘Application Settings’. From there you’ll have an option for installs & saves, which should give you the game library location. Navigate to that in the mod manager and then select your game folder of choice, and the dragonageinquisition.exe should be in there!
If you’re using the new EA gaming client, EA App, look in the upper right corner of the game in the ‘My Collection’ section, click the three dots, then hit view properties, and it’ll give you the install location. Alternatively, in the ‘Installed Games’ section you can select the game, then ‘manage’, then view proprieties to get the game location. You can then hit the browse option, use ctrl+c to copy the pathway link in the address bar, then use ctrl+v to paste it in the address bar in the mod manager window and hit enter. Then select the dragonageinquisition.exe and hit open.
After that, you’ll need to find the ‘mod path’, which is the modding folder we created at the start of this where all of your mods will live. Navigate over to the ‘DAI Mods’ folder you created, and then hit okay once you’ve selected the folder. Close out of the mod manager and we’ll move on!
The mod manager itself is now set up! It’s time to download a mod and install it, to test it out.
Installing Mods:
When downloading your first mod, I’d suggest one that is very easy to see if it’s working correctly, such as a new armor, appearance mod, etc.
If, after downloading, you get a ‘zip’ or ‘rar’ file that needs to be opened, as the .daimod file is inside of it, use your file opening method of choice to do so (like 7-Zip or WinRAR).
Once that’s open, you’ll want to drag and drop the mod file itself into your ‘DAI Mods’ folder. Once you have your mod in there, navigate back over to your ‘DAI Mod Manager’ folder and open up the DAI Mod Manager application. You should now see your mod showing up in the mod manager. Select the merge option in the bottom right hand corner and then wait for it to finish processing.
It’s worth noting that you might see some warnings or errors pop up in the window itself (as it’s merging), but as long as it says the merge finished, you should be good and don’t need to worry. You can now close out of both the merge window and the mod manager.
Now it’s time to open up your game to see if your mod worked! You can launch your game as you normally would and don’t need to touch the mod manager again unless installing or uninstalling more mods.
Uninstalling Mods:
To uninstall a mod, you can do two things: first is to simply select a mod from the mod manager and then hit disable in the bottom left hand side, then hit merge; or, you can also delete the mod from your ‘DAI Mods’ folder and then hit merge in the mod manager. Either way will uninstall it from your game.
Advice & Troubleshooting Tips:
1.) First, I’d suggest creating yourself two additional folders in your ‘DAI Modding’ folder. Name one folder ‘DAI Empty Mods’. In case you ever want to uninstall all your mods at once, for whatever reason, you can simply change your mod path to that ‘Empty’ folder instead of your usual ‘DAI Mods’ folder, and then back again, when you want to add your mods back! Second, I would suggest giving yourself a ‘DAI Mods Not In Use’ folder. I personally use this folder to store all the mods I’ve downloaded aren’t currently uninstalled, in case I want to go back to them. This future proofs your modding in a sense, as mods can be taken down, moved to a new website, or just become very hard to find!
2.) Any changes you make to the your “DAI Mods folder” Such as adding or deleting a mod will require you to re-launch the Mod Manager so if you’re uninstalling or adding in new mods it’s best to do all of that with your mods folder, then open up the mod manager.
3.) If you’ve installed any kind of hair mod or texture based mod, and it’s only showing up in certain cases, you’ll need to make sure your meshes are set to ultra in the game’s graphics settings, as that usually fixes the issue!
4.) Load order is only important if you have two mods doing the same thing and want one to take priority over the other. In that case, select the mod (but don’t uncheck it) and use the two arrows at the bottom of the mod manager to move them to your spot of choice. The general rule of thumb is that mods that are at the bottom of your list are loaded in last, so they’ll actually take priority (i.e. overwrite your other mods).
5.) I’d also highly suggest backing up your patch folder now somewhere safe. That way if you decide to do both Frosty & DAI Modding in the future or just need a fresh patch folder you’re all set! It’s located in the game folder, inside the “update” folder.
6.) And my last tip is: If you run into a problem loading into the game where it says you’re using the wrong patch number means that more than likely a mod you installed was using a different patch number — this happens more often with Frosty Mods but can happen with .DAI Mods as well. To fix it, navigate to your patch folder, located in the game folder, updates, then patch and open up the package.mft using a text editing program like Notepad++ — I’ll leave a link for it in the description box. Then change your patch number to something higher than 12. Save, and load into your game. If you load in and the problem is still there you didn’t pick a high enough number. Repeat these steps until it let’s you back in! Please note if you ever have to refresh your patch folder you’ll have to repeat this process as your save files will now be dependent on this higher patch number.
There you have it — my guide and tips on how to install .DAI mods for DAI Mod Manager! Make sure you check out my other DAI Modding guides if you’re trying to use a different modding type, such as Frosty or Frosty and DAI Mods together!
Happy Modding!
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