To the topic at hand, however: on a basic level, the Workshop is just a download system for mods. It doesn't truly 'install' them as such, as the TSLPatcher would do, it just takes stored data from archives and puts them in a repository which the Aspyr-patched version of the game can read. This update causes not a few issues, which means that even if you own the game on Steam you might want to revert it even before considering modding an inability to apply new textures to lightsaber hilts, the loss of fog effects, and sometimes extreme game stuttering are but a few of the issues the Aspyr patch causes (though, in fairness, it of course also introduces many useful conveniences, including native widescreen support and controller support). If you don't use the Steam version of the game with the most recent (Aspyr) patch, needless to say this doesn't really matter for you, as you don't have Workshop support for your title anyway.įirst, it's important to reiterate that the Workshop is only available on the Aspyr patch of the game, the most recent update presently only available on Steam. If you'd only like to see an explanation of why you should be downloading mods manually, skip on down to section #3. I'll first briefly explain how mods installed from the Workshop work, then detail situations where using the Workshop is sensible before explaining why using the Workshop is generally not a good idea. I can't count the number of issues I've had to troubleshoot as a result of the Workshop and I know its systems and limitations in detail, so I feel fairly qualified to explain what makes the system inadequate compared to the standard methods the community uses for mod installation. Holocron requested that I go into some general detail for the community about why the Steam Workshop is generally bad for modding, both to have all the issues laid out and easily referenced, and to clarify some common misconceptions.

Steam workshop not working