So I downloaded xcom from steam and downloaded the openxcom installer, the most recent, and it installed fine. I went to the openxcom file where the mods folder is and deposited various mods. The mods work sometimes and sometimes not... I cleared it out because after getting them to work I decided to fiddle with some of their variables... well that wasn't such a great idea. So I uninstalled and reinstalled xxcom and openxcom... but NOW it seems like the mods don't work at all... even though far as I can see I have unpacked them correctly into the mods folder.
And the error messages are like saying it can't find files that are very clearly there and where they ought to be according to where the error message says the file is missing at.