Mods not showing in game

This question has probably been asked a million times but i can't for the life of me get the thunderstore manager to use the mods i've loaded in game. I downloaded the stalker pack, launched the game, but i couldn't find any of the guns or the map or whatever. I'm fairly new to H3 modding but iv'e used the thunderstore manager for other games before and had no issues. The manager is pointing to the correct game directory (which from what i saw was the most common issue for people).

For all i know, since i'm new, the mods might be installed, but i can't find the map in the map menu or the guns when browsing the gun selection in the gun ranges, so i'm guessing they're simply not loading. Saw some posts too (like 3 years ago) about launching in the "alpha - mod safe" branch, i havent done that yet though. Is that the issue?

Thanks!