I've got a Steam Workshop mod I really like conceptually but it has some serious need of tweaking. I have used the Tool 1.10 and 1.11 to unpack the .dat file, made the changes I wanted, and tried both repacking and leaving it unpacked. No luck getting it to work. After reading through some more posts here, I'm more confused than not about the MD5 validation when the file is repacked and other post suggest it isn't even necessary to repack it anyway.
Here's the details on what I've done so far.
1) Subscribed to the mod I want to adjust. Loaded it and made sure it works ingame.
2) Copied that folder and contents (.dat files and content.hml) from "extensions" into a different folder and unpacked it it using the unpacking tool.
3) made the changes I want
4) updated the "content.hml" and changed the ws_###... line.
5) delete original mod folder from extensions folder.
6) unsubscribed from the mod on Steam workshop.
7) copy the edited mod with a new folder name into the extensions folder.

9) check extensions menu and see "my" version of the mod with my file name showing! Yay.
10) enter game
11) mod, including the changes I made don't appear in game. This mod specifically adds new weapons so it's easy to check.
12) I've tried starting a new game too... no effect
I'm fairly decent at modding generally and I can follow directions if someone can give me some insights. I just don't understand why making an edit and changing a folder name would completely break a mod. In this case I'm just toning down the original mods weapon damage, so I'm not altering the original mods working script.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!