So, I have an idea (KSP Modpacks)

[Terra1]

So, this might sound weird, but it's cool.

Basically, mod developers could work together to create a balanced "Modpack" for users who don't want to configure anything and want a nice, mostly bug-free experience.

This would also help the mod developers, because all the mods are compatible with eachother, there would be less "False Alarm" bugs for them to deal with (As-in conflicting mods causing bugs that are hard or impossible to fix)

 

[Urses]

The Modpacks idea was there some time behind. It is not really supported, because a pack provider is mostly not the modder itself and you run in many licensing issues this way. The modders do a big collaboration work here by providing and using modulemanager, CRP, Avac and dependencies, not all players use the same modes. Additionaly some modes work realy invasive and prevents other modes to work properly. Or if they work together they let some aspects of the game to explode this way. This will prvent the packs from usability or will breack fraction fights here

And don't forget! Modders are people with real life and they do their works for free, your way you give them a stricktly defined deadline like "you have to provide for this date or you a kicked" for a pat on the head? I don't think this would work this way...

Funny Kabooms 

Urses

[Terra1]

1 hour ago, Urses said:

The Modpacks idea was there some time behind. It is not really supported, because a pack provider is mostly not the modder itself and you run in many licensing issues this way. The modders do a big collaboration work here by providing and using modulemanager, CRP, Avac and dependencies, not all players use the same modes. Additionaly some modes work realy invasive and prevents other modes to work properly. Or if they work together they let some aspects of the game to explode this way. This will prvent the packs from usability or will breack fraction fights here

And don't forget! Modders are people with real life and they do their works for free, your way you give them a stricktly defined deadline like "you have to provide for this date or you a kicked" for a pat on the head? I don't think this would work this way...

Funny Kabooms 

Urses

I don't see any licensing issue, they would only be distributed in the same zip file.

It wouldn't give them a strictly defined deadline, and even if there was, it would be ridiculously easy to make it, the modmakers just have to make sure their mods work together well without bugs

With my idea, the pack provider WOULD be the modder(s) themselves (Remember, the modmakers are working together on these packs)

[Twitchi]

Best we can do is something like what I am in the middle of right now...
put together a list of what you really like.. add urls for download, share

 

well that's not THE best.. could add contracts and stuff to tie it all together and make a cohesive experience.. maybe an auto downloader? not sure on the validity of that with respect to licensing..

[Urses]

Just now, Terra1 said:

I don't see any licensing issue, they would only be distributed in the same zip file.

It wouldn't give them a strictly defined deadline, and even if there was, it would be ridiculously easy to make it, the modmakers just have to make sure their mods work together well without bugs

With my idea, the pack provider WOULD be the modder(s) themselves (Remember, the modmakers are working together on these packs)

If you go for the way all modders work together on one mode. Wgich ones will be included? Why this or not others, LS, additional planets? Why this specific mode and not another ? This modder have changes in hus private life, hmm will all pthers gave to wait till he is back? Or kick him? What if a modder decides to give up on his projekt? Or have he to work on because he is in and which modes include you in? I preffer to play with Roverdudes, allistas, Gallileos and Nerteas modes. Somebody else with Interstellar and deep freeze, third use only the Partpacks or Ferram.... what about RSS? If you have as example Nertea in your pack why i have to wait for your Pack if i will only use this specific mode? And if he have to provide 2 editions why he have to do so?

Your fastest way to get your pack. Go CKAN.... install a mode Playlist and let CKAN handle your issues....

The most i named don't do support CKAN this way....

Decissions decissions....

3 minutes ago, Twitchi said:

Best we can do is something like what I am in the middle of right now...
put together a list of what you really like.. add urls for download, share

 

well that's not THE best.. could add contracts and stuff to tie it all together and make a cohesive experience.. maybe an auto downloader? not sure on the validity of that with respect to licensing..

As a small advice... distribute it as your playlist and honor the modders...

Don't make a pack.

[Twitchi]

6 minutes ago, Urses said:

As a small advice... distribute it as your playlist and honor the modders...

Don't make a pack.

Dude, please, I know how much work goes into this stuff.

I would be composing small sonnets in the modders honer before even talking about their work..

Edited November 2, 2017 by Twitchi
dropped word

[Urses]

1 minute ago, Twitchi said:

Dude, please, I know how much work goes into this stuff.

I would be composing small sonnets in the modders honer before even talking their work..

No offense but there where a reaaaly big diskussion here with this one as starter... i only wshl to spare you some bad blood...

 

[Twitchi]

Exactly why all my chatter was about urls, and when I talked about not expressly visiting them yourself called the validity into question..

[katateochi]

1 hour ago, Terra1 said:

I don't see any licensing issue, they would only be distributed in the same zip file.

Mod packs which actually bundle up various mods into a zip have been generally considered a bad thing. This is partly down to licensing but also because it takes control away from the mod developers about which versions are being supported. Given that modders are mostly working alone and doing it in their spare time it's reasonable that they'd only want to provide support for the latest version. So if some Mod Pack includes an outdated version (and the users of said pack aren't aware which version they're using) then the modder gets inundated with support requests for a version that's no longer supported. 

Dynamic (or referential) Mod Packs are different and a much better way to go about it. Either simply putting up a list of mods with links to the mod thread, by making use of the ckan meta-package feature and getting CKAN to generate a .ckan file for your installed mods or using KerbalX.com to create custom .ckan files.
If you install a bunch of mods using CKAN it will have automatically generated an 'installed-default.ckan' file in the CKAN folder (or you can get the ckan gui to export the installed mod set to another .ckan file).  You can then post that file somewhere and share it. 
Or you can create custom mod-packs on KerbalX and share the url to that and it will generate a .ckan file when someone requests to download it.  You can either hand pick the mods on KerbalX or you can drop your installed-default.ckan (or any other .ckan file) onto the create mod pack page and it will add the mods in that file. As an example this is one of my custom mod packs https://kerbalx.com/mod_packs/573 which just has (what I consider) core essential mods that don't add any parts (or view all the mod packs that everyone has created https://kerbalx.com/mod_packs).  The advantage of mod packs on KerbalX (and sorry to turn this into a plug for KerbalX, but this is one of it's less well known features) is you can share the url to the mod pack and then if you change the contents of the mod pack you don't have to update the places you posted that url. You can also nominate one of your modpacks to be your "current setup" and which ever mod pack you set as your current setup will always have the same url, for example mine is http://kerbalx.com/katateochi/installed_mods.

I like the idea of having "tried and tested" combinations of mods which are known to play well together and not cause any major headaches or performance hits, but it's not a simple task given the wide array of different hardware that we all use. I don't think we can pester the modders to put any time into doing this, it's something that the community has to do.  If the idea takes off and enough people want to take part in testing mod combinations then I'd be up for adding a section to KerbalX where those "tried and tested" mod packs can be posted and maintained. EDIT (or just create a forum thread and post links to KerbalX mod packs).

Edited November 2, 2017 by katateochi

[Rocket In My Pocket]

As others have stated, this sounds like a good idea in theory, but in practice it never works out well.

Licensing issues can be a HUGE headache, every mod uses at least one of the literally dozens of public licenses available, ensuring that they all comply with each other is almost impossible most of the time. Mods tend to get updated at different intervals as well and so upon an update, half the pack may work while the other half doesn't.

Also, while some modders may not mind, there are quite a few who may not want there mod forgotten and buried as part of a pack.

Edited November 2, 2017 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Helmetman]

Taking into account the licensing issues, modders not being around 24/7 and the wide range of favourable wishes by each respective person I think the current CKAN method of compiling your own pack is already the best option.

It's also easy. Just type what you want, checkbox dependencies and recommended plugins and head to the following mods.
Apart from mod dependent issues, if you don't run into any you can setup your own compile of mods in half an hour using CKAN. If you click fast probably up to 40-50mods or thereabout.

I like to watch videos of other people and try to setup my own list of mods that combines many and some other mods out of different playthroughs. Having some compiled mudpack for everyone is usually not necessarily the one to your liking when you get finicky. And finicky is what one gets when testing for the most favourable compilation. That's why you keep going to the forums to expand your already oversized gamedata folder  

This is a journey you should undertake on your own. Scott Manley is super great and all, and I love many of his videos. But that 'he' got his compiled mudpack distributed is only because he's popular, let's get straight here. There's definite certainty that someone else's mod pack will get the same bad attention. And after one version update of KSP we need to compile a new mudpack or wait very long till all the mods are updated. 

Off topic Suggestion : I purposely left the word "modpack" as "mudpack" and didn't correct. This is because I wanted to show what auto correct does to the word mudpack, heck, there it goes again. Can I file this somewhere?
I can probably put it off in my profile. But this is only the 2nd time I had problem with auto correct so I haven't checked.
 

[HebaruSan]

5 hours ago, Terra1 said:

So, this might sound weird, but it's cool.

Basically, mod developers could work together to create a balanced "Modpack" for users who don't want to configure anything and want a nice, mostly bug-free experience.

This would also help the mod developers, because all the mods are compatible with eachother, there would be less "False Alarm" bugs for them to deal with (As-in conflicting mods causing bugs that are hard or impossible to fix)

So, I have an idea. It might sound weird, but it's cool. Basically, non-modders could learn C# and create cool new mods so modders can enjoy someone else's work for a change. They could even collaborate to make their new mods work well together. This would also help non-modders, as programming is a rewarding skill with good career prospects.

2 hours ago, Helmetman said:

Off topic Suggestion : I purposely left the word "modpack" as "mudpack" and didn't correct. This is because I wanted to show what auto correct does to the word mudpack, heck, there it goes again. Can I file this somewhere?
I can probably put it off in my profile. But this is only the 2nd time I had problem with auto correct so I haven't checked.

Is that your browser? I have no problems typing modpack.

[regex]

We've been over this many, many, many times before and the overwhelming answer has always been: No. Modpacks in the style of Minecraft are simply a no-starter in KSP because, among other issues, the problems surrounding who supports the mods in question.

If you want to see what a "modpack" looks like for KSP check out how Realism Overhaul is structured. You have a set of "balancing" ModuleManager scripts and some code that work with a required, recommended, and supported series of mods that the player can decide to download on their own. Unlike a simple catalog list, RO goes a step further and makes sure that all the mods it supports works together. There are other packages like this but that is by far the most prominent and well-known example.

The best part of something like RO is that it follows @HebaruSan's statement above:

22 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Basically, non-modders could learn C# and create cool new mods so modders can enjoy someone else's work for a change.

See, all the people who contribute to RO put in the time and effort to make some great that ties everything together. They, in essence, become modders and start to understand why modders might not want to support some rando's collection of mods.

Also, unlike Minecraft (for instance), adding a mod to KSP is literally one of the easiest things to do when modding a game: You simply plop the mod directory into KSP's GameData and everything gets picked up. Adding a unifying script is just as simple. There is literally no reason to bundle anything together besides user convenience and, as many of us who mod (or used to mod) games have already experienced, user convenience often brings a whole new set of headaches.

Edited November 3, 2017 by regex