Different version Mods in different updates

[ILikeNasa]

Wouldn't it be better if you could use a Mod for 1.3.1 in 1.4.0? This would not only be helpful for players who have to wait for new releases of the Mods but also Mod creators so they don't have to go through updating the mods.

[Snark]

Hello, and welcome to the forums! 

1 hour ago, ILikeNasa said:

Wouldn't it be better if you could use a Mod for 1.3.1 in 1.4.0? This would not only be helpful for players who have to wait for new releases of the Mods but also Mod creators so they don't have to go through updating the mods.

...Not quite sure what you're asking / proposing.  Are you suggesting that somebody (Squad? mod authors?) should do something differently than they're now doing?  If so, what?

A couple of things to note:

For an awful lot of mods, that's already the case.  A KSP update doesn't automatically break all mods.  It only breaks mods if they specifically depend on some specific piece of KSP that got changed out from under them.  Which is rarer than you might think.

For example, my understanding is that KSP's API didn't change much from 1.3.1 to 1.4.  My guess would be that many (perhaps most) 1.3.1-compatible mods will run just fine in 1.4.  So... if there's some mod that's near and dear to you, and you're worried about breakage... have you actually tried it in KSP 1.4?  Maybe it's already working just fine. 

And as for the ones that do break... that's pretty much unavoidable.  The stock game, and a mod that relies on that stock game, are like two gears in a machine.  They have to mesh perfectly or the machine won't run.  If one of the gears suddenly changes shape... the other one has to, as well.  And in general, there's no way to guarantee that will never happen.  The mod author can't guarantee it, because they have no way of controlling (or even knowing) what KSP will do in the future.  And the KSP authors can't guarantee it, because there are thousands of mods out there and there's no way they would ever have time to test any given change to make sure it doesn't break anyone.  And even if they did... they'd probably need to break them anyway, because if they tied themselves down to "don't break any mod ever", they'd have so many coding constraints that basically they'd never be able to make any changes to KSP.

So, the only way it can reasonably work boils down to basically what they're doing already:  KSP makes updates when they need to, and they modify whatever they need to.  They make a reasonable effort not to make gratuitous breaking changes to the API (because why hork mods if you don't have to?)... but they still have the freedom to break them if they need to in order to Get Stuff Done™.  And then KSP changes, and a lot of mods are just fine and don't break, and the ones that do break, their authors update pretty soon and then everyone's happy.

[malkuth]

Well I can add to this. 1.4 didn't break most mods because not much changed that was dedicated KSP assets.  what broke mods was the upgrade to the latest version of Unity 2017.1.3p1.  Thats why mods that use assets from unity might have broke.  Like EVE etc.  

Most the time, we just recompile for newer version and release.   Other times it takes work to find the new assets or work around changes.   But again the big thing of 1.3.1 to 1.4 was the unity upgrade.  And we have been told that something is going to break things again in 1.4.1.  So to answer your first question many mods are waiting for 1.4.1 to drop.

Edited March 9, 2018 by malkuth

[AloE]

On 3/9/2018 at 11:32 PM, malkuth said:

we have been told that something is going to break things again in 1.4.1

I would be grateful for recommended ways modders see details of what has changed that could break things for mods between KSP versions (type of links I have been reading through pasted into the spoiler below).

For example, are the:

• 'Mod' & 'Part' section of the KSP version history the best place to search changes...or is there a database that one could query that would generate a report of all part oe module changes between KSP versions (say from KSP 1.4.5 to 1.7.3 as an example)?
• "Modder notes" the place to find  summaries of specific changes to the API between versions?

Spoiler

 

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-TextureImporterOverride.html

Thank you for sharing your insights!

[Gargamel]

Moved to add-on Discussion.