Infrequently-changed Mods

[Wolf Baginski]

I have noticed some Mods, going a long way back, which don't seem to need changes to work, though they can have .version files which trigger warning massages

Sometimes it's using Module Manager, and nothing has changed to affect the Mod. I'll point to "MechJeb for All" as an example of that. Other instances might be a set of fuel tanks, and again nothing has really changed.

On the other hand, there are some mods that really do need an update to work.

With v1.7 some older stuff might look a little worse but that's not "broken". But if you're responsible for one of those lasting Mods, it makes sense that you update the .version file, maybe once a year.

I checked my record, KSP v1.4.0  was a little bit more than a year ago, v1.5.0 roughly six months ago.

I have some older-than-that mods that work fine, I'm happy to alter a .version file to stop the warnings. But do any of us want to frighten off new KSP players?

 

[Tonka Crash]

You can disable the nag messages if you update to the full KSP-AVC instead of relying on the bundled MiniAVC a lot of mods include.

The reason some mods break between versions is that Squad changes the API from time to time. The API are the software interfaces for how mods that include a .dll for functionality interact with the underlying game code. If an API changes the mod breaks and needs at least a recompile if not some actual changes.

Pure parts packs and MM scripts don't have this problem as much, so they tend to work across more versions. You can still have problems as Squad changes the attributes of parts. We saw problems in the VAB at 1.6 because the bulkheadProfiles attribute became more important.