Mod platform

[Kalessin1]

I was thinking about mod platform. I mean official mod platform like for example in Factorio game. In KSP I was searching for mods on many pages (Curseforge, GitHub etc), forum, Ckan, and so one.  And I never was 100% sure if this is the newest, if there is no official dependencies or incompatible with other mod. It would be nice to have official server for mods, ease to download, ease to find updates, other recommended mods to install together etc etc.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Kalessin1

[Profugo Barbatus]

Assuming there is no official platform with comparable features, I'll probably just use the CKAN successor, whatever form or name it takes. Community already knows it, and its got good functionality regarding dependency tracking and suggesting additional supporting content.

The one advantage any community option has over an official one, or 3rd party platform like Curse, is that the community has absolute control over it. Old games see online services die, Curse can drop or add or restrict games at will (Nexus too), but something community ran like CKAN or Spacedock goes as long as there's a handful of people willing to pay for server costs.

If I were to wishlist something for whatever the future client would be, I'd want a collections/modpack feature like Nexus offers. Pressing a button to instantly go out and gather a bunch of supporting mods and stick them in with adjusted configs and patches makes large mod assemblies so much easier.

[SingABrightSong]

If at all possible, Steam Workshop. Nexus Mods won't allow you to download mods without an account, and enforces account bans for such infractions as "Talking negatively about Nexus moderators, anywhere, no matter how private". While I believe that negative discussion of Nexus policy is allowable, I'm not certain that this post, here, on KSP's forums won't net me a ban from Nexus.

[Gargamel]

12 hours ago, SingABrightSong said:

f at all possible, Steam Workshop

Absolutely not, IMO.   I want as little integration with a launcher platform as possible.  This game won’t be offered on steam exclusively.    Isolating and fracturing sizable sections of the community like that is the worst thing we can do.  
 

Official or unofficial third party sites, like Spacedock or Curse is the way to go.   
 

I don’t even want an integrated mod manager.    I’ve _never_ had a good experience in the last 30 years of gaming when a game handles the mods itself.     Especially now when forced updates are a thing.    I’d far prefer either 100% manual mod management (which is a pain, yes) or a official or unofficial third party app to handle it, like CKAN.  

[Cytauri]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

Absolutely not, IMO.   I want as little integration with a launcher platform as possible.  This game won’t be offered on steam exclusively.    Isolating and fracturing sizable sections of the community like that is the worst thing we can do.  
 

Official or unofficial third party sites, like Spacedock or Curse is the way to go.   
 

I don’t even want an integrated mod manager.    I’ve _never_ had a good experience in the last 30 years of gaming when a game handles the mods itself.     Especially now when forced updates are a thing.    I’d far prefer either 100% manual mod management (which is a pain, yes) or a official or unofficial third party app to handle it, like CKAN.  

Yeah, I only use steam for a quick ship that I want to fly. Don't want no mods on there. I use CKAN normally, but for more intricate mods, I do manual. Spacedock all the way!

[SingABrightSong]

6 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Absolutely not, IMO.   I want as little integration with a launcher platform as possible.  This game won’t be offered on steam exclusively.    Isolating and fracturing sizable sections of the community like that is the worst thing we can do.  
 

Official or unofficial third party sites, like Spacedock or Curse is the way to go.   
 

I don’t even want an integrated mod manager.    I’ve _never_ had a good experience in the last 30 years of gaming when a game handles the mods itself.     Especially now when forced updates are a thing.    I’d far prefer either 100% manual mod management (which is a pain, yes) or a official or unofficial third party app to handle it, like CKAN.  

Good point, actually. I'd probably say Spacedock then as my choice

[snkiz]

I had a bad experience with ckan back before it polished and wiped out a game with it. I'm not trusting of mod manager platforms. I use spacedock,it has bookmarks, and is easy on the eyes. Yes it a pain to install mods manually, but At least you know what files are where, and nothing changes unless you do it. Steam has been a horrible experience for modded games, Numbered folders, bad, search and origination. authors can pull or change mods at will and push updates. Modding a game requires you to have some knowledge of it's inner workings, file structure, etc. If something goes wrong and all that is hidden by a mod manager, you could find yourself nuking and paving a save over some easily fixed issue, that you don't know about, and a manual install would have prevented.

[shdwlrd]

Why wouldn't you want an internal mod manager? I play Cities Skylines and the integrated mod manager is a God send. You add a mod pack, in game you enable or disable the mod pack or individual assets within the mod pack. No messing around with files. No trying to figure out the actual file names to delete. No extra stuff you don't want in your game. And a very easy way to remove the mod or assets, without exiting the game.

There are mods for KSP I don't use anymore because I only want certain parts from them, but don't want to mess around with finding and removing files I don't want in my game. I would spend more time trying to get certain assets into KSP than actually playing KSP at times. This pain can be avoided if there was an integrated mod manager.

[linuxgurugamer]

1 hour ago, snkiz said:

I had a bad experience with ckan back before it polished and wiped out a game with it. I'm not trusting of mod manager platforms. I use spacedock,it has bookmarks, and is easy on the eyes. Yes it a pain to install mods manually, but At least you know what files are where, and nothing changes unless you do it. Steam has been a horrible experience for modded games, Numbered folders, bad, search and origination. authors can pull or change mods at will and push updates. Modding a game requires you to have some knowledge of it's inner workings, file structure, etc. If something goes wrong and all that is hidden by a mod manager, you could find yourself nuking and paving a save over some easily fixed issue, that you don't know about, and a manual install would have prevented.

I guess you don't make backups?

Even with an in-game modmanager, you should backup the game (save files & game files) before updating.

CKAN has been greatly improved to the point it's one of the best mod managers I've come across.  Especially given the way that KSP modding works, along with ModuleManager patches, an internal mod manager really wouldn't work.  Of course, MM is somewhat unique to KSP, hopefully it won't be necessary in KSP 2.

FYI, I've been using CKAN for years, and can't recall any games being wiped out.  There were issues in the earlier years, but they've been solved for a long time

[snkiz]

50 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

I guess you don't make backups?

of game data? Not usually, not like I need to fear updates anymore. No my issue was with early days. I used it on an existing gamedata folder, because it was supposed detect what I had. It did not, and in my inexperience I could not figure out what mods were clashing, or what exactly it had done.  So the path of least resistance at the time was to par down my mod list and install them one at a time. This required a new save.

1 hour ago, shdwlrd said:

Cities Skylines and the integrated mod manager

when did this happen? Do you mean it's asset manager/ mod manager? that isn't the same thing , it just lists what you have installed, and lets you fiddle with the dials. It doesn't have any useful sorting capabilities, it's crazy slow. You can't get new mods with it, hell you can't second load modded cities at all. Everything in cities is an asset and that thing dumps them all in the same bucket. I haven't played since the last update, did that change?

[snkiz]

one more thought, I'm not bad mouthing ckan per say. I'm sure these days it's mostly fine if not to hand hold-y. I'm comming at from the perspective of any new thing that automates things for us. GPS is a god send, until one day it isn't working and you need it. that's when it dawn on you, not only can you not read a map, but no one ever thought to offer to teach you. My grip with ckan, unless I'm really out date is, its hiding basic skills you should have if you are going to screw with the game files. It lowers the barrier to entry to modding without equipping you with the skills to troubleshoot in any way. 

[shdwlrd]

11 minutes ago, snkiz said:

when did this happen? Do you mean it's asset manager/ mod manager? that isn't the same thing , it just lists what you have installed, and lets you fiddle with the dials. It doesn't have any useful sorting capabilities, it's crazy slow. You can't get new mods with it, hell you can't second load modded cities at all. Everything in cities is an asset and that thing dumps them all in the same bucket. I haven't played since the last update, did that change?

Yes, I'm talking about the same integrated mod/asset manager in Cities Skylines. It has it's drawbacks, but it's perfect for what it does. Allows you to add a pack of assets and then individually select what assets you want in your city from that pack. It also allows you to setup actual mods before you even start the game. (Helpful if you already know what settings you want to use.) Plus you can side load mods if you like, you just add them to appropriate folder. If formatted correctly, the mod and asset manager will pick them up. (Mods don't require a steam workshop ID to work.)

(The save breaking mod updates? Rarely happens. Only mods that mess with the map setting will break the save completely. (81 tiles) The other times was malicious code interduced by the mod maker or maintainer. (NetEx2))

What's better; manually going through a mod, opening each cfg to get the name of the mu, and opening the mu to get the name(s) of the textures, and then adding or removing them and hoping you don't screw it up, or selecting a button for each asset you want or don't want from a mod(asset) pack. For a true mod, selecting the options you want before you start the game or after? (Different features of Kerbalism or MJ come to mind.)

[snkiz]

Just now, shdwlrd said:

Allows you to add a pack of assets and then individually select what assets you want in your city from that pack. It also allows you to setup actual mods before you even start the game.

I have well over 8000 assets with mods, houses, trees, patio furniture that for some reason needs to to be seperate. What supercomputer do you have that makes that tool not force you to go get a coffee to perform any action? You also can not install mods with the game running, that's just asking for trouble.

[shdwlrd]

On 1/31/2023 at 12:52 PM, snkiz said:

I have well over 8000 assets with mods, houses, trees, patio furniture that for some reason needs to to be seperate. What supercomputer do you have that makes that tool not force you to go get a coffee to perform any action? You also can not install mods with the game running, that's just asking for trouble.

I get that what Cities Skylines is currently using is slow and sucks at sorting, but it's an example of functionality I would like to see. I'm not telling Intercept to use Colossal Order/Paradox's code for it. I'm saying this has functionality I would like to see. 

You keep harping on the negatives of the implementation, but not seeing the positives the format can have.

[mcwaffles2003]

Is it possible to have an integrated mod platform AND allow manual control over mods?
I would like to have modded MP servers and I would like a simple and easy way to distribut modpacks within the game (similar to factorio, cs 1.6, etc)

[snkiz]

On 2/2/2023 at 7:32 PM, mcwaffles2003 said:

Is it possible to have an integrated mod platform AND allow manual control over mods?
I would like to have modded MP servers and I would like a simple and easy way to distribut modpacks within the game (similar to factorio, cs 1.6, etc)

Is it? none of my modded games like it when you start mixing auto managed mods with manual ones. I Just asked in the ckan forum because of this conversation. Nope, and there's a years old debate, over complicating the matter.  They don't use any sort of version file. Technically possible and worth the trouble are different ends of the spectrum. 

The issue with and inbuilt platform is games that have them, expect them to be used. The repo may be something not user friendly like steam. I like the idea of a mod manager, but ckan was built to scratch an itch, not be a comprehensive mod platform, now that it is, that lack of foresight is showing.  That's what every mod is doing really.

To me, a good mod manager would work like a good package manager on Liunx.  They are basically the same function. It would have proper version checking, be able to deal with manually installed things, it would show you what's doing, and it would have an 'expert' button for options best hidden from newbs. That last part is important. The average user of a tool like this is like your average driver, they don't know how  the car works, they don't want to know. So it has to be idiot proof, but still useful to advanced users,

[Davi SDF]

Factorio's mod manager handles mods pretty well in my experience, with lots of configurability and even huge ammounts of mods end up being very stable (well... comparable to KSP1 at least) 

So i would love something like that! Something that doesn't depend on Steam and only on the game itself and the mod base.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Davi SDF

[Bej Kerman]

19 hours ago, snkiz said:

Is it? none of my modded games like it when you start mixing auto managed mods with manual ones.

Really? Is KSP 1 one of those games? CKAN handles manual additions fine and even adds it to your mod list.

[snkiz]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Really? Is KSP 1 one of those games? CKAN handles manual additions fine and even adds it to your mod list.

No it doesn't. This pretty much sums up why I don't use ckan. This issue is 6 years old.

On 2/4/2023 at 10:11 PM, HebaruSan said:

You can't; the manual install detector only looks for DLLs, probably because it was originally intended to help satisfy dependencies on plugins like Module Manager. There's some discussion of the challenges associated with trying to go beyond DLLs here:

https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/issues/949

Version files were originally for KSP-AVC:

CKAN adopted them later for certain things since mods were adding them. As you've seen, detection of manual installs doesn't use version files.

No. A good rule of thumb is that if a feature would require significantly re-architecting the game itself, CKAN probably doesn't do it.

Here's one way, but I don't know whether it still works since they added the launcher:

 

[AtomicTech]

On 1/30/2023 at 11:50 PM, Gargamel said:

I don’t even want an integrated mod manager.

I second that notion. 

It'd be nice to have it easy for us to implement our stuff but I don't think it'd help anyone if Intercept is juggling adding official support for mods on top of development of new content and fixing bugs.