The Mess Has Started - Two Different Mod Loaders

[linuxgurugamer]

I see the eager modders have started the mess again.  There are now at least two different mod loaders:

• SpaceWarp
• BepenEx

and they appear to be incompatible with each other.

Sadly, this is what I was afraid of, and had talked to the developers over the years trying to get some guidance from them on day one for modders.  I know from examining what Visual Studio shows me, that they do have the structure for many things in the game which aren't yet available/finished, including a ModManager, Colonies, and more.  But since they aren't available, people are taking it on their own to start modding the game.

There needs to be discussion about this, and even if IG doesn't provide it, we should come up with a standardized way to install mods.    Other than determining that these two seem to be incompatible with each other (they both use UnityDoorstop).  Now, it is quite possible that these _can_ be made to work at the same time, but IMHO, having multiple mod managers injecting things into the game is just asking for trouble.

Comments?

[ABritInSpace]

BepInEx has a plugin for loading SpaceWarp mods: https://spacedock.info/mod/3265/SpaceWarp loader for BepInEx

I will admit, though, that there is a lot of confusion, and the installation for using both is undocumented / not easy to understand.

 

[sarbian]

1 hour ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Comments?

BepInEx is a more complete solution with a large community that support it (it is a generic Unity game solution). I would rather see a plugin for BepInEx that adds the KSP specific parts of SpaceWarp.

[VITAS]

most mods are using spacewarp so far.

anyway i think one will prevail or non if the future brings a more official approach.

[bbepis]

10 minutes ago, sarbian said:

I would rather see a plugin for BepInEx that adds the KSP specific parts of SpaceWarp.

Is there specific functionality you'd want to see in a KSP-targeted plugin? I've looked through the SpaceWarp source and the only KSP specific code I can see is adding hooks into the loading screen for performing mod loading, an in-game UI to see which mods have been loaded, and making every plugin a KerbalMonoBehaviour (as opposed to a regular MonoBehaviour, but it doesn't add anything you can't access through a singleton)

[sarbian]

18 minutes ago, bbepis said:

Is there specific functionality you'd want to see in a KSP-targeted plugin?

I did not look at what it does but I assumed it did more than load a list of dll.

[linuxgurugamer]

Just as I get my first mod written for BepInEx, I see that someone has written a SpaceWarp loader for BepinEx:  https://spacedock.info/mod/3265/SpaceWarp loader for BepInEx

I wonder what the impact will be for one loader running under another.  This is getting messy, very fast

1 hour ago, VITAS said:

most mods are using spacewarp so far.

You must admit, it is a rather small sample :-)

 

Edit:   Another problem is that as of now, neither is well documented.  I just made a post in the BepinEx thread describing how to use it to build a mod.  But frankly, both of them seem to have been rushed out for KSP 2, with little forethought regarding usage, documentation, etc.  

Edited February 26, 2023 by linuxgurugamer

[Mekan1k]

Begun, the mod-loader war has.

[VITAS]

I just ewanted to sway the perception towards monopoly

51 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Just as I get my first mod written for BepInEx, I see that someone has written a SpaceWarp loader for BepinEx:  https://spacedock.info/mod/3265/SpaceWarp loader for BepInEx

I wonder what the impact will be for one loader running under another.  This is getting messy, very fast

You must admit, it is a rather small sample :-)

 

Edit:   Another problem is that as of now, neither is well documented.  I just made a post in the BepinEx thread describing how to use it to build a mod.  But frankly, both of them seem to have been rushed out for KSP 2, with little forethought regarding usage, documentation, etc.  

 

[RayneCloud]

15 minutes ago, Mekan1k said:

Begun, the mod-loader war has.

A sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises...

[munix]

55 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Just as I get my first mod written for BepInEx, I see that someone has written a SpaceWarp loader for BepinEx:  https://spacedock.info/mod/3265/SpaceWarp loader for BepInEx

I wonder what the impact will be for one loader running under another.  This is getting messy, very fast

You must admit, it is a rather small sample :-)

 

Edit:   Another problem is that as of now, neither is well documented.  I just made a post in the BepinEx thread describing how to use it to build a mod.  But frankly, both of them seem to have been rushed out for KSP 2, with little forethought regarding usage, documentation, etc.  

I wouldn't really call BepInEx rushed, considering it had its first release in February 2018. It's a generic Unity modding tool, so there just isn't any KSP-specific documentation, but honestly, seeing it for the first time yesterday, I had no issues writing a small mod with it . It seems considerably more mature than SpaceWarp, but it would be nice to have something that brings the best of both worlds, like a KSP mod manager plugin for BepInEx.

[linuxgurugamer]

1 minute ago, munix said:

I wouldn't really call BepInEx rushed, considering it had its first release in February 2018. It's a generic Unity modding tool, so there just isn't any KSP-specific documentation, but honestly, seeing it for the first time yesterday, I had no issues writing a small mod with it . It seems considerably more mature than SpaceWarp, but it would be nice to have something that brings the best of both worlds, like a KSP mod manager plugin for BepInEx.

Rushed for KSP 2 is what I said.  The "generic instructions" which were pointed to were mostly useless, I figured it out by looking at another mod.  Functionally, it is definitely better

[Pleb]

BepInEx is a great plugin that's been around for a while now and is used in lots of different Unity-based games for modding. Admittedly this is a very different approach than KSP1 modding had, as access to the game data files was much easier! 

[munix]

1 hour ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Just as I get my first mod written for BepInEx, I see that someone has written a SpaceWarp loader for BepinEx:  https://spacedock.info/mod/3265/SpaceWarp loader for BepInEx

Just wondering, has anyone actually been able to get this working? I tried both the precompiled version and compiling it from the source and it does nothing for me.

[Grimmas]

This is hopefully not the final state of KSP2 modding. They promised top notch modding support, and everyone knows the big role modding played in the first KSP. The current problems and fragmentation are of course a direct and predictable consequence of launching EA without any modding support at all. But to be honest I can't really blame them for it, as given the incredibly buggy state of the initial release overall there are clearly more high priority tasks on their plate right now. Though I'm surprised that modding support is not listed on the published roadmap at all, hopefully they can fix that.

[Mitokandria]

I think it's important to also consider what is likely to be most compatible with the future built-in modloader. Considering a built-in solution is in the pipes I think it's best to go with a generic Unity modloader like BepInEx. Since BepInEx is made to be universal it might be easier to later convert to or run them alongside  whatever modding tool(s) KSP2 devs release.

[bigyihsuan]

I've been around in the modded Minecraft community long enough to see us balkanize ourselves by MC version and mod loader many times. 1.2.5, 1.7.10, 1.12, 1.16, 1.18 and beyond; Forge and Fabric (mainly). All you get with this splitting is that mods either:

• Stay and continue to be developed on a specific MC versions.
• Get abandoned on an old version and continue to be developed on newer MC versions.
• Get abandoned entirely in favor of the other mod loader.
• Get abandoned entirely because the mod author doesn't have the time to keep up with the plethora of mod loaders and MC versions.

All of these are not ideal, and all you get is annoying players rudely requesting ports to X version and/or Y mod loader, and exasperated mod authors that eventually give up and never touch the MC modding community again.

KSP1 was an anomaly in my view, because you can use old mod for an old version and usually it'll work with few (new) bugs on the newer versions. I really don't want to see "mod loader wars" in KSP, because I don't want to deal with that feeling of "oh that seems like a cool mod; oh, it's for an incompatible mod loader/version..."

Edited February 26, 2023 by bigyihsuan

[sumghai]

I'll probably wait until the official mod loader comes out, and I have a better idea of what parts/API will be added to the game, before I look into modding for KSP2.

I've learned the hard way through my intermittent attempts at reviving/revamping the FusTek Station Parts mod that updates in Early Access often necessitate fundamental changes to how I mod, and I'd rather not repeat that Sisyphean experience.

[Jamie Wolf]

4 hours ago, sarbian said:

BepInEx is a more complete solution with a large community that support it (it is a generic Unity game solution). I would rather see a plugin for BepInEx that adds the KSP specific parts of SpaceWarp.

I'd second BepInEx, it is a well supported unity loader. Had it been around when the game I primarily mod was around we likely would have used it and added a plugin for the game specific needs instead of making our own loader entirely.

[jfjohnny5]

Has anyone gotten in touch with either of the authors of Space Warp? It does seem like BepInEx is more mature, even if it's lacking a couple KSP specific elements. However, the likely best way to solidify on one loader (until Intercept implements the "official" method) before it gets too out of hand would be for the authors of the loaders to agree on which loader will be the standard. @linuxgurugamer you've put so much effort into keeping the KSP1 modding scene going, I daresay your thoughts would carry a lot of weight in that regard.

[viperfan7]

THing is, all these mod loaders will be obsolete when the official mod support is released , I'm not overly worried about splitting the community with the two modloaders even if that wasn't the case, since you can actually have an abstraction layer between one of them to use the other

tl;dr; Once official mod support is out, it'll all be moot

[Jacke]

18 minutes ago, viperfan7 said:

THing is, all these mod loaders will be obsolete when the official mod support is released , I'm not overly worried about splitting the community with the two modloaders even if that wasn't the case, since you can actually have an abstraction layer between one of them to use the other

tl;dr; Once official mod support is out, it'll all be moot

Maybe not.  The Alternate Mod Launcher for XCOM 2 is much better than the stock launcher and has spread to supporting XCOM Chimera Squad.  If the KSP2 official mod support is not much better than what the community is already using, it will likely have weak adoption.  Not having minimal modding support available at launch is a major issue, especially when the game is currently crying out for immediate improvement.

[munix]

SpaceWarp has support for being loaded through BepInEx since version 0.2.5 so there shouldn't be too much worry about incompatibility between the two.

[Jasseji]

i'd personally go for what @linuxgurugamer uses and recommends as he's the one with most mods on maintenance for KSP1

 

 

[Silvia Dragoness]

18 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Comments?

 

17 hours ago, sarbian said:

BepInEx is a more complete solution with a large community that support it (it is a generic Unity game solution). I would rather see a plugin for BepInEx that adds the KSP specific parts of SpaceWarp.

Counterpoint:  I almost always prefer focused tools over generic ones--in this case, I prefer a game-specific solution over a universal Unity solution.  I vote SpaceWarp, until we have something more official.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Silvia Dragoness