The Mess Has Started - Two Different Mod Loaders

[linuxgurugamer]

1 hour ago, AtomicTech said:

I'm staff on the KSP 2 Modding Society where SpaceWarp is being developed so my preference between the two is, of course, SpaceWarp but I'm all in favor of an official mod loader from IG and a new Module Manager-like tool that makes it easy for folks like me to write mods. Also, because KSP 2 is still very, very early in its development, I'm going to hold off on making anything until we actually get some news regarding mod development. 

So why come out with a different loader, when there was a mature one already developed and working for KSP2?  This is leading to confusion, and from what I hear, there is stuff being added to Spacewarp which will make it very difficult to port mods to an eventual "official" modmanager.

If you want to provide utilities and libraries, that's fine, but to incorporate those into the modloader itself is not a smart move, IMHO.  I'd rather see extra libraries such as what I did with the Toolbarcontroller, rather than merged with the loader.

[MARL_Mk1]

On 2/27/2023 at 5:53 AM, munix said:

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.

You are still forced to store BePiNex mods in -/Bepinex/Plugins and SpaceWarp mods in -/SpaceWarp/Mods, which is suboptimal.

 

[munix]

1 minute ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

You are still forced to store BePiNex mods in -/Bepinex/Plugins and SpaceWarp mods in -/SpaceWarp/Mods, which is suboptimal.

 

That's true, but if mod authors simply bundle their release zips in a way that already has the correct folder structure, it's as easy as dragging the contents of it to the game folder, and can be automated with tools like CKAN

[MARL_Mk1]

5 minutes ago, munix said:

That's true, but if mod authors simply bundle their release zips in a way that already has the correct folder structure, it's as easy as dragging the contents of it to the game folder, and can be automated with tools like CKAN

Either way, I'm just happy it hasn't become Forge/Fabric all over again

[Scarecrow71]

39 minutes ago, munix said:

But they are:

 

I...have no idea how I missed that.  I'd blame it on being old and blind, but I'm quite capable of seeing SpaceWarp, so...

[VITAS]

I see the problems with having information in multiple places. (SpaceDock, Forums and so on). Any idea about what SpaceDock itself could do to minimize that problem?
 

I know its the authors task to harmonize their statements and post in the channels they think are important. But still... Im a service provider my task is to make life easy.

 
Regarding the topic again: Trying stuff is what people do around here. Something will win. Lets hope its the best solution for the task not the VHS of KSP2 Mod loaders. Im not qualified to say which one that is.

What a luxury we have that all we can complain about is that we have to much.

Edited February 28, 2023 by VITAS

[sym]

Having two mod loader setups requires modders to test in two incompatible environments.

Stage Infos says: "Only works on the latest SpaceWarp version! May have issues with Bepinex"
https://spacedock.info/mod/3272/Stage Info

"may" have issues - it costs effort to test 2 environments.

Also as a user you can never be sure if threir setup is correct.
It's like USB2 - you always have to insert 3 times to find the correct orientation.

Cheers :)

[sym]

Regarding developer productivity:  Do Spacewarp or Bepinex support refreshing / restarting your mod after code change without restarting KSP?
I mean that's a real good qualifier if one loader can and the other cannot.

[bbepis]

1 hour ago, sym said:

Regarding developer productivity:  Do Spacewarp or Bepinex support refreshing / restarting your mod after code change without restarting KSP?
I mean that's a real good qualifier if one loader can and the other cannot.

Yes, BepInEx supports live code / assembly reloading plus other things, like supporting dnSpy hooks to allow live VS-like debugging

Stuff like the latter is straight up not possible with an official mod loader because it requires tight lowlevel integration with Unity that the game will not officially be able to support

[Scarecrow71]

I went with SpaceWarp for sure after testing this morning to get both BepInEx and SpaceWarp installed at the same time.  BepInEx, with the SpaceWarp plugin, simply did not work for me, whereas SpaceWarp works flawlessly.

[bbepis]

2 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I went with SpaceWarp for sure after testing this morning to get both BepInEx and SpaceWarp installed at the same time.  BepInEx, with the SpaceWarp plugin, simply did not work for me, whereas SpaceWarp works flawlessly.

That's probably because SpaceWarp has changed dramatically since I uploaded the loader plugin. You'd want to use the BepInEx build of Spacewarp instead, since that's kept up to date by the devs of the loader

[munix]

Also, worth noting: https://github.com/SpaceWarpDev/SpaceWarp/issues/105

[cheese3660]

15 minutes ago, munix said:

Also, worth noting: https://github.com/SpaceWarpDev/SpaceWarp/issues/105

Yes, we are discussing moving Space Warp to being a BepInEx library fully that other mods can depend on.

[Scarecrow71]

30 minutes ago, bbepis said:

That's probably because SpaceWarp has changed dramatically since I uploaded the loader plugin. You'd want to use the BepInEx build of Spacewarp instead, since that's kept up to date by the devs of the loader

Well, I'll ask then - again - for explicit instructions on which mod to use, and which plugin to put where.  Because I followed all of the instructions this morning and it failed.

And that's one of my biggest gripes with the multiple modloaders right now - a complete lack of documentation/setup/install instructions.  I'm not trying to sound like a child, and I do appreciate the work you guys have put into this stuff.  But I have to constantly ask "Where are the instructions" or "What's the install setup like" or "Which one of these links do I follow".  You have a thread for the modloader, right?  I've seen it, and I'm sure I can find it.  But if the first post doesn't have the latest and greatest setup in it, I won't find it.

[HebaruSan]

2 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

And that's one of my biggest gripes with the multiple modloaders right now - a complete lack of documentation/setup/install instructions.

Here you go. Enjoy!

https://spacedock.info/mod/3255/BepInEx for KSP 2

https://spacedock.info/mod/3277/BepInEx Space Warp Plugin

 

 

[Scarecrow71]

34 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Here you go. Enjoy!

https://spacedock.info/mod/3255/BepInEx for KSP 2

https://spacedock.info/mod/3277/BepInEx Space Warp Plugin

 

 

Great.  So what's the next step for those mods that then are for SpaceWarp?  I see no SpaceWarp folder there?  

[munix]

Just now, Scarecrow71 said:

Great.  So what's the next step for those mods that then are for SpaceWarp?  I see no SpaceWarp folder there?  

if you do what the BepInEx Space Warp Plugin description tells you to, you should have a SpaceWarp folder in the KSP2 main folder: "Drag the contents of the zip file into the KSP root directory", and the zip contains a SpaceWarp folder

[Scarecrow71]

6 minutes ago, munix said:

if you do what the BepInEx Space Warp Plugin description tells you to, you should have a SpaceWarp folder in the KSP2 main folder: "Drag the contents of the zip file into the KSP root directory", and the zip contains a SpaceWarp folder

Which is what I did this morning.  And it failed, which I mentioned above.  Now there's been talk about there being 2 different plugins, and I have asked as nicely as I could for step-by-step/start-to-finish instructions for the whole shot here.  Telling me "do what the BepInEx description says" failed this morning, so there's no reason for me to believe it won't fail again.

Please.  I'm asking nicely.  Start-to-finish, step-by-step.  Which links, which modloader, which folder goes where.  I can't be the only person here who isn't able to follow the multiple posts to just "do what it says".

Please.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Scarecrow71

[cheese3660]

11 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Which is what I did this morning.  And it failed, which I mentioned above.  Now there's been talk about there being 2 different plugins, and I have asked as nicely as I could for step-by-step/start-to-finish instructions for the whole shot here.  Telling me "do what the BepInEx description says" failed this morning, so there's no reason for me to believe it won't fail again.

Please.  I'm asking nicely.  Start-to-finish, step-by-step.  Which links, which modloader, which folder goes where.  I can't be the only person here who isn't able to follow the multiple posts to just "do what it says".

Please.

1. Download BepInEx for KSP 2

2. Open up the local games files via steam and drag the contents of the BepInEx zip into there
3. Download Space Warp BepInEx

4. extract the contents of said zip into the local files as well.

If you aren't using steam, then find the directory with KSP2_x64.exe and thats where they will go

[bbepis]

24 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Which is what I did this morning.  And it failed, which I mentioned above.  Now there's been talk about there being 2 different plugins, and I have asked as nicely as I could for step-by-step/start-to-finish instructions for the whole shot here.  Telling me "do what the BepInEx description says" failed this morning, so there's no reason for me to believe it won't fail again.

Please.  I'm asking nicely.  Start-to-finish, step-by-step.  Which links, which modloader, which folder goes where.  I can't be the only person here who isn't able to follow the multiple posts to just "do what it says".

Please.

I've noticed some people respond better to video tutorials so I made one.

https://streamable.com/rxxfqu

That details the installation of the two modloaders together. Your BepInEx mods get extracted into "BepInEx\plugins", while SpaceWarp mods get extracted into "SpaceWarp\Mods"`

[HebaruSan]

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Great.  So what's the next step for those mods that then are for SpaceWarp?  I see no SpaceWarp folder there?  

That's explained on the other page for SpaceWarp currently:

• https://spacedock.info/mod/3257/Space Warp

@cheese3660, that part should probably be added to https://spacedock.info/mod/3277/BepInEx Space Warp Plugin as well for clarity.

Cheers!

[cheese3660]

28 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

@cheese3660, that part should probably be added to https://spacedock.info/mod/3277/BepInEx Space Warp Plugin as well for clarity.

Done!

[cheese3660]

On 2/28/2023 at 11:19 AM, linuxgurugamer said:

If you want to provide utilities and libraries, that's fine, but to incorporate those into the modloader itself is not a smart move, IMHO.  I'd rather see extra libraries such as what I did with the Toolbarcontroller, rather than merged with the loader.

In terms of this, this is kind of what led me to start thinking the change to being a pure BepInEx library for KSP2 would be a good idea as we won't be trying to do 2 things at once, and instead be focused fully on provided KSP2 abstractions. And also yes, leave loading up to a more mature modloader.

Speaking of which, work is in progress on that.
https://github.com/SpaceWarpDev/SpaceWarp/tree/experimental-bepinex-library

Edited March 2, 2023 by cheese3660
Add link to in progress bepinex work

[RaBDawG]

MOD LOADER WARS!

LFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

 

[Homer_S]

On 2/28/2023 at 10:23 AM, MARL_Mk1 said:

You are still forced to store BePiNex mods in -/Bepinex/Plugins and SpaceWarp mods in -/SpaceWarp/Mods, which is suboptimal.

 

Uh...

Can't you just make the .../SpaceWarp/Mods point to .../Bepinix/Plugins via The Complete Guide to Creating Symbolic Links (aka Symlinks) on Windows (howtogeek.com)? Or will that make Bepinex choke on the SpaceWarp mods?

Homer

Edited March 3, 2023 by Homer_S