How do you manage your mods?

[CaptRobau]

I was wondering how everyone installs/deinstalls their mods.

[Axelord FTW]

Manually.

I will keep a backup (stock) of the whole KSP directory and will make a backup of the modded KSP directory whenever I'm testing a new mod.

[montyben101]

I keep a backup of my entire KSP folder on a USB stick, I take a backup of my save every time I exit the game

[merendel]

Each update I copy off a clean copy of the game for archive. Another copy is made for modding. I just manually add the mods into game data as it does not take long.

[Trentendegreth]

I track mine manualy as well organized in my bookmarks by category, downloaded into a "mods folder" also by category and i use separate installs from the stock "'nilla" that is untouched by mods.

[technicalfool]

Second option. I have about three different DMP-enabled installs plus others for playing with other mods.

I'm looking at CKAN with interest though.

[Red Iron Crown]

I maintain multiple KSP installs with varying mods manually installed. I keep a separate "Mods" folder for the downloaded .zips, sorted into subfolders for different versions of KSP.

[Geschosskopf]

I maintain multiple KSP installs with varying mods manually installed. I keep a separate "Mods" folder for the downloaded .zips, sorted into subfolders for different versions of KSP.

Exactly how I do things, plus I usually have multiple installs of the same KSP version, 1 all stock, 1 with every mod I can cram into it and have it still work, and usually several with different amounts of the major "systemic" mods like FAR, life support, RemoteTech, etc. And of course all done manually to answer the OP's question.

[Norpo]

There are KSP mod managers? This is new to me.

These modders rock.

I just remove/extract from gamedata, once with disasterous results (deinstalled a minor mod with a part from it still attached to a major space-station, didn't quicksave. oops. Space-station disappeared.)

Other than that though, I haven't had too many problems with it.

I dump all my removed mods into an "old mods" folder however, just in case I need to add em back in and I don't feel like re-downloading.

[CaptRobau]

I'm surprised by how many people use manual installation. I use JSGME, which is a generic mod enabler. Install JSGME.exe into the KSP_win folder and open it to create a mod folder. Then you put in mod folders (order Modname/GameData/...) and then you can use the program to move or remove those mod folders into/from the real GameData. It works very well and if you like mods, can be a real godsend.

http://www.gamefront.com/files/21681483/JSGME.7z

[DepletedUraniumPenetrator]

One back up stock ksp install and one modded that I regularly use. Manual extraction into game data folder.

[merendel]

I just remove/extract from gamedata, once with disasterous results (deinstalled a minor mod with a part from it still attached to a major space-station, didn't quicksave. oops. Space-station disappeared.)

you think thats bad... I managed to delete the squad folder by mistake once. Thankfuly I had a backup for the persistance file though.

[Feldynn]

Manually, I have a small text file with a list of mod version numbers and a handful of bookmarks in my browser I check when I remember. Beyond that it's a simple case of deleting / extracting the appropriate mod folder from within Gamedata.

[NFUN]

you think thats bad... I managed to delete the squad folder by mistake once. Thankfuly I had a backup for the persistance file though.

[bobcook]

recycle-bin-empty.jpg

Even better:

[NathanKell]

A nontrivial number of support requests for my mods have come from people using mod managers (which sometimes install wrongly). I'm eagerly awaiting CKAN.

As for myself, I have about 6 installs right now (all manual, until CKAN).

[bobcook]

A nontrivial number of support requests for my mods have come from people using mod managers (which sometimes install wrongly). I'm eagerly awaiting CKAN.

I hadn't heard of CKAN before but now that I've read up on it, I'm eager to be using it too. Someday it would be nice to have this integrated directly into the game.

[Frank_G]

I am doing my mod installation manually. Every time we get an KSP update, i make a fresh install, download the mods i need in the latest version and unzip them into the GameData folder.

And with each KSP update the list gets shorter, which makes it more and more easy to maintain. I am really looking forward to the coming editor update and the art update.

[Jouni]

I'm surprised by how many people use manual installation. I use JSGME, which is a generic mod enabler. Install JSGME.exe into the KSP_win folder and open it to create a mod folder. Then you put in mod folders (order Modname/GameData/...) and then you can use the program to move or remove those mod folders into/from the real GameData. It works very well and if you like mods, can be a real godsend.

File management is so easy and natural after decades of computer use that using mod managers would probably be just harder and slower. At some point I considered installing mods into a completely different location and creating scripts to manage the set of active mods with symlinks, but it didn't seem worth the effort.

[DaMichel]

Speaking of symlinks ... These work very well with KSP, even on windows. There are several flavors of links in windows. For some development stuff i put so called junctions in the GameData folder which point to the actual plugin folders in my source trees. Check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point and http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html

Otherwise i also use manual folder management. Stuff i don't need, i either delete or move to another folder.

If i do a long term mission, i consider making a copy of the whole KSP application folder and work with a fixed set of mods. So i don't run the risk of breaking stuff while messing with mods.

[NBZ]

Using Windows 7/8.1, I keep a Zip archive inside my GameData folder. To de-activate a mod, I right-drag its folder into the Zip, and select "Move here". To re-activate, I open the Zip, and right-drag back out, then select "Move here".