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Mod Intercompatibility?

#1
Something I rarely see tackled much in terms of modification that really might be the largest downside, is making mods compatible. A common issue is when a mod changes an item's properties, making it unusable by the other mod, because a function appending the item has been replaced by another mod's use of it. :?

It is my most discouraging thought in terms of when I make a mod, especially due to the fact that things like the Mod Nexus has banned the creation of mod compilations, (Arguably justly for giving credit reasons, but IMO it just makes it that much harder for any mod users to immediately access a large, stable selection of inter-compatible mods. :wtf: ) of course that doesn't stop me from making my own private pack on occasion. :ugeek:

I would love to make a massive mod pack for LT, if the game would so need one to make tons of mods work together, which makes the universe that much more grand to me. :geek:


Mod Squirrel wants his 500GB of custom mods :squirrel:
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In Josh we trust
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Re: Mod Intercompatibility?

#4
Alimarin wrote:Are the two mutually exclusive? D:
Not at all. I've enjoyed some very large mods in my Skyrim game and sometimes wish many of the smaller mods could be rolled into one. But the smaller mods do give you fine control over what you want to add to your game. It is a fact that some modders excel in certain aspects of game modding but fail noticeably in others. Having smaller, more specific, mods enables you to pick and choose. :angel: And with a good mod manager you can usually sort out incompatibility problems.

It boils down to how consistent and expert the individual modder is really.

So how good are you, Alimarin? ;) :)
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Re: Mod Intercompatibility?

#5
Victor Tombs wrote:
Alimarin wrote:Are the two mutually exclusive? D:
Not at all. I've enjoyed some very large mods in my Skyrim game and sometimes wish many of the smaller mods could be rolled into one. But the smaller mods do give you fine control over what you want to add to your game. It is a fact that some modders excel in certain aspects of game modding but fail noticeably in others. Having smaller, more specific, mods enables you to pick and choose. :angel: And with a good mod manager you can usually sort out incompatibility problems.

It boils down to how consistent and expert the individual modder is really.

So how good are you, Alimarin? ;) :)
I made this mega-mod pack that I never released for a game called Gratuitous Space Battles, and it kicked ass until I lost the files into the depths of hard drive failure. :C

I even expanded a ton on all of the mods, adding new ship classes to all the custom races like destroyers, dreadnoughts, corvettes, when there were originally only fighters, frigates, and cruisers in the game.

Edit: I even made a plethora of ship equipment and weapons and balanced them for each class and type.
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THERE
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In Josh we trust
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Re: Mod Intercompatibility?

#6
Alimarin wrote:I made this mega-mod pack that I never released for a game called Gratuitous Space Battles, and it kicked ass until I lost the files into the depths of hard drive failure. :C

I even expanded a ton on all of the mods, adding new ship classes to all the custom races like destroyers, dreadnoughts, corvettes, when there were originally only fighters, frigates, and cruisers in the game.

Edit: I even made a plethora of ship equipment and weapons and balanced them for each class and type.
:( It certainly sounds like a mod I would have enjoyed playing, Alimarin. :)

If you do get the chance to make something as impressive for Limit Theory I hope you will share it with the Community. :thumbup:

Just try to be less careless with your file management. Backups and all that. :P
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Re: Mod Intercompatibility?

#7
Alimarin wrote:
Victor Tombs wrote::think: That sounds very reasonable to me, Alimarin. :) Although I would prefer a reliable mod manager. ;) :angel:

Are the two mutually exclusive? D:
I will wait for Josh what he is planing to do (e.g. mod manager and its capabilities) before i start to whine :mrgreen:
But your concerns are valid, that should not be forgetten.
:D
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Re: Mod Intercompatibility?

#9
Considering that many mods will use LTSL to mod the game. There it little that can be done to prevent one mod from messing with another outside of direct communication between the mod teams. This can be seen with mod communities such as Kerbal Space Program. Where teams frequently communicate to try and prevent this issue.
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Re: Mod Intercompatibility?

#10
At the absolute minimum, The System should be able to read the list of files included in a package, and to identify whether any of them replace a default file.

If two mods both say they change the same default file, that's a potential conflict that should be flagged to the user. It would be nice to have some automated way to resolve such conflicts, but that's probably well beyond the capability of any game software.

A somewhat more difficult but still feasible check would be to make sure two functions named in different mod packages don't have the same name. You might be able to get around most of those clashes by prefixing every user script function name with the name of the package, but that starts getting expensive.

It certainly should be possible to at least detect and report on possible conflicts, though.
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Re: Mod Intercompatibility?

#11
As you said that would be expensive to code for and also give false security. The procedural nature of the game may mean that conflicts or balance issues between mods will be hidden for hours of gametime.

Best bet is to encourage players to install mods that they KNOW works together through the mods team's posts. Stay away from any mod packs (Even if they work now. Updates to one mod may break it later) etc..
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Re: Mod Intercompatibility?

#12
AbhChallenger wrote:Best bet is to encourage players to install mods that they KNOW works together through the mods team's posts. Stay away from any mod packs (Even if they work now. Updates to one mod may break it later) etc..
Again, though, how is anyone to KNOW that there's no file or function name conflict?

To compare file or function names requires that at least one developer has to expose or provide that information for other developers to compare against their own changes.

But if that input data is available, it makes no sense not to write software to perform the file/function name comparison and report the results.

And if people are going to do that anyway, why not simply include that software in the LT mod loader itself, and require all mods to expose the names of all the files and functions included?

That way when I start up my copy of LT and it tells me that the Awesome Nebulae mod I just installed has a conflict with the More Space Stuff mod, I have the ability to decide which one I prefer to retain.

I don't think it's practical to expect all developers of LT mods to know what every other developer is changing. It wouldn't hurt them to do some compatibility testing, but they have no way of knowing what you will actually try to load into your local copy of Limit Theory.

Anyway, not to belabor the point further; these are just some ideas I offer for consideration.
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Re: Mod Intercompatibility?

#13
Devs obviously can't test against all other mods. Normally in the KSP community they test against the bigger, more popular mods and wait for feedback/ requests from the smaller ones. It is not the best. But it works.

If the mod loader (If there actually is one in time for LT 1.0) checks for any conflicts that would be okay (I worry about conflicts that could arise later tho. Like a mod expects a base game response but that has been modified by another mod) The thing is. I absolutely do NOT support anything else pushed back in LT development for 1.0 to make room for it. Including the 1.0 date. Modding already got a huge boost with LTSL itself. Anything further than that can wait.

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