Mods should always ask for sync when setup differs

[Zaflis]

Currently when your mod setup is different from the mods you used when saving some game, it will normally ask if you want to sync the mods with the save. But there is a less talked about case when it is not asked; when you already have everything enabled that the save had PLUS some new mods.

I had a save made without any mods at all, then other day tried some some things with merged chests mod and at different day loaded vanilla save again. After several hours of playing i realize that merged chests is still enabled, it didn't ask if i want to sync to "no mods" setup before loading it. I have also replicated the issue a second time later to make sure it wasn't just something i accidentally ignored.

Anyway all the mod adds is a button in quickbar and mod info is not baked in savefile so after loading the game again it was like the mod had never existed even Steam-achievement-wise. But with some different more gamechanging mod things could have been drastically different. Mods can make changes to the world itself.

[Qon]

Currently when your mod setup is different from the mods you used when saving some game, it will normally ask if you want to sync the mods with the save. But there is a less talked about case when it is not asked; when you already have everything enabled that the save had PLUS some new mods.

I had a save made without any mods at all, then other day tried some some things with merged chests mod and at different day loaded vanilla save again. After several hours of playing i realize that merged chests is still enabled, it didn't ask if i want to sync to "no mods" setup before loading it. I have also replicated the issue a second time later to make sure it wasn't just something i accidentally ignored.

Anyway all the mod adds is a button in quickbar and mod info is not baked in savefile so after loading the game again it was like the mod had never existed even Steam-achievement-wise. But with some different more gamechanging mod things could have been drastically different. Mods can make changes to the world itself.

"Mod info is not baked into savefile"
What does this mean? What mods you save with is always stored. It doesn't matter if the mod gives you all achievments on load and infinite infinity chests or if it does nothing at all except having a name and being installed.

If you reload a save without mods, without mods enabled, then obviously nothing of what you did with mods enabled loaded from that save matters. As long as you don't overwrite it with mods.
And you can't lose the achievements you already got. And you can get mod achievements with mods, saved separately.

[Illiander42]

As someone who uses creative mode for blueprint designing: Seconding.

Do the check to see if we're adding mods to a game. We can override if we want to.

[Zaflis]

"Mod info is not baked into savefile"
What does this mean? What mods you save with is always stored. It doesn't matter if the mod gives you all achievments on load and infinite infinity chests or if it does nothing at all except having a name and being installed.

If you reload a save without mods, without mods enabled, then obviously nothing of what you did with mods enabled loaded from that save matters. As long as you don't overwrite it with mods.
And you can't lose the achievements you already got. And you can get mod achievements with mods, saved separately.

This is a bit offtopic, but the savefile only contains mods you used "in last session". Not "forever". I did save that file with the mod included, then turned off all mods and loaded it again (and saved again). It restored the steam achievements listing, not mod achievements. There is no trace of mods ever existing in that save anymore. I know it was Steam list because i have 100% in it, my modded list is less complete.

[vitorferr7]

this is more of an issue now that space age works like a mod, thus one (me) can inadvertently load a vanilla + space age game with extra mods without wanting to

[FatCat0]

TL;DR

When loading a save with anything other than the current active set of mods, ask the player if they would like to sync mods before loading or just load with the current set.

What?

Pretty straightforward: if the save file you are loading has any delta between its mods and the mods your active instance of factorio is running, just pop up a prompt mentioning this fact and asking "load and sync mods" or "load with current mods". There's already a sync mods button on the load screen, literally just prompt that functionality whenever it applies. Bonus if the window includes a list of differences, ideally even categorizing differences as simply a mod version vs. wholly different mod/mods.

Why?

I actually swear this used to be a feature, but maybe it was a mod itself.

If I'm loading a game to continue playing it, chances are I want to continue playing it as I was last time. Changing mods can break things (sometimes in not immediately obvious ways), disable achievements, stop replay recording, or even just mean having to go back to a previous save (if one exists) and redo things because you didn't realize you'd accidentally loaded a game with different inserters modded in because you were playing with them in creative mode.

Personally, I've been playing Space Age entirely vanilla (literally the first time I've ever done that since buying Factorio; I installed my first mod before even opening the base game), so why not go for some Steam achievements at the same time? I will still occasionally pop into a creative save to blueprint something and/or use Helmod. It's annoying that every time I want to go back to my main game I have to remember to hit the "sync and load" button instead of just being prompted with a confirmation dialog box.

Minor nuisance for me, but I don't see any reason loading a save shouldn't assume the player at least most of the time wants to pick up where they left off in as many ways as possible.

[vark111]

I would like to add my +1 to this request. Going from a Vanilla save to a Modded save, the game automatically detects the difference and prompts me. Why does it not prompt me when going the other direction?

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into an older thread with the same suggestion.