Suggestion around Game-Internal Mods-Handling/Mods-Management

[ssilk]

Mods: Game-Modifications, has nothing to do with modules. ( See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(video_gaming) )

First a quote:

If you use a zip package of factorio ie. rather than an installation of factorio, you can do just this, have as many combinations of mods or game versions as you wish.

I want to distinct that from suggestions around the new mod-portal. Suggestion for the mod-portal should go to viewforum.php?f=189 Mod portal Discussion.

For that there is also this interesting:
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=20819 Mod Portal / Steam Workshop

And a "sister collection":
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=16136 Faster start sequence / Update check / Load order

And some of this ideas go also directly into a direction, which I would call "game configuration" or "what kind of game would you like to play":
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=16592 Game Setup, Game Configuration, Init Screen
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=13022 World Generation / Map Generator / Game Modes / Scenarios

Also a bit related:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=25129 Mod config options.
where Kovarex answered

Yes, and submods. I'm planning this for years

This is the TL;DR of the current disscussion:

Around Enabling/Disabling Mods from the Installed Mods

There are basic things:
1. Easier selecting/unselecting mods. Double clicking mods to enable/disable is already working (I left them out).
2. Storing and loading a setup of mods (this is currently already possible, by making a copy of the info.json-file in the application-dir), but of course it needs a GUI
3. Before loading a game you should choose either,
- that you want to play exactly with the mods in the save. The game will download then the missing mods and disable unused mods.
- Or you can choose, which mods you want to play that and optionally can store that list also.

Mods and Multiplayer

If you join a multiplayer game you want
- to get a copy of the used mods (from the server, the original repository - this must be distinguished, otherwise there could be slightly different mods installed! This is also a security leak)
- don't want to do anything (just see, what mods will now be installed and activated or abort joining)

Mod Packs

From viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15524 Mod Packages

Every mod can define dependecies and can load automatically that dependencies.

So when we have a working mod-db (which might be possible this year), a modpack just needs to be downloaded; let's say it's a big modpack, then it is 2 kilobytes.

Then, when starting the game, it sees there are dependencies and looks into the mod-db. If the mod is found (in the right version) it is also downloaded (and also that dependencies). The indentations in mod-list are a good idea...

No modpacks needed anymore; long lives the modpacks!

So a mod-pack would define basically what kind of game you want to play. That - logically - influences also the above ideas of storing/loading a mod-list.

Other

There are a lot suggestions around handling of dependecies, rights, installation, game-startup, handling of mods before starting etc. please look into ...

Referred Suggestions

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16581 Better new game setup
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17216 Mod Adding Confirmation
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24939 Mod management
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27514 Toggle all Mods
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27741 Mod Presets
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28229 Mod Manager - Profiles or Groups?
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28663 Mod Launcher
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=29738 Automatic mod enabler by choosing server with mods
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=30745 Download mods when joining servers automatically
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34415 Data.lua in scenarios
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34555 Mod UI Suggestion - reduce reloading
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34820 easy modding handeling
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35649 Mod profiles - make joining servers easy
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35417 add support for enable disable mods in install mods
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37018 Simple gui additions for loading/installing mods
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=44455 Suggestion around Game-Internal Mods-Handling/Mods-Management
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45674 Too many restarts for mods
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=48263 Move inactive Mods into mods/inactive
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=49109 move blueprint-storage.dat to mods folder




Related Suggestions

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7281 Possiblity for significantly lowering game load time
viewtopic.php?f=189&t=12199 Mod portal/repository operated by Factorio dev team
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13121 factorio launcher / different game instances [closed]
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13133 factorio launcher / profile manager [rewritten from above] refers also to
--> viewtopic.php?f=49&t=12819 Multiple Factorio Installs
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=16136 Faster start sequence / Update check / Load order
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16459 Button to reload all mods, super useful for mod devs!
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24611 Have installer create script-output shortcut
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27698 About Blueprints and Loaders
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=32470 idea: selectable mod "profiles"
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=32808 More Robust Mod Loading
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=33494 Mod Browser UI Enhancement
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=33500 Mod-Loading: Add a "Safe mode" to the game.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=33625 Crash at startup because of mods
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=33636 (de)activate multiple/all mods
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33866 Restart after Mod Change
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34038 some kind of mod manager
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34348 mod presets/lists
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47576 Unessesary? reboots in relation to managing mods
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=49066 Mod Toggle hotkey

viewtopic.php?f=80&t=27805 Suggestion around Game-Internal Mods-Handling/Mods-Management

[HanziQ]

Double click to toggle is already implemented.

[hoho]

Being able to install several new mods before restarting the game is also quite popular request.

[ssilk]

Updated list. Thanks for pointing that out.
I currently don't want to add 0.13-only-suggestions, cause I think most of that issues are fixed soon and I will go over the remaining in a month or so.

[skelgaard]

you should really look into how openttd solves this issue with mods and versions for joining a multiplayer game

[foodfactorio]

Hi, i had an idea about this, and it seemed this was the best page to post it.
(please feel free to move it if needed though)

From a player's perspective, i think it would be nice to be able to do something like this, at least for the stand-alone version:
(sorry if this post is a bit long, but i tried to mention real-user scenarios from my perspective as an actual player)


1) to Launch the game as normal. (even with lots of savegames already, or mods inside the mod folder)
2) to click on New Game, and be presented with a new screen, possibly as follows:

"New Game - choose your Mods for this New Game"
(The User-Interface would also include a checkbox to "unselect all mods", and a checkbox to "select all mods", but would also have a checkbox, and have a default setting of pre-selecting "all mods that are already currently enabled")

This way, we can use any combination of these checkboxes, to select, or unselect the bulk of the mods, and then refine the selection (by manually enabling or disabling any other mods for this new game)

3) The usual configurations screens/tabs appear as normal, such as resource amounts, richness of ore, biters, and any other applicable mod settings.

4a) the game prompts the user to enter a filename for the save... ideally a unique name
+
4b) then the game starts to load all of the necessary mods and relevent data, (even if a small message appears saying that factorio needs to do a soft quit and restart of the game)...
+
4c) physically-speaking, maybe the game can copy the mod folders (or zip files) into a 2nd copy, which is specific for that particular savegame (but maybe there is a smarter way to handle that in terms of programming, so i cant really suggest the code myself)

4d) then the game starts fresh, with all the selected mods and configs, and we can play it as normal.

5) the player can still press escape to bring up the in-game menu, to manually create another save whenever they like, as well as the usual auto-saves)

(note: maybe if the game detects that non-standard characters are being used, or a very long path name could cause a conflict, then it could give the physical file a filename identifier, as well as creating a tiny .txt file of the same fileid, and this .txt file would simply have the full savegame name inside it with a line of text, to help players identify what it is)

Extras: Sharing an existing save. (even for solo team work)
6) if a player wanted to share their current save game with someone else, to show them their base or something, then the new player ideally would simply put a copy of the savegame into their save folder, and factorio would download all of the specific mods and versions that the savegame was using, and create a new physical folder structure for that particular savegame, (assuming step 4c is used above), and using the same savegame name (taken from the savegame) or could simply pop-up a window asking for a name, (like in step 4a), of even to detect any conflicting savename, and display what name the savegame already has and allowing a change to the name)

6b) if the friend, is playing the savegame, and wanted to continue with the game, to help their friend with something, or just to expand the base, the friend could simply save any progress as normal (similar to step 5 above.)

6c) the friend would then be able to carry out step 6 again, if they wanted to pass the latest save of their game, back to the original player (and so on)


Extras: Adding a new mod(s) to an existing save:
7) if i wanted to add a new mod to my existing game (assuming the mod was compatible etc), i think it would be quite intuitive to have an extra button, on 2 screens.

7a) when i launch Factorio, and click on LOAD from the main menu, i could select my latest savegame (for example from step 5, or even from step 6c), and there would also be a button saying something like this: "Add Mods to Savegame".
The button would have a rollover text, or a small description, to help the player understand exactly what will happen..

for example:
"Click here to add an extra mod (or mods) to this particular savegame that you have selected. A backup will be made, in case of any compatibility issues, so that you can roll back to the current save, by selecting the "rollback" checkbox."

7b) an optional checkbox could also be added to the MODS screen, (for example when we load up Factorio, i could click on the MODS button, from the main menu, and also see a button saying "add mods to a Savegame". This is just because some players may go to the MODS screen, since it is MODS that they want to add, but clicking here will also take them to the LOAD a SAVE screen, similar to 7a) so that the code is just in one area.

(also, there could me a small message here as well, letting players know that they need to download mods via the usual method first, before adding)
+
there could be a dialog box that pops up from the operating system, asking the user to select a mod that they happened to download manually, but it will probably be better to have them just use the ingame portal)


Extra Features:
The game could also do a quick check, to see how much estimated space is required on the Hard Drive, before creating any new games, or before downloading any mods that a savegame needs, or before adding any mods to an existing copy of a savegame, just to let the user know, and to warn if they are low on space.

sorry again for the long post, but these were my logical steps that i would feel are really intuitive, at least for me to use

[foodfactorio]

hi, is there a way to select multiple mods from the installed mod list, and to only toggle those ones?

for example, if we have 20 mods, do we need to Disable All / Enable All
or can we enable all, and then shift or control click to select say 5 of them, to disable the five?

[Maddhawk]

I am going to bump this thread. With fluids finally getting overhauled, there is only ONE major thing I would like to see done to improve factorio. Mod Profiles.

I have to mod setups I use. One is for my standard games and the other is for creative mode. I would like to be able to into the mods menu and have a drop down box that lets me select a profile that flips all relevant mods on and off as appropriate for the profile I desire. I should have the ability to turn all mods on that I wish, with other mods off. Then I can create a profile and save the status of mods on and off to that profile. Then I can change the mods I have on and off again and make yet another profile. I would like to be able to make as many profiles as I want/need for the different ways I want to play Factorio in.

This way I can be far more sure that I do not accidentally leave a mod on that should be off and vice versa prior to loading a game.

[DarkShadow44]

Agreed, mod profiles would be super useful. Currently can be worked around with by having save-games to synchronize mods and settings with. However, can't the same logic be reused for mod profiles?