Modpack friendly

[bobingabout]

Basically, from how I understand how mods work, the name of a mod is the name of the folder the files are in. if this is zipped, the name of the mod is the name of the zip file.

what about modpacks? Since the release of the mod portal (with the idea that a mod pack is listed as a mod on the mod portal, and people just download it and expect it to work) People have approached me asking if it's possible to merge my mods into one big mod to release as a mod pack. This goes against my licence agreement. You're not allowed to release edited versions of my mods (Mostly for version control, make sure everyone actually has the same thing. Also a reason why Config mod is it's own mod with a different licence to allow redistributing edited versions)

Anyway... My suggestion, keep the level of files in a folder, but if multiple folders are located in a zip file, behave differently.

each folder within the zip would function as a mod in itself, bound by a mod pack. the mod pack name would be the zip files name, and have it's own entry in the mods list.

This would allow components of the mod pack to be disabled independently, as well as the mod pack being able to be disabled as a whole.

Perhaps an info.json file could be placed in the zip file alongside the mod folders to hold the modpack information.

[ssilk]

Perhaps I'm blocking modpacks (in the old fashion) with that, but what I think is this: In theory you can make a modpack, that says in the info.json: this depends on all other mods, that are listed below.

With that, Factorio can download all needed mods automatically. The job of the modpacker is then to find a good/useful combination of mods (to give Factorio "his smell") and to fix/patch stuff.

That is (in my opinion) also the "right way" to patch broken mods, but for that, it must be possible to "overwrite" contents of other mods and that is also dangerous. Well, perhaps it's just a stupid idea.

Despite from that, perhaps I've overseen something?

[BenSeidel]

I recall that the developers have already identified that the mod system for multiplayer is lacking with regards to users not having the exact mods enabled when connecting. The automatic enabling/disabling and downloading of missing mods is a feature planned for release one day. There was even discussion as to whether or not you would download the mod from the server or the mod portal. If they implement this then I can't see any reason to have a mod pack system as on connection it will enable all the mods automatically.

[bobingabout]

Factorio can download all needed mods automatically. The job of the modpacker is then to find a good/useful combination of mods (to give Factorio "his smell") and to fix/patch stuff.

It's not a bad idea.

Install mudpack. Modpack says "I need this list of mods", Factorio notices mod has missing dependencies and asks if it should download them all. Modpack installs whole heap of mods.

[ssilk]

Yes. And what BenSeidel said is also true.
So might there be two ways, one of them "very soon", to have something similar to modpacks.

[SHiRKiT]

Devs said they are going to implement some kind of better config adjustments for players, so we have a proper CONFIG area in the Options menu. That way, all the configuration MAYBE can be exchanged, so the modspacks, which mostly contains the base mods, configurations, and, sometimes, modifications (this can be done with an outside mod pretty easily) can be achieved with perfection.

[ssilk]

In the end everything is one big mod, that can do everything. Including cleaning my household.