[2.0] Add support for mods to mark themselves as incompatible with specific feature flags

[Radjack]

TL;DR

Mods might wish to opt out of supporting certain feature flags, this would give them a method to do so.

What ?

It would be nice to be able to mark a mod as incompatible with a feature flag, automatically making it incompatible with mods that activate that feature flag. As an example a complicated overhaul mod might not wish to perform the balance work needed to support the quality feature, currently the only tool the mod developer has to prevent this is marking mods incompatible on a one by one basis.

While there are a limited number of feature flags currently, they represent a concice way of grouping features introduced to the engine and used by mods. I could envisage a future where more are introduced and with each introduced the complexity of their interactions with each other increases.

I believe it is currently possible to check during the control stage if a quality prototype other than "normal" exists, so it should be possible for mods to inform users of the incompatability without this new feature for the quality feature flag. I am unsure if current methods for safely checking the enablement of other feature flags exist when you desire to prevent their use. As such native support for this might be the only way to allow such checks.

Why ?

Factorio is a fantastic sandbox. It's current systems have allowed a plethora of complicated overhaul mods to flourish, with the increase in features available to modders the complexity of balancing these mods increases. As such I think the ability to both define which feature flags a mod enables and which mods it does not support will be a boon to the modding community.

[curiosity]

This is Space Exploration all over again. Balancing a modpack is the problem of the modpack author, not a mod author. Declaring incompatibility due to non-technical issues is harmful to the modding community, because it prevents other people from making compatibility mods. This request should not be implemented without proper justification.

[EustaceCS]

Balancing a modpack is the problem of the modpack author, not a mod author.

True. But not entirely.
It's end user's right to install everything.
It's modder's responsibility to inform about 100% faulty combinations involving his mod.

Declaring incompatibility due to non-technical issues is harmful to the modding community, because it prevents other people from making compatibility mods.

Not declaring these brings more harm than good. This stuff took its toll at Skyrim modding already. Maybe it's worth studying the question before making The Statement.
Let's say I'm considering some mod which may or may not be related to vehicles.
And I 100% don't want to waste my time for debugging my vehicle mod vs ALL other vehicles mods at once.
Why wouldn't I declare potential incompatibility in advance?

And now for something completely different.

I believe it is currently possible to check during the control stage if a quality prototype other than "normal" exists, so it should be possible for mods to inform users of the incompatability without this new feature for the quality feature flag. I am unsure if current methods for safely checking the enablement of other feature flags exist when you desire to prevent their use. As such native support for this might be the only way to allow such checks.

Quality framework is shipped as a mod.
Modders can declare incompatibility of mods with specific mods explicitly, no?
Ban it here and let it sink elsewhere.

[Ranakastrasz]

As long as the flags are warnings, which can be suppressed, instead of blocking.

[robot256]

Nothing is stopping you from declaring an incompatibility with the DLC Quality mod, for example. And nothing is stopping anyone else from making a different quality mod that might be more compatible with your mod than you could initially imagine. I don't see what else is needed besides some big red text in the mod description.