Optional "Recommended" mods downloading

[Longren]

TL;DR

An option to download mods in-game without installing “Recommended” dependencies.

What?

It would be desirable to have a button or an option to download mods without “Recommended” dependencies.
This option should exist on equal terms with the current behaviour.
Maybe via another button, maybe via Shift+LMB, but absolutely not deep in the settings. I may want to get one mod “bare” and the next one “fully equipped” – that’s a 3‑second difference.

Example: Clicking “Install” will also download and enable “AAI Loaders”, marked as “Recommended”, which may or may not be desirable.

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Expected behaviour:

If “Download/Enable with Recommended” is chosen, it will recursively install and enable every “Recommended” mod.

If “Download/Enable without Recommended” is chosen, it will only download/enable “Required” dependencies, no new “Recommended” ones will be enabled or downloaded.

Why?

In short: when one downloads mods, it may or may not be desirable to download all “Recommended” mods. If it is not, then after installing a bunch of mods, all unwanted mods must be manually disabled or deleted. Why bring a full box home if you only need the package?

In long:
Since Factorio has a “Recommended” option for dependencies in mods, when one mod is installed, it also forces the installation of “Recommended” dependencies, which may or may not be desirable.
The same goes for enabling locally installed mods: turn one ON, and all of its already installed “Recommended” dependencies will also enable.

Just use “Optional”

The “Optional” tag is mostly used as a compatibility measure – if a mod is marked as “Optional”, it is expected to just work with the one you want in the first place.
This is already the expected behaviour among even regular (non-creator) mod users. “Optional” does not provide info about how much mods integrate; they just work together and don’t break.
“Recommended”, while being new, does not yet have time-refined expectations, but by intuition it feels like “There are at least some gameplay changes if those mods are installed together”. This fills the niche of “interconnected” and not just “compatible” mods – exactly the info “Optional” could not provide.

Despite that, it is completely up to the player whether they want to install those “Recommended” mods. There is no one way better than the other; both options just have their place to exist at any given moment.

Corner cases

There are some cases I can think of right now. Solutions are just my personal suggestions:

1. The “Manage” tab does not have a big “Install” button; it operates with small checkboxes.
Proposed solution: Shift+LMB will still work fine, but in any case, that approach will require a hint on the button that such an action even exists.

2. What to do if an already installed mod is toggled “Enabled with Recommended”, but not all recommendations are installed?
Proposed solution: A popup window, just like when loading a save file with different mods, to let the player decide what to install (with one click, no arrow link like on the in‑game mod page).

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[Rseding91]

The entire feature set of the “recommended” dependency type is auto installing and activating but lets you turn it off.

What you’re describing is the “optional” dependency type: not auto installed or enabled.

[Longren]

Installing a whole bunch of stuff I don't want is not a big issue as long as not many mods use it. But as time passes, I can easily imagine myself deleting a bunch of mods after installing them, just because they were recommended.

Some mods have graphics sets that, even by themselves, can weigh a lot. I guess it can take quite some time if at least one of such heavy sets will be somewhere down the “Recommended” tree. And what if there are more?

There can be several “Recommended” mods for one mod that conflict with each other, so they cannot be used together. The player still has to decide which ones to use and which ones not to use, but in the current state the game will download everything beforehand, then crash, if conflicted mods were not immidiately disabled, and make the player manage this in the Error Mod menu, which also doesn't have mod settings, instead of main game menu.

Also, imagine a scenario where some language pack, for example, has all the overhaul mods it translates set as “Recommended.” Yes, it may not be the intended use and perhaps a mistake by the moder, but it is the players who will pay with their time and sometimes limited internet connection for it.

Your idea of “Recommended” is actually very good and fits its purpose, but forced installation of non-mandatory things already feels less than optimal.

IMO, as soon as modders understand that “Recommended” works that way, it will make them hesitant to use it, just to avoid accidentally creating huge auto-downloadable trees. And as a mostly modded player, it raises the desire to ask modders to change most of their “Recommended” mods to “Optional.”

If this feature is intended to be used sparingly, then it should probably be made clearer to modders what the underlying consequences are.
If not, then mandatory installation of non-mandatory content may not be the best design decision.

[boskid]

"Recommended" dependency was made with exactly one specific use case in mind: space age having recommended dependency on quality. In 2.0 this dependency was required so it was not possible to disable quality even if in many places we said that it is possible to beat SA without using quality modules, and many players dislike this feature. In order to not punish players that enable space-age if they would forget to also enable quality, it gets automatically enabled but we are leaving a loophole to disable it if its intentional. In order for this feature to also work for mods this involves downloading recommended dependency because it must be downloaded in order to be enabled.

This dependency should carry a strong meaning that the mod is intended to be played with specified mod and deviations from this may cause suboptimal experience yet is allowed.

If modders are abusing this dependency incorrectly for dependencies that are nice to have but gameplay was not designed around them, then it is modders fault and i am not going to change anything around this.

[Longren]

Please, at least disable downloading of "Recommended" mods while updating main ones.
I'm not sure that even "Required" mods update their dependencies recursively.
Currently I just have 2 mods with 2 recommended each, but deleting their "Recommended" requirements every time an update drops is already driving me insane.
I've already choosen not to play with them. I shouldn't do that choice again (and again and again and again...).
This whole thing feels like Forced, not Recommended.
Instead of just clicking "Update selected" I now have to babysit every updated mod, and check its every "Recommended" dependency, or create a temporaty savefile with current mod setup, so i can load to it after all updates (which isn't even possible if at least one mod doesn't load) and make it al least semi-automative. The whole sequence makes me wish that there are no "Recommended" mods at all, cuz for now it creates more trouble than help.
Updating definetely should NOT break mod setup state, unles it's strictly required.

[Alfonse215]

Currently I just have 2 mods with 2 recommended each, but deleting their "Recommended" requirements every time an update drops is already driving me insane.

Just to be clear here, if you're updating a mod that has recommended mods, is it activating the mods you said you weren't using, or is it merely downloading them? Not that the latter is particularly good, but I'd like to know if it's actually switching them back on or just taking up harddrive space and download time.

I've already choosen not to play with them. I shouldn't do that choice again (and again and again and again...).
This whole thing feels like Forced, not Recommended.

Can you name what those mods are? What exactly is the relationship between those mods and the ones they "recommend"?

Also, have you asked the mod authors to remove those mods as "recommended"? Because it seems that the mod authors in question are the ones misusing the feature. It seems to me that "recommended" mods should only be ones that the mod author themselves control, and thus are releasing the mods as a matched set.

[Longren]

Can you name what those mods are?

First: Aegis & Bellicos.
It has CannonShellAstroidFix and TwoMoreTurrets as “Recommended” dependencies.
Second: Eneas.
It has RPG system and Updated Construction Drones - Forked as “Recommended” dependencies.
All six mods are from different authors.

Is it activating the mods you said you weren't using, or is it merely downloading them?

If I'm correct, then it downloads and enables “Recommended” mods if they are absent. It does this regardless of the enable state of the initial mod. (I had Eneas disabled, which preserved its state after the update, but the “Recommended” mods were downloaded and enabled by themselves after the restart.)
I assume it does not enable “Recommended” mods if they are already present and the initial mod is disabled.
That behavior needs a bit of testing so that my assumptions do not mislead anyone if they are incorrect.

Have you asked the mod authors to remove those mods as “Recommended”? Because it seems that the mod authors in question are the ones misusing the feature. It seems to me that “Recommended” mods should only be ones that the mod authors themselves control...

Not yet. I probably should do that later, and you are probably right about the misuse, according to the developers’ vision of the feature. However, in my previous message, I'm talking about the update part, which is not the mod authors’ fault. Regarding Space Age, which has Quality as “Recommended,” you probably cannot encounter this exact issue because you cannot have Space Age downloaded without Quality.

I also see a lot of mods trying to use this new feature, and it would be a huge hassle to ask every author not to use it. For now, as a regular player, I find that it creates extra actions rather than being useful.

[Alfonse215]

If a lot of mods are misusing it, then that seems to be a feature problem, not a mod author problem. If it's being widely used, it's probably a bit late to try to inform modders about how this feature is supposed to be used.

The problem is that changing it would just be making it act like "optional". So there's be no point in having the feature.

[Longren]

I don't see it being similar to "Optional" as a problem. As i described in my initial message, "Recommended" would provide information about intended use, while "Optional" is pecieved as compatibility requirement.