Announcement Making mod installation easier

I am completely confused by this "making things easier" update. Can someone please explain to me how this works, as in the structure of the mods folder? I previously used RockyTV's modloader which had mods folder that mirrored the assets folder but would only include stuff you were changing and you had to change the bootstrap.config. I understood how that works, but now I am completely confused by this whole .modinfo implementation etc.. Any help?

 

This might help

 

use the same file hierarchy, override completely the items you edit

 

thank you
though thats exactly what i did so i do not really understand why the client refused to load then ^^ anways, thanks

 

So, I tried to manually "update" some mods I want to use which is working so far.
Now, I would like to use the Extended Ship mods together with the Arrangeable Ship Interiors mod, how do I merge them?
I tried to overwrite the Extended Ship dropship.structure files with the ones patched from the Arrangeable Ship Interiors mod but that doesn't seem to work.

Edit: Oh got it.

Code:

{
  "author" : "debugman18",
  "name" : "Arrangeable Ship Interiors",
  "version" : "Beta v. Offended Koala",
  "path" : ".",
  "dependencies" : ["Extended Ships"]
}

Edit: I think we need a tool which is able to merge certain files like the player.config now.

 

definitely, in fact let's all just stop using windows GUI and use dos instead..... A mod Gui wouldn't be bad at all.

 

Or you could be a real boss and switch to headless linux.

The problem with a mod GUI is that it would pretty much just be a glorified text editor anyways. The only things of particular interest it could give you is the final output of certain game files and some kind of collision detection between mods. The latter of which is actually pretty useful. Someone should get on that.

As an aside:
GIMP > MS Paint
Sublime Text > Notepad++

 

I envision it as a bunch of property windows and dropdown boxes, with picture boxes you can just click to open your photo editing program, edit your item and be done with it. It would all be in one program, and with a click it should package the mod for use. It would be a lot more user friendly than editing config files. I know, I get it's still prety easiy right now, but there is allways room for more efficiency.

 

Well, if you like Shareware maybe ...

 

I fail to see the point of that new way to handle mods.
I tried to create a subfolder in my mods directory and put all the files regarding my mod in there (it's just a basic mod, I'm adding a towel object ingame).

I put my object, frames, and png files in the folder mods/towel along with the modinfo containing

Code:

{
  "name" : "towel",
  "version" : "Beta v. Offended Koala",
  "path" : "."
}

And it fails miserably to load the images for my mod. My other files haven't changed, though.
Here's an extract of my "towel.object"

Code:

  "inventoryIcon" : "towelicon.png",
  "orientations" : [
    {
      "dualImage" : "towel.png:<color>",

Doesn't it means that the towel.png and towelicon.png should be in the same folder as the .object file ?

 

The only power it really gives us, is to overwrite existing files without actually changing the assets folder. This way, mods will still work for later versions and you won't have to reinstall them, for example.

It's a real shame that only the last player.config file is merged, but i suppose its a step in the right direction, and a good way to unify our mod development practices. I really fucking wish it supported merging or AT LEAST some way to add some fucking blueprints. I guess this is why he set the dependency as "tabularasa", as a sort of hint to use that for installation.

 

Oh, I hadn't understood it in that way. Now I get it, I have to recreate the assets folder structure in order to have my mod working.
That kind of scheme is indeed used in other moddable game and I must say that's a good way to handle mods.

However, they should now indeed create a way to add blueprints

 

I don't understand what my dependencies are.

 

do you have a mod that requires another mod to use it? If so then that's where you enter the name found in thats mods.modinfo file.

 

Just to make sure, do we still need player.config files for stuff like armour addons (Lissars Kimonos), and the celestial.config for world mods (Toxic Worlds)?

 

Please tell me exactly how an xxxx.object file treats its path-based fields. After struggling for hours to figure out exactly what file path it wanted, this update broke it again.

Code:

{
  "objectName" : "thingspawner",
  "rarity" : "Common",
  "objectType" : "wire",
  "description" : "Prepare for repair!",
  "shortdescription" : "Alien Beacon",
  "race" : "generic",
  "category" : "tools",
  "printable" : "false",

  "inventoryIcon" : "/mods/mod_thing/empty.png",
  "orientations" : [
    {
      "dualImage" : "/mods/mod_thing/empty.png:<color>.<frame>",

      "imagePosition" : [-16, 0],
      "frames" : 12,
      "animationCycle" : 2,

      "spaceScan" : 0.1,
      "anchors" : [ "bottom" ]

    }
  ],

  "animation" : "/objects/wired/ironbeacon/ironbeacon.animation",
  "animationParts" : {
    "beacon" : "/mods/mod_thing/empty.png"
  },
  "animationPosition" : [-16, 0],

  "scripts" : [ "/mods/mod_thing/thingspawner_logic.lua" ],
  "scriptDelta" : 5
}

That does not work. "/mod_thing/thingspawner_logic.lua" doesn't work. "thingspawner_logic.lua" doesn't work. This is some elementary shit and it is pissing me off. Yes this is the right thread for this because this is the exact mechanic that messed it up again.

 

I'll be adding support for the Tabula Rasa crafting table to all my mods, as well as providing an optional player.config for people who only install 1 mod.

 

Sarcose: Try removing the /mods entry so that it just reads "/mod_thing/thingspawner_logic.lua" for each of those type of entries.

 

That was one of the path combinations I attempted. It didn't work.

 

If you want I can take a look.