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Jika

Creating a Mod Installer for AW ?

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Hi, since a lot of mods are present in this forum and some people can have difficulties installing them, I had an idea about creating a mod installer.

I know it is possible to retrieve post from here and then extract the necessary information to list, download and install the mods.

This can be done through the API of the forum and storage providers.

First, do something like that is already in development/exist ? And if not would it be useful to some people ?

Secondly, would the admins of the forum be okay to give access to some part of the API (to read the posts) ?

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Don't know if general mods need a mod installer, since they come “pre-packed” with the correct folder structure. Install is as easy as starting the game client, klick the dropdown menu next to the play button and select “open game client folder” and copy-pasting the mod in /localization/#your language pack#.

An Installation manager like Aslain's Modpack (World of Warships) might be interesting with a rising mod count, to pick and choose different parts out of mods.
E.g. a mix of sounds from multiple sources or only certain vehicles from a pack like Merkava Urban Warfare Modifications.

Edited by Zafir (see edit history)

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I'm not aware of any mod manager specific to AW in development, the playerbase is probably too small to be worth the effort anyway. Something like JSGME might be useful, but IMO it will be a lot more complicated than just manually installing mods. It will solve a lot of mod conflict issues though, but luckily most mods so far don't conflict with each other.

If mod aggregation and centralized installation is needed, it would be easier for mod authors to provide version control and releases via GitHub or another repository service. But that is entirely up to the authors of course.


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The only type of mod that could really benefit from that are sound mods, since you need DSSI to inject sound replacements into the files - but integrating some sort of dedicated UI for that is probably not all that reasonable.

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Thanks for your replies

The first reason why was because a friend of mine had trouble installing a mod mainly because it ad no file structure. But for that it would be easier to just have some kind of standard for future mods. Another reason was to be able to sort mod by types.

I also think this would be a lot more useful if it could manage multi assets mod and it's something possible.

If the mod count and player base rise up, it could really help the previous point to centralize the mods and use some kind of versioning.

For now maybe helping people having trouble is more efficient.

I will keep the ideas and maybe do some prototyping. It could be useful one day.

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Nobody wants to stop you to put in the work. Guess we just point out, that the ratio from effort to “payout” might be a bit on the slim side, that's all. :classic_wink:

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15 hours ago, Zafir said:

Nobody wants to stop you to put in the work. Guess we just point out, that the ratio from effort to “payout” might be a bit on the slim side, that's all. :classic_wink:

Pretty much this. Installing a mod is an entirely drag and drop affair, so having an installer could be useful, but seems like more effort that it's worth.

And when it comes to merging mods that would be very cool, but would introduce even more work

Edited by Vadim (see edit history)

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The PanzerSofa mods have an installer of sorts, but they are just self-extracting archives with some instructions included. I'm not a fan of them because it makes it harder to examine the contents of a mod before installing it, but I suppose they can make installation somewhat easier.

On merging mods, curated mod packs and collections isn't a bad idea at all as long as mod authors agree to have their work included. It will be up to the mod pack curators to keep up with mod updates though.


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I think will at least do it for fun and to learn some new things. My first goal would be to have the basic functionalities without the forum API in a first time. And if this work out I will probably open source it and share it.

Merging mod would be in a second time, I think this would be done manually for now but if some mod authors accept to publish on some form of git it could be automatized. This would also come with the fact that we could easily see the content of a mod.

I will work on that in my spare time and share the result if something interesting come up.

Thanks again for your replies and ideas

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Currently trying out some new frameworks and libraries and such modloader thingie sounds like a simple thing which covers all the stuff I want to try out in those libs and frameworks so might as well do something useful. So in case my endeavor turns out semi-nice I might share it

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On 8/16/2022 at 8:28 PM, Haswell said:

The PanzerSofa mods have an installer of sorts, but they are just self-extracting archives with some instructions included. I'm not a fan of them because it makes it harder to examine the contents of a mod before installing it, but I suppose they can make installation somewhat easier.

On merging mods, curated mod packs and collections isn't a bad idea at all as long as mod authors agree to have their work included. It will be up to the mod pack curators to keep up with mod updates though.

the simpler the better :)

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