Automatic Mod Downloading

[Sickboy]

That would be very good for newcomers.
If only sixupdater could allow us to host "custom" Mod sets that could be downloaded from our server. Our unit uses quite a lot of addons and we resigned them all to prevent compatibility problems (someone connecting with the wrong ACRE version is enought to ruin the whole game for everyone). That is why we still use Yoma to manage our mod collection.

Damn, is THAT the reason? :P You always made me wonder really, and i'm dumb for never asking

I'm happy to say that you're incorrect, SU supports Custom Repositories for over a year (or is it two already? hm)
http://www.six-projects.net/Six_Upda...tomRepos_Setup
http://www.six-projects.net/Six_Upda...Repos_Setup+UI

Its very flexible too, you can host all the mods yourself, take all the mods from the official network, or mix as you please.
There's also flexible configuration for servers, communication services, etc.

[Tonci87]

Damn, is THAT the reason? :P You always made me wonder really, and i'm dumb for never asking

I'm happy to say that you're incorrect, SU supports Custom Repositories for over a year (or is it two already? hm)
http://www.six-projects.net/Six_Upda...tomRepos_Setup
http://www.six-projects.net/Six_Upda...Repos_Setup+UI

Its very flexible too, you can host all the mods yourself, take all the mods from the official network, or mix as you please.
There's also flexible configuration for servers, communication services, etc.

Oh well, I guess I´ll forward this to http://forums.bistudio.com/member.ph...dMike-Brig2010
He is the one who manages all the mod related stuff for us.

[Sickboy]

Oh well, I guess I´ll forward this to http://forums.bistudio.com/member.ph...dMike-Brig2010
He is the one who manages all the mod related stuff for us.

Cool, if there are any questions / issues; http://www.six-updater.net/p/support.html
(sorry, we should probably get back on topic :O)

[rory_pamphilon]

Ok its been a while since this thread has been used but this is still v relevant.

Over the summer we have witnessed an arma mod achieve great success & now become its own game.

Has any decision been made on whether arma 3 will have an external bis (aided by sickboy) application for managing mod downloading or will it have an entirely internal mod downloading function similar to half life 2, cod etc?

What do other feel they want? I didnt initially enjoy external apps as six used to be so complex but dayz commander has shown us how simple an interface can be & yet remain functional. The bad point is that i seem to be continually paging in/out or exiting arma completely due to broken server browser (in beta).

Sickboy, any inside information you can share? :-)

[Covert_Death]

not sure which launcher you are referring too but "Play withSIX" the latest version of six launcher, is an AMAZINGLY simple launcher. you click the game, it gives you a list of mods, you click install on the ones you want and thats it, then from there you can click "Play" on the MODs you want to play and it will launch the game with that mod

[doveman]

Whilst not about Mod Downloading, I posted this ticket https://dev-heaven.net/issues/35469#change-139457 with my idea about Automatic mod management a while ago, as I also feel that currently it's a mess. I've downloaded a ton of mods and missions but I have barely used or played any of them, as I keep finding that a mod will break a mission and I've just wasted 30-60mins playing it only to find I have to start again (with no mods as I don't know which one broke it). Please take a look and vote for it if you agree with the idea.

I doubt I'll be buying A3 unless they implement something like this, as it's just been too much like debugging rather than enjoyable playing with A2.

[GossamerSolid]

Whilst not about Mod Downloading, I posted this ticket https://dev-heaven.net/issues/35469#change-139457 with my idea about Automatic mod management a while ago, as I also feel that currently it's a mess. I've downloaded a ton of mods and missions but I have barely used or played any of them, as I keep finding that a mod will break a mission and I've just wasted 30-60mins playing it only to find I have to start again (with no mods as I don't know which one broke it). Please take a look and vote for it if you agree with the idea.

I doubt I'll be buying A3 unless they implement something like this, as it's just been too much like debugging rather than enjoyable playing with A2.

Honestly, you probably won't be buying A3 then.

I'm not sure how you had such a hard time getting mods to work, it's really quite simple. There are tutorials everywhere and there are third party launchers that do the work for you.

[doveman]

Honestly, you probably won't be buying A3 then.

I'm not sure how you had such a hard time getting mods to work, it's really quite simple. There are tutorials everywhere and there are third party launchers that do the work for you.

Which third-party launcher enables the required mods (and not any mission-breaking mods) automatically for the mission I want to play before launching A2 and eliminates the need to close A2 and restart it if I want to play a mission that requires different mods?

[MadDogX]

Enabling and disabling mods without restarting the game would be an awesome feature, and one that has been requested for a very long time.

However I don't think it will be possible to automatically unload/block mods that break certain missions, because how is the game supposed to detect those? Listing them in the mission won't work because you'll never be able to create an exhaustive list (not to mention that new mods are being released all the time). So this is one thing that will always require a certain level of common sense from the player.

[doveman]

Well my idea is to have a simple text file that accompanies each mission, specifying both required mods (so that the mission would not be playable if they're not present on the user's system), allowed mods (i.e. those that aren't required but have been confirmed not to cause problems) and incompatible mods (those that have been found to break the mission). Obviously what you say about creating an exhaustive list and new mods is true but for the allowed and incompatible mods, the idea is that firstly the author can list any that he knows are OK/will cause problems simply because he designed the mission and has some insight into what functions it uses, but also he may have tested with some mods himself. As well as individual mods, it should allow for designating categories of mods (for example he may know that any AI mods cause problems, whilst any weapon mods/packs don't) and then A3 could block/allow using any such mods (either each mod would need to have a way of specifying what category it comes under, or probably more practically, this information could be stored in a repository and retrieved for each mod the user has installed, with this information then stored on the user's system for future reference).

After that, the idea is that users will test with different mods and discuss on the mission/campaign forum thread and if the author gets enough information to satisfy himself that a certain mod is OK/not OK with his mission, he can update the text file, which would be stored online alongside the mod, causing the updated text file to be downloaded when the user next checks if any of his installed mods have been updated (whether with something like PwS or a built-in update checker).

As I mention in my ticket, there should be an override function so that the user can choose to enable mods that are not specified by the author, in case they know or believe a mod should be OK and the text file hasn't been maintained or updated but hopefully my idea would eliminate a lot of trial and error and wasted time that's currently required, allowing users to just get on and play the missions.

Note that I don't propose that A3 should automatically unload/block mods as such because when the interface is loaded, no mods should be loaded and this should only happen after the mission/campaign is selected at which point it would automatically load the "required" mods and any "allowed" mods that the user has selected. The incompatible mods list is mainly to mark/hide those mods to prevent the user trying to enable them for that mission.