Looking for a way to skip the launcher

[Solariz]

Hey, thanks for the feedback :)

 

RE: ModShaderCache

it seems like it is actually necessary for some mods.

In my tests only 1 mod broke, though (Stenchfury Modular Helmets where every prop appeared as solid black)

So I'll have to rethink fix warnings either way. I've reworked it for now...

 

RE: command line arguments

Yeah, I wasn't happy with only a debug flag either.

I've changed it for now, but maybe I should have just made it a text input field...

 

RE: rename groups

Just select all and move them into a new group :s

 

RE: hide elements

well, we're here to please =]

 

v0.05

[Bret1]

RE: ModShaderCache

it seems like it is actually necessary for some mods.

In my tests only 1 mod broke, though (Stenchfury Modular Helmets where every prop appeared as solid black)

So I'll have to rethink fix warnings either way. I've reworked it for now...

 

in the mod shader chache the precompiled shaders are saved... thouse are nessesary for all mods that add models with new materials (also re-textures of existing stuff)... there is a bug with that tho; modbudy just saves a bunch of extra shaders in that file that are not needed (at least not for the specific mod).

What you could do is check if the modshadercache is about 85mb big (which is most/all of the time too big).

if its smaler its ok.

 

so far (i have only started the game twice with ur launcher) everything else looks good :wink:

 

Edit:Typos/grammar;)

Edited March 12, 2016 by Bret1

[Solariz]

v0.06

 

It's possible that old settings won't load, which means you might have to delete settings.json and redo the groups :S

• new mods are now highlighted blue,
• empty categories now persist
• mods and categories can now be ordered via settings (I know, ugly...)
• new settings 'Save on Exit' and 'Close on Launch'
• delete now works, but it does not unsubscribe the steam workshop

[Dragon32]

Working very nicely :thumbsup:

 

Noticed that there isn't a visible warning now for mods with a SRC directory or the ModShaderCache file.

For the new "Clean Mods" option (which I haven't tried) some ToolTips as to what each option does would be worthwhile. For instance, I think that "None" means that no action is taken for that particular issue. I guess "Source Files" > "XComGame" will remove those ~16MB SRC folders and leave the SRC folders with actual modded source files in... Not sure on the "Empty" option for ModShaderCache though, is that for those ~1Kb files?

 

The Settings dialog becomes the foreground window even if I Alt+Tab to another application, like Firefox

It would be nice if the window would remember the width I set it to and also the column widths (so I can see all the game arguments)

 

Similarly, the Mod Info tabbed dialog would be nice if that could auto-expand to the width of the main window. Actually, it's really only the Inspect tab where I think that would be good. Making the Info and ReadMe tabs auto-expand would lead to hard to read, one line readmes. The Inspect tab, though, has (for me) quite long path names. Actually, messing around with it whilst I type, just having the Inspect tab remember column widths would be good enough as I can maximise the right hand column.

 

I guess the only thing I can think of is Load Order. Has that been definitively worked out by anyone? For me at least, based on the Firaxis launcher it seems to be Steam Workshop mods first, arranged in order I subscribed to the mod (not sure how that's done, Created Date for the folder isn't it as the folder's left behind on Unsubscribing). After the Workshop mods come the mods I've manually installed, those seem to be ordered based on directory name in Steam\SteamApps\common\XCOM 2\XComGame\Mods

 

But I could be wrong.

 

The only mods I've come across where load order is important are "Balanced AI - Turrets" and "Improved AI", where the former needs to load after the latter.

 

I've managed to group my mods into thematic groups, I can easily enable and disable them, see (much more than in the Firaxis launcher) which mods I've got running and their details, and launch the game. Magic.

 

One last thing I've noticed is that it doesn't seem possible to launch the Steam overlay when the game's started with the mod launcher. Not a huge thing (I've been using it for gauging FPS). Not sure if this is inherent in the mechanism used to launch the game or not.

 

[Edit: All that's with 0.05, I was writing that when you posted]

Edited March 12, 2016 by Dragon32

[Solariz]

Again, thanks for the feedback :smile:

 

As mentioned earlier, I'll have to rethink the clean mods thing anyway so I threw something quick together. But your assumptions are all correct.

 

The inspect tab was actually thought just for debugging and will be removed later on.

 

Right now, my launcher should use the displayed mod order (which can be manipulated via settings as of v0.06), I might add an index if necessary.

 

The steam overlay actually works for me... A hacky solution might be adding the launcher to steam as a non steam game.

[Dragon32]

With 0.06:

 

Not sure if it's just me but File > Exit doesn't seem to... exit

 

When I add mods into a Category then each mod gets is added into its own copy of the Category, each with the same name. Exiting and reloading means one Category with many mods, as it should be, rather than many duplicates of a Category each with a single mod in.

 

I'll have to play around with the Steam Overlay then.

 

ModPath is a useful thing to have, if you're getting rid of the Inspect pane when this is finalised maybe move ModPath to the Info pane?

 

What do you mean by "displayed mod order"? The order as displayed in the Firaxis launcher?

[Solariz]

As displayed in my launcher, so category order will affect mod load order.

 

Yeah, I'll redo the info pane as soon as I get the mod info to load from the workshop.

(Anyone know how to use Steamworks.NET / SteamUGC ? :D)

[Dragon32]

Finally gotten around to messing with the hide / unhide functionality and it's working as expected.

 

I selected a number of mods and chose Move to Category... > New Category

 

The mods were correctly moved to the new category but it looks every mod except one (I think the first selected when doing a shift+left click multi-item select) the first in the selection is then marked as Disabled (easy to fix: select the mods and click one of the chckbxes), not sure that's intended behaviour.

 

When I said this:

"When I add mods into a Category then each mod gets is added into its own copy of the Category, each with the same name. Exiting and reloading means one Category with many mods, as it should be, rather than many duplicates of a Category each with a single mod in."

I was selecting mods one at a time, not realising about shift+left click.

 

Couple more ideas:

 

Ability to save multiple mod profiles (e.g. two people share the same PC, both have different mod lists; different mod lists for multiple playthroughs)

Ability to launch Steam.exe (load up mod launcher, try and launch game but forget I haven't launched Steam), looks like HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\SteamExe

 

[Edit: And I know nothing about Steamworks.NET / SteamUGC :D Hope someone else does]

Edited March 13, 2016 by Dragon32

[Solariz]

v0.08

 

(backup your settings maybe, but should be fine)

 

Finally got Steamworks to work, haha...

• New mods are highlighted
• Mod infos (Name, DateCreated, DateUpdated) are now loaded from steam.
• some experimental support for workshop downloads / updates
• Window sizes are now saved & restored
• Non-steam mods can be renamed (F2 or slow click) (Steam mods can be renamed too, but their names will be overwritten with those from the workshop)

 

I think I'll do some bug fixing and code clean up and then do a first "release".

And redo the UI updating so the list won't be reset all the time.

Maybe I'll figure out how to get the Username from a Steam ID too... :D

Edited March 15, 2016 by Solariz

[hunydo1255]

Will your launcher have a activate all button?

Edited March 15, 2016 by hunydo1255