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Orders of Mods

Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 2:51 am
by Ommamar
So I decided to check out all these mods I have been hearing about. I downloaded and placed 14 in the mod, quest and texture folders. I noticed that they seemed to have ordered themselves in a different order then I placed them is DFU smart enough to know where best to place the mods so no conflicts occur? Or do I need to find a load order listed somewhere?

Re: Orders of Mods

Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 2:00 pm
by pango
Order only matters between mods that somehow interact with each other.
The only example I can think of from the top of my head is that Villagers Immersion Overhaul mod should have a higher priority (= be loader after) DREAM - Commoners (sub)mod, otherwise you get giant standard commoners in the streets instead of multicultural crowd, horses and carts.
So this is rare, but will probably happen more often as the number of mods grow.

I guess that some ordering could also be left to user choice, even if I don't have very good examples in mind.

Developer rant below:
This is the kind of knowledge that could have some kind of known global repository, but I think that it could be largely automated. If you know all the ordering constraints between mods, it's just a matter of using a topological sort to find a compatible ordering, if one exists.
How should that list of constraint be managed is the tricky part; Bundling it with DFU engine itself is the obvious worse choice, as its release rate does not match mods release rate.
Adding constraints into each mod release could be problematic; Say a mod B documents a constraint between it and mod A, but mod A author fixes the compatibility issue; Will mod B be released again to remove the constraint?
So maybe there should be some kind of global JSON file describing known constraints between mods, and kept up-to-date by modders community? And another local file to put player overrides...
Just thinking out loud...

Re: Orders of Mods

Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 7:48 pm
by Shinino
I think it'd be better as a sticky post in the forums, but yeah a JSON could fix it as well.