Mod Management on a per save basis?

[SongOfRuth]

I generally like playing multiple saves of sandbox games like Vintage Story, switching back and forth between 2 to 3, sort of round robin style. But I want different things in each save/world. Hence, mod management. With java Minecraft, I use MultiMC. With RimWorld, I use a mod to allow such switching.

Does Vintage Story have that ability? Perhaps with a mod?  If not, is such a mod possible? Or perhaps Vintage Story devs have it planned for the future?

Take care,

Melody

[redram]

  I'm not aware of any mods that do this currently, though I don't keep close track of mods.  I believe it is indeed planned for the future to be a vanilla feature.

[Tyron]

You can tinker together your own setup for multiple VS versions with/without mods by using the --dataPath argument on the VintageStory.exe file, but a convenient launcher is still missing, yes.

[SongOfRuth]

On 10/18/2020 at 3:37 AM, Tyron said:

You can tinker together your own setup for multiple VS versions with/without mods by using the --dataPath argument on the VintageStory.exe file, but a convenient launcher is still missing, yes.

Came to the forums today for a different reason and saw your response. Thank you so much. Off to go play with that.

Edited to add: My fingers are itching to create some batch files. Here's another question to ponder... can I have the current stable version side-by-side with the new 1.14 version. I'd like to try it out but don't want to kill my current game (and have some PTSD from Virtual Machines gone horribly wrong at work).

Edited November 7, 2020 by SongOfRuth

[Tyron]

Yes, install the files into different directories and use a different --dataPath arg

[SongOfRuth]

With the release of 1.14.0, I'm finally picking this up again. I have installed both 1.13.4 and 1.14.0. Each has a different --datapath set. I click Mod Manager in each and they each report the exact same folder. And there is no difference in the mods listed. I then set --addModPath to be the same as I had set for -datapath. Although Mod Manager still shows the exact same path, 1.14.0 has no additional mods (which is correct) and 1.13.4 does have mods listed (which is also correct).

So. Changing --datapath did not seem to have any effect.

Changing --addModPath had an effect (in that the correct mods were listed for each) but indicated the exact same folder for each version.

Either I'm not using these things correctly or it's a bug.  Any guidance from anyone would be greatly appreciated. 

[Streetwind]

Well, I can show you my setup, because it's pretty much what you're looking to do, and it works.

This first imgage shows the folder structure I have. Three version-tagged folders, each with exactly the same subfolder structure. In fact, this subfolder structure is autogenerated during installation, except for one of them: "Data". I created that one myself. (The contents of Data are, again, automatically created by the game once you tell it to use it.)

In the second image, you can see the contents of my 1-14-0 directory. I have marked the Data folder I created by hand in blue, the Mods folder inside that directory in green, and the Mods folder in the base directory in red. (Sorry if colorblindness is an issue.) The red-marked Mods folder is the one where the three base mods of VS (Essentials, Survival, Creative) are located. I can put downloaded mods there too, and it will find them just fine. But I like to keep all my custom stuff inside the Data directory, so I am using the green-marked Mods folder in there instead. In order to make that work, I had to use the --addModPath argument in the custom shortcut, back when I first started using it. In newer versions it might work without using it, I don't know. You can try.

You can also see the "StartWithCustomDataFolder" item in the files list in that image. That's the custom shortcut to Vintagestory.exe that I created to point to this new Data folder structure.

The third image shows how the custom shortcut is set up. The line of text outlined in blue is the following:

D:\Vintagestory\1-14-0\Vintagestory.exe --dataPath D:\Vintagestory\1-14-0\Data --addModPath D:\Vintagestory\1-14-0\Data\Mods

Now if I click the StartWithCustomDataFolder shortcut inside my 1-14-0 directory, it will start version 1.14.0, using the Data folder inside the 1-14-0 directory, and discover savegames and mods that are placed in there (and only there).

If I instead use the StartWithCustomDataFolder shortcut inside the 1-13-4 directory, which is set up exactly the same way except for the small difference in the directory name, it will start version 1.13.4, using the Data folder inside the 1-13-4 directory, and discover savegames and mods that are placed in there (and only there).

The same goes for version 1.12.13. It is not exactly a per-save mod management solution, but at the very least it is per-version. And if you really wanted to, you could duplicate an install folder if you wanted to start a new save with different mods on the same version.

 

Note that I do not see the issue you are reporting about sharing mod folders and save folders between installs. You must be doing something different than me. Care to share how your shortcut looks? For both of your installs?

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Streetwind

[Hal13]

i think it would be best to just stop installing it into a predefined directory completely and just extract the files to wherever people want them (like most early access indie games do), make all paths relative to the executable, that way if there is a new version you could just copy the save to the new location and have a working backup version if that fails horribly.

That would potentially make more people try out the early new versions, meaning more bugs get reported before release of the new version, meaning a more stable first release version, maybe no need to have big bugfixing updates after the stable version gets released.

[RobinHood]

My mods dont working for me, I can see them after starting, they are active & checked in blue, I have copied all my data from my Boot/System SSD to the Harddisk F in my case, but my Mods dont working, thats my setting 
in targets / desktopshortcut

C:\Users\Geri\AppData\Roaming\Vintagestory\Vintagestory.exe --dataPath=D:\vsdata --addModPath=D:\vsdata\Mods
 

[BearWrestler]

I've been thinking that instead of reinventing the wheel, integrating with the open source Vortex mod manager or Mod Organizer 2 might be a good idea. Vortex can probably work with minimal configuration.

Of course each save auto loading the mods it depends on would be awesome, but it doesn't fully solve the question of managing various mod profiles.