Question about modding in PA

I didn't mean a "download mod here" thing that would link to the mod's web site and require manually installing the mod. I meant that the server would tell the server browser that what mods are needed to join the game, so that the server browser could offer to install all necessary mods with a single click, as envisioned in https://forums.uberent.com/attachments/lobby_with_mods-png.14635/ Such an ability to install mods as needed by servers needs to be built into the game - the JavaScript-based UI can't do such things.

Also I mentioned the sha1 thing so that if multiple servers use the same version of the mod, it would need to be downloaded only once, and the game could cache multiple versions of the same mod and enable only those that the current server needs.

Well that would all be part of a download mod here button.

There was talk like "make the lobby a webpage served by the game's server" multiple times
It might be an idea to make that webpage have the task to actually call the engine thing for the "join game". So the server can serve a lobby webpage with code like this in it:

if (hasAllMods()) {
join
} else {
alert("You are missing stuff");
}

As far as I understand Uber is planning to have their servers vanilla. Community servers could be modded or not. When connecting to a modded server would automatically pushed down a mod or mods if required. And the issue about community fracturing there's no real way of stopping that you can mitigate but because modding is a first-class citizen there will be fracturing.

I'm not quite sure what people here mean by fracturing the community.

In some games, you cannot join servers that require a mod (or expansion pack) that you don't have installed. That I agree that is fracturing the community.

But if joining a server will automatically install the necessary mods for you (but they'll be enabled only on that server - they won't affect you when you play on vanilla servers), then I don't think that any fracturing happens. Sure you might not yet know how to effectively use the new units or new unit balance etc., but you can anyways join any game you want.

@lokiCML If Uber only has Vanilla games running on their servers then they have not treated modding as the 1st class citizen they promised they would. I doubt that will happen.

@orfjackal fracturing the community boils down to having all games available to all players. If I'm searching for games of PA to play and I don't get the full list of lobbys available the community is fractured. For example, when I host a game of FA on steam, no one who plays FA using FAF will see my game and visa vera. The community is fractured into people who play FA on steam, and people who play on FAF because they can't play together even though they are all playing FA.

So you mean a fracturing of the server browser list. That's unrelated to the issue of modding. As long as Uber has a tracker (in BitTorrent terms) where anybody can advertise their server, then it will be possible to see all servers, modded or not, in the one server browser list. If Uber goes out of business, then we should be able to change one setting in the settings menu to switch to using a community-hosted game server tracker.

those exist? really? wtf. I would have thought the whole FA community is on FAF. Which btw has not too bad implementation of a modding delivery system. So if we throw Steam out of the picture FAF is pretty good in terms of modding distribution.

If you bought FA on steam, you can still use FaF. Why are there still people that don't?

As soon as FAF started "rebalancing"/changing the game instead of only bugfixing, I lost interest in it, and my friends and I don't use it any more. When asked if casual play is catered for with the balance changes, I was told that it was only being changed to cater for competitive play.

To me, that would be as if I suddenly started force-installing mods along with PAMM.

I didnt like those changes very much either, but if I remember correctly there was some sort of "retro" mod that reverted them... I think. Dunno. PA > FA anyway. Well the best memories of a computer game I have is FA 3599 maybe in 2008/9. Daily GPGnet tournaments with 10+ players. Oh yeah.

I really don't see how that is? If they have a rich API with solid documentation and great modding tools. All this shipping with the game. Also updating, maintaining, and improving upon the modding system. And then seamlessly transition from a non-modded to modded server that's what I'd call first-class citizen.