Creating Archive and Test versions of your mods

[fatheroctopus]

This feature is no longer active, please use mod_info.yaml for supplying alternate versions of your mods.

Instructions

 

Original post:

Spoiler

 

Hello everyone,

A patch ago we added a feature to the modding system that allows you ship multiple versions of your mod in the same workshop package. Two common uses of this are to
a) keep archived versions of the mod around in case someone chooses to not update their game, and
b) develop an updated version of your mod during the Testing period while still making the Release version of your mod available.

This is accomplished by putting old versions of your mod into a folder called archived_versions/<version>. (<version> can be anything you like, such as version_1, version_2, version_3, or 399348, 410209, 419840 etc.)

Note: the most up-to-date version of the mod should always be in the top-level folder, as normal. Only move older versions into the archived_versions folder.

Once you've done this, create a file in the top-level folder called archived_versions.yaml. The contents of that file look like this:

archivedVersions:
- relativePath: archived_versions/version_1
  lastWorkingBuild: 399348
- relativePath: archived_version/version_2
  lastWorkingBuild: 410209

note: This is YAML syntax, so the 'relativePath' lines have a hyphen as the first character on the line, followed by one space. The 'lastWorkingBuild' lines start with two spaces.

When you start on a new version of your mod for Testing branch, put the current version into the archive, create a new entry in archived_versions.yaml and set lastWorkingBuild for that folder to the current Release version number. Then make your changes to the mod to get it working for Testing branch. Other players will then run the correct version of your mod depending on whether they're playing on Release or Testing. Once the game update goes live, everyone's game version will be updated, and they'll all start using the latest version of your mod automatically.

 

 

[fatheroctopus]

[Update] - A bug in the archive system currently requires the specified relativePath to have a trailing slash. Without this slash, the archive will not load properly from a mod downloaded directly from the Steam workshop. This will be fixed for the next release, but while supporting build 420700, format your yaml as such:

archivedVersions:
- relativePath: archived_versions/version_420700/
  lastWorkingBuild: 420700

Cheers!

[McLeoud]

On 11/2/2020 at 10:15 PM, fatheroctopus said:

Cheers!

Hi, @fatheroctopus! According to my investigation this feature doesn't help in terms of creating different branches of translation mods - one version for basic game and another one for DLC. The reason is: DLC is not a testing build of base game.

Could we get a possibility to support different versions of translation - for the basic game and for DLC - without creating a two different mods?

[fatheroctopus]

Hi @McLeoud, we have an experimental feature in place to allow different builds of mods to switch based on which version is running. However, I just ran some tests and confirmed that this system will not work as-is for a translation mod, as they are handled by the game differently from other mods.

In the short term, I think your only option will be to publish separate mods, but eventually we will make it so only one mod is necessary. I'll update this thread when I have more information. Thanks!