Questions about client-only mods and hosts using them

[pickleplayer]

So, as I've been putting the last pieces of this side-project into place, I'm realizing "client-only" mod doesn't exactly mean "client only" if the person using it is the host...

So, having a client-only mod installed as host with all_clients_require_mod set to false means you can host your server without being tagged as a "modded server" right? (I'm not exactly sure) But if your mod changes something like the tuning value for damage on a specific mob, this change affects everyone on the server, doesn't it? If I am to make a cosmetic altering mod that I want to only appear for the host, how do I get around that? I don't want to force these cosmetic changes on other clients playing on the server.

I've been scouring the workshop under "client_only_mods" tag for mods that might make use of what I need, but a surprisingly large number of mods are hud/control changes, and there aren't a whole lot of cosmetic altering mods to look at. Although I guess it's not that surprising, Don't Starve's artstyle is already really cool, not a lot of people would want to change it

[CarlZalph]

2 hours ago, pickleplayer said:

But if your mod changes something like the tuning value for damage on a specific mob, this change affects everyone on the server, doesn't it? If I am to make a cosmetic altering mod that I want to only appear for the host, how do I get around that? I don't want to force these cosmetic changes on other clients playing on the server.

The way DST is setup is a full client-server model in that the client is a dumb terminal with minimal prediction/interpolation while the server sends updates to entities and whatnot through networked variables.

You're free to change just about anything on the server and the client will be none the wiser.

 

Oh, are you hosting with caverns enabled?

DST runs in two modes: With Caverns (full) and without (half).

In half mode the client and the host are the same, but with full mode everyone is a client and there are dedicated processes spawned to be the server.

 

If you're using half-mode, then I'm not sure.  I don't have much experience making mods in this mode as it's fairly rare to come across.

[pickleplayer]

16 hours ago, CarlZalph said:

DST runs in two modes: With Caverns (full) and without (half).

In half mode the client and the host are the same, but with full mode everyone is a client and there are dedicated processes spawned to be the server.

 

I... Did not know this.... Wow. I am suddenly realizing that in all my time with this game, I have never launched a game with caverns enabled.

 

So, you say its uncommon for there to be servers that aren't running caves? Hm. I've gotten too far to turn back now. Maybe I need to split it into a second mod. I'm wondering if its better to make a second version that forces the mod on all players, or just release it normally but require hosts to run an additional mod that will counteract the cosmetic changes from applying to clients who join. The second option would mean users wouldn't have to constantly flip their mod version back and fourth between client/host version when joining a different kind of server

the main clientside mod would have push custom events to any nearby would-be affected players, and then a separate all_clients_require_mod version would be enabled on the server that actually applies the required event listeners to any players that spawn in. Eh, this is getting a little convoluted.

Unfortunately, that would also mean the host server would be marked as "modded" but oh well. it be like that sometimes