mods in convoy

[Snoopy the ♥♥♥♥ Dog]

will there be mod support for it so we can have like the mack r and mack engine packs with friends

[Reese]

The intention is to have mod support eventually in Convoy. 1.41 Convoy doesn't allow mods for the sake of the developers so that problems found were directly tied to Convoy and not because of mods. Will 1.42 have mod support? No one knows.

[BCS]

The problem with mods in Multiplayer, is that all players on the server needs to have the same mods. Imagine i use my own Paintskin for my truck there is in my modfolder on my PC, that other player can't see unless they also have that paintskin installed on there PC.

[AyMazingATS]

Originally posted by BCS:

The problem with mods in Multiplayer, is that all players on the server needs to have the same mods. Imagine i use my own Paintskin for my truck there is in my modfolder on my PC, that other player can't see unless they also have that paintskin installed on there PC.

No one absolutely knows what the requirements for mods will be once SCS allows mods to be used in Convoy.

I really would suggest not stoking the flames of fire until we know for sure what is going to happen.

[Ryu]

Originally posted by AyMazingATS:

Originally posted by BCS:

The problem with mods in Multiplayer, is that all players on the server needs to have the same mods. Imagine i use my own Paintskin for my truck there is in my modfolder on my PC, that other player can't see unless they also have that paintskin installed on there PC.

No one absolutely knows what the requirements for mods will be once SCS allows mods to be used in Convoy.

I really would suggest not stoking the flames of fire until we know for sure what is going to happen.

Except that he describes the technical issue behind this. If he's using a mod and I'm not, then when I get near him in the session my game will crash when the server tells it to load up those assets for his mod that do no exist in my files. This is also why TruckersMP never allowed mod use, except for those they added (Skoda) or allowed (Promods, winter) specifically.

I'd prefer they leave it to the players to sort out, much as we have with using mods in our single-player games all these years. When mods are available from so many sources, having the game try to police mod use, especially version parity, would be onerous. Just have a message/notice section for the server list where hosts can list rules and mods being used.

[AyMazingATS]

SCS has already solved the Cargo DLC(Heavy Cargo, Forestry) and skin problem already. Players who don't have those DLCs do not crash when getting near others who do? Granted their own content is probably different.

That is why I said to wait to see what they are going to do instead of jumping to conclusions. I don't see mod use happening before 1.43.

1.42 I think we will see player increase, and some further tweaking.

[Reese]

There are various ways to handle missing assets. Placeholders are common for other games.

For example truck accessories, simply don't display them if they're missing. Map mods, you'll just see players floating(same as if you're missing DLC maps).

In GTA San Andreas multiplayer mods, replacing models just showed the old models for the other clients. No issues there except hitboxes were different. GTA V modding is the same exact way. Just because assets are missing doesn't mean a crash has to occur. SCS has taken quite a bad course when it comes to assets missing, mods or not.

The most likely way SCS will deal with mods, in my opinion/speculation, is requiring them to be from the Workshop, and before joining a session, it will install said workshop mods.

Alternatively, if the initial Experimental beta is anything to go by, just stream the assets directly to the other clients when they join so that they can see the content, but not let them use it. Probably the harder of the two methods, but we'll just have to wait and see.

I'm still surprised that someone in the community hasn't made their own modding support yet, considering how painful it is to mod ETS2/ATS using the official method/tools.

[Ryu]

Originally posted by AyMazingATS:

SCS has already solved the Cargo DLC(Heavy Cargo, Forestry) and skin problem already. Players who don't have those DLCs do not crash when getting near others who do? Granted their own content is probably different.

That is why I said to wait to see what they are going to do instead of jumping to conclusions. I don't see mod use happening before 1.43.

1.42 I think we will see player increase, and some further tweaking.

For paint and cargo DLC they decided to download that asset data to everyone. If you don't own the DLC you won't be allowed to use it yourself, but the game will have the assets to render if/when you encounter someone else using them.

In contrast, what TruckersMP did was to designate fall-backs for every DLC asset. When you came near someone using a paint DLC skin, you saw some plain solid colour on their truck, not the skin they were using that you didn't have available in your game assets. Or you saw an empty/plain trailer when they were using a cargo DLC you didn't own.

But notice they did not include the map DLC content in this, neither SCS nor TruckersMP. If a player doesn't own a map DLC, then that player isn't going into that DLC area. Period.

And I don't see SCS trying to handle fall-backs for all the various mod assets out there. ;)

[Ryu]

Originally posted by Reese:

There are various ways to handle missing assets. Placeholders are common for other games.

For example truck accessories, simply don't display them if they're missing. Map mods, you'll just see players floating(same as if you're missing DLC maps).

In GTA San Andreas multiplayer mods, replacing models just showed the old models for the other clients. No issues there except hitboxes were different. GTA V modding is the same exact way. Just because assets are missing doesn't mean a crash has to occur. SCS has taken quite a bad course when it comes to assets missing, mods or not.

The most likely way SCS will deal with mods, in my opinion/speculation, is requiring them to be from the Workshop, and before joining a session, it will install said workshop mods.

Alternatively, if the initial Experimental beta is anything to go by, just stream the assets directly to the other clients when they join so that they can see the content, but not let them use it. Probably the harder of the two methods, but we'll just have to wait and see.

I'm still surprised that someone in the community hasn't made their own modding support yet, considering how painful it is to mod ETS2/ATS using the official method/tools.

The only issue with requiring mods to be from Workshop is that many popular mods are not available from Workshop; especially map mods. Of the 20+ mods I use regularly, only 1 of them is from Workshop. I will be sorely disappointed if this is how they handle it...

[TwinShadow]

My theory on the mod support may be similar to how Farming Sim does it to some extent, mod-wise. If someone doesn't have a mod or DLC, they can't join that game. Now, SCS has alleviated the use of DLC's for everyone, so that's a bonus right there.

For mods, I do have a small suspicion that they may do something similar to the aforementioned game. For some people, this could be a problem, for others, it may not be. Depends on how one looks at it.

The problem with streaming the assets highly depends on network connections. Not everyone has good internet still, and others have data caps. Mods for ATS can range from benign 10 KB def edits to monstrous 700+ MB files, even larger. This could prove a bit of an issue if everyone isn't on the same page.

Me personally, I wouldn't have an issue streaming the mods out to people due to having a gigabit connection sync'd both ways. For others, fair amount of people likely only have 5 megabit tops for upload. This is where it becomes a problem with how to get mod support available for multiplayer in this type game. Allowing DLC's is one thing, it's another for mods from external sources.

Now yes, workshop could solve this somewhat, until you deal with private mods and edits. I have a few of those myself, of which I wish to not distribute for my own reasons. (Especially one in particular I won't really detail out.) Some people, like myself, don't use the workshop for a variety of reasons. Any mods I do use from the workshop, are immediately stripped out and made external; partly to keep a backup, and to still have a copy of the mod in the event the author decides to remove it for reasons.

There's pros and cons to every system. Farming Sim's isn't perfect because you can't join any game if you're missing even a DLC. Bus Simulator 18 will allow players to join any game regardless of owned DLC, and get to play with them on that particular server if the host owns any. Such as the map expansion, and bus DLC's that came out.

Due to how both ATS and ETS2 are structured, I understand why they don't allow the use of map DLC's across all players. If a road connection is missing or glitched, you fall through the map. And because it's only a void to where you don't own any of the DLC, and if the host disconnects... down you go into a bottomless pit. Not ideal for players, isn't it? That being said, it is neat that they stream the paint DLC, so that's pretty cool. I wonder if they do that for the tuning packs as well, since I use pretty much all of those on the trucks I'm able to.

Mk, that's my write-up for the morning.