Is it safe to move the mods I have over to TSW4 on Early Access already or should I wait until actual release? Stuff like godmode for example
Assume they will not work. It's up to the modders to update their mods. Foobian is a 16 years old, highly skilled modder who's usually very quick in updating GodMode.
As I understand it, and unless something has changed, as it stands at the minute all previous/current mods will not work with TSW4 as a consequence of the Content Manager. Anything that isn’t ‘stock’ content causes the game to crash. .ini file changes should work. I believe everything else won’t.
Without putting too finer point on it, you’re not. Certainly not until a solution is found to either disable or fix the content manager on PC. All you can do is play those routes on TSW3. It’s possible (unlikely, but possible) that a solution has been found already but given there’s been no info to suggest that I’d say it’s safe to assume no mods will work until explicitly told otherwise. The irony might be that a modder finds a way to disable to content manager but again, that’s a long shot indeed.
The only mods I will be looking to transplant quickly will be the lighting one, assuming vanilla TSW4 is blown out like TSW3 and a couple of traction sound mods. However I can be patient and wait for the updated versions to arrive.
We're working on mod support at the moment, and it may be that it evolves over a short period, but talking to the modders that are on the beta team my understanding is that mods which affect the core game generally work ok - so god mode seems to work I think for example. Other mods for content may fail for one or more reasons - its certainly not all down to the addon manager at all (and that's where the focus of the work is atm to eliminate any issues there) - but for example in order to make the public editor a reality we had to bring in some fairly sizeable changes to the way materials are compiled from Unreal 4.27 (and even a couple of changelists fixing more core UE issues from Unreal 5) - which means that compiled materials likely won't work and will need rebuilding. We are testing to see if a "texture-only" mod will work if the material hasn't changed. It's a complex issue, but it's on our radar, bear with us. You may ultimately just need to re-do some mods using the official tools, but i'll have more precise and up to date info later. Matt.
To answer the original question though... to everyone, I would recommend strongly getting the game up and running first vanilla, as it comes, and ensure all is good and stable. Then bring in INI changes first because those are the least likely to cause problems and re-test, if all good, then start bringing in and testing mods ONE AT A TIME. Matt.
I suspected that, as GodMode is not DLC based but loads in on a higher level (or technically, lower layer). Couldn't do without its RT weather and SkylightIntensity sliders . And of course, new version, vanilla first, or we'll end up like the ETS2 Steam forum whining ("The update broke my mods!!!!!")
This is not really any different from the situation two years ago when Rush Hour came out with its engine upgrade from 4.23 to 4.26- we simply had to wait for mod authors to update their mods for the new system. It didn't take all that long actually.
Is it possible that content manager looks for the .dlc file in paks, and fails when it can't find it? Very few mods have this included as it wasn't required on Steam, only Epic. UE4.27? Arnt we still in 4.26 in the editor?
You’d be surprised. There was a ‘mod converter’ kicking around back then which made it relatively straightforward (although it didn’t work with audio which was a PITA) but without that it would require the unpacking of each mod then converting each individual file to ‘whatever it needs to be to work’ then repacking. Even for my relatively modest set of mods that’s not an inconsequential amount of work, some of them are hundred’s of megabytes in size. That’s assuming the file structure hasn’t changed at the same time, if it has that’s even more work. There is also clearly an issue with the Content Manager which wasn’t there when going from 4.23 to 4.26. Let’s just hope that there’s an easy way to do it (easier than file by file at least). If not I’d anticipate a number of mods falling by the wayside. If the only solution is to use the editor then I’ll be stuffed anyway for now as I’m not buying the core game until it either comes for free with a DLC I actually want or it’s available for pennies in a sale.
It uses stuff from 4.27 and 5 which is nothing new btw, but it's still version 4.26 if that makes sense
As noted in another thread, good progress with mods today resolving load-ordering issues that seem to cure many problems. There are other notes about mods being badly constructed which is causing problems in TSW4 but what that is exactly and how you fix it we'll put some guidance out once we've firmed it up - but we did get a community texture mod working earlier by just cleaning the package up, so that's a major step in the right direction. Matt.
This is why I don't like yearly releases of "new" games. Some mods are more or less mandatory at this point like the Enhancement packs.
