TBH I just thought it was to tidy things up alphabetically but does it also mean that the mod is loaded first when the game starts up? As some might know I have been playing around with trying to add extra paths and formations to scenario creation. I have had quite a bit of success at this and am now thinking about actually trying to upload something. Usually I just rename my mods and add the !! at the front to get them to group with other mods that do the same. This has worked fine until my latest mod for Edinburgh/Glasgow. In this route's case adding the !! to the mod name makes the route vanish. Remove the !! (meaning the mod begins "TS2Prototype") and the mod works as intended. It all seems a bit strange as none of my other files act in this way. Any thoughts?
For your first question, yes, depending where the mod is listed (alphabetically) it will also load that way, eg. if the class 700's soundmod is above the class 700 DLC .pak itself, the sounds from the soundmod have a higher priority of being loaded. if it's below the DLC .pak, the soundmod has no effect on the train from the DLC and you will hear the default sounds. though I unfortunately have no idea why your mod interacts with your route that way, so someone else may answer the second part of your post here. cheers
That makes complete sense and was baked up by my own observations until my latest trial mod. However at least the Edinburgh to Glasgow mod works correctly if I don't edit the name. It just looks a bit odd in that it ends up in a different file location to all the other similar mods. Thanks for your help.
I think they just use !! to make the mods group together, so you can easily delete, or move them if they seem to be creating problems. That could be a one reason.
It's for load order. Many mods do modify the same file, but alter different parameters. The one on top has the last word and will be applied if it contains a file that other active mods also alter. It's a bit like saying "I'm more important than others!". As TSW does not feature an ETS2-style mod manager, the name decides the load order. For example, my mod does alter an RVV file containing a camera position. Another mod has to modify the same file for altering light values for example. You can only have one of them active unless you extract them and apply both changes to that single file. The mod with the most exclamation marks will be the one overriding all the others that are modding the same asset. This is due to the fact that we cannot alter just a single word in a book's page, but must deliver a copy of the whole book page so to speak. (which is why DTG updates require mod updates, as other words on that page might have changed, which we must then include via a mod update.) In TSC, things are spread over more indivdual files, so I can modify a light without touching a cabview as the files are separate. In TSW, the RVV file holds much of the visual aspects in a single file, eventually causing mod conflicts. So if you want to have two mods combined into one, don't ask the author - as endless combinations and wishes are possible - but get into modding yourself.
I do know it also has the effect of making them load first as well. But it also makes them move to the top of the file list in Explorer, So it also makes it easy to trouble shoot anything.
But I've seen bad habits of putting the "TS2Prototype-WindowsNoEditor-" prefix to mods. People are then really having trouble disabling mods for troubleshooting because most can't tell whether that is a mod or an original file. Then you point them to a Mod Manager and this might be enough for people to say "Nah, I'm not using mods anymore. Too mouch trouble" Even though they can't harm your installation and don't write config or registry stuff... Not working? Remove the pak, done. But give it a meaningful name. Mine all start with "tm..." so they are easily recognizable and grouped. Of course something like ETS2's mod manager, allowing you to include description, image, version numbering and defining load order is not present in TSW. As Matt said on a recent stream, he never uses mods, so I doubt it's of interest to invest into a mod manager for DTG.
