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 backed 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.
So basically what you say is this. The naming convention of the "TS2Prototype-WindowsNoEditor-" prefix in front of the pak's name has no real purpose for the syntax, finding or mounting a mod? DTG are calling it in this way because they either ever did so and/or want to have a clue about the relative path maybe? We still have a little too less mods for TSW available. When I go to TSC.com, there are less mods which either work for TSW4 anymore or have an interest to me. I can maybe think this is due to Unreal Engine's blueprint systems and the way how DLCs are cooked and paked maybe. I don't know why there are so much more and bigger variety of mods for ETS. I mean yes, SCS does provide a Steam workshop and they seem to be actively engaged to facilitate the ways to do mods for the game, but I also think the technical hurdles to actually improve game content are waaay different. DTG really should do more to help modders do modifications. But then of course, the hot hot topic of license infringements comes into the game (pun intended) which seems to be used as an excuse for a lot of things with this game. Vicious circle. If 1. the abilities are limited to create mods -> 2. not much mods will be available -> 3. not enough good mods are available -> 4. lack of interest in mods for TSW in general -> 5. the abilities to create mods keep limited. If we just would change point 1., we would have a different influence on point 4. and 5.
Hi Robert. Based on my very limited experience with creating pak files so far then I believe that you can call then whatever you want. (One of the first things I did was to remove the TS2 prefix as I got fed up of having to rename the mods later on). I just altered the cooking file to produce the new pak in whatever name I want. (I do the same with my scenarios too. Change the name just before uploading so it is easier to see what's what?). In most cases my mods all work when I put the "!!" in the front. I guess this is because no-one else at the moment is bothered with scenarios or formations so I'm not competing with anyone. Not sure what would happen if you had six different people all trying to do the same thing. Mind you, even in my case, I have one mod that won't work at all unless it is named later in the alphabet than the route. Not sure why this is. I might try and investigate before uploading just in case the naming is important. (At the moment I have just used "zz" to put it right at the end). I suppose Matt needs to keep his system "clean" so that he samples the same experience as the majority of his customers? Mind you if DTG played about with mods a bit more then maybe they would be able to give us more clues as to how to unlock the game for the greater good.
