Does anyone know the current status of the BWS?

[Jarno Mikkola]

So for example, ideally, aTweaks xp cap remover would disappear, and EET/BG1/BG 2/PST Tweak would be the only ones.

BG2 Tweaks, what's that ? Seriously, the mod is dead. It's called CD_Tweaks today, or so called Tweaks Anniversary, still in a relative "beta", and it combines the BG1, BG2 and PST, and IwD tweaks into one. So pickle you that one.

The aTweaks ... probably has different features... which might make it different, as mostly the effort CamDawg has put is to combine the changes while updating the code to more modern usage/easy to read.

[SCO]

As i said, aTweaks was just a example. I know it's maintained still, but it was the first mod where i found a obvious duplication of function and 'missing optional dependency'. If it indeed has better code for some reason, why isn't that better code on more used mods that collect such tweaks?

 

I know why of course, because it's more convenient on his mod and one of his features requires a xp cap remover to be effective, but the end result is +1 xp cap remover on the mod list. Imagine if +3 mods decided they wanted something that depended on a xp cap remover and reimplemented it in mod.

 

A mod downloader makes 'intermod' dependency issues like this much less of a problem, so i'm rooting for Zeitgeist to get it because it might have several 'pruning' and consolidation effects on still maintained mods.

[Jarno Mikkola]

As i said, aTweaks was just a example. I know it's maintained still, but it was the first mod where i found a obvious duplication of function and 'missing optional dependency'. If it indeed has better code for some reason, why isn't that better code on more used mods that collect such tweaks?

 

I know why of course, because it's more convenient on his mod and one of his features requires a xp cap remover to be effective, but the end result is +1 xp cap remover on the mod list. Imagine if +3 mods decided they wanted something that depended on a xp cap remover and reimplemented it in mod.

I said different features... such as different XP progression tables while still getting to level 50 ... people have preferences, one can like the other, while fifty other people like the one... and neither of those -have to- NOT exist. They can actually be installed together too, but BWS will try to be consistent and blockade exact same file configurations so only one can be selected to be installed, as the install order would be the only thing saying which of the mods would actually be used, which is actually not relevant in the mod install, but final result, but that should be figured out in the setup, not in install, dah as one will not then be needed at all. .

[SCO]

If different results are desired for the same component, that component should be made into subcomponents detailing those differences on the same mod

 

#fascism #endthetyrannyofchoice

 

More seriously if the above is not feasible, if aTweaks wants to extend the level up tables in order to suport multiclass HLA, it should have a component that does that (or fold that into the HLA component) and depend on the tweak xp cap remover to make it clear that yes, that 'is' happening and no, you don't have to deselect the 'previous' cap remover, even if the end result is slightly different.

 

Oh well, multiclass HLA is marked expert on BWS for some reason, even if it's safe to install both, i suspect it's because of this: it simply looks bad so it's marked expert.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Yeah, let's litter the Tweaks mod with 1 500 000 000 different choices for level up XP requirements.

[SCO]

It already has 3. That's part of what makes me 'mad'. I already had expended cognitive effort to think about this feature much earlier, then much later this mod decides to 'hey wait a minute... if you want this, you play by my rules', after i had made a decision. Then it doesn't even have the decency of being or-exclusive to the previous tweak so i'm even more confused (but i suppose that's a fixpack thing).

[Jarno Mikkola]

Oh well, multiclass HLA is marked expert on BWS for some reason, even if it's safe to install both, i suspect it's because of this: it simply looks bad so it's marked expert.

Nope, a mod marked eXpert, usually has a very good reason to be so... it can be that it won't install, or that it more likely will result into VERY bad compatibility problem that has not been fixed YET, with more primary mods, so it's left for experts to sort out on how to fix it, test it and get update to the BWFixpack, so it can be installed with the others .. if that's ever the case.

[SCO]

It was 'orange' not 'red'. I dunno if that's expert actually.

[SCO]

There is a pretty good discussion here about the 'new' mod install tool Zeitgeist.

http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,29644.0.html

 

 

I pretty much convinced myself that:

 

1. If Zeitgeist is not going to be able to download mods that could be done by wget, for those mods that have a github page, as long as zeitgeist accepts their 'zip release'. This is a really really simple way 'distribute' mods in a standard format if zeitgeist will accept zip files with a manifest on a standard location. github pages of mods should be immensely popular, considering the autoupdate and download advantage if a standard emerges.

 

2. Zeitgeist will (likely) check for conflicts and missing dependencies on tp2. I at first thought this was bad, because it makes evolving the conflicts more 'expert', but in effect, this can be solved with a fixpack with a bug report page. It also has the advantage of diffs not caring about mod version. The mod either accepts the diff, already has the diff applied, or is broken and should be disabled.

 

The open question is if this pre-processing (install diffs) step should be done before Zeitgeist, or it should treat fixpacks special. One property you want to preserve is to disable the mod if the diff patch doesn't apply i guess.

 

 

Main problem with this is:

1. very few mods on github for now.

2. chicken and egg problem for users. In order to download mods, we want to know what they give us, and check for conflicts and not download disabled things. But in order to check for conflicts, we need to download mods in order to apply the diffs?

3. I doubt wisp is enthusiastic about treating fixpacks special.

 

Unless you can just download the tp2 file only from the github and apply the diff part that applies to the tp2 only and pass that info to Zeitgeist.

But you can guess why i'm skeptical about Zeitgeist not downloading?

 

 

If zeitgeist *only* accepts a install mod order and nothing else before checking for conflicts we need a tool to:

 

0. get a mod and component list of a forum.

1. wget the latest fixpack for the config you want

2. wget the latest tp2 of every mod on the list from a 'repository' of the latest (master) of mod github pages

3. apply the fixpack diffs relevant to the tp2 file *only*, use the same code as what ends up on Zeitgeist to check for conflicts on tp2, if we can't somehow pass these tp2 to it to check. Diffs that fail to apply get their mods disabled from the list (harsh, because mod components might work? Not sure).

4. User checks everything, is ok, presses the download button, releases come and 'real' unzip happens.

5. Run Zeitgeist to install the created list (remember that diff failures need to be disabled) and components

 

now, this is messy on 3, because of the idea that Zeitgeist *isn't* going to be anything more than a mod installer. If Zeitgeist is not going to have downloads by default, there is still the hope that plugins could make this happen more seamlessly.

 

If so the 'mod component list' would trigger zeitgeist to download their tp2 to a working area, modify them with the latest fixpack, check conflicts, and when the user presses install, highjack that to put in a downloading and extract action in between (and maybe another conflict check because of timing). There would have to exist a mapping from modname to github url too that could be probably downloaded or provided.

 

The key here is to only accept well behaved mods, that are in a standard format and don't have tools everywhere (the idea that Zeitgeist will bundle these tools and put them in the PATH makes this unnecessary anyway).

 

 

I'm also unsure how this would work with EET and BGT. These games need to install files to both base games and then combine them. I don't know if Zeitgeist is going to support this out of the box or if more hackery needs to be done. If it does, for gods sake, don't use bat files. Use python, use java, i don't even care, but not anything platform specific or that can't run on wine. Autoit and VB in general is a abomination.