Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: [1] 2

Author Topic: Starsector is now on the Nexus  (Read 55937 times)

LazyWizard

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1363
    • View Profile
    • GitHub Profile
Starsector is now on the Nexus
« on: February 22, 2019, 07:07:36 PM »

As some of you may already be aware, Nexus Mods recently added a dedicated Starsector section to their website, and as of last week their Vortex client now natively supports Starsector.

For those who've never used Vortex before, it's a generic mod manager that allows you to download and install mods directly from the Nexus website, handles updating mods for you, and will warn you if you're missing dependencies. You can even set up multiple mod profiles and quickly switch between them*, for those who like to mix vanilla saves with heavily modded playthroughs.

You can grab Vortex here, and download mods for it here. This should make using mods easier for our newer players, and hopefully the Nexus integration will help introduce Starsector to a wider audience.


*Mod profiles are an experimental feature and must be enabled in Vortex's settings.
Logged

nathanebht

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 93
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2019, 11:05:15 PM »

Cool! Looks like most of the mods are on Nexus already too.
Logged

Midnight Kitsune

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2846
  • Your Friendly Forum Friend
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2019, 04:30:02 PM »

Wll the mods be enabled In the launcher if we enaenable temail in Vortex or will we still need to check the boxes?
Logged
Help out MesoTroniK, a modder in need

2021 is 2020 won
2022 is 2020 too

TimeDiver

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 345
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #3 on: February 23, 2019, 04:40:57 PM »

Considering that (for the Windows version, anyways) Starsector's game/mod settings are stored within the Registry... does Vortex have permissions to alter the Registry in that manner?

I dunno. Haven't gotten around to actually trying out Vortex yet. Took a near-year long hiatus away from any and all Nexus-based modding, and am severely behind the times.

Doesn't help that I'm an utter control freak when it comes to my PC, and anything that could conceivably end up being installed on it; so I manually installed mods when possible.
Logged

LazyWizard

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1363
    • View Profile
    • GitHub Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2019, 04:48:28 PM »

Wll the mods be enabled In the launcher if we enaenable temail in Vortex or will we still need to check the boxes?

You will still need to enable any mods added through Vortex in the Starsector launcher. The Vortex API includes bindings to read from the registry but not to write to it, so I couldn't have it enable them for you automatically.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2019, 04:51:41 PM by LazyWizard »
Logged

Shrugger

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 61
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #5 on: February 23, 2019, 11:16:13 PM »

Generally: Great, and I'd very much like to make use of this!

Minor questions:
Can we manually add non-Vortex and/or non-Nexus mods to Vortex?

Because else I predict a holy mess of conflicts, having to install everthing manually after all, and possibly having to check nexus and the forums simultaneously in order to always get up-to-date mods.

Also, does the Version checker work with Nexus mods?
Logged

LazyWizard

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1363
    • View Profile
    • GitHub Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #6 on: February 23, 2019, 11:34:37 PM »

Can we manually add non-Vortex and/or non-Nexus mods to Vortex?

Because else I predict a holy mess of conflicts, having to install everthing manually after all, and possibly having to check nexus and the forums simultaneously in order to always get up-to-date mods.

You can! Just drag the zip over the box at the bottom of the Mods page.
Spoiler
[close]

You won't be notified of mod updates through Vortex if you installed it manually, so you may want to keep Version Checker around if you're mixing and matching Nexus and forum downloads.


Quote
Also, does the Version checker work with Nexus mods?

Currently it will direct you to the forum thread rather than the Nexus page, but it will soon support both. :)

For any modders who want to add the field to your .version file early, it'll be called "modNexusId", and the value should be the number at the end of the Nexus URL (for example, Nexerelin's would be 28). This field will be optional, of course.
Logged

Tartiflette

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3529
  • MagicLab discord: https://discord.gg/EVQZaD3naU
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #7 on: February 24, 2019, 12:51:29 AM »

Mod profiles is really something I wish the game would support, especially with the amount of QoL and libraries mods we have sprinkled among content mods. Or at least a taller launcher and a separate window for utilities.
Logged
 

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23987
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #8 on: February 24, 2019, 12:26:45 PM »

You will still need to enable any mods added through Vortex in the Starsector launcher. The Vortex API includes bindings to read from the registry but not to write to it, so I couldn't have it enable them for you automatically.

Hmm - if I were to add an alternate way of enabling mods (such as, say, a json file somewhere in the mods folder), would that help matters? If not - is there something that would?
Logged

LazyWizard

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1363
    • View Profile
    • GitHub Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #9 on: February 24, 2019, 01:14:45 PM »

A json would be ideal. :)
Logged

JadedTarget

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 14
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #10 on: February 24, 2019, 01:27:19 PM »

I personally use a few installs of Starsector with different mod groupings.  So an Enable All next to the Clear button would be nice for that reason.  Might be useful after switching Vortex profiles too?  I'm sticking with this method over using Vortex for now though, since the more direct control over mod installation, edits, and updates seems more convenient to me.  Enabling mods and switching profiles takes my PC ages so either I'm weird or my PC is just junk.

Also, there's at least one SS mod on Nexus that requires GraphicsLib and that's not on the Nexus yet.  Had to throw it into Vortex manually anyway.
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23987
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #11 on: February 24, 2019, 03:51:32 PM »

A json would be ideal. :)

Done!

mods/enabled_mods.json, looking like this:

{"enabledMods": [
  "lw_console",
  "lw_lazylib"
]}
Logged

Originem

  • Purple Principle
  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 430
  • Dancing like a boss.
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #12 on: February 24, 2019, 11:15:03 PM »

How to deal with updates which will break the current save?
Logged
My mods


Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23987
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #13 on: February 25, 2019, 09:12:59 AM »

I don't know if there's any way on the mod-side to flag it as save-breaking and have Vortex do something intelligent, but as I understand it, you can tell it not to auto-update mods, which - again, if my understanding is correct - would be the general way to go.
Logged

Shrugger

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 61
    • View Profile
Re: Starsector is now on the Nexus
« Reply #14 on: February 25, 2019, 10:50:14 AM »

Great Work, Wizard and Alex.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2