Content/Cross-Mod Compatibility in Forge/A Forge Sister-Mod?

[Bibble]

Ok, there are two main trains here. You've got mod compatibility, which isn't something that Forge can control. You can't have forge require Tinker's stats for mod-materials without making Tinkers a part of Forge, which defeats the point. The same thing goes for he rest of the mods, the fact that they do things their way is what makes them separate entities.

The other thing is what should and should not be in Forge, and, realistically, what should be included in Forge is, in my opinion, the bare minimum. Ore and fluid registries were implemented because all mods were doing it themselves, and doing it differently, so unification of backend stuff was a good idea to clean things up.

NEI is troublesome for a few reasons, the first being that NEI itself already does the job quite well. Mods interface with that, rather than making their own system. How well they do the interface is a different matter. The other thing is that NEI does the job at the moment, but that's not always been the case. NEI took over from TMI (recipenook and a few others). Front-facing mods come along and replace others, because that's the way these things work.

If you add things into Forge, you disrupt that cycle.

Forge itself may also be replaced at some point, but that's a much bigger task.

 

[Type1Ninja]

I think the only thing which SHOULD be included, is NEI. If NEI was part of forge, and it wouldn't screw up the mods that currently don't work well with it, then it could make life so much easier.
Maybe inventory tweaks too.
But other than that, nothing NEEDS to be done... however, something that detected multiple items in the ore dictionary, e.g. copper, and unified them while loading, i.e. you have tinkers and thermal foundation, you will get either one or the other in your world. Not both. BUT that could annoy some people, and could screw over mods that don't use ore dictionary entries in their recipes, but add their items to the ore dict.

... You're absolutely right. I forgot about NEI and Inventory Tweaks. I feel like I'm missing some other client mod that I always install... Oh well.
Clearly, InvTweaks needs to be part of Forge so I can bug my friends by auto-sorting chests at ANY TIME! Hahah!

 

[jordsta95]

... You're absolutely right. I forgot about NEI and Inventory Tweaks. I feel like I'm missing some other client mod that I always install... Oh well.
Clearly, InvTweaks needs to be part of Forge so I can bug my friends by auto-sorting chests at ANY TIME! Hahah!

Auto sort? Why would you want that, dirt blocks filling the chest in stacks of 2 or 3 is obviously best

 

[Type1Ninja]

NEI is troublesome for a few reasons, the first being that NEI itself already does the job quite well. Mods interface with that, rather than making their own system. How well they do the interface is a different matter. The other thing is that NEI does the job at the moment, but that's not always been the case. NEI took over from TMI (recipenook and a few others). Front-facing mods come along and replace others, because that's the way these things work.

If you add things into Forge, you disrupt that cycle.

Well, for the fact that NEI does the job quite well: Yes. I'm also fairly certain that the transition could be handled in such a way that the actual localization of the mod would remain the same, it would just be bundled with Forge. Maybe a sort of optional download, so that on the Forge installer it says "Install Client, Install Client + NEI + InvTweaks, Install Server, 'Whatever that Other Thing Is.'" That way, it's still optional, but uber convenient. You could take a poll, and I would be genuinely surprised if anyone said that NEI doesn't need to be in every pack.

Auto sort? Why would you want that, dirt blocks filling the chest in stacks of 2 or 3 is obviously best

What's that? Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my OCD waving it's torch and pitchfork.
(My friends totally do that in Vanilla and it drives me nuts.)

 

[jordsta95]

Well, for the fact that NEI does the job quite well: Yes. I'm also fairly certain that the transition could be handled in such a way that the actual localization of the mod would remain the same, it would just be bundled with Forge. Maybe a sort of optional download, so that on the Forge installer it says "Install Client, Install Client + NEI + InvTweaks, Install Server, 'Whatever that Other Thing Is.'" That way, it's still optional, but uber convenient. You could take a poll, and I would be genuinely surprised if anyone said that NEI doesn't need to be in every pack.


What's that? Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my OCD waving it's torch and pitchfork.
(My friends totally do that in Vanilla and it drives me nuts.)

Vanilla? I do it in modded! I love me some dirt :3

 

[trajing]

I see a few problems with this idea. With TiC tools in base forge, you're pretty much giving the middle finger to anyone who doesn't like TiC (hi).
Oregen is a simple fix for duplicates - first check in the ore dictionary for anything matching the copper you need (oreCopper, ingotCopper, and so on) and only load your versions of what isn't there.
Fastcraft can have issues. That's all I have to say on putting Fastcraft in Forge.
And dual-wield - I'd prefer not to have a combat overhaul. This is also a short answer, as @Padfoote put it much better than I could.

 

[Yusunoha]

yes and no. there's some thing I'd like to see done by Forge, but I wouldn't actually like to see it implented into forge itself
I'd rather like to see those things implented into a different mod, perhaps an addon, but handled by the Forge developers.

that way people have the option of using these compatibilities rather than having them shoved onto them by installing or not installing this forge compatibility addon.

 

[Bibble]

yes and no. there's some thing I'd like to see done by Forge, but I wouldn't actually like to see it implented into forge itself
I'd rather like to see those things implented into a different mod, perhaps an addon, but handled by the Forge developers.

that way people have the option of using these compatibilities rather than having them shoved onto them by installing or not installing this forge compatibility addon.

Is there any particular reason you'd tap the Forge team specifically? You have things like COFH core which does the oregen, is there any reason to make a separate mods to do the same job?

To be honest, we are, essentially, consumers speculating about the producer's tactics. Like the fans saying "Why can't Marvel do the Fantastic Four movies?". The fact is that they have no obligation to listen to us, and the whole situation is usually more complex than we give it credit for.

 

[Yusunoha]

Is there any particular reason you'd tap the Forge team specifically? You have things like COFH core which does the oregen, is there any reason to make a separate mods to do the same job?

To be honest, we are, essentially, consumers speculating about the producer's tactics. Like the fans saying "Why can't Marvel do the Fantastic Four movies?". The fact is that they have no obligation to listen to us, and the whole situation is usually more complex than we give it credit for.

it's because Forge is kind of seen as the leaders of minecraft modding, atleast in my opinion.
almost every mod for minecraft nowadays uses Forge, so if there would be an addon that adds compatibility between mods, I think it'd be much more likely used by other mod developers if it was created by the Forge team

 

[Type1Ninja]

To all the recent posters...
Reading the last couple posts before my most recent one, you'd see that we'd discussed a lot of that already - the best possible version of this idea is an addon, distributed by the forge people (maybe in the installer as a separate option). I think that mostly client mods would be included, i.e. NEI and InvTweaks.

The reason it would be made by the Forge team is that they have a more or less instant effect on every mod. They don't need to have a popular addon for it to be distributed to lots of people; it just needs to be included with Forge. That can be good if the addon is good, but bad if it's not.
Also, as to the inclusion of fastcraft: I would say that including it with forge would fix a lot of the issues. I mean, mods are weird with it because they don't have built-in support, right? And if it were part of forge, every mod would be forced to have support (which is the core reason for putting anything into forge). It would be rude, but if mods in general survived the transition, there wouldn't be any more issues with fastcraft.
Of course, as has been said, all of this has just been speculation. I think that client mods are probably the least terrible thing to include in forge, as most people install them anyway and most of them *only* do good things. So, NEI is not intrusive, helpful when testing in creative, and helpful when playing with mods. That would be good. But a minimap would not be good as those are considered cheating on many vanilla servers.

That's just my take.

 

[Padfoote]

Also, as to the inclusion of fastcraft: I would say that including it with forge would fix a lot of the issues.

This is not true. It varies based on the computer running it. Including it in Forge then eliminates the ability to remove the mod if it is doing more harm than good.

 

[Type1Ninja]

This is not true. It varies based on the computer running it. Including it in Forge then eliminates the ability to remove the mod if it is doing more harm than good.

... Like I said, it could be in a separate addon packaged with the installer. That's a non-issue. Don't ignore the rest of my reasoning as to that - it makes sense.

 

[Padfoote]

... Like I said, it could be in a separate addon packaged with the installer. That's a non-issue. Don't ignore the rest of my reasoning as to that - it makes sense.

It really doesn't though. When was the last time you had to install Forge with a pack? It's been ages for me. Including it in an installer with Forge means that it either comes default, or it does not, with little to no option to change it. You really don't get a choice if you use a pack that comes completely built.

 

[Type1Ninja]

It really doesn't though. When was the last time you had to install Forge with a pack? It's been ages for me. Including it in an installer with Forge means that it either comes default, or it does not, with little to no option to change it. You really don't get a choice if you use a pack that comes completely built.

An addon can always be removed, even in a modpack. That's what the "edit pack" button is for. :/
Besides - when you download a modpack, that is literally what you're signing up for.
Again, don't ignore my original reasoning.

 

[Padfoote]

An addon can always be removed, even in a modpack. That's what the "edit pack" button is for. :/
Besides - when you download a modpack, that is literally what you're signing up for.
Again, don't ignore my original reasoning.

I am not ignoring your reasoning, I am pointing out the flaws in it.

You're talking about an addon for Forge. The thing that you cannot change in a pack distributed by FTB without some serious hassle. This implies on install of Forge you have the choice of "Forge-universal" or however it's currently named, or "Forge+FastCraft". With how annoying it is to change it through the current launcher, I would be strongly against this ever happening.

 

[Type1Ninja]

I am not ignoring your reasoning, I am pointing out the flaws in it.

You're talking about an addon for Forge. The thing that you cannot change in a pack distributed by FTB without some serious hassle. This implies on install of Forge you have the choice of "Forge-universal" or however it's currently named, or "Forge+FastCraft". With how annoying it is to change it through the current launcher, I would be strongly against this ever happening.

It could easily be packaged as a separate folder created in the directory of packs/profiles using them - maybe "Forge Addons," like a sort of separate mods folder for stuff that could be packaged with Forge. Opening the directory is a fairly basic activity, and perhaps an extra button on the FTB launcher would not be too hard to include.

 

[FyberOptic]

Not everyone uses NEI. It's just what's popular. CraftGuide still exists, and there's JEI as well.

NEI alone wouldn't be good enough anyway. You need at least one or two plugins these days to work with all the various mods, and all of this contributes to performance considerations in some cases. I used to uninstall the plugins, some people used to uninstall the whole thing.

 

[Type1Ninja]

Not everyone uses NEI. It's just what's popular. CraftGuide still exists, and there's JEI as well.

NEI alone wouldn't be good enough anyway. You need at least one or two plugins these days to work with all the various mods, and all of this contributes to performance considerations in some cases. I used to uninstall the plugins, some people used to uninstall the whole thing.

An option on the installer, removable from its own folder. Would that be an issue?

 

[FyberOptic]

An option on the installer, removable from its own folder. Would that be an issue?

Which begs the question of why it needs this at all, when you can still just install it like normal if you want it.

 

[Type1Ninja]

Which begs the question of why it needs this at all, when you can still just install it like normal if you want it.

The reason being that it would (strongly) encourage mod authors - new and old alike - to include native support for addon mods, as they know that an even larger portion of the population, especially new players, are using it.