Updating Modpacks needs to be more 'edit friendly'.

[Taiine]

As much as I love all the modpacks on FTB, I really wish it made it easier to update them.

Here's the deal, I, like some of you like to disable some mods they may not like, and add in ones we do, some may tweak the configs to have some thing's spawn and some not.

Like for me with DW20's 1.6 pack, I like adding in Better grass and leaves, more bees and trees, Mekanism, magical crops, and two furniture mods, along with a few smaller ones like one that lets you format books/signs allowing colored text and such on them. I like editing some of the world gen mods to have only such and such biomes spawn, to have more of the BIG hu8ge redwood trees spawn.

However when we update a modpack, even if it gets plopped into the same location, it removes all the mods, it removes all the configs and plops in all default.

It would be very nice if instead of wiping everything and plopping in all new, it would just replace the old mod files with the mods that got updated, as not all of them have changed! Leave everything else the same, and leave the configs alone unless it was truly fully needed to regen due to mod change.

I did a simple "Copy all from pack backup, paste over existing 'update', ignore if already there there" and really between DW .11, and .12 only a handful of the mods changed/updated from what I saw. Do we really need -everything- cleared just for that?

Now with the new update, I have to re-do all the ID clonflicts from the mods I added, redo all the config changes. Now I could just C&P the configs, but if it happens to be a mod that did change something? Then such would botch it up. I have no idea what configs will work just the same, and what ones may have added or changed something. So it's back to doing it all by hand.

This is an annoying hassle. I do want to keep up to date with the mods, but I don't want to run the risk of screwing over my world. If the pack updates, it should REPLACE -just- the mods it is updating and perhaps also tell us that 'this change in config has happened, DO YOU WANT IT TO?"

I seen updates that have changed nothing but ONE setting in a config.. and it wiped out everything.

I think from now on I'm just going to manually update thing's as I find them updated, as I'm tiered of no matter how small the update it, having it wipe everything you have added/disabled/changed.

 

[KhrFreak]

There's a post on the FTB reddit about a way to keep your added mods, it only keeps them from being deleted when you update and wont help with ID problems that occur upon update
http://www.reddit.com/r/feedthebeas..._way_to_keep_your_added_mods_when_updating_a/

 

[Taiine]

Yeah, and that still causes issues of it's own with ID conflicts. That and for me FTB launcher cant seem to grasp That 'this pack is updated' it asks to update -every single time-. If I hit no?" It does nothing, no starting the game, no nada. It asks me up update every time, and every time I have to sit and wait for the pack to DL -again-.

Really we shouldn't have to go through this kind of tasks to keep added mods or configs from deleteing, plus keeping mods we don't want GONE.

 

[ThatOneSlowking]

Im pretty sure that is part of the launcher 2.0

 

[Taiine]

Another big issue, is with mods and configs set to read only, the launcher no longer loads the modpack. I cant get the new DW12 to start. at all. I tell it to start, it DL's the pack for the uptenth time, and then goes back to the launcher. It wont play. If I could get MultiMC5 to work I'd be using that.

So for the time, I have a back up of the old modpack, that I cant play as FTB has no way to load in your own modpacks, and a new one that is broke that I'm pretty much forced to start fresh on and re-do everything, yet again by hand.

 

[SatanicSanta]

If it's so much of a hassle, don't update the packs. No one is forcing you to update.

 

[Taiine]

If it's so much of a hassle, don't update the packs. No one is forcing you to update.

It wont PLAY unless I do. I hit No to update, and it don't launch the game, it goes back to the launcher.

So here's what I have to do each time there's an update.

1. Allow update.
   
2. Paste back the mods I like using.
3. Disable the mods I don't like using/never bother using/cause lag issues.
   
4. Launch game so configs gen and ID conflicts show.
   
5. Quit game, and edit EVERY config how I liked it. From what Biomes BOP loads, to having them tall redwood trees be common, to telling magic bees to gen magic hives.
6. Edit all the ID conflicts.
7. Load Game, pray my old save works with the new.

If I were to leave any files as read only? The lauchher would say I need to update -EVERY SINGLE TIME- I want to play... it would sit there downloading the files and then? Back to launcher... the game wont load. If it does that.. then I have to delete the whole modpack.. let it re-dl it all and go back though all the steps before.

It's frustrating.

It wouldn't be if the launcher just replaced the files that DID need updating and -leave the rest ALONE-.

I wanted to scream when we had an update, and all it did was edit ONE config option... JUST ONE. and I got stuck re-doing all this -again-.

 

[SatanicSanta]

That config option fixed an insane bug where you lost all of your items on death, so you should be happy about that change.

Why are your modpack files read only? Are you running it as administrator?

 

[RedBoss]

You don't have to use the FTB launcher. There's lots of people on he forums who started with ftb and simply don't use it as a way to get mods anymore. There's tons of threads on the forums on how to do this. Even Direwolf20 did a video on how to add mods to the vanilla minecraft launcher. FTB has the configs needed to keep that process simple or you can use another launcher to get your mod fix.

 

[SatanicSanta]

You don't have to use the FTB launcher. There's lots of people on he forums who started with ftb and simply don't use it as a way to get mods anymore. There's tons of threads on the forums on how to do this. Even Direwolf20 did a video on how to add mods to the vanilla minecraft launcher. FTB has the configs needed to keep that process simple or you can use another launcher to get your mod fix.

On top of this, MMC5 is super simple and easy to use, and you can just drag/drop configs, saves, mods, and resourcepacks into it after you install Forge.

 

[Padfoote]

The way I handle updating with extra mods is first, I go and create a secondary folder and put a copy of each additional mod and their respective configs in it, and then update the pack and stick everything back in. This eliminates the loss of additional mods when you update.

The main topic I'm picking up on however is that you're losing your config changes. Are you (or have you) checked the little button to backup ALL configs when it prompts you to update? Should be quite easy to just pull those configs back into place.

 

[GreenZombie]

To answer the original post.

I simply would not expect the FTB launcher to preserve the integrity of *my* modpack.

I play a tweaked Monster. (Monster - the AE mods + Witchery + AM2 + Archimedes principally) So, I DO use the FTB launcher to update "pristine" versions of Monster as and when they are released.

I also have a Vanilla / MultiMC install that has *my* mod pack in it. This keeps my "moster derived" mod pack safe and my settings as I set them.

So, when there is a new version of the FTB pack I downloaded it via the FTB launcher, then use WinMerge to sync the mod list and to merge in the new config changes while preserving my tweaks.

It works and lets me keep my server current with the latest Monster, while keeping the integrity of my changes.

 

[Bibble]

For the moment, we're running on a moderately hacked version of the first launcher, because the new one wasn't ready for the 1.6 releases.

From what I can tell, the 2.0 version should update JUST the mods that have changed, leaving everything else as is. It should also allow you to add mods that have been given blanket permission, and are in the "FTB System".

There are a few hacks to get things running, but, fundamentally, the edit packs thing was more of an afterthought than anything else with this version. The main driving force was to get the packs available.

 

[GreenZombie]

Even then, unless FTB starts to update configs a substantially different way, its going to need a sophisticated merge tood to deal with the fact that their new configs are going to overwrite any custom settings we have in the config files for the mods we have.
The worse case here are mods that store things like keybindsings in their config files, meaning each Monster update overwrites all my NEI and WALIA (for example) bindings.

 

[Taiine]

Heres the fun thing. Yes I do know how to mod the normal Minecraft. But sense the mods you use will end up working on -all- versions sense they all pull from the same Mods folder, then well you are stuck. Want to try mods for 1.7? well then you have to go through more fun of re-naming folders and trying to keep tabs on more then one mods folder. I had to do that ages ago during my map making having to switch a folder with SPC and world edit and other cheat mods like Xray so I can slign top builds with underground chambers or testing redstone to be sure it worked. With another folder with other mods that were fun for SSP, then have another folder for SMP.
No that was in its self its own hastle and have gotten folders mixed up before. Don't get me going when I also had folders for three minecraft versions back in beta when world edit had stoped working for a long while, that means changing minecraft.jars and mod folders.

MMC5 is not super easy. I have followed so many guides from that topic and from here, followed videos and all it keeps giving me is
Error: Could not find or load main class
-XX:NewRatio=3


Minecraft exited with exitcode 1.

No matter what I edit, tweak, change. Nada. I've spent a few good days on and off working on getting that going but no... it for me don't work, even with upping the memory and making sure the JVM's were right, the forge version is right. Nope, don't mean anything less it can find/load the main class. Finding fix's for THAT also yeald nothing. Oh now don't get me wrong, I know how to MMC, Back before I had instances for tekkit, tekkit lite, FTB Ultament, FTB unleashed, world edit, and my mod spotlight. But as of MMC5, half those don't work anymore and trying to edit the files to make them work just crash everything, and any new mod pack either tells me the above or wines then downloads the default minecraft.

 

[SatanicSanta]

I'm not sure what the first paragraph has to do with the FTB Launcher.

And have you tried removing "-XX:NewRatio=3"? Are you running J7? I'm not sure why its throwing up an error about that because it's directly related to Java garbage collection, which is in all Java versions.

 

[Jnelso99]

What I've done is use WinMerge to keep my instance updated with my config/mod changes. Before updating, I copy my minecraft directory, then update. Then I use WinMerge to compare the directories and copy over any missing configs or mod files, then go through any config file differences to reapply my changes. Piece o'cake.

Having a launcher merge new config files with old/changed files should be doable as most source control programs like CVS can do that and detect conflicts.

 

[Bigglesworth]

FTB isnt about *your* changes, its about *their* packs. That includes configs. If you want a utility that helps sort self made packs FTB isnt it. I left the FTB utility a long time ago. Its for the 95% of people that just dont want to fuck with this shit.

 

[Siro]

Since the old launcher can't do mod-by-mod updates, it's basically doing what I was telling my primary tester to do while developing my pack, "To update: delete mods & configs folders, replace with contents in zip".

During the course of developing Sleepless Horrors, I ran into several situations where a mod update required deleting the config and allowing a new one to generate to properly use newly added features, which then required manual readjustment to get all the IDs sorted again. It would be really, really difficult to have a program sort out differences between an old set of configs and a new set without scripting the changes on a per-update basis.

If you find a good/easy way to automatically update configs in a way that can handle situations like that, I know I'd be interested in it. It would save me a lot of time sorting out pack updates.

 

[trajano080]

Im pretty sure that is part of the launcher 2.0

Preety sure that's going to take a preety long time. It almost seems like they won't make it, but they're working on it I think.