The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Files brought pretty much up to date. Tell me if I've missed anything.
The issue of mod intercompatibility has been annoying me for a little while now. I experienced quite a lot of problems putting together the mods for Unsanity, and the game wouldn't have nearly the possibilities it does if it weren't for llamabeast's most excellent mod combiner script.

The script is great, and especially so for setting up MP games because it means players only have to download 1 mod to get a game working. However, for quick home play I think many people may not want to go through the process of running a perl script to plug together a series of mods which may or may not have been compatible in the first place.

So: I have put together a chart that indexes the various unit/weapon/etc. numbers (and the number of spell slots, of course) used by different mods, so that mods can be easily checked for compatibility. As a bonus, people creating new mods can also view this chart to select an unused range of ID numbers for the creation of the new mod.

The index now covers over 100 mods, taken from the full depth of the mods forum. Some tiny mods and some that appeared to have been abandoned before they could be considered complete have been left out. I'be been through 1189 threads to get this far, and it's likely I've left out some popular nation mods by accident. If so, please make me aware and I'll rectify the decision.

It also has a sheet with a (regrettably) short list of mods that can be used together without worrying about unfortunate consequences.

The format and features of the index will need developing as the list grows and requirements are made clear.

As I won't necessarily have the time to go through every mod personally and tot up all the different id #s used, I'm hoping people will volunteer to supply data on mods they have created.

Thought 1: If a mod is not yet final (or gets regular updates by its nature - e.g. CBM), people may want to reserve ranges of id #s for future additions. Is this a reasonable or sensible idea?

Thought 2: It's probably a PITA writing a mod you think should be fully compatible with other mods and then having to renumber all your units etc. to avoid clashes with a new mod someone else just released. Should people be allowed to reserve id# ranges for mods that are not yet ready for release?

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I think this is a great idea. I am having to renumber things for a mod of my own and failing to do the work largely because of the complexity of checking everything. Such a listing would 'vastly' facilitate the task.

My 'Three Races Mod':

--nationslots 72, 73, 74
--unitslots 2401-2423, 2454-2458

My Warhammer Chaos Mod I'll list once I've done the renumbering.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Thanks Panpiper. I hadn't thought of nation #s either, so I'll add them in as appropriate. I'm guessing 3 Nations doesn't use custom weapons or armour, btw.

3 Races Mod added to top post.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

lch has a script (maybe in the tools thread) which spurts out these numbers automagically.

Also I will fix my mod combiner script shortly so it no longer has the bugs/missing features you suffered with in Unsanity. It should then be completely reliable. I still think this is a good idea, because you're right that it's generally far preferably if you can just turn mods on and off without worrying.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Yes, here: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...4&postcount=26
It does not show nation IDs, but that would be easy to add or check by hand.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

No, they don't use custom weapons or armour. I was thinking of defining the standard equipment with names and descriptions more appropriate to the race conceptions, but I expect these races will get used far more often as AI opponents than as races to play (to the extent they are used at all), so I'd rather keep the number of possible conflicts to an absolute minimum.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Thanks for pointing out the awk script, llama & lch. In my next decent chunk of free time I guess I'll do things like find an awk shell for Windows and start indexing the mods I already have downloaded.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

If you resolve all the conflicts (which may or may not even be accidental) you're still going to get people who put on a whole load of mods at once hitting the boundaries in terms of spell slots etc.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Resolving conflicts would be a bonus. Allowing people to check for conflicts in advance is all I'm aiming for at the moment. As you'll see in the OP, numbers of spell slots being used are being counted so that hitting the cap can be avoided.

In the longer term, I was thinking of putting the mods in a spreadsheet for ease of reference and possibly some sort of automated calculation.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

That sounds like it would be hard to keep updated, but I admire the spirit in which this thread proceeds.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I think keeping it up to date would be easiest with the active participation of mod writers - it would be difficult for just one person to keep track of all the mod code available on the forum.

If this becomes a commonly used reference then upkeep may become simpler, especially if modders volunteer relevant data on their new mods within this thread.

I've just had an interesting thought; could llamabeast's mod combiner script be modified to renumber monsters/weapons/whatever within a single mod?

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

If I'm understanding you correctly, that's exactly what it does.

Oh... or do you mean you could ask it to change, say, Skaven so that the weapon numbers start from x, the unit numbers from y and so on? Yes, that would be easy. Would it be useful?

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Yes, that's what I was wondering.

I was thinking ahead of myself a bit, basically. Hypothetically, if people decided to buy into the idea here and their mods clashed with something else, a bunch of renumbering of units etc. would need to be done. An automated process for doing that would make people's lives a lot easier.

Edit: And of course third parties could possibly use it for their own convenience. I'm nut at all sure it would be ethical to arbitrarily renumber other people's mods and repost them for the sake of fitting with a compatibility scheme.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

The only thing I'm unwilling to do is spend extra time unclashing with mods I don't really like/know about. I already spend time unclashing with mods I do like/know about/remember.

So an automated process for avoiding all clashes would be fine by me, provided it was easy. I think you'd almost certainly run out of potential slots pretty quickly though, with the number of mods on here.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Yes. A certain amount of crossover is going to be okay - EA and LA nations could presumably clash as much as they liked, because they aren't designed for simultaneous use.

In other news, I'm having trouble with lch's awk script because the two interpreters I've found so far for win32 both fail to recognise the asort command. Can anyone say what software I should be using? (NB: Answers such as 'unix' or 'linux', while technically both accurate and helpful, will not receive the appreciation they are due from me).

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

In further other news, I've been looking around for what the current caps on units etc. are, and I can't seem to find them. Can anyone tell me where I should be looking?

In further other more news, Michael Jackson is dead. This has had a predictable effect on mainstream music radio.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Gawk, I think.

Try the mod manual - it has the available slots largely plotted. There are other hidden limits such as the descriptions limit we used to run into a lot with combined mod games, the sprite limit and spell limit. I'm not sure the mod manual lists the nation slots either.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Gawk - cool. I'd tried mawk and awk95, I think.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I've been linking to the gawk software in my original post, BTW... :rolleyes:

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

D'oh!

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Okay, I've done CBM 1.5 in gawk.
Monster IDs: 2800,2802-2806,2808-2816,2818-2821,2823-2824,2826-2840,2842-2845,2846,2850-2851,2877-2883,2888,2891-2892
Weapon IDs: 659,708-711,751-757,768-771
Armor IDs: 252-265,380-382
Spell Slots: 2

There are a lot of gaps, which is interesting. I'd sort of assumed people would work in solid blocks of unit IDs... on the other hand, CBM has been very heavily revised over the years so I can see how it happens.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Haida Gwaii:
Monster IDs: 2350-2352,2442-2449,2475,2602-2617,2619,2661-2662,2664-2667,2673
Weapon IDs: 750
Armor IDs:
Site IDs: 800
Spell Slots: 6

Warhammer: Ogre Kingdoms
Monster IDs: 2500-2531
Weapon IDs: 628-634,636-639,650-658
Armor IDs: 240-243
Site IDs: 996-997
Spell Slots: 11

Alchera:
Monster IDs: 2001-2009,2101-2109,2201-2202,2301-2306,2401-2404
Weapon IDs: 601-609
Armor IDs: 201-205
Site IDs: 801-802
Spell Slots: 10

Travelers:
Monster IDs: 2450-2477,2480
Weapon IDs: 700-704
Armor IDs: 270-272
Spell Slots: 6

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Chaos Undivided:
Monster IDs: 2320-2337,2354-2387
Weapon IDs: 730-734
Armor IDs: 299
Site IDs: 790-793
Spell Slots: 28

F/W Thugs:
Monster IDs: 2920-2924
Weapon IDs: 922,924
Spell Slots: 5

Hoburg Alliance:
Monster IDs: 2101-2115
Weapon IDs: 800-801
Site IDs: 760

Ulm Reborn:
Monster IDs: 2300-2320,2978-2983
Weapon IDs: 690-694,710
Armor IDs: 321
Site IDs: 990-993
Spell Slots: 7

Kalevala:
Monster IDs: 3800-3820
Weapon IDs: 935-936
Site IDs: 766-768
Spell Slots: 7

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

That's a quick trawl through the first page or so of the mods forum.

It looks like very few to no nations use more than 50 monsterIDs - even CBM uses under 100. Armour and weapon IDs see less use, natch.

It's also apparent that ID slots aren't currently used in contiguous blocks.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Limits:
Weapon ID# = 600-999
Armour ID# = 200-399
Monster ID# = 2200-2999 according to the manual. This would seem not to be the case. Maybe the limit is 3999?

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Site ID# = 750-999
Nation ID# = 72-94 (unless 72 is too low now).
Oops, missed these.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I have put 60-odd mod's worth of data in an excel file and attached it to the top post. Any thoughts?

The main theoretical limiting factors for combining mods seem to be nation numbers and spell slots. So far the monster, weapon, armour and site ID ranges probably stretch far enough - just.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Spell slots are currently probably the biggest limitation. If you use burnsaber's CPCS mod it's really hard to combine with much else.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

You can get around some spell slot limitations by overwriting national spells from other eras or nations that won't be in the game though. Plus there are some vanilla spells that could be replaced entirely without people getting too upset. Seven year fever anyone?

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Hey, could you put in Skavenblight 1.00? LlamaServer gives this link for it: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34920

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Wow I still haven't updated them from 1.0? That's nuts.

Anyway if you look in the .dm file of the mod using any text editor (such as notepad) you'll find I listed the used ids at the top.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Skaven 1.0:
armor 319-320
weapons 661-689
monsters 2540-2589 (2582-9 unused but reserved)
sites 993-5
nation 73
nametype 148

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Skavenblight is now in the index spreadsheet. It uses 22 spell slots, btw.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I think I can call this version 1.00 of the index. It has over 100 nations from the full depth of the forum in it.

Next I'll work on a slightly more user-friendly version of the sheet, as some of the mods with chopped-up batches of unit IDs can probably be made simpler to look at. It'll be a bit of an incremental change (and probably a small increment), but it's a start.

I have a quite impressive collection of old zipped mod files now :)
And on the very last page of the forum I read an interesting discussion on what a biblically themed nation mod might include.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Wow, you went through every mod? That's quite an undertaking. Thanks for all the hard work you've put into this project, greg.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Wow!!

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Well he didn't say every mod. I'd guess it's more like every mod on the modlist,..? Though that isn't all of them by quite a way, it's still a lot.

I just want to repeat that I'm not going to start modifying the ids I use to avoid clashes with mods I don't care about. I wouldn't expect other people to either. There are a lot of mods out there that are pretty bad. Actually I think I might write a list of mods I think are good stuff (or at least potentially good stuff), with it being purely my opinion (so people can't complain).

But this is still useful to help people who aren't familiar with modding to understand clashes, which are becoming more frequent as people start using mods more and more.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I'll clarify what I did a little. Over the last couple of days I've trawled through the pages of the mods forum, looking at every thread that appears to contain a mod (sincere thanks are due to Edi here, as his work in prefixing mod threads from before the forum migration was invaluable).

Some of those threads were (or appeared to be) long-abandoned work in progress, not yet in a playable state. These I did not include, as I had no reason to believe they would ever be usable. If someone later completes them, they'll be added to the index.

Some others were adjustments to existing units in the game, and those did not need inclusion (no new units, weapons etc.)

A few beyond that were obsolete (blessing hotfix, anyone?).

I also have no doubt I've missed a few along the way. The errors may even be glaring - I haven't consistently paid attention to mod nations over the last two years, and may have missed some very relevant ones. Please do alert me if you've spotted any holes that need filling.

You have a set of mods that already avoid clashes with each other and also CBM. I'd say that was good reason to leave them where they were. IIRC, the Warhammer mods were pretty much intercompatible, as was a lot of Amos' work.

There are only a limited set of mods which could still be called live (i.e. being actively updated, or with creators who still frequent the forums). If we end up trying to make everything intercompatible, it seems reasonable to build an index around them than make them fit an index.

Past this, I guess it makes sense to work in order of quality and popularity. Frankly, I'd prefer a minimum of shuffling stuff around - this is a big enough job anyway.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Another update. I have created a sheet of sortable data. It's in its infancy at the moment, but you can now sort many mods by monster ID.

Basically, where mods use a single (more or less contiguous) block of monster IDs I've put the start and end points of that block in two columns of data. It makes a lot of clashes easier to spot.

Mods that use widely separated blocks of monster IDs don't work too well with this, so you'll have to check them on the raw data sheet.

At some point I'll do the same for armour, weapons and sites. The farther I go along this route, though, the less mods will end up with full sortable data.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I've got 12 nations done for the Master of Magic mod I am working on, not to mention most the heroes and wizards. So I am going to have a whole lot of indexing for you in the future if I can get motivated to finish the beastmen, orcs and spells. :)

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

12 nations! I bow to your effort and persistence. Is it going to be one huge mod or 12 separate ones?

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

btw, llamabeast: When your dissertation is done (and the post-dissertation hangover, of course), the previously discussed perl script for renumbering might turn out really useful.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I have started trying to work out which mods are intercompatible and lay them out on a spreadsheet. And lo, there were many nasties. I started out with CBM and Sombre's mods, and have tried working onwards. With various eliminations and many failed attempts to include mods, I've come up with a list of 12... from 105 mods. Some of the mods which take a scattergun approach to monster IDs may be compatible with the 12, but by the time I started looking at them I just didn't have the heart to try and work through all the potential clashes.

FWIW, the updated xls is in the top post.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

It's actually 14 nations. In Master of Magic there were a lot less units per nation though, so one nation may have only 6 units. After I release a very basic version of the mod that I can get as close to the original MOM as possible, I am going to expand on the nations,but I am not sure if I will release that, rather I will encourage people to build their own variations off the base mod.

Enough plugging my mods though. I really really appreciate your efforts. I usually don't play other mods but lately I have been interested in a few, such as Arga Dis (again), the egyptian based one (name escapes me) and Alchera. I am hesitant to use combining scripts to merge them with all my nations I play + my base mod etc, and I would rather manually combine them I think. So super thanks!

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

All thanks are gratefully accepted. :)

The bad news is that at the moment, if you were to use, say, 5 random mod nations, CBM and Holy Wars at the same time, you'd be pretty much guaranteed a clash somewhere.

I find this upsetting, because I really enjoy using mods - there's an awful lot of quality work out there. While getting the mods together for tabulating, I saw some really interesting ideas out there. There's a list of 50 or so I'd love to have a go at, but using more than one at a time is just awkward.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Arga Dis and Ogre Kingdoms aren't in the list of intercompatible mods?

I will fix Nehekhara to be more sensible with its numbers soon. Possibly more importantly, I will fix my script to cope with sites which give recruitables. I think it will be back to no-known-bugs status then.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I found clashes (in the data I had) that prevented them being in there. Please feel free to double-check.

The situation at the moment is sufficiently tangled that I suspect the best solution would be Gordian.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

I've spent a bit of time playing around (only a bit - the last week has been a busy one), and I rather suspect that it's impossible to put together a list of more than a dozen mods that are intercompatible. A lot of the better/most complete mods clash with each other, never mind the bit players.

I am reluctantly reaching the conclusion that the best way to reorganise things would be a root and branch renumbering of every mod on the index.

While this would be possible (if/when llamabeast puts together a renumbering script, I'd even say easy), it would require a lot of people to be willing to cooperate over it.

As things have gone so far, I believe I've put together a useful reference piece for checking against when you see mods clashing. I hope it's useful as is.

I'd be interested in taking it farther, but before doing so I'd like to hear people's opinions on the subject.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

Okay, I've put some more work into this idea and worked on a list of almost 60 mods that look interesting to me. I've worked out how many ID slots of each type the mods use, and done a little bit of theoretical shoehorning to see how many can be fitted together.

You'll find an xls file attached here and in the top post.

Re: The Mod Compatibility Index
 

The problem with reordering the numbers from scratch is when one of those mods is updated with a couple more unit IDs it kinda throws it all for a loop. You can give nations buffers of a few numbers though, I guess.