erri120
commented
3 months ago We had some discussions about this a while ago in February, but I don't know if we ever wrote something down.
Similar to the term "mods", the term "load order" is overloaded and ambiguous. The confusion mostly comes from Bethesda games and their mod managers. We tried to find better names, "priority", "layers", and others were considered, but we never wrote anything down.
This issue should be concrete, as there are two kinds of "orders":
First, there are file conflicts in the app. These are resolved when synchronizing the loadout to disk. We flatten the entire loadout into a list of files. If there are two files with the same target path in the loadout, we need to select a "conflict winner". As default, the app currently prevents game files from winning over other files.
File conflicts are universal to the app, and apply to every game. As such, file conflict management is something that needs to be exposed to the user.
The second "order" is game dependent logic. Stardew Valley has SMAPI mods, most Bethesda games have plugins, and other games have other kind of systems.
It's important to distinguish between file conflicts inside the app, and the game-specific logic. The game doesn't know it's being managed by a mod manager. All it sees are files on disk and an "order" in which to load assets.
LukeNexusMods
Al12rs
For games that require load order we will need to develop drag and drop load order but also an automatic option for novice modders.