Mod-Chains breaking functionality

[Tinkering Solderbro]

Something to think about and discussion is welcome.

 

In my experience the last years earlier working mod combinations are dying rapidly. Many times this is not caused by Bethesda alone, it's a mod-chain overgrowth. You cannot simple install a tiny mod for usage, you have to follow the dependency chain. So your wanted mod requires 3 other mods. Every of these 3 mods require 5 further mods and so on. If one of these is out of maintenance or version, the whole mod chain is rendered broken.

Another thing is the dll or separate .exe functionality, it's not chiseled in stone that newer windows versions will support that in any way.

 

How to handle that? As i would not ditch skyrim at all, i try to keep it with older mods without a mod-chain.
 

Guess: Why is Nexusmods going to an app mod manager that work without any install on windows, mac and linux?

 

I hope the best that our beloved modded games can survive this, in 30 years of IT Service and Hobby i have seen many neck breaking changes.

 

Solderbro

 

 

 

[JimUpdating]

I think I can follow your logic, but disagree on the cause/effect.

 

The skyrim mod scene had the disruption of Dynamic Animation Replacer not being updated, which caused a huge number of dependent animation idle mods to fall over.

 

• the mod author probably got disrupted in the Russia/Ukraine war.
• Some of the user group got ugly, demanding that the volunteer author do an update.
• A different mod author stepped in and created Open Animation Replacer.

 

so provided there is an open source and a willing skilled colleague who can go in and edit/recompile, the system can adjust.

we also have the issue that a lot of mod authors are volunteers who learnt how to mod by experimenting, as some of the mods were very version specific. Some of that is evolving, with the NG versions of mods that are version agnostic. The modpocalypse and the frequent version updates from 1.6. to 1.6.1170 was painful but encouraged this development for the volunteer mod authors.

 

Do I see a fundamental shift from LE style mods to SE/AE mods?

Yes. The significant increase in number of mod slots has allowed an evolution from LE havng to be highly efficient on mod slots, with a mod that does everything, to AE having more frameworks (Devourment, Acheron) with multiple dependent mods to customise.

This is also how programming has evolved - create individual code packets that do a specific task, and set up repositories on github.

 

The more fundamental issues that concerns me are :

 

There are some core mods (SKSE, AddressLibrary, Papyrus tweaks, SexLab framework) that are done by volunteers. 

 

In general, we don't praise the volunteers enough.

• If we download a mod and it works, we move on.
• If there is a glitch (normally user error) then people might do a tech support request. 
• Some entitled/impatient users tend to complain and create drama (Dynamic animation replacer on nexus, and the recent poor behavior to NCK30 on LL)

Is the current model sustainable? Well, LL has been around for more than a decade but :

• do we do enough positive comments or encouragement or thank you to the volunteer mod authors?
• do we actually help the LL community, and the real life costs of hosting this site?
• do we encourage authors to hand off mods, as real life/age/illness/interests/war intervene on an individual?

What I want to see is 2032 LL and 2032 Skyrim, running with MinAI or successor, with multiple NPC's conversing with LLM models and aware of their surroundings, as I wander through a city of whiterun with 100+ houses and shops, as I make my way to the brothel of Whiterun.

 

So let's have a discussion of how we can support and sustain LL for the next decade. 

 

Otherwise, this is just another LE vs SE vs AE discussion, which will have a range of opinions from "if it ain't broke, don't change it" to "let's see what is possible".

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Just Don't]

12 hours ago, Tinkering Solderbro said:

You cannot simple install a tiny mod for usage, you have to follow the dependency chain. So your wanted mod requires 3 other mods. Every of these 3 mods require 5 further mods and so on. If one of these is out of maintenance or version, the whole mod chain is rendered broken.

Never seen this really. Usually the mods that go outdated are either feature complete mods for a specific mechanic (i.e. Frostfall, Campfire, SPERG) or mods that never got out of beta/WIP phase but still had the intend to overhaul or change a specific mechanics. Not dependencies or mods whose only purpose is being the requirement for other mods. Care to share any examples of this? Maybe I'm not thinking about mods in the same way as you try to propose here.

 

12 hours ago, Tinkering Solderbro said:

Another thing is the dll or separate .exe functionality, it's not chiseled in stone that newer windows versions will support that in any way.

What?

12 hours ago, Tinkering Solderbro said:

Guess: Why is Nexusmods going to an app mod manager that work without any install on windows, mac and linux?

What? part 2.

[Tinkering Solderbro]

On 1/20/2025 at 3:59 PM, JimUpdating said:

Is the current model sustainable? Well, LL has been around for more than a decade but :

• do we do enough positive comments or encouragement or thank you to the volunteer mod authors?
• do we actually help the LL community, and the real life costs of hosting this site?
• do we encourage authors to hand off mods, as real life/age/illness/interests/war intervene on an individual?

What I want to see is 2032 LL and 2032 Skyrim, running with MinAI or successor, with multiple NPC's conversing with LLM models and aware of their surroundings, as I wander through a city of whiterun with 100+ houses and shops, as I make my way to the brothel of Whiterun.

 

So let's have a discussion of how we can support and sustain LL for the next decade. 

 

 

That's a good point, especially for mods that have to follow Bethesda's changes. Sometimes i thought over Nexusmods or Schaken type of payment, to honor good work. For the future i would like to see special mods too, that do things parallel to Skyrim itself, but this future requires more gaming platforms as only PC before. Maybe sometime things can be done in python, what is available on many platforms. We will see if microsoft will execute such mods or one day cut the cake and disables.

 

For LL i would support a model like Schaken, a membership levelled system, to support mod authors work. 

 

[Tinkering Solderbro]

19 hours ago, Just Don't said:

Never seen this really. Usually the mods that go outdated are either feature complete mods for a specific mechanic (i.e. Frostfall, Campfire, SPERG) or mods that never got out of beta/WIP phase but still had the intend to overhaul or change a specific mechanics. Not dependencies or mods whose only purpose is being the requirement for other mods. Care to share any examples of this? Maybe I'm not thinking about mods in the same way as you try to propose here.

 

What?

What? part 2.

 

Few years back for example Anton's Flying was changed from mono-mod to a chain of depends, to get it running. Tiny examples are also hdt-fsmp against the mono mod hdt-smp. Cyberpunk has the same, with every update all parts of the chain must be updated or it's dysfunctional. While Oblivion was more the mono mod game, where you download and install one piece, sometimes the modmanager has to handle duplicate files. Today i installed the old Flying by Porro1, it's a decade old mono mod that works with Skyrim AE 1170.

 

To the windows .exe or .dll, here is microsoft on the way to the "trusted" platform, where such files sometimes are denied by the windows defender. In Windows 10 there is a workaround to execute it anyway. This is not chiseled in stone, one day every .dll and .exe must went through microsoft labs to be confirmed as safe. On consoles like X-Box and Playstation the rules are more harsh.

 

The next Vortex mod manager will be an appimage, a mono block to download and start without setup, here they are working on it.

 

Github Nexus Mod Manager

 

Who even knows, if windows stays the big gaming platform forever🤔

 

[Just Don't]

3 hours ago, Tinkering Solderbro said:

Few years back for example Anton's Flying was changed from mono-mod to a chain of depends, to get it running. Tiny examples are also hdt-fsmp against the mono mod hdt-smp. Cyberpunk has the same, with every update all parts of the chain must be updated or it's dysfunctional. While Oblivion was more the mono mod game, where you download and install one piece, sometimes the modmanager has to handle duplicate files. Today i installed the old Flying by Porro1, it's a decade old mono mod that works with Skyrim AE 1170.

So dependencies and DLL compatibilities.

Dependencies are unavoidable unless you want authors to recreate functions from commonly used libraries to include them within each mod instead of just asking users to download the dependency. I doubt you have a problem with SkyUI so other mods can use MCM, JContainers or even Papyrus Util are commonly used dependencies I think most users will have installed because they're so widely used. I don't see any problem here, like I said the alternatives wouldn't really be mod author or even end user friendly really. You mention FSMP vs regular SMP but the only requirements are for MCM features, an NPC fix and an XPMSSE skeleton just like the original SMP did.

As for things needing to be updated, yes this is somewhat of a problem, especially if the author of the mod abandons the mod or doesn't allow unofficial updates. But those mods are usually replaced and you can always avoid automatic updates to keep playing on older versions while support for the current or newer versions progresses. Not doing this is just asking for problems. And yes, using mods without a DLL is exempt of exe/SKSE compatibilities, but there's a reason some mods require a DLL or work best with one. So again I don't see how changing this would be mod author or user friendly.

 

3 hours ago, Tinkering Solderbro said:

To the windows .exe or .dll, here is microsoft on the way to the "trusted" platform, where such files sometimes are denied by the windows defender. In Windows 10 there is a workaround to execute it anyway. This is not chiseled in stone, one day every .dll and .exe must went through microsoft labs to be confirmed as safe. On consoles like X-Box and Playstation the rules are more harsh.

I doubt MS will prevent all or most DLL from working. Executable files already need to comply to MS verification process. You can opt to still run that exe, it's just 2 additional clicks. But actually this is partly the reason I don't want Windows to remain the main platform for PC. If they ever get more invasive with their safety measures I hope we have a decent alternative.

[Tinkering Solderbro]

On 1/21/2025 at 10:14 PM, Just Don't said:

As for things needing to be updated, yes this is somewhat of a problem, especially if the author of the mod abandons the mod or doesn't allow unofficial updates. But those mods are usually replaced and you can always avoid automatic updates to keep playing on older versions while support for the current or newer versions progresses. Not doing this is just asking for problems. And yes, using mods without a DLL is exempt of exe/SKSE compatibilities, but there's a reason some mods require a DLL or work best with one. So again I don't see how changing this would be mod author or user friendly.

I see the requirement of dll or exe to circumvent papyrus overload or to get missing functions. While these are windows gaming solution, that maybe work on a x-box but will cause problems on steamdeck or apple mac. Dependencies or chains are well known from Linux, the difference here is the "distribution" behind that ensure matching versions. For rmods i see a good mod manager that should handle this too.
But let me tell about the "Trusted Platform" idea, around 2012 microsoft build laptops with lenovo. I got hand on a refurbed one, these Windows 8.1 machine was totally locked. It was possible to download or copy dll and exe from usb to it. But none of these files could be executed or utilized. Not only users, little business too went rampant against this locking. TPM 2.0 for windows 11 is the followup for "Trusted Platform", but here the chip can also close file access or copying stuff on a a computer. Some day microsoft will press the button, like they force recall to the users.
Dunno how long Windows maybe the preferred platform, or if ARM machines will arise as gaming platform. DLL and EXE may look good today and GE-Proton can emulate some of these functionality on Linux. Think we must see what the future will bring us and how modding must evolve, these days i think the "Appimage" could be a replace for dll or exe files.