Floogen
Allow for profile exporting / importing
Would allow for users to export or import enabled / disabled mod lists.
Will need to handle missing mods, as Stardrop currently omits them from the UI.
Seconding this! Super useful for multiplayer, so you can share your config with someone else and they just download them.
Any progress on this?
At the moment I do a manual export on my linux machine using zip -r selected.zip Selected\ Mods/ in the Stardrop Data dir (~/.config/Stardrop/Data).
I just extract hat zip into the default mods dir on a different machine.
However it is only possible to export one profile at a time using this and there is no way to import the mods 'properly' at the other machine.
If you only care about sharing your one profile with someone else to play in multiplalyer this works fine though.
Any progress on this?
At the moment I do a manual export on my linux machine using
zip -r selected.zip Selected\ Mods/in the Stardrop Data dir (~/.config/Stardrop/Data). I just extract hat zip into the default mods dir on a different machine. However it is only possible to export one profile at a time using this and there is no way to import the mods 'properly' at the other machine. If you only care about sharing your one profile with someone else to play in multiplalyer this works fine though.
This would be so useful not only for multiplayer, but for coordinating saves between machines. Is there a workaround like this for Windows, for the time being?
The problem with this feature is regarding what most people label as "mod theft". While it's an easy feature to be able to export your mod files into a compressed folder, it deprives mod creators of their download numbers. Because of that there's only a few ways to implement the feature one being:
- We export a list of the mods from your profile as a single file
- Store the download links and relevant metadata in the file
- Download through nexus mods when reimporting the profile elsewhere, as a mod list like floogen recommended
This requires an API key for nexus, notably with premium. Alternatively you can do it without an API key but it's then lengthy logic to add.
If anyone has any other suggestions on how to do this, I'm all ears.
You're able to compress all the mod files yourselves and do this, but if Stardrop does it, it lands them in muddy water with creators and others.
Excuse my possible naivete, but if people are interested in that sort of feature it seems like having a Nexus API key in Stardrop would be a reasonable ask to be able to use a profile shifting feature? After all, that's already baked in, and whether to use it or not is a personal choice, but I don't think it's unfair for the devs to not want to code in a workaround when it would be so much more complicated. I wouldn't expect them to code in all the various repositories etc that people might host a mod aside from nexus, either, but even just a file with all the configs and links to download things that can be downloaded via nexus and maybe some sort of text list of the mods that aren't available through nexus, without having the actual mod files themselves included seems like it could be feasible without being muddy for the Stardrop devs?
That way the burden of reacquiring anything not through nexus is still on the player, but it would also really simplify the process of coordinating multiple machines, whether that's for multiplayer or just one person with more than one computer. The goal here is a potential convenience feature for players, not to make the devs stick their necks out when they're already contributing so much.
As you said, I could already just zip all my mods and move them manually, but as you also said, download numbers and metrics are a thing for mod creators, and what I'm looking for is a shortcut through the tedium of having to sync mods manually between two machines, not to skip the process entirely. /not mad /genuine
I absolutely agree. It is possible to export a text file with all the download links, this is another way I thought of adding the feature on my fork. But also I like users to have convenience at hand, even if you have the text list you still have to click through them all and download them. But if it's wanted I can add this in and submit a PR for it.
Additionally, the other trouble aside from the metrics for creators, is if people have an extremely large mod list, transferring a sized compressed file would be problematic for you.
What options are you guys happy to go for?
This would be so useful not only for multiplayer, but for coordinating saves between machines. Is there a workaround like this for Windows, for the time being?
It should work the same way on windows. Since windows has no symlinks by default, my guess is that the selecter mods folder already has all the copies of the mods and their config inside. You should be able to just zip it by reght cliecking and then selecting compress to zip or something (don't know if that exists in windows by default nowadays). If you have more than 20 mods I recommend using 7zip on windows because the windows zip extraction is super slow.
The API based downloads only work if you have a nexusmods pro account. I would be happy to use the API based downloads if it was possible without having a pro account (like the prism launcher does it for curseforge and modrinth minecraft mods).
If you only have the file based export I will just have to write my own python script to automate this. I won't download 120 mods and manually confirm that the updates work on two machines. That is too much of a hassle.
The whole point of having an export feature is to make it less complicated and more user friendly for those that use more than one machine or play in multiplayer. For that an exported zip archive is the best solution simply because of the way nexusmods downloads work.
This would be so useful not only for multiplayer, but for coordinating saves between machines. Is there a workaround like this for Windows, for the time being?
It should work the same way on windows. Since windows has no symlinks by default, my guess is that the selecter mods folder already has all the copies of the mods and their config inside. You should be able to just zip it by reght cliecking and then selecting compress to zip or something (don't know if that exists in windows by default nowadays). If you have more than 20 mods I recommend using 7zip on windows because the windows zip extraction is super slow.
They've already mentioned doing this, and I already mentioned why it can't be implemented into Stardrop, unless Floogen wants it this way. Read the other replies.
The API based downloads only work if you have a nexusmods pro account. I would be happy to use the API based downloads if it was possible without having a pro account (like the prism launcher does it for curseforge and modrinth minecraft mods).
If you only have the file based export I will just have to write my own python script to automate this. I won't download 120 mods and manually confirm that the updates work on two machines. That is too much of a hassle.
The whole point of having an export feature is to make it less complicated and more user friendly for those that use more than one machine or play in multiplayer. For that an exported zip archive is the best solution simply because of the way nexusmods downloads work.
Also mentioned this already. Read the above replies to the issue with the mod creators.
If you have 5GB+ of mods and hundreds of them, transferring them or getting them moved over somewhere, especially remotely would be a pain for those that don't have cloud storage or some sort of area to upload/download.
I absolutely agree. It is possible to export a text file with all the download links, this is another way I thought of adding the feature on my fork. But also I like users to have convenience at hand, even if you have the text list you still have to click through them all and download them. But if it's wanted I can add this in and submit a PR for it.
Additionally, the other trouble aside from the metrics for creators, is if people have an extremely large mod list, transferring a sized compressed file would be problematic for you.
What options are you guys happy to go for?
Honestly, even if it can populate the list in Stardrop with a bunch of "broken" or "unsupported", etc mods that can also trigger the "update available" flags (which sounds simple from my end as a player, but I'm not a modder and am not sure what causes those flags and stuff, so maybe this isn't simple or feasible after all) so you could go down the list and summon your own mods from the Nexus links in Stardrop like when there's an update available without having a pro membership, that would be so much more convenient that having to manually collate a list of mods between two machines.
A text file with what Nexus links it can generate and then a list of mods not found on Nexus per profile would work also but would be one degree less convenient than my previous idea, but as a player I would still be grateful if this is how things are ultimately implemented because that's still more utility than we have currently and that is still an improvement in my book.
Having the config files for each profile is the other data I'd really like to be part of the import/export profile feature, because that's why I use Stardrop- I love being able to just set up profiles for my various solo games and then separate one(s) for multiplayer without having to manually enable or disable things in config files, and I also play on two machines (a desktop and a laptop, when I'm not stationary in the world).
And for reimporting an existing profile, like if you make changes on one machine you just want to carry over to the other without going through every mod manually, if the list being imported to Stardrop could check against the mods already installed and just replace config files for existing mods on that specific profile instead of flagging them for re-download, that would be super awesome.
Again, though, I'm not a modder, so maybe this is more difficult to code than it seems from the player side. And ultimately this is all just convenience features, so it's basically sprinkles on an already iced cupcake, metaphorically. They can add value, but there's already a perfectly delicious frosted cupcake (SDV with Stardrop profiles) I'm still grateful for even without them.
Me asking for new features on a mod I'm already getting for free is genuinely an ask, and no is a valid answer if it comes down to being too difficult to implement.
I'm not entirely sure if exporting the configs for each mod from each players machine would come under the muddy water previously mentioned, though, I don't see how that would be a problem.
And for reimporting an existing profile, like if you make changes on one machine you just want to carry over to the other without going through every mod manually, if the list being imported to Stardrop could check against the mods already installed and just replace config files for existing mods on that specific profile instead of flagging them for re-download, that would be super awesome.
This is possible but I also considered to make it forced to import it as a new profile. Reason being, is so that it does not interfere with the players main profile if they have one, so if there is any problems you're not having to redo a bunch of things to get it all working again, when a new profile can mitigate all those problems.
Honestly, even if it can populate the list in Stardrop with a bunch of "broken" or "unsupported", etc mods that can also trigger the "update available" flags (which sounds simple from my end as a player, but I'm not a modder and am not sure what causes those flags and stuff, so maybe this isn't simple or feasible after all) so you could go down the list and summon your own mods from the Nexus links in Stardrop like when there's an update available without having a pro membership, that would be so much more convenient that having to manually collate a list of mods between two machines.
All mods, even if from Nexus or not should be registered with a mod link in the source from what I've seen, so mods outside of Nexus shouldn't be a problem. I'll have to double check this though.
I was in discussion with users in the SV Discord, and someone made a suggestion to use the Nexus Collections, so instead of exporting a profile you could make a collection of your current profile which gets made on Nexus for other people to go straight to and download. Though, for this feature it's best to wait for Nexus V2 API to release for this to work stable.
For now the only plausible option seems to be to generate a file with all the download links, unless someone has a better idea.