Forced Disabling of Mods

[Swaygin]

So, now we can't play sandbox online or offline with any mod that someone has somehow decided is problematic? You've got to be kidding me.

I use EcoManager because it really helps to see the levels of my mass points, number of nuke defense missles and nukes. I don't use the throttling feature, but if I did, I would test conditions under which it seems to work and hope it doesn't mess up, knowing full well that if there's a problem then that's just too bad for me. The very fact it has been labelled as a problem and not fixed is because it's problems are unknown, and so it's good that I should be STRONGLY WARNED about it, but nothing more.

it's my own choice whether or not I want to risk having problems with using a defective mod, especially a UI mod in a sandbox game. Yes, I'm sure that "this wasn't designed to ban mods from single player games or the campaign, and we'll change this (at some point)," but this is exactly the kind of crap that happens when you decide to FORCE people to do what you think is best instead of letting them CHOOSE for themselves.

Ridiculous.

[ckitching]

Did you look at the mod manager?

If you look at the entry for EcoManager, it'll say "Upgrade to the newest version".

In the particular case of EcoManager, I spoke to the author of it and we concluded that all but the very newest version of it is broken. So we blacklisted all the outdated broken ones so users get the message that they need to upgrade to the new one that doesn't cause problems.

Apparently you were too busy typing out a rant to read the message on your screen?

The blacklisting of mods has really been very conservative. Let's go through the whole list now to head off any future complaints:

- "PWN Desync": This mod makes the desync dialog a bit nicer, including an option to make it "stop telling me". Since 3641 FAF's got a new desync dialog with those features, plus some extra code to collect useful information that might help us fix them. This mod isn't useful any more, then.

- "XINNONY TRY FIX CORRECT DISCONNECT": FAF contains prettymuch identical code since 3640, so this mod isn't needed any more.

- "UI Lagfix": All the changes from this mod have been merged for some time. All running it will do is downgrade some files to earlier versions, potentially causing weird compatibility problems.

- "Auto-adjust netlag": While a nice idea in principle, this mod is pretty dire at causing desyncs.
The "netlag" parameter specifies how far into the future a command you give now is scheduled. When you click, the game schedules that in the next simtick following netlag-many milliseconds from now, the order you just indicated will be given.
This delay is necessary to allow all players in a game time to synchronise future orders before we reach the point in the simulation when they have to happen. If this synchronisation has not occurred, the simulation freezes while it waits for the missing messages to arrive ("lag").
So: lower values are better in the sense that stuff happens sooner, but if you set it too low your simulation runs all jerky. This mod aims to use ping data to twiddle about with the netlag parameter to keep it at an optimal value all the time.

The problem is, you're not really supposed to change the netlag parameter while the simulation is running. It seems it can corrupt the command stream. Consider:
You give an order at time t_1, it is scheduled for time t_1 + netlag_1
The mod decides to adjust netlag to a smaller value, netlag_2.
You give another order at time t_2, scheduled for t_2 + netlag_2.

If t_1 and t_2 are very similar, and netlag_2 < netlag_1, then it can be that (t_2 + netlag_2) < (t_1 + netlag_1). You just gave two orders one after the other, but they ended up being scheduled to happen the other way around.
Sometimes that's okay, sometimes that makes the command stream nonsensical, at which point you get a desync.

Since we're actively trying to figure out legitimate causes of desyncs due to other bugs, having a "contagious" mod floating around that causes them quite routinely isn't too helpful. We can still get the majority of the benefits of this mod by conducting a ping test before the game starts and using that to set a good netlag value for the whole game (this will only be problematic in the presence of unstable connections).

"Hotbuild": This has been a core part of FAF for _ages_. Using the standalone mod is just going to replace some files with older versions which will cause problems.

"GAZ_UI": Same as Hotbuild, really.

"Ally overflow"/"Ecomanager": All except the very latest version have been blacklisted. Spoke to Crotalus about them at the time: he's got a new version out of both of these that works just fine, I hear.

"Nofity": All except the latest version is broken. Squirrel has a new one out that works fine, so we're forcing people to upgrade (it's fairly annoying to get lots of bug reports that are just caused by people using outdated versions of mods, and it's not a terribly nice UX anyway).

"MoreUnitInfo": It got merged in the same update that added the blacklisting, so this mod is no longer useful either.

"Enhanced chat legibility": Squirrel helped us merge this one: it doesn't need to exist any more as an independent mod.

"Supreme economy": Like "Ecomanager" - only the newest version works, so we're forcing people to upgrade.

"AZUI": Just like Hotbuild/GAZ_UI

"rks explosions": They're all broken for now, unfortunately. We're hoping a new version will be out soon (perhaps you need a hand getting things working again, RK? Don't hesitate to get in touch).



When broken mods get reported as bugs in FAF, it wastes developer time. Where newer versions of those mods exist that are fixed, there's really no point in us wasting everyone's time going in circles when we can just prompt the user to download the new mod and have their fun.

[tatsu]

thanks for finally doing this and clearing things up.

people were being really anal about auto-adjust netlag and ui lagfix, no matter how many times I told them.

[nine2]

"Supreme economy": Like "Ecomanager" - only the newest version works, so we're forcing people to upgrade

hmm well the latest version (v3) is terrible whereas the previous one was awesome (v2.1 nolag). But after testing I can see you didn't actually block 2.1 so .. all good

[Col_Walter_Kurtz]

Did you look at the mod manager?

If you look at the entry for EcoManager, it'll say "Upgrade to the newest version".

In the particular case of EcoManager, I spoke to the author of it and we concluded that all but the very newest version of it is broken. So we blacklisted all the outdated broken ones so users get the message that they need to upgrade to the new one that doesn't cause problems.

Apparently you were too busy typing out a rant to read the message on your screen?

The blacklisting of mods has really been very conservative. Let's go through the whole list now to head off any future complaints:

- "PWN Desync": This mod makes the desync dialog a bit nicer, including an option to make it "stop telling me". Since 3641 FAF's got a new desync dialog with those features, plus some extra code to collect useful information that might help us fix them. This mod isn't useful any more, then.

- "XINNONY TRY FIX CORRECT DISCONNECT": FAF contains prettymuch identical code since 3640, so this mod isn't needed any more.

- "UI Lagfix": All the changes from this mod have been merged for some time. All running it will do is downgrade some files to earlier versions, potentially causing weird compatibility problems.

- "Auto-adjust netlag": While a nice idea in principle, this mod is pretty dire at causing desyncs.
The "netlag" parameter specifies how far into the future a command you give now is scheduled. When you click, the game schedules that in the next simtick following netlag-many milliseconds from now, the order you just indicated will be given.
This delay is necessary to allow all players in a game time to synchronise future orders before we reach the point in the simulation when they have to happen. If this synchronisation has not occurred, the simulation freezes while it waits for the missing messages to arrive ("lag").
So: lower values are better in the sense that stuff happens sooner, but if you set it too low your simulation runs all jerky. This mod aims to use ping data to twiddle about with the netlag parameter to keep it at an optimal value all the time.

The problem is, you're not really supposed to change the netlag parameter while the simulation is running. It seems it can corrupt the command stream. Consider:
You give an order at time t_1, it is scheduled for time t_1 + netlag_1
The mod decides to adjust netlag to a smaller value, netlag_2.
You give another order at time t_2, scheduled for t_2 + netlag_2.

If t_1 and t_2 are very similar, and netlag_2 < netlag_1, then it can be that (t_2 + netlag_2) < (t_1 + netlag_1). You just gave two orders one after the other, but they ended up being scheduled to happen the other way around.
Sometimes that's okay, sometimes that makes the command stream nonsensical, at which point you get a desync.

Since we're actively trying to figure out legitimate causes of desyncs due to other bugs, having a "contagious" mod floating around that causes them quite routinely isn't too helpful. We can still get the majority of the benefits of this mod by conducting a ping test before the game starts and using that to set a good netlag value for the whole game (this will only be problematic in the presence of unstable connections).

"Hotbuild": This has been a core part of FAF for _ages_. Using the standalone mod is just going to replace some files with older versions which will cause problems.

"GAZ_UI": Same as Hotbuild, really.

"Ally overflow"/"Ecomanager": All except the very latest version have been blacklisted. Spoke to Crotalus about them at the time: he's got a new version out of both of these that works just fine, I hear.

"Nofity": All except the latest version is broken. Squirrel has a new one out that works fine, so we're forcing people to upgrade (it's fairly annoying to get lots of bug reports that are just caused by people using outdated versions of mods, and it's not a terribly nice UX anyway).

"MoreUnitInfo": It got merged in the same update that added the blacklisting, so this mod is no longer useful either.

"Enhanced chat legibility": Squirrel helped us merge this one: it doesn't need to exist any more as an independent mod.

"Supreme economy": Like "Ecomanager" - only the newest version works, so we're forcing people to upgrade.

"AZUI": Just like Hotbuild/GAZ_UI

"rks explosions": They're all broken for now, unfortunately. We're hoping a new version will be out soon (perhaps you need a hand getting things working again, RK? Don't hesitate to get in touch).



When broken mods get reported as bugs in FAF, it wastes developer time. Where newer versions of those mods exist that are fixed, there's really no point in us wasting everyone's time going in circles when we can just prompt the user to download the new mod and have their fun.

Awesome, has this information been made available somewhere else in a similar way?

[ckitching]

Not in so much detail, but the mod manager tells you why a mod is disabled, it'll say something like "Please upgrade to the newest version", "Integrated with FAF", "Considered harmful", "Obsolete".

[Swaygin]

Apparently you were too busy typing out a rant to read the message on your screen?

The problem wasn't with the reading of the message, but the writing of the message. As far as I can tell, the message instructs people to download an (a) unnamed upgrade which (b) isn't available online.

I have EcoManagerV3. In the vault, I see V3 and V2, and that's all. I've searched by pieces of the name (e.g., "Eco"), upload date, download count, and by briefly scrolling all mods. I just uninstalled/reinstalled SupCom, SupComFA and FAF two days ago, so there shouldn't be any problem there. I've deleted and redownloaded EcoManagerV3 twice.

So, please tell me:

(1) What is the name of this upgraded version?
(2) Where can this new version that you and your message reference be downloaded?

[Zock]

"Eco" works (Ecomanager v7), but for some reason you have to press the "search" button, or it will not show all available mods.

[CodingSquirrel]

"Eco" works (Ecomanager v7), but for some reason you have to press the "search" button, or it will not show all available mods.

I believe it has to have 6+ likes to show without using the button.

[Swaygin]

Thanks Zock