[Recon]

Has anybody thought of writing a switcher application that lets a person change mods between versions or the original unmodified game with a click of a button?

In the Total Annihilation modding community, we've done this with great success, and its promoted the concept of many mods being installed at the same time.  All the switcher app does is keep track of the mods and the supporting files that have to be moved around, and then it launches the game with whatever config you pick.

[RandomTiger]

I think what you want already exists, -mod command lets you load a MOD from a different dir that would be ignored without the command.

[karajorma]

Yep. The mod switch works very well for doing that. If you want to play Unmodified FS2 simply make a folder called Unmodified_FS2 (or something you'll remember  ) and point it at that as if it were a mod whenever you want to play standard FS2 missions.

[Recon]

Make a folder for *unmodified* fs2??  what would go in that folder?
I figured I would just put all the vp files in a "mod" folder and run that for the mod but run the main folder for unmodified.

is that the same thing?

[Bobboau]

it sounds bass acwards to me, if you want unmodified FS just don't put any comand line in

[Trivial Psychic]

All we need now is a way to apply that -mod flag ability to FRED.

Later!

[CP5670]

yeah, the reason I don't use -mod is that FRED2 does not work with it.

[RandomTiger]

I saw some code that suggests Kazan may have added that ability to fred.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Bobboau
it sounds bass acwards to me, if you want unmodified FS just don't put any comand line in

If you never use FRED there's no reason not to do it that way

If you do FRED however you have to move the Data folder from the -mod folder every time you want to work in FRED. You then have to move it back every time you want to play any campaign other than the one you're currently working on (because even with the mod switch active Freespace still looks in Freespace2\Data).

Creating a data folder for the main Freespace2 Campaign won't prevent any of that but what it does do is prevent you from having to drag that folder around as well (or continuously rename it).  

What makes it an even more sensible idea to create an Unmodified_FS2 folder is that the second you decide to work on a mod you'll find that you need to put the original data folder somewhere anyway so you might as well do what I said and save yourself some hassle

Of course this entire issue will go away once FRED has a -mod switch.

The other advantage is that you can turn it into a Modified_Main_Campaign folder if you decide to add things like Lightspeed's weapon upgrades.  Do that with the main Data folder and you're risking serious problems later down the line.

[SadisticSid]

There'd be no point in a switcher app when a -mod parameter on the command line and a separate shortcut would do. But yeah, this needs to be extended to FRED.

Being able to package a mod into one file and then using that file exclusively would be cool though.

[karajorma]

Just drop a VP in the mods folder.

e.g my directory looks somethink like this

Freespace2
-Data
-Deralict
--Data
--Deralict.vp
-Homesick
--Data
--Homesick.vp

Works perfectly. Only problem is if I'm trying to run a campaign like Tales of EAS Janos which overrides some parts of the TBP VP files it's dependant on. And even then about 10 seconds worth of renaming solves the problem

[Kazan]

and before -mod existed FreeSpace 2 Package Manager existed

of courset that and it's helper app FS2 Programmable Installer never had much attention paid to them

[karajorma]

They were a little trickier to use than -mod I could never wrap my head round how they worked (I remember you trying to explain it to me once)