combining mods Combining add-ons & signing them

[kationarma3 1]

Hey there, Community!

So, basically, our small community is playing tactical operations on the weekends on a dedicated server. We use a modpack consisting of around 15 mods. These addons are not made by me, and we the community does not bring any income to the co-owner & me. I'm not sure if that eraises the licensing problem though. I want to combine all of the current versions of these 15 mods into a single addon, that members can download using filezilla via my private FTP Server. I have little to no knowledge on how mods really work, so I don't know if it's possible for me to not only combine all of these into one @"modname" folder, and if I can create a key for that mod without being the owner of that intellectual property. For the record, that combined mod would not be published anywhere publicly, it would only be uploaded to the database. 

Managing the mods like this would come with lots of advantages:
1.: We could combine specific versions of mods together, creating the ability to compose our own modpack to our wishes.
2.: We don't have to keep track of all updates that the mods receive, and update them manually on our dedicated arma server.
3.: Lots of advantages resulting from 1. and 2., for example gaining lots of experiences from fixed versions of mods will make it able to give recruits a better comprehensive overview on our mods.

Hope there are some mod-experts out there who can and are willing to help me, I'm not a native speaker please excuse spelling mistakes etc. ;)

Greetings,

Kation

[Flinty 454]

Hi Kation.

 

It's very easy to go ahead and do this, and no one denies the usefulness of doing so, as someone with a bit of milsim experience I can relate to your struggles with version management. Your best bet is to get in contact with the mod authors and request permission to host them privately, as it's typically frowned upon to do so and be caught out doing so. Typically your best bet is to shoot the authors a PM requesting permission. Also I wouldn't worry about your English skills, you seem more capable of speaking it than most of us Brits ;)

 

-Flinty

[.kju 3239]

you even dont need to get permission. just use a3sync (or FTP if you have to). resigning is also no problem

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

12 hours ago, kationarma3 said:

I want to combine all of the current versions of these 15 mods into a single addon

if it's possible for me to not only combine all of these into one @"modname" folder

Sure it is i do it all the time :)

Heres what you do:

1. Create a folder, name it by putting the @ and then the name of the mod in the title, so for example if your mod's name is, modpack then name it @Modpack.
2. Open the folder @Modpack you just created and create another folder and name it addons (dont misspell it!) so:     @Modpack ----> addons---> pbos & bisigns
3. Go to each mod you want in your mod pack, and grab the pbo's and the bisign's and move or copy them to your @Modpack addons folder.
4. Lastly go to each mod and see if they have a keys folder, take or make a copy of each of the bikey files that each mod has and put them in your own keys folder for your server.

Clients connecting to the server will only need the mod pack you created, you should be able to upload that one mod to your server's FTP and then allow access

(provide a link) for your members to download it.

Hope that helps.

[kationarma3 1]

Thank all of you for the answers!

I do have some questions regarding your message, @Gunter Severloh, I am trying to combine the mods: "CUP Terrains - Core" + "CUP Terrains - Maps" right now for a first test, however these mods have lots of other files in their @"modname" directories, for example meta.cpp and mod.cpp, aswell as a file called "sums.sha1". I know that I can disregard any of the changelog text files, but what about those type of files? "mod.cpp" and "meta.cpp" seem small and unimportant, but the "sums.sha1" contains all the different names of the folders inside the @"modname"/addons as well as keys linked to them. Now, when combing, the problem is that both mods have two seperate "sums.sha1" called the same, can I copy the text of these text files together and add a combined "sums.sha1" into my @Modpack directory?

Here are some screens of both mod-directories:

http://prntscr.com/kr807r

http://prntscr.com/kr80kh



Greetings,
Kation

PS: I know there's a CUP Terrains - Complete available on Armaholic, I'm just doing this example for educational purposes ;)

[Dedmen 2588]

1 hour ago, kationarma3 said:

meta.cpp and mod.cpp

meta.cpp contains the steam workshop item ID. The Arma server sends that over to the Arma Launcher when someone tries to connect to your server, and shows them which mods the player needs to install to be able to play. You can only have one meta.cpp per folder.
mod.cpp just contains general info about the mod. If you remove it some icons/logo's of the mod might disappear ingame, again there can only be one per modfolder.

[Flinty 454]

On 04/09/2018 at 5:55 AM, .kju said:

you even dont need to get permission.

 

Holds true for most mods, but a few authors are a bit precious about their mods.

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

@kationarma3

i would avoid huge mods like CUP, imo your best bet is to choose what small mods your mission/s require, or you like, and create multiple small mod packs based on the content,

so for example, if your using mods like CUP, and sound mods then keep em separate, modpacks can be done like this:

 

@CBA_A3;@CUP_Core;@CUP_Terrains;@modpack_weapons;@modpack_Cars;@modpack_units_texture

ect,.   Combining certain mods will give you issues, and because their so massive trying to find what issue will be time consuming, depending.

I speak from 9yrs of compiling Arma1, Arma2, Arma2oa, and Arma3 mods and still doing it but this mod ------> http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=14699

              My COWarMod from 2013 topped all the mods i ever built even to this day i had over 230 mods in it, all gameplay mods from arma2 and arma2oa, however it did have a couple of issues, and i sorted them.

 

I got away with a modpack like that because i knew how each mod played,worked, and their files, im using that as an example because unless you know in and out what their is

to know about the mods your combining and what to expect, like if i add this mod, it almost does the same as this other mod already in the pack, so your in for a surprise. :D

 

Overall my suggestion again is keep major mods out of the packs, major sound mods, weapons, cars, units, planes, are ok, gameplay stuff needs to be tested.

 

As far as the content inside the @mod folder and not the addons folder, like readmes, licenses, cpp, ect,. combine them into one for the pack Some things you dont need, like stuff for logos and icons on the menu.

If a mod has a userconfig then you need to take that out and move it to the Arma3 directory, and for each new mod that has a userconfig, you need to take its contents, and move it to the

existing userconfigs folder, mods that use userconfigs at least from my experience are gameplay mods.

Hope that helps.

[kationarma3 1]

Thanks for all the replies, I will take it into consideration, and probably decide that the effort is not worth it :D Again thank all of you for your information!