A way to combine mods

[Cranag]

I want to combine two or more mods and I'm really not sure how to properly mass any mod together. If someone doesn't mind could they give me a step by step, or point me to a tutorial outlining the process.

This is for my own private server, I won't be distributing it and I got permission from Pipermacleod, the mod author to do so with their files.

https://www.nexusmods.com/7daystodie/mods/1463

https://www.nexusmods.com/7daystodie/mods/1356

This isn't all I want to do, but I would really like to see how its done.

[doughphunghus]

These are 2 separate “vehicles”.  What do you mean by “combine”? If you just want to have both of them in the game, you just have to add both of them to the game.  To me “combine” means to somehow either merge both vehicles into 1 (like a UMA vehicle) or to “make a single mod package out of 2 mod packages”.  
 

I feel like #2 is what you’re asking, meaning “I want to be able to make a single mod out of other mods” and these mods are just examples to work with?  If so, what you’re asking is basically “how to make mods” which is not a super easy thing to document, though I might be able to give you some links in these forums which might help.

 

I will say just merging multiple mods into 1 isn’t so bad as it’s all XML, but actually creating new vehicles/blocks/sounds will require you to use Unity, which is not so eaay.

Edited August 11, 2021 by doughphunghus (see edit history)

[Cranag]

Yeah, it was just to cut down on the number of total mods. I have a bit of a reputation with my friends of going mod crazy, so smaller numbers is my goal. So, like those two mods are instead one mod that has both. Nothing new, just merging.

 

Thanks for responding!

[doughphunghus]

I tried writing something up but it’s really hard to explain in text, and some mods are a lot more complicated than others….

assuming the mods load well together (no warnings/errors), then all the resource and icon file names should be unique, as well as all “objects” in bothe mods (block, entity, and item names, etc). Also assuming there are not DMT mods.

 

The only “hard part” is manually opening up each XML file in mod 1 and copying all of the information to the same names XML file in mod 2, and doing this inside the first “nearing level” of the xml file. 
 

Another part is just manually copying all icons and assets (if any) from mod 1 to mod 2. These are custom vehicles so there’s likely asset files (unity.3D is the file extension)

 

then appending the localization.txt (if there is one) from mod 1 to mod 2. And double checking the localization headers are the same in both mods (so the columns in both mods are the same. It’s a mini text database so the columns have to be the same)

 

the manually editing the “ModInfo.xml” file to contain the information about the new mod (so the name and all information in between the XML tags is correct)

 

Then loading up the merged mod into a new game (I personally choose the NaveGane map and turn on “creative mode”) and as the game loads hit “F1” to watch for any warnings or errors that will hopefully tell you where you made a mistake copy and pasting. Then manually testing it by spawning items from the mod, visually checking recipes, maybe drive the vehicles a little, etc. how much testing you do here is all personal taste, but I always check all items to me sure they look good. 

 

that’s about it it.  There’s al sorts of “gotchas”, but that’s part of modding. You’re not trying to make or tweak things/settings so it’s not super bad once you get it working once. 

 

[meganoth]

So, all this work just to mislead your friends in thinking you added fewer mods? You have strange priorities 🤔

 

Just a reminder, whenever you want to update a mod you merged (because the author of that mod posted a new version with a bug fix for example) you either have to do that merge operation again or compare old to new version of the mod and add the changes by hand.

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[doughphunghus]

9 hours ago, meganoth said:

So, all this work just to mislead your friends in thinking you added fewer mods? You have strange priorities 🤔

Ha, yeah.  I am sympathetic as I have a weird friend who would be like that (though he refuses to buy a pc so we can play games together. He has the money, just refuses out of spite I guess). I can see him now: He would literally demand “we only load ONE mod!” Because he didn’t want to deal with anything like downloading files (even though he works as a developer in IT) or just to make me angry, or also to logically make me do all the evaluation and “pick the absolute best mod”.  I have a weird friend, but since I’ve known him for over 30 years I put up with his oddities .  If it’s any consolation, If he made these demands I would pick a single super hard overhaul or I would make it blood moon every night, or turn on PvP. Or likely all 3. Then make fun of him dying for “no reason”

[Cranag]

On 8/12/2021 at 3:55 PM, doughphunghus said:

Ha, yeah.  I am sympathetic as I have a weird friend who would be like that (though he refuses to buy a pc so we can play games together. He has the money, just refuses out of spite I guess). I can see him now: He would literally demand “we only load ONE mod!” Because he didn’t want to deal with anything like downloading files (even though he works as a developer in IT) or just to make me angry, or also to logically make me do all the evaluation and “pick the absolute best mod”.  I have a weird friend, but since I’ve known him for over 30 years I put up with his oddities .  If it’s any consolation, If he made these demands I would pick a single super hard overhaul or I would make it blood moon every night, or turn on PvP. Or likely all 3. Then make fun of him dying for “no reason”

I 100% agree with your chosen course of action.