How Do Community Folder Mods Work?

[ark 1,288]

If I buy a plane directly from a developer, or from a store other than the MarketPlace, that aircraft folder goes in the MSFS Community folder. If I then download a mod of some type for that aircraft, it also goes in the Community folder. So how does MSFS decide that the code in the mod should take precedence over the related original aircraft code? I thought maybe it is based on the relative dates in the associated layout.json files, but due to updates of the aircraft, the date of the mod could be older than the updated aircraft date, couldn't it?

Just curious.

Thanks,

Al

Edited February 15, 2023 by ark

[Adrian123 1,015]

Magic?

[aeronauta 66]

If you buy a mod from the same developer it would not be a mod, more like an update, and yhe developer would produce a new download and file to go in Community... no magic at all!!!

 

Jorge

[ark 1,288]

8 minutes ago, aeronauta said:

If you buy a mod from the same developer it would not be a mod, more like an update, and yhe developer would produce a new download and file to go in Community... no magic at all!!!

 

Jorge

For the sake of the discussion ( and my education  😉 ), assume the mod is not from the original aircraft developer, but something like a free mod from Flightsim.to that perhaps changes how one of the autopilot modes work, etc.

Al

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by ark

[aeronauta 66]

An add on in MSFS works by reading all the info from the addon in the community folder ... , an update or mod to that info wil lhave to be programmed in a way that changes that.... changing data in a folder in the community folder is hard enough as there are cheks done with kind of CheckSums, ...would be very difficult...

This is as much as I understand , maybe someone else can pitch in...

 

Jorge

[aeronauta 66]

Unless , and I just thought of this , tha new mod reads like any other and modifies what it is already loaded...simple eh!

 

Jorge

[ark 1,288]

24 minutes ago, aeronauta said:

Unless , and I just thought of this , tha new mod reads like any other and modifies what it is already loaded...simple eh!

 

Jorge

Yes, it would seem the mod would have to be loaded after the original aircraft code, but what determines that -- alphabetical based on the folder names?

Al

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by ark

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

5 minutes ago, ark said:

alphabetical based on the folder names?

Pretty sure this is it.

It is also the source of a lot of clashes between mods as if two devs use the same name for a texture file for example, only one gets loaded and is used for both addons.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

That is why some mods have zzz as first characters.

[ark 1,288]

4 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

That is why some mods have zzz as first characters.

Bert, I was just about to mention I've seen that when you posted!  😃

Thanks all for the inputs.  Good thing we don't have a lot of planes by that well know aircraft manufacturer ZZZZZZ aircraft!  😉

Al

[ark 1,288]

Do mods in the Community folder "automatically" take precedence over MarketPlace planes (that are not in the Community folder), or is it still alphabetically based?

Al

Edited February 15, 2023 by ark

[orchestra_nl 923]

3 hours ago, ark said:

Do mods in the Community folder "automatically" take precedence over MarketPlace planes (that are not in the Community folder), or is it still alphabetically based?

Al

AFAIK addons in the Official folder are processed first (alphabetically). After this the addons in the Community folder are processed, also alphabetically. 
I gleaned his when trying to use the TNCM mod on flightsim.to which basically merges the Airworthy Designs version with the Asobo one.

Earlier the order could be overridden by editing a content.xml file but that has been replaced by an (experimental) feature within the MSFS options menu. You'll have to look for it a bit and it didn't work for me.

[pstrub 997]

As far as I remember, the default package loading order is alphabetical, and Official folder first, then Community.

If this leads to conflict, there's a way to specify the loading order: Until a couple of months ago (around SU10 or SU11) the content.xml file in the MSFS user settings folder was used to adjust the loading order, but it has been removed now in favour of the reordering tool that's has now been integrated into the sim itself. It can be found in the experimental options.

Edited February 15, 2023 by pstrub

[MarcG 2,903]

FYI you can rename the parent folder of a mod, I also find some them a bit weirdly named so I change them to something more appropriate, like; C152 Mod instead of; abc-funnyC152planelolzfromdave-mod for example!

[willy647 193]

You can change the order from within MSFS .  Goto General Options/Experimental and switch on 'Package Reorder Tool'

Any made changes will be stored in your 'content.xml'