Stronghold for mods acting like companions: The Modsvaskr

Command-line UI handling a full Mods' ecosystem for Bethesda's games.

Please be aware that this tool is still in Beta version That means its UI is still not polished, a lot of features are still to be implemented, and bugs will roam in some parts. You can check a list of opened tickets (and contribute by adding more when you find issues or propose new features) in its Github's repository.

Description

Heavy mods' user often have hard times when they want to get a stable modded game. A lot of tools are already helping a lot:

• Mod Organizer
• LOOT
• xEdit
• Plenty of tools to create patches, merge, generate content like LODs etc...

Most of the time, gamers have to perform the following tasks every time their mods list changes:

• Read carefully all the descriptions of each mod they use.
• Re-install mods having patches for newly added mods (using FOMOD installers for the easiest, and search/install patches from NexusMods for others).
• Correct all errors and warnings reported by tools like LOOT (change mods list upon incompatibilities, clean esps from dirty records...).
• ESLify some esps if they need to get below the 254 esps limit of the new mods.
• Merge esps if eslification is not enough to keep below the limit.
• Manually patch some mods using tools like xEdit or the Creation Kit, or sometimes files renaming.
• Re-generate all generated content, like LODs, FNIS animations, Patches...
• And test, test, test - usually breaking the immersive experience of discovering added content naturally in game: to test new mods they usually have to visit changed locations, fly around in high-speed, summon NPCs to check for black faces, etc...

Given those tedious tasks, gamers have basically few choices:

• Rely only on mods lists already tested and curated by other modders (like the excellent S.T.E.P. guide), or
• Keep the mods number relatively small, and remove mods before adding new ones (therefore having to start games from scratch), or
• Learn skills of an experienced modder to be able to solve the previous points easily (takes a loooot of time, comprehension and curiosity), or
• Accept to have a game that is not stable, ruining the gaming experience, or
• Ask Modsvaskr for help ;-)

Modsvaskr is here to help gamers do the following:

• Automate repeatible and tedious tasks they have to do while updating their mods list (patchs, LODs...).
• Automate lot of testing so that they can detect quickly without manually tests, and without having to discover mods before-hand and ruin their in-game experience (automatically load changed locations, new NPCs...).
• Detect issues early, so that they can focus of solving the most important issues in their mods list.
• Simplify the way non-modder gamers can improve and automate their gaming experience.

The goal as a gamer using Modsvaskr is to be able to:

• Easily update a mods list without fear or forgetting some processing, for a large number of mods (over 1000).
• Know quickly and without human intervention what could go wrong in using all those mods.
• Solve problems that could be solved automatically.
• Not spoil the mods' content while testing for in-game stability.

Games

The list of games that should be compatible with Modsvaskr are the following:

• Skyrim.
• Skyrim Special Edition - Tested successfully.
• Fallout 4.

The list of supported games in the current version of Modsvaskr is found in the lib/modsvaskr/games folder of the modsvaskr's Rubygem. Adding a new compatible game should be as easy as adding a file in this directory and implementing its API in Ruby.

Requirements

3 tools and 2 mods are needed for Modsvaskr to work:

• Ruby 2.6.6 with DevKit as this is the language Modsvaskr is written in - Don't install a version greater or equal to 2.7 for the time being as some dependencies don't work well on Windows in those versions.
• SKSE to support a lot of scripting. - You have to install this in your Bethesda game.
• xEdit to get information from mods. - You have to install this in a common programs directory (like Program Files), and not in your game folder.
• AutoLoad to be able to automatically restart the game after a CTD. - Install this like any other mod.
• AutoTest to be able to automatically run in-game testing. - Install this like any other mod.

Installation

Modsvaskr application packages are downloadable from Nexus Mods.

Uncompress the archive in a common programs location

Modsvaskr installs in a common programs directory (like xEdit), not in your game, and not like a mod.

Just uncompress the whole archive in a common location. In this README the location C:\Programs\Modsvaskr is taken as an example.

Be careful to only use ASCII characters in the installation path (no UTF-8 characters), otherwise some installation/update commands may fail.

Install dependencies

Once uncompressed, execute the file Install.cmd to install the tool's dependencies.

Configure paths to your games

A simple Yaml configuration file is present in the program's folder: C:\Programs\Modsvaskr\modsvaskr.yaml. Edit it using any text editor (like Notepad) and change its paths according to your own configuration: your games, xEdit, 7-zip...

Example:

---
# Specify the list of Bethesda games that should be handled
games:
  - name: Skyrim SE
    # The installation path (containing the launch executable).
    path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition
    # Possible types are defined as the file names in vendor/bundle/ruby/<version>/gems/modsvaskr-<version>/lib/modsvaskr/games/*.rb
    type: skyrim_se
    # The executable to be launched to run the game.
    launch_exe: skse64_loader.exe
    # Next attributes are optional and can be omitted.
    # Minimum time the game takes to be launched, in second (defaults to 10)
    # min_launch_time_secs: 10
    # Interval in seconds between polling for tests statuses while the game is running (defaults to 5)
    # tests_poll_secs: 5
    # Period in seconds after which we consider the game is frozen if no test status has been updated (defaults to 300)
    # timeout_frozen_tests_secs: 300
    # Timeout between 2 game runs for the player to interrupt testing (defaults to 10)
    # timeout_interrupt_tests_secs: 10

# Path where xEdit is installed
xedit: C:\Programs\SSEEdit 4_0_3-164-4-0-3-1575326827

# Path where 7-Zip is installed
7zip: C:\Program Files\7-Zip

# Uncomment the auto_keys section to automate some key strokes in the menu (useful for automation).
# Possible keys that can be used:
# * Key symbols defined here: https://github.com/ruby/curses/blob/master/ext/curses/curses.c#L5550
# * KEY_ENTER
# * KEY_ESCAPE
# * Any printable character
# auto_keys:
#   - KEY_DOWN
#   - h
#   - KEY_ENTER
#   - KEY_ESCAPE
#   - KEY_ESCAPE

# Set no_prompt to true if you want to skip the pauses asking you to hit Enter to continue (useful for automation).
no_prompt: false

Update Modsvaskr

If you want to update your Modsvaskr to the latest available version, you just need to execute the file Update.cmd.

In case the upgrade brings you more features to play with in the configuration, you may want to edit your modsvaskr.yaml file to configure those features. You can always check the official modsvaskr.yaml sample file to know about all possible configuration options.

Installation as a ModOrganizer's executable

If you are using ModOrganizer, then you can configure Modsvaskr to be run from inside ModOrganizer. Follow those steps to do so, in Mod Organizer:

• Got to the top menu Tools -> Executables
• Click on the + button -> Add from file...
• In the "Select an executable" dialog, change the filter "Executables (*.exe *.bat *.jar)" to "All files (*.*)", then go to your Modsvaskr directory and select the file Modsvaskr.cmd. Click Open.
• Back in the Executables dialog, click OK.

You know have Modsvaskr as an executable in the list of your executables, from the drop-down right list.

Usage

Please refer to modsvaskr's documentation page for a complete reference of its usage.

How to modify or extend Modsvaskr?

Modsvaskr is written in Ruby, making it easy to modify and extend to any user, without any compilation/packaging steps.

Internally, Modsvaskr's code is brought by a Rubygem (whose source is on Github's Modsvaskr repository), and that allows you to easily use a local version of this code so that you can modify and extend freely, and even contribute back to the main repository if needed.

Here are the steps to have a local version of the modsvaskr Rubygem.

Download a local copy of the modsvaskr Rubygem from Github

You can get a local copy of Modsvaskr Rubygem locally (in C:\MyRubygems\Modsvaskr-rubygem for this example), either

• by downloading and unzipping the package from https://github.com/Muriel-Salvan/modsvaskr (click on the green download button -> Download zip),
• or by using git (download and install from https://git-scm.com/download/win if needed) and cloning the repository:

  git clone https://github.com/Muriel-Salvan/modsvaskr.git "C:\MyRubygems\Modsvaskr-rubygem"

Make your Modsvaskr's installation use your local modsvaskr Rubygem

For this you edit the Gemfile of your Modsvaskr installation (C:\Programs\Modsvaskr\Gemfile) with any text editor and add the path to your Rubygem to the line gem 'modsvaskr':

gem 'modsvaskr', path: 'C:\MyRubygems\Modsvaskr-rubygem'

You can undo this edit to revert back to using the official Modsvaskr's Rubygem anytime.

Update your Modsvaskr's installation

Each time you modify your Modsvaskr's Gemfile, you need to update your installation by executing Update.cmd.

Enjoy

Now that your Modsvask'r installation is using a local version of the modsvaskr's Rubygem you can change its code from C:\MyRubygems\Modsvaskr-rubygem the way you want, modify it, extend it etc... Changes you perform there are automatically taken into account when you launch Modsvaskr (using Modsvaskr.cmd, even from Mod Organizer).

Developers corner

Build a packaged version of Modsvaskr's application from the source

This can be achieved using the build.cmd tool, from a command-line session:

1. You'll need 7-zip to package Modsvaskr. If 7-zip is installed to a non-standard location, specify the path to 7-zip using the sevenZipDir variable. Example:

set "sevenZipDir=C:\Programs\7zip"

2. You'll need md_to_bbcode to generate documentation for NexusMods. Make sure it is installed (meaning that md_to_bbcode --version works).

3. Launch the build.cmd command from the root of the repository:

build.cmd

This will generate a packaged version of Modsvaskr in the file Modsvaskr.7z. It will also generate a README.bbcode file which is a conversion of this README.md file in BBCode, ready to be copy-pasted in the NexusMod's description.

Contributions

Don't hesitate to fork the Modsvaskr's application Github repository and contribute with Pull Requests.

Modsvaskr's main code is done by the modsvaskr Rubygem, which you are welcome to fork and contribute to from the Modsvaskr's Rubygem Github repository.

Tickets tracking bugs and features of the modsvaskr's Rubygem are found in modsvaskr's Github tickets. Don't hesitate to create new ones.