Overcoming the Mod Limit (maybe)
First of all if this has been talked about before please link it, because I have not been able to find anything on what i am specifically talking about.
Whilst working on my Vlad UI Mod I was experimenting around with wcc_lite after I noticed that the vanilla game tends to divide up its bundles in categories, there is an r4gui.bundle, xml.bundle etc... etc..
So i attempted to do the same for a mod:
I took one of my older mods and bundled all the xmls in one bundle and all the redswfs in another.
I generated metadata for the bundles folder and wcc_lite detected both bundles and added it to the mod.
Folder structure was like so:
-modName
-----content
---------bundles
-------------xml.bundle
-------------r4gui.bundle
-------------metadata.store
---------texture.cache
---------en.w3strings
Game launches no problem, both bundles are loaded and i can use the mod perfectly fine.
---------------------------------
Because of this I had the hypothesis that what actually causes a 'mod limit' has nothing to do with the number of bundles. The vanilla game already has ~50.
I think it's to do with the number of metadata.store files (which actually references each bundle and the files within it.) Obviously with a large number of mods you begin to add a lot of these metadata files, hence you can reach the mod limit.
To test this I started to create a 'merged' mod. I took quite a few of the mods I had lying around, and moved the blob0.bundle from each one into a single mods bundles folder (modMerged/content/bundles) and renamed it to the name of the mod. Delete the existing metadata file from the mod, and move the rest into the mods folder like you would any other.
I would then generate a metatdate.store file for this new merged mod bundles folder, which went fine, wcc_lite reported the bundles in the cmd prompt, and successfully generated the file.
Launching the game had no issues and I can detect a file from every bundle in the merged mod. Either by command or by seeing an actual in-game change.
So i took this to the extreme and eventually I got up to 35 bundles in content/bundles, each from a separate mod. Metadata was generated no problem, wcc_lite reported 35 bundles and again launching the game had no issues and I could detect a file from each bundle in the merged mod.
---------------------------------
Again I'm not sure if this has been done before, and whether or not this truly overcomes the mod limit. To me it does because I have definitely run into the mod limit with fewer than 35 mods (with bundles) installed.
Not to mention this also is a far simpler method of merging two or more mods together without the need to unpack each mods' blob0.bundle, merge the unpacked files, and repack.
---------------------------------
P.S I do not want this thread to turn into a direct discussion over the mod limit itself, i,e why it exists and complaining about it. If you want to do that you can do it here.
First of all if this has been talked about before please link it, because I have not been able to find anything on what i am specifically talking about.
Whilst working on my Vlad UI Mod I was experimenting around with wcc_lite after I noticed that the vanilla game tends to divide up its bundles in categories, there is an r4gui.bundle, xml.bundle etc... etc..
So i attempted to do the same for a mod:
I took one of my older mods and bundled all the xmls in one bundle and all the redswfs in another.
I generated metadata for the bundles folder and wcc_lite detected both bundles and added it to the mod.
Folder structure was like so:
-modName
-----content
---------bundles
-------------xml.bundle
-------------r4gui.bundle
-------------metadata.store
---------texture.cache
---------en.w3strings
Game launches no problem, both bundles are loaded and i can use the mod perfectly fine.
---------------------------------
Because of this I had the hypothesis that what actually causes a 'mod limit' has nothing to do with the number of bundles. The vanilla game already has ~50.
I think it's to do with the number of metadata.store files (which actually references each bundle and the files within it.) Obviously with a large number of mods you begin to add a lot of these metadata files, hence you can reach the mod limit.
To test this I started to create a 'merged' mod. I took quite a few of the mods I had lying around, and moved the blob0.bundle from each one into a single mods bundles folder (modMerged/content/bundles) and renamed it to the name of the mod. Delete the existing metadata file from the mod, and move the rest into the mods folder like you would any other.
I would then generate a metatdate.store file for this new merged mod bundles folder, which went fine, wcc_lite reported the bundles in the cmd prompt, and successfully generated the file.
Launching the game had no issues and I can detect a file from every bundle in the merged mod. Either by command or by seeing an actual in-game change.
So i took this to the extreme and eventually I got up to 35 bundles in content/bundles, each from a separate mod. Metadata was generated no problem, wcc_lite reported 35 bundles and again launching the game had no issues and I could detect a file from each bundle in the merged mod.
---------------------------------
Again I'm not sure if this has been done before, and whether or not this truly overcomes the mod limit. To me it does because I have definitely run into the mod limit with fewer than 35 mods (with bundles) installed.
Not to mention this also is a far simpler method of merging two or more mods together without the need to unpack each mods' blob0.bundle, merge the unpacked files, and repack.
---------------------------------
P.S I do not want this thread to turn into a direct discussion over the mod limit itself, i,e why it exists and complaining about it. If you want to do that you can do it here.
Last edited:
