What prevents the server from pushing files from the Mods folder?

[scm1893]

Or, another way to ask, why do players have to load mods on their PCs for the server mods to work? Is it a Unity issue?

Googling showed which files couldn't be pushed but not why.

My little brain pictures it like inviting people over for dinner. They come to my house [server] and everything they need [mod content] is on the table. Yet, they have to have brought matching tableware with them or they can't eat.

I'm assuming this 'matching tableware' is loaded into a SP game, so my SP mod files have to match my server files?

I'm not tryin' to whack a hornet's nest, here. I'm curious why this feature doesn't work as we would like it.

I like creating scenarios. It would be great to be able to mod a server and invite people that didn't have to D/L anything. I know a lot of people are put off by messing with game files so they miss out on one of 7DTD's best features, customization.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

I guess that's a generall design decission. That might look like nonsense if we talk about some missing icons but becomes very reasonable if we are talking about really big mods. And it is not only the mods-folder, it might depend on xmls, prefabs, 3d models, ... E.g. darkness falls is ~3,8GB in size. You do not want a server to push 3,8GB of data to every player that doesn't have the mods installed. Simply pushing wouldn't work either, you'd need to make a full sync.

And from client side, i do not want a server to install or remove mods from my local installation, too.

There might be an additionall legal issue. If clients (can) download huge amounts of data, this could be missused for filesharing.

 

[scm1893]

Thanks LW.

I understand it better. I hadn't thought about the data transfer. I wasn't clear on just what 'push' meant. But, yeah, now that I think it thru, it makes sense.

I was thinking a server was just a big PC we shared but I was overlooking all the data transfer that takes place within my PC, which would now have to be transferred via internet services, multiplied by the number of players. Who'd pay for all that? I get it.

I gotta agree with you on not letting the server alter my files. I'd rather do it manually.

I had thought there might be legal issues over proper use of a mod author's permission. But, now that I have a clearer understanding of what push means, data transfer seems obvious.

Thanks again.

 

[bdubyah]

Hopefully this all will be a nonissue once they add in workshop support. Then it'll hopefully be like ARK and other games where you can just make collections for their servers and people can just go grab everything they need in one click. They'll also probably need a way to enable/disable mods at the main menu, but we'll see how they approach it.

 

[Gamida]

On the other side of the coin I think they made it so some files HAD to be pushed from server. I think it was to stop some exploits. One example is a few alphas ago I had changed the progression file for my single player game but for some reason when I joined a server I would be able to craft stuff in forge at light speed. I have no idea what the glitch was because on my single player game everything was normal but on server I could craft hundreds of an item in a few seconds.

 

[xyth]

Security is another concern. Pushing files with active content (code, DLLs, assemblies etc. could be abused by some people. Only pushing txt and xml is safe. I expect this will change when they start up the Steam Workshop as some measure of quality control can exist there.