New launcher version : 2020.12

[Licarious]

I was asked to pass this information along to you guys here.

When manually downloading a mod from Paradox Mods that has been publish or updated by using the uploader built into the launcher. That downloads in a zip file containing the loose files/folders. This requires a user to create a folder and .mod file for mods uploaded that way.
If mods are uploaded manually with already packed in a folder and beside a .mod file in a way that would be convenient for manual downloading, then it doesn't play well with the subscribe button.
I have also received reports on mods hosted on Paradox Mods that work perfectly well with the Steam version of the game not being able to load with the Game Pass version.

I really do like the implantation of Play Sets and can't wait to see wait to see the ability to use previous mod versions be extended to other games. However, it still needs some work before it becomes as user friendly as the steam workshop.

 

[Deuterium Oxide]

Time for another slightly delayed announcement - Launcher version 2020.12 has been released.

New stuff

• MacOS: The launcher is now notarized by Apple, meaning we shouldn't pop confirmation dialogues quite so often. The launcher is now also half the size of previous versions.
• A “reload installed mods” button has been added to the Manage Mods screen. It will reload the information from disk, or optionally re-fetch information from the Steam Workshop and Paradox Mods backends.
• Games can now provide a diagnostic tool to help users troubleshoot why their game is crashing on launch. Of course, this require that game teams actually provide such diagnostic tooling, so you probably won't see it very soon.

Fixes

• Game Pass: We now shutdown the GDK gracefully, meaning we should generate less crash logs and traffic towards the Microsoft backend.
• Sorting mods alphabetically did not work for games that had disabled mod load order, most notably HoI4.

From an implementers standpoint, the mac notarization took...quite some time. At least it's done and we can move on with our lives

 

[AndrewT]

Well I mucked that up, didn't I ? Moved the above post to be in the more current thread, but I guess because it's older it went at the top here. I don't dare try and delete or move it back ... sorry @Deuterium Oxide !

 

[AndrewT]

@Deuterium Oxide With 2020.12 I'm still seeing a few reports now of the launcher not showing game news - but ONLY when run from Stellaris!
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...auncher-and-yet-my-account-is-logged.1417326/
Doesn’t seem to be a firewall or AV issue. Tried checking the launcher settings but I can't see anything that might affect this - any ideas?

It doesn't seem to have any effect on the launcher or game functionality.

 

[Imnus]

This is a repost from here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...be-working-as-intended.1427867/#post-26960510

I was using the mods Planetary Diversity (819148835) and Real Sol Textures Expansion (2061888410), and I was loading the Real Sol Textures (RST) mods after Planetary Diversity (PD) so the game would use the textures from RST overwriting PD, but for some reason it kept using the Saturn texture from PD.

I found out it was because the file on RST is called '_soltextures_planetary_entities.asset' while on PD 'pd_sol_system_entities.asset', both created an entity called "gas_giant_saturn_entity" and the one from PD overwrote the one from RST, even though it should be the opposite according to the load order.

Changing '_soltextures_planetary_entities.asset' to 'zzz_soltextures_planetary_entities.asset' solved the issue because it loaded after then.

Also I've noticed that the game it's reading not (.txt) files for some things, I hadn't had the problem before but I was editing some species mods and I was having some trouble making my changes work and then I realized it was because it was loading a (.bak) file I had in the same 'species_classes' folder. I have usually have these (.bak) files and they had never caused problems before.

 

[Agamidae]

Reload Mods is a great addition. And I like that you show subscription date (not sure if it's new, I just noticed). Does it change when the mod is updated? Because it would be useful to show, to see what mods receieved updates recently. Like this:

Can we talk about improving the mod upload workflow, though?

1. This window always appears too low on the screen. So you always have to drag it up.

My screen is 1920x1080, pretty standard.

2. It's also shorter than the main window. so parts of it are cut off and you always have to scroll down.

Is there a reason for it? Is this to accomodate small screen users, with 768p? But the main window is bigger than that.
Same goes for the Add Mods window, it's slightly smaller.
I would prefer if the launcher just used full screen height. It would help users with huge lists of mods too.

3. This is a tiny dropdown menu. Can it be longer? Nobody likes scrolling.

4. Mod description is only copied from Paradox Mods if you have the mod both there and on Steam.
Which isn't good, because Paradox Mods doesn't accept BBCode formatting, so we have to use different descriptions for these platforms.
I would like for it to update the description every time you select the platform in the launcher.

5. When uploading to Paradox Mods, all line breaks are removed from the description. Which is incredibly frustrating: you have to edit it after every update.
But I don't know if this is an issue with the site or the launcher.

6. How about adding adding a dropdown menu to choose the active playset in the Mods section?
So you don't need to scroll up to change it.

7. The toggles are cut off in the playset window.
They are still clickable, so this isn't a major issue.