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Zini wrote:Resources packaging should be handled by the editor, so there is a somewhat limited benefit of using a more accessible format.

Why should this exclusively be the case? A lot of mods never need the editor, they're just texture and model replacers. Plus, having the format be more accessible would always be a step in the right direction, I would think. Any reason this isn't true? (you'd know better than I)

If we are every going to get a better hold of resources management, in the future these kind of mods will require an esp file. We need to get rid of the whole "dump all resources files into a directory and use whatever is there business". And neither does make using all archives in the data directory any sense.

In the future esx files will have to specify which resources they are using in some way. Otherwise we couldn't implement automatic packaging in the editor and a whole lot of other stuff too.

Texture replacer will benefit from this change particularly strong. I am sure players will appreciate the ability to have multiple replacers installed and to switch between them easily and cleanly from the launcher esx selection.

Ah, sounds cool. Thanks for the explanation.

Texture replacer will benefit from this change particularly strong. I am sure players will appreciate the ability to have multiple replacers installed and to switch between them easily and cleanly from the launcher esx selection.

But this leads to a question. What happens when a person only wants some of the textures from a pack? Are you saying they will need to make a new ESP file for this? and what happens when you have a mod specifying textures in a pack that someone doesnt want to be replaced? wouldnt they have to go in and remove them manually?
While I am not against the idea of having files that can specify which textures are used, I think this needs to be thought through before being done and shouldnt exclude the "drop into data files" method.

Tarius wrote:But this leads to a question. What happens when a person only wants some of the textures from a pack?

Then they'd extract the textures they want into a separate archive that gets used instead. I don't think the esp itself will say anything about what resources are in the archive (at least I hope not, or that will cause maintenance problems).

FWIW, Skyrim uses a method where enabling an esp or esm will automatically load the corresponding bsa (e.g. enabling foo.esp will add foo.bsa automagically). For resource-only replacer mods, you simply supply an empty esp and enabling it will cause the bsa to load. Should be simple enough to extend that to look for .zip as well as .bsa.

Although it may not be the greatest example since you can't set the load order of the bsa separate from the esp/esm (so you can't for example make bar.bsa load after foo.bsa, if bar.esm loads before foo.esp). Not sure how to deal with that, or if it would even really be a problem in practice.

Then they'd extract the textures they want into a separate archive that gets used instead. I don't think the esp itself will say anything about what resources are in the archive (at least I hope not, or that will cause maintenance problems).

Yeah, that is basically the idea. Each esx file should specify a list of archives it needs. There are some issues with backward compatibility but I am sure we can work them out.

But this leads to a question. What happens when a person only wants some of the textures from a pack?

If someone wants to mod a mod they need to use appropriate modding tools.