We’re excited to release a new major update for our YoLauncher Beta today. Server owners can now upload modpacks including assets, xmls and scripts for their servers through our website at https://yolauncher.app. YoLauncher will download and install these modpacks for everyone joining the servers prior game launch.
With this update, all the initially announced and planned features have made it into YoLauncher, making this update the first release candiate for stable (1.0)
How modpacks work
A server-modpack is a zip package that contains all the custom configs, scripts and 3D assets that are individual for the server. Most servers have used BasilMod::Pack to distribute such files to players, but it comes with a downside. Large packages on heavily populated servers can cause major lag spikes due to the file packaging and distribution workload going through the gameserver itself. You’re also prompted to restart your game after new files have been downloaded. To solve these issues, we have moved the file download out of the game and into the launcher, where it can prepare and update the client folder before the game is launched.
YoLauncher downloads and extracts the modpack into the ~/yolauncher/modpack directory of the game folder. This is where all your assets reside. If you’re distributing assets like textures, 3d models and sounds, make sure to reference them in the correct path.
In addition, YoLauncher finds any valid XML files in the modpack and overwrites the original XMLs in the ~/data path with them. When a modpack is uninstalled, it clears the modpack folder and reverts the XMLs to the original vanilla files.
Autoloading mods
Thanks to the integrated LiFX client framework, all lifx compatible mods inside modpacks are autoloaded on game launch, giving you the freedom to add custom scripted mods to your packs.
Versioning and testing
In addition to the modpack version you’re currently distributing, you can host up to 3 more versions of your modpack for testing and verification. We’ve added an option in YoLauncher settings that lets you choose the modpack version from all available ones instead of auto-installing the official one. This is useful for server admins to test new versions of their modpack before official distribution.
Restrictions, Limitations
Modpacks may contain a fixed set of file extensions relevant to the game. These are cs, gui, xml, dae, dds, dts, xyz, png, jpg, jpeg, ogg, ogv and ttf. Modpacks containing other file extensions are rejected.
Since you can run potentially harmful code through cs-scripts in theory, all cs files are scanned. Some TorqueScript functions are blacklisted and will trigger modpack rejection. These are: eval, exec, fileDelete, pathCopy, FileObject, and SimDownloadHelper. For this reason, we have to disallow compiled cs scripts (.dso) for now as well.
The maximum filesize of a single modpack is 300 MB.
Compatibility
We recommend you to either use YoLauncher modpacks or stick with BasilMod::Pack for file distribution. Due to the nature of these two doing the same thing in effect, you may run into conflicts if you try to use both.