ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.2 Build 114

This a significant feature update that adds multiple new developer and user features, as well as improves the quality of some existing features.

This release adds new moddesc.ini features. There is also a breaking change when upgrading to cmmver 6.2 related to DLCRequirements on Alternate DLC structs, see the bugfixes section below.

This release may have several bugfix re-releases as a large chunk of the backend code has changed, and the issues that may arise due to this will require patch updates.

New features

• Mods targeting cmmver 6.2 and higher now support images, for both banners and alternates. Developers need to update their mods to make use of this feature.
• Mods can now require a single DLC to be installed out of a group of DLC. For example, if a mod depends on Citadel Epilogue Mod, it can depend on the CEMF or CEML version
• Mod Manager now includes a full-featured moddes.ini editor
• The Installation Information panel now shows what texture mods were installed in the new Textures tab
• Diagnostics will now list what options are installed for mods. This only applies to mods that have been installed with 6.2 or later. A future update to Mod Manager will allow you to view these items in Installation Information.
• There are multiple additional checks when deploying mods that help ensure mods that are shipped to end users are of high quality. This includes references check, names check, references types check, 4K Norm mip checks, and more
• Developers can now deploy 'multipacks', which are multiple mods packaged into a single archive
• The mod installation dialog now supports compressing packages for ME2/ME3
• Steam versions of the games that have not yet been run can now be located by looking at Steam registry entries (ME1/ME2)
• For developers, there is now a 'NexusMods File Search' item under the tools menu. You can search for a filename and see what mods downloads contain that file. For example, you could use this to find all mods that have a file named 'BioD_CitHub.pcc' in them.

Changed features

• Launching the steam version of ME1/ME2 will now be more reliable by forcing Steam to be running, and by configuring the launched process to be detectable by Steam as a specific game. This allows you to have multiple copies of ME1/ME2 steam games and have them still work. Previously there was a significant chance it would throw an application error dialog instead
• A new setting allows you to perform the same with Origin versions of ME1 and ME2, which can be used to fix the license issues ME1/ME2 seem to have periodically
• The backend of Mod Manager has been refactored to be based onto ME3ExplorerCore. This means there is less chance for bugs as ALOT Installer, ME3Explorer and Mod Manager are all based on the exact same codebase
• Localizations have been improved and cover a few more areas of the application
• Package files uploaded to the ME3Tweaks Updater Service can no longer be package compressed. Mods being imported by users that use the ME3Tweaks Updater Service cannot be compressed either. This is because ME3Explorer saved package headers differently over the years and it can lead to endless updates to files being found
• All GUI compatibility related code has been removed from Mod Manager, as it is no longer used with the latest version of the mods
• The mod deployment interface has been overhauled and warnings/info/blocking errors are now clearly indicated
• Diagnostics will now highlight mods that are listed as incompatible with each other
• Diagnostics will now listen multiple duplicate ASIs installed
• When a mod is deployed and is not in TPMI, a dialog shows up asking the user to submit information about the mod
• Users can see a list of all files that a mod may install by right clicking and selecting the option. This can be used to help identify mods where the directions for one are 'This mod is not compatible with any mod that touches file XXX'
• You can now re-run checks on a mod in the deployment panel without having to exit and re-enter the deployment
• You can now choose the validation target for mods being deployed, in the event it's not the current active one
• Option groups are now shown to the user to help users determine what's part of the same group
• Mod Manager will now remember the last selected target. For example, if you select ME2, when you restart Mod Manager the ME2 target will be selected

Bugfixes

• There is a breaking change for mods upgrading to cmmver 6.2 related to the DLCRequirements option on altdlc structs. In Mod Manager 6.0/6.1, this option would lock out the option from being changed, under the assumption it would not be checked by default. A few mods shipped checking by default, which means the option could be locked on even if it was not applicable. Mods targeting cmmver 6.2 and higher will automatically uncheck the option if the required dlc is not installed, in addition to locking out the ability change them out. Mods that do not retarget to cmmver 6.2 will not have their behavior changed
• UI performance in a few areas was improved
• Updater service checks now index all local files to see if any can be renamed, saving bandwidth
• ModMaker compiler overall progress is more accurate now
• ModMaker mods that update will now override existing directories, if they were renamed or their mod folder is not the same as the mod name. Previously it would download only to the folder, as if it was downloading new
• Fix ME3 mod deployments if an ME2 deployment occurred before it, cause it assumed the ME3 DB was loaded already
• Fix settings.ini unable to make re-save fixed settings if the file became corrupted. This won't fix the corruption but it will allow Mod Manager to recover
• NexusMods update check will now show all mods that are updatable. Mods like project variety would only show one result even if mod manager had 3 mods from the same nexus page that were different files
• Prevent application crash if there's an error in the startup network thread
• The application logger will restart after the logs are pulled. It has to be stopped to fully pull the log. Some instances of stopping the logger resulted in the logger not being restarted until the app restarted

Bugfix Release January 1 2021

• Fix ME3 game crash when applying mixins that target TESTPATCH due to changeover to ME3ExplorerCore
• Fix building a mod from Mixins always acting like there was a mod folder with that name that already existed
• Localize a status string in log collector that was not localized
• Fix app crash when fetching testpatch files with Backup File Fetcher
• Fix crash if banner image is attempted to be loading but the backing file on disk has disappeared
• Fix potential race condition crash that can occur when restoring SFARs (hopefully)
• Fix issue in mod deployment where the UI would appear to hang if there are no available validation targets due to them all being texture modded. There is now text that describes this condition as well

Bugfix Release January 1 2021 (2)

• Fix deployments not working due to testing code left in release mode

Bugfix Release January 1 2021 (3)

• Fix DLC AutoTOC in ME3ExplorerCore

Bugfix Release January 1 2021 (4)

• Fix ModMaker mods breaking the game due to incorrect Mixin application (and a bunch of other)
• Fix the text that says 'Apply Mod' not updating when a mod is auto selected until the window is clicked
• Fix Welcome panel localizations being wrong sometimes due to threading problems
• Fix UI in a few areas to be better aligned

Bugfix Release January 3 2021

• Fix app crash when trying to open an archive containing an RCW .me2mod file

Bugfix Release January 27 2021

• Update localizations
• Fix issue where some mods would come up as incompatible with Mod Manager, even though they were. This was due to an underlying windows issue when inspecting the archive

Known issues

• There is a crash that appears to come up if you are booting M3 for the first time and then add a target in the same session. I'm looking to see if I can reproduce it
• The app can sometimes crash when an RCW mod is attempted to be installed, but it seems that it requires very specific conditions that I cannot reproduce. If the app crashes for you trying to install an RCW mod, please come to the ME3Tweaks Discord so we can fix this problem

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.1.5 (Build 113)

This update improves compatibility with changes to the game made by ALOT Installer V4, adds more restrictions on mod deployments to help ensure mods that developers make are more consistent and of higher quality, as well as improving localizations in various areas of the application.

New features

• Support for changes made to the game by ALOT Installer V4 for Mass Effect have been implemented, as it makes additional changes to the game beyond what V3 did
• Mod Manager now 'scopes' moddesc.ini task headers to only allow installation to specific locations as permitted by each header.

This should not affect any existing mods, because as far as I am aware all mods are installing files to the correct places. These new safeguards will prevent developers from being able to use a task, such as RETALIATION header, and using it to modify a different DLC. Task headers are now 'scoped' into 'silos' of allowed or disallowed write locations, relative to the game root.

Some notable restrictions:

• BASEGAME can write to Binaries (but not Binaries\Win32), BIOGame (but not BIOGame\DLC, or DLC for ME1), and Engine
• Official DLC tasks can write to their respective DLC folders only (this includes TESTPATCH)
• CUSTOMDLC can only write to folders listed in it's destdirs and ADD_CUSTOM_DLC altdlc DestinationDLC item
• The LOCALIZATION, BALANCE_CHANGES, ME1_CONFIG, and ME2_RCW were already scoped because they did not have any destination directories that could be configured

Any attempts to target files outside of their scope (or in a specifically disallowed scope for things like BASEGAME, which covers the whole game) will result in the mod not loading in M3. These safeguards are being introduced due to me finding a few developers trying to target out-of-scope to try and work around the restrictions I've placed on Mod Manager to keep them from modifying other mods in place. Mod Manager's existing security features defeated these attempts, but mostly by accident, and these new safeguards will ensure developers do not work around these rules.

Changed features

• There are additional checks now during mod deployments to address some issues that have come up with some mods being developed.
  • All DLC mods must now have a TLK file, with the listed mount TLK string contained with in it. Mods that do not adhere to this will be blocked from deployment
  • Empty package files will now block deployment
  • A game backup is now required to deploy a mod. This was listed as required in the backup nag screen but it is now enforced, because a backup is used in the checks to better simulate an end user's environment.
  • A game target for the specified game must be present to deploy a mod. Nearly all developers already do this but this is required now because the prechecks look for game data that works in the local game but may not work on end user systems, such as audio that's still in an AFC locally but not within the mod.
• Mod archives that contain a moddesc.ini file that target moddesc 6.0 or higher will now throw a warning message when the archive is opened by a user, when the mod is not deployed by ME3Tweaks Mod Manager. M3 packages mods in a specific way to improve the user experience, as well as force developers to go through a series of sanity checks to ensure consistency with mods in the scene. This will initially be in audit mode only, so I can collect data on offending mods. Once I turn on the feature on ME3Tweaks server, this will be enforced and users will begin to be notified the mod was improperly built for distribution. If you do not want to deal with this issue, you need to deploy mods through M3, as the intended purpose is to get developers to distribute proper archive files.
• References to 'ALOT is installed' are now changed to 'texture mod is installed', as some users only install MEUITM or not-ALOT mods. The badge in Installation Information however, remains unchanged for now
• ME1 deployments should now be faster due to caching the list of files in the game when doing texture checks
• Additional strings that a user may see are now localized

Bugfixes

• Updates to mods using the ME3Tweaks Updater Service that were imported as compressed should now more properly detect updates. This is a complicated process so it's not 100% accurate at determining what needs updated due to ME3Explorer not following the Unreal Engine 3 file format when saving files
• Fix ME1 LODs not applying if the bioengine file was read only
• Fixed ASI Manager not showing the background color of installed ASI mods
• Some areas of the application would log an error when it was expected behavior, such as loading a blank mod. Normally this would be an error but there are legitimate uses of this in some areas, such as the ModMaker Compiler. Some of these error messages will no longer print as they are misleading

November 23 bugfix release

• Fix Mixins not applying in Mixin Manager

November 24 bugfix release

• Fix archive deployment blocking if less than 2 TLK was found (instead of 1)

November 25 bugfix release

• Fix additional problems in archive deployment

December 1 bugfix release

• Fix ME1 DLC mod deployments not working due to incorrect TLK filename check

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.1.4 (Build 112)

This a minor update that adds three features and improves/fixes others.

See below for bugfix re-releases information.

New features

• Update notifications can now be localized. These will only take effect once you've updated to the build, and if they are available. If they aren't available, it will fallback to English
• You can now unlink backups from the Backup Creator window. This will make the app no longer think you have a backup for a game
• When no mods are in the library, the mod library list is now replaced with text, explaining the mod library and a few other parts of Mod Manager

Changed features

• Backups will now check for leftover files from a texture installation and fail to backup if any are found
• When downloading a tool the version number is now shown

Bugfixes

• Taskbar previews should now look correct, as I am using the native taskbar integrations rather than the poor excuse WPF has for one
• App shouldn't crash if Windows doesn't think there's a taskbar (e.g. explorer.exe was not running)

ALOT Installer V4 option was removed from the interface (through a server side update), as V4 is now the primary download in Mod Manager, so there was no need to keep the old one available.

November 2 Update

• Add moddesc.ini [ModInfo] feature: boolean prefercompressed. Setting this to true will default the import of mods to compressed
• Can now install mods as compressed directly
• Support disabling NexusMods update checks through moddesc.ini [UPDATES] feature: boolean nexusupdatecheck. Setting this to false will not let the mod try to look at NexusMods for update info (requires whitelisting by ME3Tweaks)

November 6 Update

• Fix some buttons in ASI Mod Manager not working

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.1.3 (Build 111)

This is a small bugfix update that contains improvements to the application updater.

New features

• The application updater can now make use of delta updates that I build to bridge versions of the application from one to another. So instead of updating and downloading a 55MB archive, a 2MB patch is downloaded and applied to the application instead, yielding the same result. This should drastically reduce the size of updates. If the update fails through this method, or there is no patch available to bridge your version to the updated version, it falls back to doing a normal style update. Patch updates will only be available from the previous version to the next, and between the same version's bugfix re-releases, e.g. build 111 will not be ale to update to build 113.

Changed features

• Localizations are improved, as many were missing in build 110

Bugfixes

• Don't throw exception when setting 2K LODs to ME2, ME3. In some instances this could cause crash at startup due to another bug
• Do not set lods at startup
• Fix restoring unpacked SFARs to packed versions. Previously if sfar was 32 bytes it wouldn't restore the SFAR
• Fix very rare crash where the Windows acts like there is no taskbar and thus the app crashed trying to set the progress state on the taskbar
• Fix crash at end of ME3CMM migration due to dialog opening when there is no window to center to
• ASI Manager: Catch condition where github or me3tweaks is blocked (like in china) and prevent crash due to socket exception

October 8 Update

• Fix update showing that updater executable could not be found
• Update JPatch implementation to support latest JoJoDiff delta format
• Update the vanilla database to account for a new version of Nemesis SFX AFC (ME3) that was recently found
• Add RUS localization

October 10 Update

• Updates to program updater

October 11 Update

• Updates to program updater

October 19 Update

• Updates to program updater

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.1.2 (Build 110)

This is a bugfix release and improves compatibility with ALOT Installer v4.

New features

• AutoLODs have been changed to 2K/4K option rather than just one option, to work properly with upcoming ALOT Installer release
• Localizations of ME3Tweaks Mod Manager can now be updated independently of a build. New strings can't be added, but existing ones can be changed or missing ones from non-int can be added. This will allow faster updates by allowing localizations to catch up rather than having to wait for a full localization pass
• "Flighting" support is implemented, which allows me to control what features are available and visible. I have a new feature ready for flighting (testing), but a bit more work needs to be done outside of Mod Manager before the feature can be turned on. Once the work is done this feature will be enabled

Changed features

• ASI handling has been entirely rewritten. This should fix multiple issues relating to ASI installation. The user interface won't change but the backend code is entirely redone, with test cases
• Operations during diagnostic are now logged
• Mod deployments will no longer compress .bik or .tfc files as they have very little compressibility
• Basegame file telemetry is not submitted for modmaker mods
• Diagnostics support MassEffectModderGui versions > 421. Older versions of M3 will not have fully functioning diagnostics once a new release of MEMNoGui is released as it will not be compatible

Bugfixes

• Linking a backup will no longer check if there is space to make a backup, since it already exists on disk
• Unpacked file detection is improved a bit
• ME1 vanilla database updated with 2 new french-localization specific files (... for int files...? demiurge???)
• Fixed a few things that depend on server manifest such as mixins that may not update/download/run as they wouldn't think the server manifest had loaded
• Temp directory cleanup failing will no longer crash the app at startup, an error will be logged instead.
• Fix crash that would occur due to unhandled result code from installer thread when building the installation queue failed, typically due to an underlying file going missing

Bugfix update October 2 2020

• Fix application crashing when it tried to set LODS for ME2/3 that were 2K due to outdated sanity check failing

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.1.1 (Build 109)

This is a bugfix release from the previous version, with many improvements to localization.

Note: The GUI Compatibility Pack Generator is no longer required for the mods it was originally designed for and will be removed in a future update.

New features

• New language supported: Brazilian Portuguese

Changed features

• Localization for german is now up to date
• Conflict detector now sorts files by filename

Bugfixes

• ME3CMM migration (only was live for a few users)
  • Fix mod migration
  • Now can install redirection shim so your old shortcuts will continue to work
  • Fix alotinstaller/mem/me3explorer being moved to their new locations and then subsequently deleted in a later migration step
• Fix some telemetry data not being sent about how much initial language is being set on first boot
• Reduce crashes in some areas with try/catch. This won't fix the side effects (such as binkw32 not installing) but it will stop a crash
• Fixed the bottom left 'background task engine' strings not showing the current task. This would often occur if a mod update check occurred on boot and would say 'checking write permissions' for an extended period of time rather than 'checking mods for updates'
• Added many missing localization strings for all languages
• Fixed a lot of localization interpolations
• Fixed external tools (ME3Explorer, ALOT Installer, etc) saving archive to the wrong directory, which would then subsequently cause them to not be deleted on app exit
• Launching EGMSettings will now pass the game path to the tool

August 4 Update

• Don't install AutoTOC, ME3Logger truncating ASI on mod install for ME3 until issues are resolved with ASI manifest loading
• Add error message when underlying files go missing during install step instead of crashing

August 5 Update

• Rerelease fixed version of Aug 4 update. There is some sort of bug in the .NET Core app packaging that makes it include the wrong libraries.

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.1 (Build 108)

This build adds several new features and fixes some mostly minor bugs.

THIS BUILD IS NOT LOCALIZED TO GERMAN.
If you want to help localize ME3Tweaks Mod Manager, please come to the ME3Tweaks Discord.

The GUI Compatibility Pack Generator is scheduled for deprecation, pending an update for the Interface Scaling Mod. Once this mod is updated, the GUI Compatibility Pack Generator will no longer be necessary, as they won't override files anymore. As of SP Controller Support 3.0, a GUI Compatibility Pack for that mod is no longer required.

New features

• Mod deployment now has blocking checks that will prevent a mod from being deployed to 7z if the checks fail. Not all checks will trigger this.
• New tool ported from ME3CMM: Keybinds Injector. Place a me3-bioinput.xml file in C:\ProgramData\ME3TweaksModManager\keybindsoverride and inject them into the game. These are no longer injected into a mod (rather they inject into a game), however they can be automatically injected into ModMaker mods in the options panel.
• New tool: Origin in-game disabler. This will install my proxy d3d9.dll that will make Origin unable to inject it's overlay into the application. This overlay has a significant performance impact on the Steam version of ME3 and the Origin version of ME1, however due to a bug (maybe?) in Steam <-> Origin handling, the ME3 version can't actually be manually disabled in the Origin settings.
• Basegame File Identification Service - 'Modified basegame files' in the Installation Information panel should now try to look up the source of the file. This is a best-effort system and may not be 100% accurate.
• A mod manager tutorial has been added. It will show up after first boot, and can be viewed in the Help menu.
• The Installation Information panel now has a new tab, called "Extras", which has extra information about the game, such as number of installed ASIs, extra dlls, etc.
• New moddesc.ini task header: LOCALIZATION, which allows installing .tlk files into existing directories, for localization 'mods' of existing mods.

Changed features

• Log collection strings are now localized
• Support Steam version of ME3
• More online components (services, etc) can now fallback to github if ME3Tweaks is unavailable to your system (happens in countries like Russia at times)
• A work in progress moddesc.ini editor has been added - but it is not functional
• Importing a texture modded DLC mod from the game directory is no longer allowed
• The 'backup nag' will now show the status of a backup, if it's validating, etc.
• The GUI Compatibility Pack generator will now build in a list of what it's built against, and will prevent installation if the list of targets does not match what it was built against.
• The date of the file will now be preserved if you use the 'compress packages' option on mod import
• The taskbar will now show progress if many long running options

Bugfixes

• AltFiles multilist now properly work if the mod is not at the root of the archive
• Hopefully fix crash that appears to occur when download mod update files, but only for some users
• Targets will occasionally reload on certain actions to make sure the underlying state and the state known in mod manager remain in sync
• Fix issue that would make target switching not possible due to Steam's use of 32-bit and 64-bit registry keys for Mass Effect 3
• Fix folder deletion failures not triggering messages about it
• Fix inability to uninstall ASI mods that are not part of the manifest
• Fix french versions of ME1 failing the vanilla check
• Fix aborting updater service upload showing message that mod was uploaded to updater service

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.0.2 Build 107

Build 107 fixes a few bugs in the program, as well as adding a few new features.

New features

• Experimental feature: Compress mod packages on import
  • This is an experimental feature that only works if ME3Tweaks server responds with it being allowed at app bootup. Otherwise, this feature is disabled by default due to its potential to break package files. When importing a mod from an archive, packages will be compressed, which will save disk space. This features only works for ME2 and ME3
• Backup Creator can link to an existing game copy. The copy will be validated the same as the target would be and be set as the backup
• ME3Explorer - ME3Tweaks Fork Nightlies are now available as a modding tool in the Tools menu. The nightly builds are built after every commit and have the most bleeding edge features. Opening the tool this way will automatically download newer versions when you launch it

Changed features

• The UI library that is used to skin the program was updated. The notable difference is that the scrollbars will look different and the progressbar animation has been fixed to not have the animation when the progress is indeterminate
• Balance changes ASI was updated to v3, which doesn't depend on zlib1.dll. This will fix ModMaker mods since zlib1.dll wasn't shipped with M3 by accident
• Startup is faster because NexusMods login no longer blocks startup
• Holding SHIFT and deleting custom DLC, restoring DLC and restoring basegame files will bypass the confirmation dialog, assuming there's no warnings
• More logging
• More tooltips
• When trying to copy a directory (which is used on things like backup, restore, mod install), if an unauthorized exception is encountered, it will prompt for admin. This is an experimental change
• Backup Creator: Block ability to create backups in the Documents/BioWare/ folders
• When a backup is shown as invalid due to DLC mods being installed, the TPMI name (mod name through lookup) will also show up to explain it
• 'Prepare for updater service' has been renamed to 'Upload to updater service'
• Deploying a mod to 7z will now check to see if any _metacmm.txt files are present and will throw an error if one is found. These files should not be shipped in mods

Bugfixes

• The ObjectInfo files (Package Information Database) will now be hash checked before loading. This will help fix some crashes when generating a GUI Compatibility pack
• Prevent application crash if mixin package isn't available and modmaker compiler is run that uses mixins from the mixin package
• Show message if static assets fail to download to indicate something is wrong. The code to show this dialog was not reachable as the exception that would trigger it was swallowed by the enclosing method
• Package files being installed to the TESTPATCH DLC are no longer checked against the ALOT block. ALOT does not modify TESTPATCH and no TESTPATCH files have texture references so installing them after ALOT is OK
• Updater Service compression step forces garbage collection after compressing a file to reduce memory overhead
• Diagnostics: Case insensitive official DLC check. If for some reason you think it's a good idea to rename your official DLC folders (it's not) this will make them still appear as official in the diagnostics UI
• Fix ugly ALOT icon in the tools menu due to poor scaling method
• Backup space required for backup is now 10% more than actual space vs 5% due to many users consuming that 5% space in the time it takes to make the backup
• Fix ASIs not installing if asi subdirectory did not exist (Thanks to Bunnyboy05 for reporting issue)
• Fix ME1 DLC mods not being created correctly due to wrong value in AutoLoad.ini (Thanks to 55tumbl for reporting issue)
• Fix TLK Compiler/Decompiler not being localized

June 24, 2020 update

These fixes are backported from the 108 development branch.

• Fix boot target detection due to Steam version of ME3 using slightly different registry keys
• Log more stuff when creating a backup
• Synchronize on-disk gamestate before collecting diagnostics
• Fix (maybe) crash when updating mods

July 10, 2020 update

These fixes are backported from the 108 development branch.

• Fix app crash if asi manifest couldn't be downloaded (invalid fallback file was provided)
• Fix french localization of ME1 failing vanilla check

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.0.1 Build 106

Build 106 is mostly a bugfix and QOL release.

New features

• Added 'check all mods for updates' option in Mod Management
• Installation Information/Modified SFARs tab now has option to restore only SP or MP SFARs
• Hold 'shift' when deleting an installed DLC mod to bypass the confirmation dialog
• Alternate DLC 'DLCRequirements' now supports official task headers as items in the list

Changed features

• Restoring SFARs will now do them serially instead of in parallel
• Installed DLC mods are now ordered by human name rather than DLC folder name
• Logged many more areas where things could cause problems: ObjectInfos failing to load, failed to download moddesc.ini, etc
• Added settings.ini option: WebclientTimeout
• GameTarget objects don't try to load if the directory doesn't exist, which should clean up the logs a bit

Bugfixes

• Fix ModMaker Compiler crashing the application if your backup is of a single-language edition of ME3
• Build system was fully updated to .NET Core 3.1 which hopefully will fully stamp out the partially deleted appdata issue
• Fix issue where app may crash if the ASI manifest cannot be cached
• Update to .NET Core 3.1.301 to fix security vulnerabilities

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.0 Build 105

Changelog for ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.0 (Build 105)

This build brings ME3Tweaks Mod Manager out of the preview stage, and will be the build that soon replaces Mass Effect 3 Mod Manager (ME3CMM), once it stabilizes.

See the bottom of this post for the minor bugfix releases of this build.

This build adds many new developer features for more advanced mods such as conditional installs based on existing files, rules for very specific DLC setups, and always enforced options for better conveyance of information to users. As usual it also fixes a bunch of bugs from build 104.

New features

• Now contains the ME3CMM migration setup that will migrate ME3CMM mods, external tools, and settings into M3
• Right click a mod for Mod Utils
• Added Basegame File Identification Service. If telemetry is turned on, information about basegame files that are installed will be sent to ME3Tweaks. I am using this information to build a database of basegame files/hashes that can be used to identify basegame files. Currently the only place this will be used is diagnostics, but eventually it will be in Installation Information once I build up a bigger database
• Mixin Direct installation
  • This is in preview, and is not 100% functional due to the complexity of three way merge. This functionality will be enhanced in the future
• Complete overhaul of the logging/diagnostics functionality to be actually useful. It now produces logs even more detailed than ALOT Installer with more nifty features
• Active game targets will now show the source of their installation source as an icon: Origin, Steam, DVD
• For developers
  • Deploying ME1 mods now checks for broken textures
  • Drag and drop support for your favorite files:
    • Coalesced.bin/xml
    • TLK binary/xml (tankmaster manifest, tankmaster data, me3explorer data xmls)
  • EGM Settings is now an external tool to M3
  • New Alternate Condition: COND_ALWAYS. This always is checked, and can be combined with OP_NOTHING to convey things to users, like something is always being installed. Useful in a few niche scenarios
  • New AlternateDLC Condition: COND_SPECIFIC_SIZED_FILES. Allows you to write a condition that looks for specifically sized files. Useful for mods that have configuration options that you need to switch on, for example ALOV's upscale depending on specific options for other mods.
  • Add Conflict Detector, available only in dev mode
  • Add Official DLC Toggler (ME1 and ME2 will load DLC from all folders in their DLC dir, so this won't disable them officially, only for purposes of testing with Mod Manager)
  • Open Moddesc.ini directly from the Developer Options menu in Mod Utils

Changed features

• Deployment window UI has been updated to better reflect that it's doing something if an error occurs and changes the icon from the spinner to an X
• Target Info has been changed to Manage Installation.
• Backup File Fetcher now fetches TLK files for ME2 and ME3
• Updater Service upload will now show the delta to be applied to the server before you commit it
• You can no longer attempt to deploy RCW based mods. It didn't work anyways, this will now actively block it
• If you use ALOT Installer and have a custom texture library set, if you drag/drop the main archive it will move it to the library area. People seem to think Mod Manager is ALOT Installer for some reason, I guess users don't read the directions
• NexusMods signin is now part of the welcome panel. It also now uses their SSO backend, which makes signing in easier.
• Generating a mod with starter kit will now prompt you to enable developer mode if you're not already in developer mode
• Mod MAnager will now check permissions for settings.ini. This will help workaround a fun Windows issue where it sets special permissions in the programdata directory. Conveniently this "feature" is not documented by Microsoft
• ModMaker now supports the controller mixins option

Bugfixes

• Mod loader is much faster now due to not sorting on every addition. This will make the load look a bit wonkier but will be much, much faster
• Backups would use string_Basegame and string_Movies instead of their translated equivalents, fix Updater Service string spacing (thanks @Kinkojiro)
• Multiple try/catches have been added to the mod installer that should prevent app crash in the event something goes wrong, and will notify the user. This is due to things like CRC32 errors for example, which indicate disk failure/archive corruption
• Mass Effect Ini Modder: Fix crash when doing Reset All due to changes from .NET Framework to .NET Core
• Fix issue in mod updater that prevented NexusMods Update Notifications from being deployed to production in 104
• Fix memory leak in Installation Information window that could lead to huge loss of performance in the program
• Updated checks for if game is running to poll no more than once every 5 seconds (could lead to huge performance loss)
• Fix bug in Directory.GetFiles() implementation for archives. This fixes a bug that would occur when installing a mod such as Same Gender Romances for ME1 from archive when picking certain options that would make it think it didn't install everything when it actually installed too many things
• Fix bug that would cause ME3Tweaks ModMaker mods to fail to load after compile because newlines weren't escaped in the mod description which resulted in invalid moddesc.ini files
• Fix issue in package compression code that would cause ModMaker mods to fail Mass Effect Modder sanity checks
• Update package decompression code to ME3Explorer 4.2
• Now uses .NET Core 3.1.4 which hopefully will fix the partially deleted temp directory causing application to no longer boot/crash when loading missing dlls

Bugfix release (May 17, 2020)

• Update ME2 vanilla database for patch 1.03 TLKs
• Update localizations
• Add workaround for Windows limitations on ProgramData directory with PermissionsGranter

Bugfix release (May 17, 2020, 2)

• Fix issue where Alliance Armor Pack would not load

Bugfix release (May 24, 2020)

• Update the updater exe
• Fix modmaker compiler crash when compiling older modmaker mods
• Fix crash when extracting archive and archive is corrupt
• Fix crash that would occur when no mod manager mods were found in an archive
• Add logging to try to determine source of crash when certain mods are installed and installer doesn't return a return code

Bugfix release (May 27, 2020)

• Re-release update to fix incorrect .NET core version used to build release