ME3Tweaks Mod Manager - Preview 5 Build 104

Changelog for ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.0 Preview 5 (Build 104)

This build adds the most of the remaining features from Mass Effect 3 Mod Manager as well as adding several new features. This is the final preview for ME3Tweaks Mod Manager before Mass Effect 3 Mod Manager is replaced.

See the bottom of this post for minor update changelogs.

New features

• Now includes support for ME3Tweaks ModMaker, an online mod creation tool for ME3
• Now includes support for Mixins, premade patches for Mass Effect 3
• Can now toggle custom DLC in Target Info
• Can now use Batch Mod Installer
• Can now import mods from game DLC directory
• Can now change what keys bring up the console with the Console Keybinder in the tools menu
• Developer mode feature: Backup file fetcher - quickly find and fetch files from backups, including in SFARs
• Supports new advanced modding features that will enable mods such as PEOM and No Minigames to work with Mod Manager

Changed features

• Polish, French, and Spanish localizations have been removed from the interface as I do not have any localizers available for these languages.
• Added a backup nag system to encourage users to create backups
• Whitelisted mods can check for updates against NexusMods if they follow a list of rules
• Running Mass Effect Modder will now run Mem Qt instead of Mem C#
• When injecting files into SFARs, if the new data size is same as old data size or less, it will replace data in-place rather than appending. This will prevent SFAR from growing constantly in some instances
• Updated the ME2, ME3 MD5 databases to include .bin and .ini files
• Better logging and telemetry data for finding bugs
• Require backups to have a vanilla marker file - if file is missing, backup will be validated and marker will be placed. If backup cannot be validated (such as from alot installer) it will be considered invalid and ignored. Mod Manager will not work with modified backups due to features that depend on backups
• UI improvements for filesize strings

Bugfixes

• Prevent crash if user tries to install an ASI mod to a game when there is not target selected for that game
• Prevent crash if ME2 Coalesced.ini file is malformed
• Prevent crash if ME1 BioInput.ini file is marked read-only
• Prevent crash if ME1 game config utility is set to run as admin and the tool is launched from M3
• Prevent startup crash if the system has no antivirus listed in Windows Security Center
• Improve log upload speed and reliability
• Improve crash handling for settings/target list files when the files are locked for reading
• Fix deployment storing incorrect filepaths in 7zip with two backslashes
• Fix a bug where some RCW mods may appear as invalid
• Ignore PCConsoleTOC.bin files when doing a consistency check to avoid bug in the autotoc.asi file
• Fix some memory leaks in Installation Information panel
• Prevent crash if invalid settings.ini is attempted to be read
• Move application data to %ProgramData% to fix crash when the appdata filepath has unicode characters in it such as Hebrew usernames

March 24 update

• Fix updater not passing through correct command line arguments
• Fix RCW mods with / or \ in the name crashing the app on import
• Fix crash on console keybinder with invalid coalesced file

March 28 update

• Much stronger checks for missing DLC when running ModMaker
• Warn users of missing DLC when creating a backup
• Expand try/catch on Settings.save() to prevent crash even if something is causing save to not work like bad antivirus

March 29 update

• Fix missing russian string 'auto applied'
• Fix a bug that would cause very small amount of mods to not import their moddesc.ini file
• Fix backup creator trying to backup anyways even if you abort due to missing DLC

April 4 update

• When there are no active game targets, the default selected one will no longer be "Other saved targets"
• Fix crash when trying to import a DLC mod for a game that did not have an active boot target
• Add .usf files to extensions list of supported filetypes when using gamedirectorystructure = true
• Mods will now throw errors on load if gamedirectorystructure = true scan for automapping returns 0 usable files (this would indicate the mod is configured wrong)
• Fix crash on external tool launcher when the download failed and the resulting file was invalid
• Fix issue in russian localization for default DLC mod description when the mod is imported
• Fix EXE mod importing. It was broken by 104 update
• Application now defaults to local system language if the application supports it (currently german and russian). This only is applied on first boot
• Fix update dialog being too small in russian
• Update russian localization in a few areas
• Save language selection when choosing it in the first run dialog
• Fix a crash that can occur when trying to apply an ASI mod
• Fix backup system not writing cmm_vanilla which would make M3 not recognize backup as vanilla until reboot

April 9 update

• Fix some issues when importing mods that are nested lower than the root of the archive

April 10 update

• Update RUS translation for a few strings
• Improve light theme installation options text color
• Make installation options text a bit bigger
• Attempt to reduce amount of crashes when accessing the files that store game paths when they're locked by other programs

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager - Preview 4 Build 103

Changelog from Build 102

This is a feature release for M3. The main feature is localization support and NexusMods Endorsements, which has proven to be a huge amount of work. This will hopefully be the final preview of ME3Tweaks Mod Manager before it is ready to supercede ME3CMM.

New features

• NexusMods integration allows you to endorse/unendorse mods directly from within Mod Manager, once you provide your API key. Only mods that have nexusmod's url's set or nexus codes assigned in their moddesc will work - other mods will need to be updated to link them to a nexusmods page
• The groundwork for localizing the application into other languages has been implemented, however no localization are complete yet. Localiazations for Russian, German, Polish and French are in progress. You can change languages in-app, but some (or none at all for early-work translations) will change. The app will be updated as my translators complete their work.
  • This was a very large amount of work. If you want to help contribute or report issues please file an issue on github or come to the Discord.
• Mod Manager can now import and install .me2mod files, as well as handle archives containing .me2mod files (files for RCW Mod Manager).
• Mass Effect Ini Modder has been merged into Mod Manager. Mass Effect Ini Modder (the standalone program version) has now been deprecated and is unsupported.
• Developers can now specify default options that are checked for alternate files and alternate dlc's.
• Developers can now specify alternate "groups", where only one option in the group can be picked. At least 1 option in a group must be selected.
• A new operation has been added that does nothing for both alternate DLC and alternate files. This is used in conjunction with alternate groups to provide a default option where the mod is essentially unchanged (the default version of the mod).
• Implemented ASI Manager, so you can manage ASI mods for all three games.
• LODs (alot texture settings) are enabled/disabled when the active target changes, to prevent incorrect LODs from being used by the active target if they don't match.
• Implemented support for the addfilesreadonlytargets attribute in moddesc.ini files (used by EGM)
• New Supported Mods:
  • ME1 MAKO mods (V1/V2/V3)
  • JohnP's Alternate MEHEM

Changed features

• Non validated exe mods will no longer attempt to import into M3, as their contents may be parsed by the TPMI service even though they need special handling.
• Some strings in the english version have changed after feedback from localization group
• Some UI elements have been changed.
• The size required to install or import a mod is now checked (if possible, depends on archive type) before the action is performed, plus a 5% buffer. If there is not enough space, the operation is aborted.
• Lots more logging for troubleshooting

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue that prevented mods from being able to use . as the moddir path. This is a workaround to support existing mod archives in the scene, such as ME1 Ultrawide.
• Fixed application crash on theme change
• Fix some status strings not showing due to strange threading issues
• Implement alternate operation OP_INSTALL, which was curiously missing from 102.
• Fix multi-dlc conditional alternates always applying even if they are not applicable (e.g. a mod was checking if multiple dlc existed, did not exist, any existed or non existed)
• Fix issues in alternate files being applied that would apply them backwards when mapping target to source path. This would cause files to be placed in the wrong location and not have any effect.

Bugfix update (January 1, 2020)

• Fix crash that would occur if your ME2 Coalesced.ini file was malformed and you tried to install an RCW me2mod.
• Fix issue where you could not set ME1 Console enabled if the BioInput.ini file was read only
• Fix crash if you tried to install an ASI mod when that game did not have any targets (e.g. installing Function Logger for ME2 when you did not have ME2 installed)
• Fix crash if you try to launch the game config utility and it required admin rights (some windows setup may may it require admin).
• Fix RCW mods not installing if their listed file they apply to was not the full path. It appears some mods only list the filename rather than the full path that is normally present and RCW accepts these mods.

Bugfix update (January 3, 2020)

• Fix crash that occurs on some odd windows setups when trying to view ASI source code in ASI Manager
• Prevent backing up to subdirectory of a game target
• Prevent backing up if there is not enough space on the target disk
• Prevent installing files with read-write attribute if the mod does not mark them as readwrite. (copying a read-only file will install it as readonly, this is no longer the case).
• Improve logging and telemetry code to try and identify source of a crash that is occurring on multiple systems where the local caches are somehow in use by another process.

Bugfix update (January 5, 2020)

• Attempt to fix crashes when cached content was accessed. I am not sure if this is fully fixed.
• Fix issue where uploaded logs only show some of the content
• Much faster log compression using MEM code

Bugfix update (January 6, 2020)

• Improve some logging related to some strange crashes when the ApplyASI method is called in ASI Manager that I cannot reproduce
• Improve crash log uploading code to include the crash stacktrace consistently.
• Fix a bug that would cause some deployed mod archives from build 103 to not be importable due to handling of \ when strings were localized (mods deployed with 103 will need to be redeployed if they could not be imported)
• Prevent a crash if no antivirus is listed as active from security center (startup logging includes antivirus as antivirus programs commonly interfere with modding programs)

Feature update (January 23, 2020)

• Third party mods that are imported will now have their game identifier set. This is to help reduce load failures that will occur if an imported mod is missing the attribute as part of a stronger moddesc.ini check coming in build 104.

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager - Preview 3 Build 102

New in this release from 101:

• New third party mods supported in this build:

  • MEHEM (both zip and exe)
  • Ultimate Party (both zip and exe)
  • Mass Effect Ultrawide (zip)

• Implemented the GUI Compatibility Generator for ME3. You no longer can choose the name - it is always DLC_MOD_GUICompatibilityPack.

• Multiple crash fixes based on crash telemetry

• Disable many options when game that would be modified is running

• Improved crash reporting

• Improved logging

• Can now support exe and exe-inside-zip mods. Every single exe-based mod must be manually validated by ME3Tweaks before it can be used. Mod that are not validated will not import.

• Significant performance improvements and bugfixes to decompression and compression code for archives

• Fix ME2 task headers not working.

• Add additional moddesc.ini features for 6.0

• Fix ME2 starter kits not producing a valid mount file that could be required in saves

• Fix deployments compressing the moddesc.ini file

• Lots of bugfixes to mod installer

• Can now remove targets through TargetInfo button

• M3 will now cache your active targets so if you change active target it doesn't get lost

• Some UI bugfixes for combobox dropdowns

• Stricter parsing of Alternates for mods targetting cmmver 6. Now requires FriendlyName and Descripton.

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager 6.0 Preview Build 101

This is a fairly large update from Build 100 containing a lot of changes.

• Supports new task header: ME1_CONFIG. Documentation on how to use this specific header will be coming soon. This header will allow ME1 Controller mod to work with M3.
• Archive deployment uses 256MB dictionary, which will yield huge compression improvement at the cost of a lot of memory. You can reduce it by unchecking multithreaded compression - slower, but same amount of compression but with lower memory overhead.
• Mod updating has been turned on again after some fixes preventing it at the tail end of the last release. Restoring a mod from ME3Tweaks has also been implemented.
• Can enable console for ME1 through the tools menu
• Starter kit will now warn if you pick a mount that requires a save game.
• Added a mod info submission form, in developer options menu.
• Fixed a bunch of bugs/unknown zip format quirks for importing which should make more third party mods (and a few of mine even) work with M3.
• Improvements to importing and installation UI
• Can now filter mods by game
• Fix checkboxes not displaying correctly in importing UI for archives with multiple mods in them like ancient mod pack
• Implement Restore functionality, which is very similar to ALOT's, but you can now choose where to restore
• Implement granting write access
• Implement outdatedcustomdlc handling, add new feature for blocking installs: incompatiblecustomdlc.
• Implement target switching and updating of the current boot target
• Other small UI bug fixes

ME3Tweaks Mod Manager - Preview 11

This is a preview release of ME3Tweaks Mod Manager. This has unfinished features and has some UI inconsistencies and stability issues. Please report all feedback to the ME3Tweaks Discord.

Update Test 3

This is not a true release. This is just for testing the updater.