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[Aklyon]

Getting mods for XCOM 2 and keeping them updated is the easiest thing ever.

And also can be very frustrating when you have a list of preferred ini settings and the updates keep overriding them.

[Vinco]

Defenses:

With the AI now emerging at random points and not needing a wormhole to exit (unless I'm getting something wrong here), how does the player stop the AI from running right through systems towards the juicy underbelly of the empire?

[Cinth]

Defenses:

With the AI now emerging at random points and not needing a wormhole to exit (unless I'm getting something wrong here), how does the player stop the AI from running right through systems towards the juicy underbelly of the empire?

With a better defensive layout.

[Vinco]

With a better defensive layout.

Does not compute...  If the AI can emerge anywhere, travel to avoid defenses, and exit elsewhere, how does one build a better defensive layout?

This might be something where I just won't get it until I've got the protogame in front of me.

[Cinth]

This might be something where I just won't get it until I've got the protogame in front of me.

To which you know my response to that.

[eRe4s3r]

Especially when Steam Workshop is right over there, offering prime discoverability, easy installation, automatic updates, and feedback tools for mod authors.

Steam workshop is not a boon for modders, it is a veritable nightmare. It does not allow you to have different mod versions in 1 subscription, it does not enforce game versions properly AT ALL, it does not care about mod relations. And most importantly, it has VERY absurd restrictions when it comes to the kind of mods you can upload. And I am talking technical stuff, not content stuff. If your mod adds just pack files to a game then nothing wrong with that, but if you have interdependence, external DLL side-loading and stuff like that (think KSP) then it's a total nightmare. And lastly automated updates BREAK all mods silently. Steam does not even know which version the game is on.  And I mean that literally, the workshop does not know your game version, it only assumes the "latest"

TL;DR
Steamworkshop can not, and should not, ever, be the only way to get mods for your game. You'd have to design your game with steamworkshop in mind if you wanted to support all "real" mods. Kinda like Skylines

[Tridus]

Especially when Steam Workshop is right over there, offering prime discoverability, easy installation, automatic updates, and feedback tools for mod authors.

Steam workshop is not a boon for modders, it is a veritable nightmare. It does not allow you to have different mod versions in 1 subscription, it does not enforce game versions properly AT ALL, it does not care about mod relations. And most importantly, it has VERY absurd restrictions when it comes to the kind of mods you can upload. And I am talking technical stuff, not content stuff. If your mod adds just pack files to a game then nothing wrong with that, but if you have interdependence, external DLL side-loading and stuff like that (think KSP) then it's a total nightmare. And lastly automated updates BREAK all mods silently. Steam does not even know which version the game is on.  And I mean that literally, the workshop does not know your game version, it only assumes the "latest"

TL;DR
Steamworkshop can not, and should not, ever, be the only way to get mods for your game. You'd have to design your game with steamworkshop in mind if you wanted to support all "real" mods. Kinda like Skylines

That's all fair, and given that they want non-Steam versions of the game, it shouldn't be the only way to get mods. Absolutely.

But as a user? One of these usage scenarios is vastly better than the other:
1. Find mod in Workshop. Click install button. Play. Hope that mod author keeps it updated if a game patch breaks it.
2. Find mod on forum. Download it. Figure out where to unzip it, or *how* to unzip it for less experienced folks. Play. Occasionally check forum to see if it's ever updated, or forget to do that until it breaks, then try to remember where I got it from to go do that again.

Given that we're talking about XML files for modding here, I don't think we have to worry about content restrictions a whole lot. Plus, doesn't Cities have compiled .dll mods along with the asset editor? So it seems like it is doable, although I'm not sure what KSP is doing.

[eRe4s3r]

Given that we're talking about XML files for modding here, I don't think we have to worry about content restrictions a whole lot. Plus, doesn't Cities have compiled .dll mods along with the asset editor? So it seems like it is doable, although I'm not sure what KSP is doing.

Cities does have compiled DLL mods because there is an API to compile against, so yeah. If AI War 2 had this level of moddability then that would be nice, but remember skylines also has an in-game editor and asset import -> in-game upload to steamworkshop, which is the primary reason you see so many (visual) mods. I mean I modded Skylines, it was super easy to get my buildings in there working right. And if that is the target for AI War 2 then this would require tremendous developing effort. Unity 5 is NOT moddable without developers making it so (by giving tools, not using crazy licensed API's and stuff like that)

KSP devs coded much of the game themselves and all of that is accessible via DLL modding (Although with really bad documentation), there is very little "Unity" in that at all. It is really sad Unity is actually a modding detriment due to how it works

[kasnavada]

Steam workshop is not a boon for modders, it is a veritable nightmare. It does not allow you to have different mod versions in 1 subscription, it does not enforce game versions properly AT ALL, it does not care about mod relations. And most importantly, it has VERY absurd restrictions when it comes to the kind of mods you can upload. And I am talking technical stuff, not content stuff. If your mod adds just pack files to a game then nothing wrong with that, but if you have interdependence, external DLL side-loading and stuff like that (think KSP) then it's a total nightmare. And lastly automated updates BREAK all mods silently. Steam does not even know which version the game is on.  And I mean that literally, the workshop does not know your game version, it only assumes the "latest"

The issue here is that a lot of games don't do upward compatibility for mods (dev's fault, not steam's... see rimworld for that. A minor version change breaks all mods...), that some people deliberately want old versions of the game (which are generally updated for a reason). There is a single case where wanting an "older" version of the game is warranted, when a "balance" content breaks a game. For example in dominions multiplayer. But, once again, it's the dev's fault if the game does not contain the old version of the unit stats, not steam's.

Thing is that while I agree that the workshop has limitation and could be much upgraded (for example caring more about when it updates automatically, and caring for versions a bit more), for most of the time, and most players, updates are needed and not having them just generates "waste of time type" error reports because of people running old versions. So steam's way of doing it makes sense. Devs and modders know how it works now. Most of the workshop's problem could be avoided by a little effort on all sides, not only steam's.