Using OvGME to apply & manage Mods

[BaronVonVaderham]

Out of curiosity, which mods are installed in the DCS world/beta directory?
I’m assuming different mod categories go I different areas?

I recently had an update, so I’ll need to check to see what got thrown off. Haven’t done much yet other than install missions and new aircraft and terrain (mostly the official pay ware once, plus a few freeware aircraft). Oh, and today I updated the monitor config lua.

[Rudel_chw]

12 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

Out of curiosity, which mods are installed in the DCS world/beta directory?

 

The quantity and variety of User Mods available is staggering, over 1,300 at ED's User Files (plus others available on other places like GitHub or developer's own websites), so I can only speak in very broad terms:

 

1) Generally, if the Mod ADDS a new aircraft, vehicle, ship, or static object, then it most likely can be installed at /Saved games/DCS.openbeta/

2) If the Mod modifies the base game aircraft, vehicles, ships, terrains or an official 3rd party Module, then it will probably require to be installed on the DCS program folder, its default location being C:/Program Files/Eagle Dynamics/DCS World/

3) Generally, Skins or Liveries are not really Mods, and can be installed at /Saved Games/ 

4) Custom Cockpits can be usually installed at /Saved games/, but older ones may require to be installed at the DCS program location.

 

These are very broad guidelines, the final say is always within each Mod's install instructions ... beware of older Mods, as their instructions may be obsolete.

[BaronVonVaderham]

I’d imagine missions and trainings are also considered mods, and should be in the saved games directory?

I’m aware some config stuff is in the saved games directory (eg monitor setup), but other config stuff might not be (eg Helios outputs).
the same applies to those using DCS bios.

The trick with cockpit builders is modifying config files such that a valid IC is achieved, but that does involve file modifications. 
 

i think kneeboards may also be affected in different ways, especially sins Razbam uses a different kneeboard than ED. 

[Rudel_chw]

19 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

I’d imagine missions and trainings are also considered mods, and should be in the saved games directory?

 

Missions are not Mods, at least according to the file type classification used by ED's User Files repository:

 

 

You can store Missions wherever you want, but /Saved Games/DCS/Missions is easier to use as DCS defaults to it when loading "My Missions"

 

19 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

I’m aware some config stuff is in the saved games directory (eg monitor setup), but other config stuff might not be (eg Helios outputs).
the same applies to those using DCS bios.

 

That's because Helios and DCS-Bios are not part of DCS, they are independent softwares.

 

19 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

The trick with cockpit builders is modifying config files such that a valid IC is achieved, but that does involve file modifications. 

 

Yes, hopefully ED will develop a better way to prevent cheating .. this kind of thing gives me such a relief about having abandoned MP in favour of SP, which is so much simpler 

 

19 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

i think kneeboards may also be affected in different ways, especially sins Razbam uses a different kneeboard than ED. 

 

Don't know what you mean, I wasn't aware that Razbam used a different kneeboard 

[MAXsenna]

43 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

I’d imagine missions and trainings are also considered mods, and should be in the saved games directory?

Depends on what you prefer. Do you prefer to browse in your own file structure? Or do you prefer to have them populated under each aircraft? 

My own missions, I just put under Saved Games, while campaigns, missions I use often and some training missions I put in core under each aircraft. 

[BaronVonVaderham]

1 hour ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Missions are not Mods, at least according to the file type classification used by ED's User Files repository:

 

 

You can store Missions wherever you want, but /Saved Games/DCS/Missions is easier to use as DCS defaults to it when loading "My Missions"

 

 

That's because Helios and DCS-Bios are not part of DCS, they are independent softwares.

 

 

Yes, hopefully ED will develop a better way to prevent cheating .. this kind of thing gives me such a relief about having abandoned MP in favour of SP, which is so much simpler 

 

 

Don't know what you mean, I wasn't aware that Razbam used a different kneeboard 

I read on these forums that Razbam vehicles have their own kneeboard implementation. This came to light when people tried exporting the kneeboard. 

44 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Depends on what you prefer. Do you prefer to browse in your own file structure? Or do you prefer to have them populated under each aircraft? 

My own missions, I just put under Saved Games, while campaigns, missions I use often and some training missions I put in core under each aircraft. 

I suspected this might be the case. I think those are with the aircraft mods in the saved games directory though. 

[Rudel_chw]

23 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

I read on these forums that Razbam vehicles have their own kneeboard implementation. This came to light when people tried exporting the kneeboard. 

 

Strange .. the F-15E kneeboard works for me just like the one of every other aircraft:

 

 

 

Guess you stumbled onto some miss-information.

[MAXsenna]

34 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

I read on these forums that Razbam vehicles have their own kneeboard implementation. This came to light when people tried exporting the kneeboard

First time I hear of this.

35 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

I suspected this might be the case. I think those are with the aircraft mods in the saved games directory though. 

Apologies, but I'm not sure what you mean as that was not what I wrote at all. All I wrote is that you can choose what you prefer/like. 

Cheers! 

[BaronVonVaderham]

Check the second half of the second post on this thread: 

This is where I got my information on Razbam kneeboards. As a note, in practise you may only notice if you try to export the kneeboard. 

[Rudel_chw]

31 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

This is where I got my information on Razbam kneeboards. As a note, in practise you may only notice if you try to export the kneeboard. 

I see … I use just a single monitor, so I never was aware of this issue, for me the Kneeboard works the same for all my DCS aircrafts.

[MikeRomeoSierra1974]

Just wondering if anybody knew of a workaround for unicode letters causing the zip creation process to fail. I have to go through the failed ones and strip all the accented letters and replace with English non accented ones. Sorry if this isn't making sense but it definitely is causing an issue especially with mods of French origin which uses a lot of accented letters. The same thing happens with symbols and not sure if there is anything I can do. Have just recently discovered OMM but not got round to trying it yet aa I am very happy with OVGME even though it is quite old now . Does anybody use OMM and know if it has the same issues with Unicode characters? The Rafale mod by the Cuesta brothers had about 6 or 7 accented characters which when I removed them it made the archive without error.

[Vasilich]

Hi everyone, I can't install the mod from Currenthill. For example this one https://www.currenthill.com/usa. The program does not see it and the list of mods it is not. If I make an archive with OvGME I get an error:

 

[Hiob]

21 minutes ago, Vasilich said:

Hi everyone, I can't install the mod from Currenthill. For example this one https://www.currenthill.com/usa. The program does not see it and the list of mods it is not. If I make an archive with OvGME I get an error:

 

Without deep diving into the matter - Currenthills Assets are meant to go into the savegames folder. You don't really need a mod manager for that. You probably have OVGME correctly set up for the main game installation where it belongs.

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, Vasilich said:

Hi everyone, I can't install the mod from Currenthill. For example this one https://www.currenthill.com/usa. The program does not see it and the list of mods it is not. If I make an archive with OvGME I get an error:

 

Unfortunately OvGME has trouble when compressing large Mods, so you wont be able to create a Mod Archive. You can still use OvGME to manage the mod, but you need to keep it in un-compressed form (which doesn’t allow for adding a description nor version number), it would look like this:

 

 

Note the different icon for uncompressed mods, vs those created with Mod Archive.

Edited February 10, 2024 by Rudel_chw
added pic

[Hiob]

14 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

Unfortunately OvGME has trouble when compressing large Mods, so you wont be able to create a Mod Archive. You can still use OvGME to manage the mod, but you need to keep it in un-compressed form (which doesn’t allow for adding a description nor version number), it would look like this:

 

 

Note the different icon for uncompressed mods, vs those created with Mod Archive.

 

See, I didn’t know that. Never used this feature in the first place…. thank you.

[motoadve]

Trying to install weather mod.

No luck, its on the list I press enable but does not show in game.

Any ideas?

null

[Rudel_chw]

27 minutes ago, motoadve said:

No luck, its on the list I press enable but does not show in game.

 

What do you mean by "does not show in game" ? ... the weather presets are used on the Mission Editor, this Mod adds a lot of new presets, like this:

 

 

[motoadve]

18 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

What do you mean by "does not show in game" ? ... the weather presets are used on the Mission Editor, this Mod adds a lot of new presets, like this:

 

 

Exactly, I go to mission editor and nothing new there.

Also when I click on enabled selected , the green bar goes just for a second and does not load all the way.

[Rudel_chw]

15 hours ago, motoadve said:

Exactly, I go to mission editor and nothing new there.

Also when I click on enabled selected , the green bar goes just for a second and does not load all the way.

 

Strange, it works fine on my end ... I have the Mod setup like this:

 

 

Can you show how do you have yours?

[motoadve]

Here it is, looks fine but when I click on Enable selected, green bar goes just a bit and stops, does not load all the way.

So for some reason the mod is not loading.

nullnull

null

[Rudel_chw]

20 minutes ago, motoadve said:

Here it is, looks fine but when I click on Enable selected, green bar goes just a bit and stops, does not load all the way.

So for some reason the mod is not loading.

 

Your OvGME looks different from mine, the items on the list do not have the "type" icon, maybe you are using an old version of the utility? 

 

Also, your Mod is not ziped in OvGME format, looks like you have the Mod on a simple folder ... can you show the contents of that folder (_01_OvGME mods\bandit648...\ ) ?

 

Also, seems like you have your Mods folder stored inside the DCS Program folder ... that's not good because if you ever run a DCS Repair, it will delete it because it is not an official part of DCS.

 

Finally, I don't know why your DCS is on the C:\Program files (x86)\ path, as windows stores 32-bit software on that path, while DCS is a 64 bit software  ... have you always had DCS there?

[motoadve]

28 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Your OvGME looks different from mine, the items on the list do not have the "type" icon, maybe you are using an old version of the utility? 

 

Also, your Mod is not ziped in OvGME format, looks like you have the Mod on a simple folder ... can you show the contents of that folder (_01_OvGME mods\bandit648...\ ) ?

 

Also, seems like you have your Mods folder stored inside the DCS Program folder ... that's not good because if you ever run a DCS Repair, it will delete it because it is not an official part of DCS.

 

Finally, I don't know why your DCS is on the C:\Program files (x86)\ path, as windows stores 32-bit software on that path, while DCS is a 64 bit software  ... have you always had DCS there?

OvGME is version _1_7_4 which is the one from the page https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/OVGME if you know of a newer version, please let me know.

 

Always have had DCS there ,this is where it directed the install.

null

[RichCotte]

SOLVED:  Had to connect via CAT-6 to get it to recognize the drives. Once I got it to recognize via CAT-6, it recognizes via WiFi.

 

Has anyone run into an issue loading Mods/Liveries from a mapped network drive?

I had to uninstall and reinstall my OVGME and once reloaded, it won't recognize my network locations.

Edited July 23, 2024 by RichCotte

[jww123]

Help Please!

I'm trying to setup OVGME again after having to reinstall Windows and all my apps-

I am getting this error message

ovgme error "config for D:\Eagle DYNAMICS\DCS World already exists"

I created an OVGME file to install mods that didn't change the DCS Core- it created fine and looks like it did before I had to reinstall it.

I then tried to create a second OVGME for mods that change the DCS core. I have my mods separated into two folders, one for non core mods and one for core mods (core mod is Bartheks caucaus redone). I created it by pointing it  to the DCS root directory and the mods to the core mod folder. everything looks as if it should work, however when I try to create it I get this error message. ovgme error "config for D:\Eagle DYNAMICS\DCS World already exists"
 

Any idea's of what I am doing wrong?

Edited October 25, 2024 by jww123
I figured out the issue- I was pointing both to the DCS core install instead of one to saved game DCS and the other to DCS World

[MAXsenna]

Help Please!
I'm trying to setup OVGME again after having to reinstall Windows and all my apps-
I am getting this error message
ovgme error "config for D:\Eagle DYNAMICS\DCS World already exists"
I created an OVGME file to install mods that didn't change the DCS Core- it created fine and looks like it did before I had to reinstall it.
I then tried to create a second OVGME for mods that change the DCS core. I have my mods separated into two folders, one for non core mods and one for core mods (core mod is Bartheks caucaus redone). I created it by pointing it  to the DCS root directory and the mods to the core mod folder. everything looks as if it should work, however when I try to create it I get this error message. ovgme error "config for D:\Eagle DYNAMICS\DCS World already exists"
 
Any idea's of what I am doing wrong?

You might have a look at Open Mod Manager, the OvGME successor. And SLAM is better for large mods that need lots of reads and writes. Takes like 10 seconds to apply Caucasus Redone.

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