General mod-compatibility question

[Guest Bob Ta'aar]

Hi, as I haven't modded anything for kotor(2) yet so far, I always asked myself, what exactly makes two mods incompatible.

I mean, if you're not using TSL-Patcher, it's obvious, that if you're overwriting files of one mod in the override-folder by files of another one, it won't work.

But sometimes I got the distinct feeling, that mods that are using TSL-Patcher simply are incompatible, because the Patcher is configured badly (meaning that he skips or also overwrites already existing files, instead of modifying them).

 

I don't really know, how the TSL-Patcher works, of course, but is it possible for example to have two different mods who both add/change the same module (but at different spots) to be compatible without merging them into one mod?

 

And a side-question that this brings to my mind:

How do you folks handle the policy of modifying already existing mods (for example merging them with other ones to make them work at the same time), without the explicit authorization of the original author (for example because he quit modding long ago and isn't reachable anymore)?

[JoeWJ 11]

The TSL-Patcher can't merge modules. The only things it can merge are things like the journal and the 2da files I believe. That's because there like databases for example and they just add the extra lines from one to the other file.

 

Apart from that all TSL-Patcher does is add files to the override. Which if theres already a file with that name it overwrites it making the earlier mod in-compatible as it's missing it.