Trouble getting mods working

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Helen Pixels
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Trouble getting mods working

by Helen Pixels » Post

Hi all, I am new to Minetest (not new to the concept of this kind of game though, I've played Minecraft for the last 3 years or so), I wanted to give this game a try because it looks really interesting, similar to minecraft but clearly a different game with different items and loads of mods to have more control over what goes into the game and what doesn't. Even more intriguing is that it actually runs on my (quite low spec) computer consuming on average just over half of the available CPU power, that is actually on par with forge of empires and extremely impressive you guys were able to create something as complex as this consume so little computer resources.

I was looking through and downloading a few mods that looked interesting, to add animals, some extra blocks, extra ores, extra biomes, the nether (as a long term minecraft player, I just had to add that one)...etc. I realize I made a mistake because some mods depend on other mods, I originally didn't know that, so I will just download and enable all of them which means I won't have missing dependencies. However, there is another problem: When I try to enable the mods I have downloaded and extracted, it says they don't exist! I did extract into the mods folder as the readme instructions said I was supposed to. I don't understand where I have gone wrong here, because the mod I was trying to enable first is the animals mod, which doesn't have dependencies on anything except 'default', which presumably is the actual minetest game itself. Do I need to remove the files from the individual folders and just put them all into the mods folder, or will that cause it to mess up? I don't want to do anything that is going to cause any extra problems, but I am quite stuck and need a bit of advice here. I hope this doesn't sound like a stupid question, I bet it's something obvious that I've missed.

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rubenwardy
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Re: Trouble getting mods working

by rubenwardy » Post

It's highly recommended that you use Content > Browse Online Content in the main menu to install mods, as it'll automatically install dependencies as well. If you delete all your mods and do this, you'll have a better time

Also, animals is incredible outdated, did you mean Mobs Animals?

Installing manually

If you still want to install manually, then make sure that you install mods to the mods folder in the user data. You can open the user data directory by clicking the button in the About tab of the main menu. Mods are installed with the init.lua file like so mods/modname/init.lua, so you do need to keep them on their folders.

Be careful not to install a modpack in a modpack, as the Minetest main menu doesn't like that
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Helen Pixels
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Re: Trouble getting mods working

by Helen Pixels » Post

Oh, I didn't realize there was another way of installing them. Thanks for pointing this out! I will try that and see how it goes, if it automatically installs them properly and any others a mod depends on then it is going to make it way easier.

I know there is a few mods for animals, I just wanted to add things like sheep, cows, some fish... etc. Mostly the sheep though so I can have a bed and skip night time. It is possible I may have chosen an old mod pack, it was on the first page on the website, so I thought it might have been a newer or more popular pack to be on the first page.

Oh, and thank you for your speedy response, I wasn't expecting an answer so quickly. I will try doing it the way you're suggesting and hopefully I'm going to have a much easier time :)

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rubenwardy
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Re: Trouble getting mods working

by rubenwardy » Post

Probably the most beginner-friendly way to find mods is on ContentDB, there's reviews and other information you can use to make your decision: https://content.minetest.net/

There's a tag for mobs and animals: https://content.minetest.net/packages/?tag=mobs

The choice you need to make is between Mobs Redo and Mobkit. Mobs Redo is more stable, but the animals are less interesting. Mobkit is newer and the animals tend to behave in an more interesting way, but you may experience bugs.

Both of those mods are frameworks, you'll need to install mod(s) to actually get the animals.

If you choose Mobs Redo, there's Mobs Animals

If you choose Mobkit, there's Animalia.

Both of these mods have mods for hostile animals, see the "Used By" section at the bottom of the page for Mobs Redo and Mobkit
Helen Pixels wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 13:54
Oh, and thank you for your speedy response, I wasn't expecting an answer so quickly
Yw, I happened to check the forums at the right time totally not addicted to checking them
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rubenwardy
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Re: Trouble getting mods working

by rubenwardy » Post

Helen Pixels wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 13:54
it was on the first page on the website, so I thought it might have been a newer or more popular pack to be on the first page
If by website you mean ContentDB, then yeah - it's ordered by popularity by default. In which case, as you were :)
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Helen Pixels
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Re: Trouble getting mods working

by Helen Pixels » Post

Well, I just downloaded some mods in the way you suggested, and although it takes way more time for a game to actually load up now... I can say for certain that the mods are working properly. I even saw a butterfly in my world, that's a nice ambient touch. I think I am going to explore the mods a bit, perhaps I will go with Mobs redo since that is the most stable one. It is nice to have so much control over what goes into my worlds. Thanks so much for your help :)

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