[1.0] Better Loading Mod

[Samboy063]

Better Loading for Rimworld

Better Loading is a mod that aims to fix the monotony and uncertainty of the vanilla game's loading screen. Currently, said loading screen displays only three stages for any major length of time: "...", "Loading Defs..." and "Initializing...". That's not useful, it doesn't give a sense of movement, and it's boring to watch.

This mod aims to solve these issues.
Firstly, it has clearly defined stages that hopefully give more info away than the three vanilla stages.
Secondly, it has progress bars that give a sense that something is actually happening, and that, to some degree, take away the monotony of that endlessly looping "...".

At the same time, it aims to do what it does without negatively affecting load times - which, in my tests, it succeeds at.

The mod also contains a custom loading screen for loading saves, as these, too, can take a while once they have a lot of playtime, if they have a high coverage %, or a high map size, or a lot of mods... you get the point.

Position in load order shouldn't matter, except that the higher the mod, the earlier it can take over from the vanilla loading screen, so for best results put this mod at the very top of the mod ordering (yes, even above core)

Downloads

GitHub Releases: https://github.com/SamboyCoding/RimworldBetterLoading/releases
Steam Workshop TBD.

License-wise, feel free to do with this as you wish, as long as you don't upload all or part of my code and call it your own. Thanks!

[temple_wing]

excellent!

Found a problem:
When in the middle of 6th bar ( forgot the name ), it come back to 3th bar ( applying patches ). Probably because of dynamic patching of some mods ( eg: SeedsPlease ).

[Namsan]

Nice, I like to being able to see the progress.

[Samboy063]

excellent!

Found a problem:
When in the middle of 6th bar ( forgot the name ), it come back to 3th bar ( applying patches ). Probably because of dynamic patching of some mods ( eg: SeedsPlease ).

Hi, can you please upload the output log? It should help me narrow down this issue. Thanks in advance.

[Gavote]

I'm not on my RimWorld machine right now, but this got instantly bookmarked for later download!

[temple_wing]

No error. No log.
Just it came back to "applying patches" bar, and the number "68/68" became "143/68", and the bar became very long, longer than my screen.
I think that's because it found more mods that needed to be patched.
Probably, those are dynamically added patches ( by eg: SeedsPlease ).

-------------------

I have 68 mods.

[Samboy063]

No error. No log. Just it came back to "applying patches" bar, and the number "68/68" became "143/68", and the bar became very long, longer than my screen.
I think that's because it found more mods that needed to be patches, because those are dynamically added mods ( by eg: SeedsPlease ).

There won't be an error, I just would like the output_log.txt file for working out what exactly is going on. It's in the RimworldXXXX_Data folder.

[temple_wing]

I'll restart rw and try to capture a screenshot.

[Canute]

Excellent idea and work ! ! !
A few idea's
- can you keep the progress (x / y) after the step is finished ?
- it is possible to minimize/move the window ? Or an alternate view with just 1 progress bar ?

- between "Waiting for defs..." and "Waiting for database..." is still alot of HD activity, any way to monitor that too ?

[Sixdd]

Just tried this about an hour ago, loading the game went just fine but loading a save with ~200 mods crashed the game. I'll try again later today and post the output log.

[temple_wing]

restarted.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Samboy063]

Excellent idea and work ! ! !
A few idea's
- can you keep the progress (x / y) after the step is finished ?
- it is possible to minimize/move the window ? Or an alternate view with just 1 progress bar ?

- between "Waiting for defs..." and "Waiting for database..." is still alot of HD activity, any way to monitor that too ?

Between those two steps is a bit of misc initialization, I didn't put it in because in all my tests it was under a second in length, but I'll look at adding it.

A smaller window might be doable but I don't want to mess with too many things as the game is a little fragile during initial load. I'll look into it. Keeping the progress I can do.

[temple_wing]

load game works find for me.

[Samboy063]

restarted.

Ok, thanks for this. Can confirm it's SeedsPlease's fault - the way that is written is really bizarre, and, I hesitate to say, dodgy. I can add a workaround but it'll mean there's a big delay between Creating Defs and Reloading Databases (because SeedsPlease repeats the whole build tree-patch-register-create thing multiple times for some reason).

Just tried this about an hour ago, loading the game went just fine but loading a save with ~200 mods crashed the game. I'll try again later today and post the output log.

Please do, it shouldn't crash at all, I must have missed something or something is messing with the mod.

[XeoNovaDan]

Nice mod! However, I do suggest perhaps implementing a Manifest.xml for Fluffy's Mod Manager, since Mod Manager currently says that Better Loading should be loaded after Core.

Edit: This also seems to be incompatible with Zeltrith's Multiplayer since the map will fail to render upon hosting. Reproducible when this is loaded...
* Before Core
* After Core but before Multiplayer
* After Multiplayer