Workshop mods: Why automatically disable them when offline?

[Thundercraft]

Early this morning, I lost my internet due to maintenance. It was out for hours.

I thought that I could play RimWorld, anyway. After all, it's not a multiplayer game.

Granted, I only had the Steam version installed. However, Steam does have an Offline Mode, which I tried to use. Thing is, I had a bunch of Workshop mods installed... 

Okay... I'll admit: That's my fault. If I wanted to play without the risk of loosing access to my Workshop mods, then I should have either installed the DRM-free version or at least stuck to installing only offline (folder) mods.

That said: I see no logical reason why it has to be this way. All Workshop mods are located in {Steam Location}\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\294100\. And they remain there even if the player's PC looses internet access. So, why prevent RimWorld from using Workshop mods while offline? What possible purpose can this serve?

But what irritated me was what happened after I got my internet back. I tried to play RimWorld and... I still couldn't load my save. It seems that when I attempted to play in Offline Mode, it permanently unchecked all my Workshop mods. 

Essentially, it forgot which Workshop mods I had enabled. Now I have to manually, painstakingly, re-enable all my Workshop mods. (Which is a pain, because I was using many, many dozens.)

I could (barely) understand not being able to use Workshop mods while I was offline. But why permanently disable my Workshop mods for even trying to play offline?

I'm pretty sure that if I had not even tried to play RimWorld offline, all my Workshop mods would still be enabled and I wouldn't have to fix this issue. And without that inconvenience to bother me, I probably would not have bothered posting just to point out how we can't use Workshop mods while offline.

Edit: On further thought, one way to resolve this issue could be by implementing one of the ideas in the Easier mod load suggestion topic: Namely, if we had some way to save a mod load order and/or link it to our saves.

[Enverex]

Ack, this just happened to me and the end result is that I've now manually got to reenable ever mod, but what's worse is that it's lost the ordering, so I've got to re-enable every mod and then painstakingly reorder them to avoid any issues or conflicts.

Why does being offline do this?

[SpaceDorf]

Ack, this just happened to me and the end result is that I've now manually got to reenable ever mod, but what's worse is that it's lost the ordering, so I've got to re-enable every mod and then painstakingly reorder them to avoid any issues or conflicts.

Why does being offline do this?

Because it's a Steaming pile of garbage ..

Pro-Tip to recreate mod order : .. Activate only Hugslib and ModListBackup then Import the modlist from your savegame.
( or open your savegame with a texteditor )
Or try Mod-E

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Why does being offline do this?

Steam bug, not limited to just Rimworld. With a little googling you'll find it has been happening to a few games intermittently since before Rimworld was on Steam.