After my recent post in the GM mode thread, I realised that there were a couple of ideas I had that aren't entirely obvious, and are more relevant to this thread rather than the GM Mode.

As I mentioned in that post, there are potentially 3 layers to the proposed modding tools.

1. Core modding tools
2. Creation tools
3. GM mode

When it comes to the "creation tools", I realised there was something I wanted to say about how modules, ideally, should work.

I enjoyed XCOM 2, and it's great that it's got such good community support for modding it, but it does make some big mistakes when it comes to supporting content modules. If I want to add a new alien to the game, I download the mod for the alien, and it affects all save games in XCOM 2. If I later delete the mod, then XCOM 2 will then refuse to load any of my new save games. The mods are not at all quarantined from the core game.

If you look at the game Battle for Wesnoth, this is an open-source game that does an good job of supporting modules on the campaign level. I can download 10 different campaigns, open the game, choose the campaign I want to play, and then play the campaign which will include custom NPCs, new gameplay mechanics and custom creatures with new assets.

First of all, what I'd like to see is tools allowing for the creation of a campaign module in the style of Battle for Wesnoth where campaigns are installed in parallel, without conflicting with each other (the core campaign should just be the "default" module). Ideally, when hosting multiplayer, it shouldn't be necessary for the clients to have already installed the module. The module should be automatically uploaded to the clients if they don't have the exact same module (of the exact same version).

Items, NPCs, assets, etc should also be modularised. This means, for example, that I can create a custom weapon "Ayvah's sword of vengeance" (potentially with its own 3D model). Or potentially even a whole new class of weapons. Maybe I feel like creating a module which allows you to pick up anachronistic machine guns as a new class of weapons. Upload the module to Steam Workshop or whatever service we'll be relying on, and it's available for other content creators to attach to their campaign. Perhaps another content creator is inspired by these new machine guns and makes his own variation as a separate module relying on my module.

When installing or loading a campaign module, it will automatically identify these dependencies and ensure they're all installed.

At least, I really think this would be ideal.