Is this the HRE of mod projects? Every single HIP feature belongs to a particular member mod with minimal overlap and retained autonomy, but from the outside perspective, these mods comprise HIP as a single product which simply has a ton of possible optional components? It seems the real meta-feature (read: emperor) for HIP is the installer, which necessarily transcends the domain of any of the member mods. That is a development model we've not yet seen the Paradoxian community employ.This can only be good. I like everything that I've read.Who is working on the installer? You, Meneth? What tools will you be using, and will you be interested in any help? I actually don't know Python (currently), and my guess is you'd be targeting Python + GTK. [I do know GTK fairly well, though.]I digress for a moment, but there is overlap here: I, personally, had been thinking of writing a custom launcher, inspired by these specific mods and the trouble their authors must endure to help users install and use them compatibly. It would support programmable mod-pack profiles that could be created for common combinations (i.e., programmable in the sense of compatching on the fly). It would maintain basic user profiles that are remembered/saved/loaded along with any associated custom DLC choices (e.g., I can't stand PB+SWMH with LoR enabled due to the extra retinue load) and associated options like -debugscripts. I'd also imagined it'd allow the user to create a sub-mod from any given combination (dependencies resolved in advance). I imagined something like this benefiting what is now HIP particularly (EU4 does not have anything comparable and only the CK2+ project has as many sub-mod combinations, but they use a more centralized model).It seems like HIP's installer will take care of at least half of that-- the most important part for users, by far. That is exciting-- even despite the fact that it makes my idea much less pertinent!I assume that you will be taking care of the individual mod [semiauto-]update process if your approach is to flatten their installation, a HIP apt-get basically? That will be nice. [Though I imagine such a component would be relatively minor, are you planning to build a web service then?] Or, in contrast, will the teams' release coordination centralize a bit (not quite in the CA sense, for a change-- or maybe it is, I don't know)? Do you foresee that the official release cycle could then decrease somewhat in frequency?On second (and third) thought, regarding the launcher end of things:I imagine that a custom launcher actually could do a great deal in that space, specifically aimed at the HIP mods. E.g., it's at launch-time that you want to / get a chance to, e.g., automatically enable/disable custom ENB shader presets (NBRT) (which would be pre- and post-launch scripting hooks that could be distributed with HIP mods regarding what files to move around, what text files to expand macros inside, etc.), automatically verify that all the selected mods and their selected sub-modules are a supported combination (some selections will always be mutually exclusive, only to be resolved at runtime), fetch and display the latest HIP announcements inline, extend the moddability of the game for HIP contributors (e.g., a launcher couldprovide config macros substituted into the mods' per-session startup sequence, enabling features like events that check for the selected difficulty setting and behave accordingly), a copy-to-clipboard HIP checksum set + precise [sub-]mod combination/version set + platform "bug report" string to paste into the forums, and on and on. Of course, it'd all work for EU4, although that's not really a concern at the moment.OK, your announcement has clearly incited some infectious excitement, since I can't stop going on about things you didn't even mention. One way or another, I'd definitely like to contribute. My finer points are in actual custom applications, so that bit got me a little excited, but I do generally hope this is the beginning of a quickening of development in the HIP-sphere. Man, there's a lot of jargon to be had with "HIP." Fine choice.Congratulations to all of you on your new status, and I wish your project well. * pops cork *