All mods are installed to the .modio/mods folder. This is incompatible with UE4.

[brendenfrank]

UE4 users need to be able to customize the installation directory so that the plugin is placed in the same location where it was cooked. The Plugin manager can find the mod just fine, but the asset registry uses a cooked database to locate assets and the paths will come up empty. This was tested using Epic's SimpleUGC plugin.

A custom install path is recommended, rather than forcing files in a mod.io subdirectory.

[MarkusRannare]

You can use the
RootDirectory and bRootDirectoryIsInUserSettingsDirectory in the settings of the plugin to change this

[brendenfrank]

We were already setting the root directory to the "mods" folder which was causing a .modio subfolder to appear there. We tried setting "bRootDirectoryIsInUserSettingsDirectory" (we're still confused about this naming. What is "usersettings" and how does that force it to install mods to our root path?).

Now when we call DownloadModIds it reports success but no file is anywhere to be found? Certainly not in the Project/Mods folder. There's no .modio/temp folder to be found anymore either. Even when "Automatically install downloaded mods" is checked.

[MarkusRannare]

bRootDirectoryIsInUserSettingsDirectory moves the location into %LOCALAPPDATA%, that's equivalent to: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local.

I thought you just wanted to move the .modio directory and not the mods folder. That's what we are supporting. You need to mount the cooked paks manually to support loading mods. We wouldn't recommend to download into your installed directory anyway, as the user might not have permissions to download the mods there.

[MarkusRannare]

You can reach other unreal developers that has done this through our discord at https://discord.mod.io and our staff monitors the support channels there too

[brendenfrank]

Because UE4 cooks the asset directory with specific paths, unless you alter the cooker it's impossible to make mods that reside in other directories like that. The asset registry will simply fail to find the assets despite a successfully mounted pak. Please see here:
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/851116/external-plugin-pak-file-asset-registry-not-being.html

I have not had any issues writing to the game's mod folder manually. As it stands I've had to copy the zip file over and unzip manually.

Thank you for the discord link!

[MarkusRannare]

I'll reopen the issue for tracking purposes.
I was pretty sure this is something that was possible as Mordhau uses the UE4 plugin (and I'm pretty sure that Robo Recall allowed packaged to be loaded from arbitrary locations). But as you seem quite sure on your point, so I can't dismiss it and I really want to ensure that in the upcomming plugin that we help cook/load cooked packages easily. Thanks for the link =) I'm going to in research on this subject the upcomming weeks where I can either give you more infromation that I uncovered to help you on the way, or I'll have to ensure that we support custom mod paths.

What version of UE4 are you using, so that I konw if I uncover information that's specific for some unreal engine version that I can pass along?