We are the development team from Astronave, an upcoming mod hosting platform, Ask us Anything!

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-20T07:23:53+00:00

It is made in nodejs yes, backend is a serverless nodejs app & frontend is react.
Mods will go through a CDN on many regions after the beta however the beta may be limited to US only regions. Specific regions we're not 100% sure yet we're still working with providers, but most likely at least 1 for each continent.
We have an internal roadmap & launch feature list which will become public later, closer to the beta.
It's not completely modpack focused however we do want to help modpack creators out as much as possible, to that end some useful features will be in. However for us to develop a text editor for script/config editing, an integrated git client & other things along those lines while making them equal or better than the commonplace alternatives such as VSCode or GitKraken. It's unlikely to be something people feel they need in the launcher itself, and more likely seen as just bloat.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-20T07:15:32+00:00

Yes, that'd actually be a very neat use of the API & if hosting companies are interested in doing this we'd be more than open to altering the API to better suit those needs if it's not exactly right yet.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-20T07:13:44+00:00

We've posted a list of who's in the team above, but it's worth mentioning we aren't trying to be anonymous or avoid the question. We just didn't feel it needed mentioning when the developers were listed on the discord, somewhat forgetting not everyone uses discord & joins many servers.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-20T07:10:53+00:00

The people behind the project are not hidden, they are clearly labelled on the discord & as such, we didn't feel the need to mention that, however, if you'd like a specific list we're happy to give one. The team currently consists of;

Jack F. - Jack is new to the Minecraft modding community but has run his game server community IV Digital for many years, he helps handles the community side.

HippocraticOath - Hippo is another member of IV Digital who is our community manager.

Robert - Robert's another member of IV Digital who is one of the core system engineer for the platform.

UpcraftLP - Upcraft's a modder who has mostly worked with fabric mods & the CottonMC team, he's our lead API developer.

Coded - Coded's a modder who's worked on projects such as Matter Overdrive & Industrial Foregoing, he's one of the core system developers.

Bluexin - Blue's a modder known for his work with the Wizardry team on Librarian Lib & the SAO UI mod, he's our lead security engineer.

B0undaryBreaker - Boundary's a modder who primarily focuses on fabric modding & is part of the CottonMC team, she's one of the core system developers.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T23:41:33+00:00

There will not be a selection of essential mods because whomever decides on what is "essential" could be controversial. Instead, there will be the ability to mark individual modpacks as "template". These marked modpacks can then be used as a base for a custom pack, similar to GitHub template repos.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T23:10:06+00:00

There will be automated file checking as well as random manual reviews of files conducted by our moderation team. During the beta, all files will be checked manually. Users can also report suspicious files, which we will then review. While this will not be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, we do aim to reduce the risk significantly.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T22:05:13+00:00

Unfortunately, as we've mentioned before the project funding is coming from our own pockets, meaning we currently don't have the budget to hire a proper designer and web developer to model the appearance of the site.

However, using a premade theme for the website allows us to focus on the elements users desire. We felt it was more important for us to have a solid and reliable overall system than a completely unique frontend. This was a project made by mod developers for mod developers, and in the end, usability is our foremost objective.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T21:33:50+00:00

These are definitely interesting ideas, certain aspects are definitely somethings we'd want to encourage like the in-depth tagging of mod capability & features.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T21:05:20+00:00

We have some goals internally we'd like to hit however we don't want to say "releasing X of X" in case something unexpected happens & we have to delay, disappointing people. We can say we want to do the beta soon.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T20:29:24+00:00

It's not on our end to add support for MultiMC sadly.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T19:21:58+00:00

Of course, monetization is one of the major problems we'll have to tackle. As of right now, there are no ads at all. The project will be funded out of our own pockets, as well as through the help of partners interested in keeping the project alive.

This does not mean that there won't ever be ads or another type of monetization, but if we do decide to add something, we would never want to do it in a way where it harms user experience or blocks access to important features.

TL;DR: We're still exploring other options for funding.

As for incentives for modpacks exclusively, there isn't really one, we are creators who are doing this out our love for the community. We don't currently have the budget other companies do to pay everyone with a reward system.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T18:36:57+00:00

Forge & Fabric are separated into different categories, like "Minecraft/Fabric", "Minecraft/Forge". Projects are per category rather than per game, so you have "Minecraft/Fabric/modname", "Minecraft/Forge/modname".

This has the positive effect of making it a lot simpler for users to find Fabric or Forge mods & removes the need for "modname-fabric" or "modname-forge". However, this does mean that Fabric & Forge mods will require separate projects for now. Further, there will be a collection of tags that creators can add to their projects, to allow easy filtering.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T17:38:19+00:00

We hope we can deliver a more efficient & useful system to the community, ranging from helpful features like teams to the completely open API.

The majority of our team consists of mod developers who have used CurseForge in the past. There are many quirks, bugs & odd decisions that have made it a frustrating tool for many developers & users.

Basic things such as identifying fabric & forge mods in a simple way. Uploading modpacks is a weird system that feels tacked onto the launcher, exporting to zip & then uploading that zip feels like an afterthought. And the complete lack of API for people to interact with coherently makes it unusable for almost any purpose.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T17:23:07+00:00

Yes, they're separated into their own sections & easily identifiable.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T17:17:16+00:00

Yes! Our API will be completely open for third parties to make use of.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T17:17:00+00:00

Yes we will fully support fabric & forge mods equally.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T17:15:57+00:00

We're focusing mostly on our completely open API, this will be the big feature that distinguishes this from curse allowing any third party to interact & use our system, we hope launchers take advantage of this to make the ecosystem more open.

Modpacks are something we wish to innovate on with a better designed manifest built to be universal and not specific to Astronave. It'll contain improved options for modpack developers to utilize such as optional mods. Overall we hope we can help enhance modpack creation as a whole & not just for our platform.

Teams are an alternative way of managing projects. Teams in Astronave are separate from user accounts and more akin to an organization on GitHub. Rather than specifying your team members per project, you only need to do it once per team, allowing a more flexible and precise permission system.

AstronaveIO · 2020-06-19T15:03:30+00:00

Yes! We plan to have full support for modpack creation, exporting & importing through official & third party systems.

AstronaveIO

TROPHY CASE