Writing Custom All-Seeing Eye Filters for Ghost Recon

1. Locate the text file ‘filters.txt’ in the root ASE directory, and open with your favourite text editor.
2. Using the “Find” option, usually Ctrl-F or Edit -> Find, search for the string ‘GRMOD’. This will take you to the top of the Ghost Recon mod filters.
3. Following the existing pattern of filters, we need to create four new lines of code to add our custom mod filter. The simplest way of doing this is to copy an existing filter, paste it in and edit it to suit our needs.
4. Once your new filter has been written, save the file, fire up ASE, and through the miracle of modern science (well, ok, some plain text editing) your custom filter will be on the drop down list.

Example:

Ghost Recon\Mods\War of Infamy
Group: GRMOD
Mutex: GRMOD
1 if mods != "*\\mods\\war of infamy;*" remove

In the above, lines 2 and 3 are the same in any mod filter for GR. We need to edit lines 1 and 4 to suit our needs.

Line 1: This contains the “friendly name” of the mod, which will appear in ASE in the checklist. You can use whatever name you want here, as it has no bearing on how the filter works.

Ghost Recon\Mods\Friendly Name

Line 2 & 3: Leave them exactly as they are. These lines tell ASE what kind of filter you have written, and editing them will only cause the filter to break.

Line 4: This is the most important part of the new filter.

1 if mods != "*\\mods\\exact directory for mod folder;*" remove

The logic behind this line is “if the server’s report of what mods are active does not contain the mod path we’re looking for, then filter it out from the list.

The key to writing this line is ensuring that the section between the second set of double slashes and the semicolon contains the precise folder name for the mod, all in lower case. It doesn’t matter what the mod’s name is, just the name of the folder it installs into.

Let’s write a new filter. I will be using the upcoming mod, DYNACOMP, in my example. I am also assuming the future mod will be installed in the directory \Ghost Recon\Mods\DYN.

Ghost Recon\Mods\DYNACOMP
Group: GRMOD
Mutex: GRMOD
1 if mods != “*\\mods\\dyn;*” remove

Remember, in line 1, you can use whatever name you like after \Mods\ as this line only affects how the filter appears in ASE. The second and third lines must be identical to the example. The fourth line is the actual workhorse, and although there are a few advanced options available to filter writers, it is critically important to use the folder name, not the mod name when writing this line.

Add this to your existing ‘filters.txt’ and you’ll be ready to find DYNACOMP servers in the master list.

Dannik