Change cache policy for featured mod API query

[Askaholic]

The list of featured mods pretty much never changes, yet it gets fetched each time you log in. As a result, if the API goes down and the client can't fetch the list of featured mods anymore, you won't be able to play games even if you have all of the right files already downloaded, and generally all other FAF services are working.

I think the ideal solution would be to try fetching the featured mods when the client is started (or the tab is loaded or whatever), and if the request fails, then fall back to the cached version. If this is not easy to do, then just adding some caching to that request would probably be fine too. Maybe set the cache expiry to a few days.

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[Sheikah45]

This won't actually solve the issue of people not being able to play if the api goes down. This is because the api is still needed for people to update to the most recent version of the game and to download the mods and maps that people are playing on.

Bypassing that would either lead to errors there or people having desyncs and map not loaded and being kicked for not having the right mod version which might be worse than what currently happens.

[Askaholic]

I think I’m assuming they have the game files and the map already (or those things are cached still). Basically if they have all the files, they shouldn’t be blocked from playing because the api went down.

[Sheikah45]

Yeah I just don't think that is a valid assumption and it is also the fact that all the checks before launching the game will also fail so it is not as simple as just caching the featured mods.

[Askaholic]

Which other checks? I think it’s a pretty valid assumption that someone who only plays dual gap will definitely have dual gap installed and be on the most recent version of faf. And will also be likely to continue to play nothing but dual gap with those same settings. If just seems like if the api goes down briefly it doesn’t need to stop people from being able to join lobbies.

Idk though what all the checks are that the client does.

[Sheikah45]

Just the ones I mentioned, game version, map version, mod version. And the issue is that those can't be verified that they do have the same required files so it is taking a risk that people would not actually be able to launch. There also a lot of versions of dual gap that might get swapped around pretty often. So I am not sure if people play mostly one or just think they do because it auto downloads.