Thanks to gatonegro for the logo
Automaton is the foundation and installer for the similarly named automaton framework, which allows for modpack installation and creation in a way which respects mod author's rights.
While ModDrop was a fantastic idea, it was received poorly because of its ability to upload the entirety of a users mods folder -- content and all. Doing so violated the content rights of mod authors, and essentially became a pseudo "piracy service". Automaton on the other hand, combines an easy-to-use modpack framework with extremely simple utilities that allow for even the most tech illiterate modder to have an identical setup to the developer's. In doing so, it does not (and cannot) infringe on any kind of content rights. No files are hosted by the framework, just the instructions to install them.
The Automaton Framework works via local modpack files which act much like a user's manual -- just for the application instead. These files provide an instruction set to find, install and validate mods. When chained, entire modpacks can be installed in an extremely safe, quick, and most importantly legal way. Information about modpack files will be found in the future when I get around to adding/updating the wiki.
To keep as far out of the "grey" area as possible, I will not be adding auto-downloader options to Automaton. The Nexus relies on add revenue to function, and mod authors need to users to RTFM before they download their mods; and an auto-downloader would circumvent that. Automaton however, does feature a utility for it to handle NXM link handling (in other words, the download with Nexus Mod Manager button on the Nexus) to directly download files into the application. Doing so should help reduce the time it takes to download your mods.
Automaton Framework modpacks offer numerous advantages to traditional approaches. Installations will be identical to your own, no matter the machine. Thus results in a massive reduction of bugs stemming from broken user installs, lessening the amount of time dedicated to support (and as I'm sure you know, would be a massive amount).
Easy! Well, once I have a good tutorial up. At the current moment, modpacks can only be created by hand (which isn't as bad as it sounds). In the future however, expect some more advanced utilities to be released to make exporting to and creating modpacks much easier.
That's fine! I prolly didn't answer most of the common questions in the slightest (blame the 2 hours of sleep for that). You can add me on discord @metherul#1215, or reddit /u/metherul. Feature requests and bugs should be posted in this github repository.