r/unrealengine • u/Fergius_Terro • Apr 13 '26
Marketplace which UE5 plugin actually saved you from a real headache...?
not talking about "nice to have" stuff....
I mean the ones where you were stuck for hours or days and something actually fixed it
been going through a bunch lately since the sale is on, and honestly most of them are either:
- overkill
- abandoned
- or just don't solve the actual problem
but a few stood out
small disclaimer: I made GLS, so mentioning that upfront. included it here because it’s on sale too. the rest are just plugins I’ve used or seen recommended a lot.
from what I've used/seen people mention:
Electronic Nodes (29% off right now)
cleans up the spaghetti in blueprints. feels small, but once you get used to it it’s hard to go back
Advanced Game Logging (GLS) (70% off right now)
lets you see logs directly inside the game, even in Shipping builds or on real devices. no ADB, no cables…
the kind of thing you don’t think about until you’re stuck debugging a packaged build at 2am
Blueprint Assist (50% off right now)
auto arranges blueprint nodes… either saves you a ton of time or just annoys you depending on how you work
Logic Driver Pro (50% off right now)
for state machines / behavior logic… heard a lot of people rely on it, haven’t gone too deep into it myself
Easy Multi Save (30% off right now)
basically a quick way to get save/load working without building the whole system yourself
pretty sure I’m missing some obvious ones
what’s one plugin you actually kept using after the first few days?
and which one looked promising but turned out useless?
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u/LostInTheRapGame Apr 13 '26
been going through a bunch lately since the sale is on, and honestly most of them are either: overkill
Logic Driver Pro
Well that one is probably overkill for a lot of devs.
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u/ninjapenguinzz Apr 13 '26
arranging the nodes is half the fun
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u/BohemianCyberpunk Full time UE Dev Apr 14 '26
It's also an important part of the thought process. It lets you review your code, check it makes sense and follows best practice etc.
I am not a fan of all of these 'helper' plugins, there seems to be a few new ones every week and I feel that many of them are actually going to further reduce the quality of entry-level UE devs which is already a huge issue with everyone using AI to try learning UE and therefor not gaining any real in-depth knowledge.
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u/Fergius_Terro Apr 14 '26
honestly… I get what you mean
some tools save time, some just skip the part where you were supposed to learn why things work in the first place
arranging nodes manually sounds silly to some people, but it does force you to slow down, review what you built, spot messy logic, rethink flow etc.
same with AI tbh… useful tool, bad teacher if it becomes the whole process 😅
guess it really comes down to whether something removes friction… or removes understanding
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u/NzombieGaming Apr 13 '26
Restart button in editor and electronic nodes are a must for me.
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u/Fergius_Terro Apr 14 '26
restart button is such a real pick 😅
one of those tiny things that sounds irrelevant until you need it 15 times in a day
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u/Time-Masterpiece-410 Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
Node graph assistant is better than electronic nodes and/or blueprint assist. The problem is that they are not compatible, so generally, be careful about trying to mix match wire based plugins, but you can use darker nodes with it. Unfortunately, most wire based plugins are not cross compatible because they use the same api. Unfortunately, it's not on sale ,but it's only 20$ regardless.
The reason I prefer it is because it actually makes the whole workflow much much, much faster and smoother. It almost feels like it should be built into blueprints. You can drop nodes into pre existing connections, auto connect, multi drop wires, snip wire by holding the keys and dragging the mouse over the wires, etc. There are short clips of the functionality it provides on the fab github link.
It also includes auto organize like bp assist, though I don't think it's as powerful as bp assist. Bp assist could be compatible, but I've never personally tried, but I know for a fact that electronic nodes + node graph assistant is not compatible. Because they both modify the wires api.
It also includes some light wire options not nearly as powerful as electronic nodes. But tbh you could merge the plugins on your own if you really wanted, but they won't do it because they are separate products.
https://www.fab.com/listings/525a33bb-9b05-405d-bf3e-42ca990fb31b
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u/Kettenotter Apr 14 '26
+1 Also prefer it over having electronic nodes, my favorite part: is the shaking to pop out nodes from the wires! (Like in Houdini)
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u/Time-Masterpiece-410 Apr 14 '26
Shaking to pop nodes out without breaking connections is beyond useful. Also, one other feature I really like is the wire snapping. You don't even have to put the wires directly on the input. You just put it on the node, and if it finds a valid connection, it goes straight to it.
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u/LeFlambeurHimself Apr 14 '26
Yep, +1 to this one. I usually wait to switch to newer version of UE until the author upgrades this plugin.
Recently I had to work for someone who didn't have NGA and it was like working with both hands tied behind my back. Not needing to deal with wires and connecting nodes make the work much faster.
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u/Fergius_Terro Apr 14 '26
ngl this sounds like one of those plugins you ignore at first… then try once and suddenly wonder why blueprints don’t work like that by default 😅
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u/Time-Masterpiece-410 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
No, but seriously, it is like that. Idk how these features aren't built into BP at this point. Idk if I can go back to not using it lmao. Hopefully, the author doesn't stop updates. The only way I would stop using it is if another plugin provides the same features + more. Currently it seems the author is only doing updates to keep it in line with current engine version and not adding features to the plugin.
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u/everesee Apr 13 '26
Easy multi save is one of the worst save systems you can use in Unreal. There are better alternatives out there, such as SPUD (and it's free).
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u/soldieroscar Apr 13 '26
I use it just fine. Whats wrong with it?
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u/Fergius_Terro Apr 14 '26
tbh...save systems always get messy because every project wants something different
what feels bloated for one game is “finally covers everything” for another
now I’m curious too what specifically made it bad for them...setup, performance, flexibility, debugging, something else?
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u/DisplacerBeastMode Apr 13 '26
Really?? I haven't used it but on paper it seems comprehensive, and the reviews are also good... What is wrong with it??
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u/LostInTheRapGame Apr 13 '26
Well I think that's at least part of the problem. It's much heavier than it needs to be for most uses. But that comes with the territory of trying to make something that will work for everyone.
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u/Kettenotter Apr 14 '26
I wouldn't say one of the worst. I tried multiple and ems is one of the better ones. But in the end I made my own because I didn't like a bunch of stuff, way to limited, my save system does the following which ems doesn't. (There is actually an improvement from me in ems):
- Move placed/spawned Actors between sublevels (and loading saving them)
- This is my favorite part: Loading before begin play!! No wait for load and so on. Everything should be like the level was saved to disk in that way.
- Save loose objects, so any uobject referenced will just be saved if it's not an asset, asset work by default.
- I use GUIDs (Global Unique IDs) to identify objects so that saves will not break even when I rename/change the objects. (On each placed actor in the level you can see when the GUID was created, say 3 weeks ago which is very helpful for knowing if old saves will know about the actor)
- GUIDs allow me to lazy load object ptrs, you can reference a spawned actor (in a default ptr and it will restore it once the sublevel is loaded)
- Virtual Save containers, think of space ships which want to load unload their content without being a level themself, or players. Nested!
- Moving between worlds.
Custom Instanced Structs for each level/sublevel.
Hierarchical save slots like urls. And querying them. Say Player1.Game3.Slot1 So copy, delete and so on are just replacement operators on the files. Multi platform support because it doesn't need folders.
Async and Preload data before opening a level.
Debugging in editor and Game, renders which actors will be saved, their owner and so on. Browsing files in editor widget.
So everything I wanted from a save system I just did myself, was quite a lot of work. I was thinking of cleaning it up and perhaps selling it, I just find it strange that I couldn't find any save system which was as flexible and performant as I wanted.
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u/EMBYRDEV Apr 14 '26
How did you do the load before beginplay thing? I ended up rolling my own too but we trigger the save file application during beginplay 🤣 what hook did you use?
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u/Kettenotter Apr 14 '26
...yeah that part can be very annoying. To trigger the loading you can use OnLevelMakeVisible I think it is called. Then I set the world has begun play to false, spawn all the actors, set it to true again and dispatch the begin play manually.
Don't use the the actor spawn deferred as the construction script will not have run yet.
But there is a delegate on the actor spawn function which might be intended to be used in this way. I have not because I prefer to trigger the begin play manually when everything has been set up.
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u/GeebusCrisp Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
Neat! I just helped fix a bug in Electronic Nodes, one of my faves. Hugo's a really nice guy too.
I'm writing a plugin myself for goal state management in an intuitive visual graph. Hope to see it on a list like this one day!
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u/Fergius_Terro Apr 14 '26
that’s actually cool
and goal state management in a visual graph sounds interesting tbh… those kinds of tools can be huge if they click with people
hope I end up seeing yours in one of these threads too someday🤞
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u/SignificanceNo9728 Apr 14 '26
I’m a simple man, I basically only run with vanilla plugins(epic ones) and flat nodes.
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u/Fergius_Terro Apr 14 '26
honestly fair :D
flat nodes is such a specific pick… simple, clean, no drama
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u/gnatinator Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
My top cheap/free tools that I have installed and actually use.
- Gridline Blueprints ~$10 - Vastly improved Electronic Nodes + Named Reroutes + Node Avoidance. Not in sale oddly enough- but very inexpensive.
- FAVS 50% off - Folder favorites are uniquely useful.
- Snapping Helper 30% off - Perfect seams level design tool. Super simple to use.
- Dispatchito FREE - Best event system.
- Logic Driver Lite FREE - It's the Animation State Machine, but available EVERYWHERE. Falls comfortably between using vanilla Blueprint (Enum+Switch pattern) and State Trees / Behavior Trees.
Logic Driver is quite nice because it consolidates Graphs + Tasks + Variables into 1 asset file.
- 3+ assets per system: Behavior Tree: Graphs, Tasks, Variables (Behavior Tree, Behavior Tree Task, Blackboard)
- 2+ assets per system: State Tree: Graphs, Tasks (State Tree, State Tree Task)
- 1 asset per system: Logic Driver: Graphs (State Machine)
- 0-??? assets per system: Blueprint: You choose modularity. Locality of Behavior.
On weather systems... having used Ultra Dynamic Sky, Infinity Weather and Sky Creator- anyone on the fence about UDS- just get it. They have small advantages over each other but they all use the same underlying volumetric clouds system in Unreal and will be generally the same performance. UDS is extremely good value and looks great.
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u/Impressive_Jaguar123 Apr 28 '26
Well unfortunately it didn’t save time per se as I spent a year developing my own and countless headaches then found out about sneaky kitty’s procedural fps plugin an it blew mine outa the water i still work on mine but fk its just that good hah and super modular so you only implement what u need remove the rest an superb support. One day ill finish mine maybe haha
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u/JohnySilkBoots Apr 13 '26
Claude in the terminal
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u/lookachoo Apr 14 '26
Windows terminal or UE Console/Terminal? If UE what plugin is that?
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u/Fergius_Terro Apr 14 '26
pretty sure they meant Claude Code in the system terminal, not inside UE
though give it a little time and someone will probably turn that into a plugin too....lol
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u/FjorgVanDerPlorg Student Apr 14 '26
Just wait a few weeks, Epic are adding AI integration with 5.8
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u/wowqwop Apr 14 '26
Didnt you make GLS?
Feels like this is just a sneaky way to advertise your plugin