Adding Required Mods to a MCreator Project

I've been trying to get my mod to require 'Ad Astra' to be installed before hand, so I can run it before my mod loads due to my mod changing recipes around.

I've tried manually changing the META-INF > mods.tmol, only for everytime I export the project, for it to reset the entire thing. I've tried using the built-in MCreator additional mod requirements, however, because it's string, I can't change version and other things on the same line, I've checked everywhere but can find little to explain this.
I'm using 'ad_astra' as the additional required mod. I've tested using other mods that rely on ad astra to get a notification saying "Mod [Insert other ad astra mod] requires ad_astra 1.15.20 or above", but getting the version 1.15.20 just isn't possible in the string. I've been trying to wrap my head around this for ages yet nothing is working.

I have tried looking through youtube videos, external modding forums, mcreator forums, but nothing to explain this feature. But any help would be amazing.