[MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

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Northern_Warrior
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[MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby Northern_Warrior » Fri Sep 01, 2017 2:33 am

Image

So, after being away a while, I decided I might as well release a trial version of my hard-coded changes. Demonstration is here: https://gfycat.com/dearestclosedogfish

This is only a trial version and does not contain all the changes. Here is the list of the changes in the trial version:

Captain System:
- Different UI.
- 300 health regardless of race.
- Special health regeneration system. Captain regenerates 3hp/second.
- Enemy Captains exist, they have 300 health and regenerate 3hp/second.

Race changes:
- Rockmen have 250 health, Crystals 200 and Zoltan 50. Other races have the same health for now.
-Mantis move speed at 220% instead of 120%
-Lanius move speed at 120% instead of 85%
-Mantis repair speed at 25% instead of 50%
-Engi repair speed at 400% instead of 200%
-Mantis damage at 200% instead of 150%
-Engi damage at 25% instead 50%
-Rockman move speed at 25% instead of 50%
-Crystal move speed at 50% instead of 80%
-Crystals now function the same as Lanius and Ghosts in an environment lacking oxygen. They do not lose health without it.
-Crystal lockdown ability now starts off fully charged (as it should have in the game in my opinion) and the lockdown timer has gone down from 50 seconds to 25.
-Crystal lockdown now leaves a permanent graphical effect. Crystals never disappear. Video showcase here: https://gfycat.com/boilingscarcekronosaurus
-Found the value for Ghost Transparency, changed it from 50% to 25%.
-[SPECIAL] Ghost max health at 300 instead of 50. Ghosts are not in the original game and are found in mods, so this won't affect an otherwise un-modded game.

UI Changes:
- Red crew bars.
- Can turn of UI by pressing page down. You turn it back on by pressing page up.
- Captain has no outline to make him stand out.
- Crew have a vintage brown outline.

Crew Changes:
- Infinite crew size. I haven't removed the warning to dismiss crew yet, instead, you have to press escape every time you are on the crew screen.

System Changes:
- Infinite Battery time.
- Infinite Mind Control time but limited to only one mind control per battle.
- Infinite Augments, can only see 3. If you save and then load the game, only the ones you could see will stay.

Zoltan Shields:
- Shield drones charge Zoltan Shields up to 7
- Shield drones power 7 bars of Zoltan shields instead of 1

Ship Chamges:
- Changed floor color, video showcase here: https://gfycat.com/shorttermvigorousivorygull

New Mechanics:
- Faction based race changes. The first one in the mod ( and only at the moment ) is this one: Federation have blue uniforms, rebels have black ones.
- New missile, scrap, fuel, drone part and repair mechanics. Hold TAB and press LMB ( you will have to press it a few times, it is a bit bugged right now ) to repair 5 hull for 20 scrap and 1 drone part. Press left SHIFT to turn 1 drone part into 3 scrap, and press left ALT to turn 1 missile into 1 fuel and 1 scrap.
- Captain regeneration is back, and now works for both enemy and friendly captains. It now works like this: Captain regenerates 3hp/second.
- All these mechanics have new sounds ( well, I used vanilla FTL sounds, but what I mean is, I will now be adding custom sounds to different things in the future )

Showcase of these new mechanics: https://gfycat.com/occasionalbackcygnet

Sounds:
- New sounds for the new mechanics


Instructions on use:

Run the exe alongside the game, that's it. UI toggle is page down for off, and page up for on, hold TAB and press/spam LMB to repair, press left SHIFT to turn drones into scrap, and finally, press left ALT to turn missiles into fuel and scrap.


If you encounter any problems with download link, let me know. Likewise, this is the trial version, I have some more (buggy) features in the version on my computer, so feedback is appreciated.

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/10iuu3eepks4z ... d.EXE?dl=0
Last edited by Northern_Warrior on Sat Sep 16, 2017 9:00 am, edited 14 times in total.
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Arfy
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Re: [MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby Arfy » Fri Sep 01, 2017 5:16 am

Huh, looks like you did make a come-back.

And i'm glad you decided to release a download, I played around with it and it's quite fun.

Hope to see you experiment with this type of stuff more.
Discord: ATLAS#9226
Northern_Warrior
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Re: [MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby Northern_Warrior » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:04 am

Arfy wrote:Huh, looks like you did make a come-back.

And i'm glad you decided to release a download, I played around with it and it's quite fun.

Hope to see you experiment with this type of stuff more.

Glad you enjoy it. I decided to release it since there is no point in not releasing a working mod (even if this is only a trial version with limited changes compared to the full version). Perhaps I'll release more in the future, no promises however. As always, ideas and suggestions are welcome.
Northern_Warrior
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Re: [MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby Northern_Warrior » Mon Sep 04, 2017 12:34 am

Update to the mod. New link is here and has also been updated in the main post: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6bycoq1z1j342 ... d.EXE?dl=0

Changes:
- One minor change to systems, you can now install infinite augments. You can only see 3 at a time, and if you save and reload only the augments you see will stay. You will be able to tell you have more than 3 by their effects. You can also sell an augment if you have more than 4, and one of the hidden ones will now be seen in place of the sold augment.

The big change is the first actual new mechanic released to the general public. The captain now has a unique healing system. He heals by multiplying his current health by 2 every 10 seconds. I think this heal system is very unique and work well with the captain's high health. At low health, it won't do much for you in combat as you have to wait a long time. At 150 or above (of a max of 300) his health instantly goes to 300. I think this will reward players that play their captain's well. A video demonstration: https://gfycat.com/silkypolitechuckwalla

On another note, I've noticed a general lack of replies ( perhaps interest as well? ). Now, I'm mostly doing this to improve my assembly, not for any fame or glory. However, I would like to know three basic things. Is the mod working, are there any bugs and perhaps some suggestions as well. These three could help me improve the mod faster than I would on my own. Anyway, just something to think about.

Cheers.
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mr_easy_money
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Re: [MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby mr_easy_money » Mon Sep 04, 2017 2:03 am

Northern_Warrior wrote:On another note, I've noticed a general lack of replies ( perhaps interest as well? ). Now, I'm mostly doing this to improve my assembly, not for any fame or glory.

well there could be a number of reasons, I'll list them in no particular order,

- you've released an EXE file, which could be malicious and the only way to know for sure by seeing its source code. in this way, normal mods are harmless enough because Slipstream Mod Manager has all its code on Github, and mods can be easily opened up to see it's just data and resource files.

- everything you see is forced on the player. it's cool, and I particularly like the UI hiding, but I have to stay with a 300 health captain that I don't want, 50 hp zoltans, etc. so you see, there's no way to control individual parts of it on the user's side.

- the first and second points kinda leads to this, why haven't you released the source code for the application?

- you kind of have "competition", but not really, in the form of FTL: Hyperspace, viewtopic.php?f=12&t=32255 . however, an important distinction is that you have released something the player can use, while they've just shown "examples" of what they can do. they did sort of have reasoning why they can't release it yet, but that's another matter..

Northern_Warrior wrote:However, I would like to know three basic things. Is the mod working, are there any bugs and perhaps some suggestions as well. These three could help me improve the mod faster than I would on my own. Anyway, just something to think about.

the mod works? I had a bit of trouble getting it running. first you boot up FTL, then you launch this application and follow the instructions. I didn't get a chance to see the new augment thing (I'm not even really sure what you meant), and I didn't see the regen thing working.

well, those are my thoughts, oh, and one more thing. the FTL logo thing on the application is compressed horizontally for some odd reason..

as for suggestions, hmm. there are lots of things, everybody has always wanted to do more than what current modding can do, more systems, more augments. how about making a duplicate of an augment just for the enemy, so you can buff rock plating but it doesn't do so for the enemy. make cargo available as a requirement for a choice. make events able to remove augments like it does for the crystal stasis pod, but make a more general case. stuff like that I suppose, I suppose I could go on forever...
Northern_Warrior
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Re: [MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby Northern_Warrior » Mon Sep 04, 2017 2:57 am

mr_easy_money wrote:
Northern_Warrior wrote:On another note, I've noticed a general lack of replies ( perhaps interest as well? ). Now, I'm mostly doing this to improve my assembly, not for any fame or glory.

well there could be a number of reasons, I'll list them in no particular order,

- you've released an EXE file, which could be malicious and the only way to know for sure by seeing its source code. in this way, normal mods are harmless enough because Slipstream Mod Manager has all its code on Github, and mods can be easily opened up to see it's just data and resource files.

Yes, you're right. Although I would've thought people would be more vocal about their concerns if they had any. At the end of the day, all I can do for this problem right now is give my word that I'm not trying to give other people viruses. I thought about patching FTLGame.exe instead of making it separate, but that would run into the same problem.
mr_easy_money wrote:- everything you see is forced on the player. it's cool, and I particularly like the UI hiding, but I have to stay with a 300 health captain that I don't want, 50 hp zoltans, etc. so you see, there's no way to control individual parts of it on the user's side.

Ah, well, I do have a plan for this in the future. For right now, however, it will remain the way it is. I've been thinking about posting some of the addresses for the most basic things like health, crew, some UI elements, systems etc... But only the things that rely on simple value change would work like this. The more complex scripts which are done using assembly (such as the captain regen ability), would require a bit more effort from the modder.
mr_easy_money wrote:- the first and second points kinda leads to this, why haven't you released the source code for the application?

I'm using Cheat Engine to create this, no need for the source when I can just show everyone how it's done. See my response above for a more in-depth explanation. However, I will, just as a tease post a bit of assembly code for my captain regen here, for those that are curious. Here it is:
Northern_Warrior wrote:[ENABLE]
globalalloc(cave,2000)
createthread(cave)
label(end)
label(increment)
label(captainRegen)
registersymbol(end)
registersymbol(captainRegen)
[[[[["FTLGame.exe"+0039BA9C]+684]+1B4]+0]+20]+2C:
captainRegen:

increment:
dd (float)1

cave:
cmp [captainRegen],(float)300
jge cave
fld dword ptr [captainRegen]
fadd dword ptr [increment]
fstp dword ptr [captainRegen]
push #10000
call sleep
cmp [end],0
jne cave

ret

end:
dd 1

[DISABLE]
end:
dd 0

unregistersymbol(end)
unregistersymbol(captainRegen)

mr_easy_money wrote:you kind of have "competition", but not really, in the form of FTL: Hyperspace, viewtopic.php?f=12&t=32255 . however, an important distinction is that you have released something the player can use, while they've just shown "examples" of what they can do. they did sort of have reasoning why they can't release it yet, but that's another matter..

Honestly, I would like to have more competition instead of being the only one from a modding perspective. At the same time, being the only one is making me better at assembly, as I can apply my knowledge from other games to FTL, relying solely on myself.
mr_easy_money wrote:the mod works? I had a bit of trouble getting it running. first you boot up FTL, then you launch this application and follow the instructions. I didn't get a chance to see the new augment thing (I'm not even really sure what you meant), and I didn't see the regen thing working.

The "augment thing" means that instead of having a maximum of 3 augments, you can 20, 100, 999, 9999999999 etc... As for the regen, did you press F5 in the hangar and then again once you loaded up your ship in-game ( as in the actual game, not the hangar ). It's working for me, I just tested it again to make sure. Started with 2 health, 10 seconds later 4, then 8, then 16, then 32 etc...
mr_easy_money wrote:well, those are my thoughts, oh, and one more thing. the FTL logo thing on the application is compressed horizontally for some odd reason..

Alright, will see what I can do about that.
mr_easy_money wrote:as for suggestions, hmm. there are lots of things, everybody has always wanted to do more than what current modding can do, more systems, more augments. how about making a duplicate of an augment just for the enemy, so you can buff rock plating but it doesn't do so for the enemy. make cargo available as a requirement for a choice. make events able to remove augments like it does for the crystal stasis pod, but make a more general case. stuff like that I suppose, I suppose I could go on forever...

More systems and augments are something I am definitely interested in. Enemy only augments should be pretty easy if they do the same things as vanilla ones( the rock plating example ). What do you mean by cargo? Events removing augments are further away from my priorities right now, as I'm not going to be focusing on event related things for now.

Thank you for your input, it was interesting reading it all.
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mr_easy_money
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Re: [MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby mr_easy_money » Mon Sep 04, 2017 5:58 am

Northern_Warrior wrote:What do you mean by cargo? Events removing augments are further away from my priorities right now, as I'm not going to be focusing on event related things for now.

ah okay. by cargo I meant anything in the cargo bay (that 4 slot thing that's used for storage for stuff). the infinite augment thing is nice, but you could just hold so many good augments. I wonder if a separate slot apart from weapons, drones and augments for a separate thing that is just cargo that you can trade and stuff in a store, and find, but isn't an augment (augments benefit your ship), can be done. oh and how about having stores change their pricing on certain weapons and other stuff depending on which sector type they're in. (maybe in engi sectors, missiles are expensive because engi are against them, but in mantis sectors they're dirt cheap because demand is high or something)

Some more ideas

someone came up with these ideas, not me:

- a barter store where goods are traded for using resources, not scrap.

- gas of some sort that fills your ship when you're in a nebula and has properties like fire but different.

adding more races (FTL hyperspace has done this somehow). maybe adding races that do new things is out of reach, but how about having duplicate races that just have something different about them. for example, one rockman might have 150 health, another has 140, another has 160. something like that, but you can encounter them in the game.

an ion beam that isn't overpowered. basically it would pierce all shields and target systems only, not affecting the shield. it's like an ion bomb except with a beam.

a system which has the sole purpose of boosting other systems. more power means it gives more of a boost.

raising how high engines can go evade wise.

adding the possibility of a type c to the lanius and crystal cruisers.

well those are some more ideas, there are plenty of those lying around all about.

oh, and why I didn't like the 50 hp zoltan is the same reason why holograms have a bad time. anything that hits for 4 damage insta-kills them. there is a vanilla thing where one of the missiles can start a fire and stun, which can kill a zoltan even at 70 hp, so if 70 hp is already fragile, 50 even more so...
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Re: [MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby Northern_Warrior » Mon Sep 04, 2017 6:31 am

mr_easy_money wrote:ah okay. by cargo I meant anything in the cargo bay (that 4 slot thing that's used for storage for stuff). the infinite augment thing is nice, but you could just hold so many good augments. I wonder if a separate slot apart from weapons, drones and augments for a separate thing that is just cargo that you can trade and stuff in a store, and find, but isn't an augment (augments benefit your ship), can be done. oh and how about having stores change their pricing on certain weapons and other stuff depending on which sector type they're in. (maybe in engi sectors, missiles are expensive because engi are against them, but in mantis sectors they're dirt cheap because demand is high or something)

I see what you mean about cargo now. Augments, well, I could set a maximum amount over three but not infinite. I would need to work on the UI if I wanted to make balanced, however. So by cargo you mean augments with no benefits that go in the cargo slot, but can be sold. As for the store thing, I'll see when I get there. I'm working on the base things right now, not so much events, ships, stores etc...
mr_easy_money wrote:- a barter store where goods are traded for using resources, not scrap.

Yes, that sounds interesting.
mr_easy_money wrote:- gas of some sort that fills your ship when you're in a nebula and has properties like fire but different.

So, nebulas give you fuel passively but start fires, if I'm understanding you correctly?
mr_easy_money wrote:adding more races (FTL hyperspace has done this somehow). maybe adding races that do new things is out of reach, but how about having duplicate races that just have something different about them. for example, one rockman might have 150 health, another has 140, another has 160. something like that, but you can encounter them in the game.

Actually, I've been working on getting unique abilities like the crystal lockdown working (UI, different abilities for races etc...). I've made some progress, but at the moment I'm still stuck. As for the different health for different rockmen, let me tell you how this game generates characters. When it generates a character, it takes a template from a race (the race that the character is), which determines all the stats and abilities of that character. Sounds like something you would expect. However, once that character is created, they are also asigned to a slot, the slots being 1-8 in the vanilla game and 1-infinity(well, not really, but as close as you can get) in my mod. Each slot defines that character's stats and attributes, which is how I made my captain system. I can do this for every slot, so if I wanted I could give an all rockman crew different values for stats, making them all unique. I could even make a random number generator for each slot, which would assign random values to each crew member, making for a truly unique character system. I've actually considered it, but at the moment I think I prefer the racial and captain system. Oh, and don't say things are out of reach. Nothing is out of reach with this type of mod, the problem is that certain things might only take minutes, while others might take months.
mr_easy_money wrote:an ion beam that isn't overpowered. basically it would pierce all shields and target systems only, not affecting the shield. it's like an ion bomb except with a beam.

Am I the only one that likes the current way the ion beams work? To me it makes sense that an ion beam would not only disable systems, but the shield as well. I'll look into it once I get to weapons probably.
mr_easy_money wrote:a system which has the sole purpose of boosting other systems. more power means it gives more of a boost.

Interesting idea, I'll think about it.
mr_easy_money wrote:raising how high engines can go evade wise.

I think that should be pretty easy, but we'll see. I don't think it's necessary, as, at least in my opinion, evasion is already very strong.
mr_easy_money wrote:adding the possibility of a type c to the lanius and crystal cruisers.

I might do something better and do the same thing as the mod that removes ship limits: http://subsetgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27852
I'm pretty sure he posted most of his code, so I'll see about that.
mr_easy_money wrote:oh, and why I didn't like the 50 hp zoltan is the same reason why holograms have a bad time. anything that hits for 4 damage insta-kills them. there is a vanilla thing where one of the missiles can start a fire and stun, which can kill a zoltan even at 70 hp, so if 70 hp is already fragile, 50 even more so...

I wanted to make the Zoltan more unique, which is why I only gave them 50 HP. I might re-balance it a bit later. You also said you don't like a 300 HP captain? Curious to know what your opinion is on that. I also read that you liked the UI toggle. If you want, I would also like ideas for something that works similar to that (a mechanic that is toggled or used via a hotkey that does something).
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Re: [MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby mr_easy_money » Mon Sep 04, 2017 9:09 am

Northern_Warrior wrote:So by cargo you mean augments with no benefits that go in the cargo slot, but can be sold.

that's not exactly what I meant, but it sounds easier than what I meant. I was thinking it would be a new type of thing, weapons, drones, and augments are examples of things. it wouldn't be able to be dragged into the augment slot, it'd have a separate area. imagine you're a freighter and you've gotta offload some cargo, maybe it will take up space differently, who knows? it'd be cooler if it was its own thing instead of just like an augment, but I suppose you could make it an augment or something but put it in a different area or something.
Northern_Warrior wrote:So, nebulas give you fuel passively but start fires, if I'm understanding you correctly?

I didn't mean gas by fuel, but that would be an interesting thing. maybe you could spend some time collecting nebula gas to sell as the cargo I was thinking about earlier, or refine it somehow to make it into gas.
Northern_Warrior wrote:
mr_easy_money wrote:adding more races (FTL hyperspace has done this somehow). maybe adding races that do new things is out of reach, but how about having duplicate races that just have something different about them. for example, one rockman might have 150 health, another has 140, another has 160. something like that, but you can encounter them in the game.

Oh, and don't say things are out of reach. Nothing is out of reach with this type of mod, the problem is that certain things might only take minutes, while others might take months.

I guess by out of reach I really meant it would take months, like you said. out of reach as in it will require lots of work kinda thing.
Northern_Warrior wrote:Am I the only one that likes the current way the ion beams work? To me it makes sense that an ion beam would not only disable systems, but the shield as well.

yeah okay maybe, but I was thinking like making it into one of CE's Effectors, but as a beam weapon. the effectors in CE are bomb weapons that don't take ammo and just interrupt systems, not shields.
Northern_Warrior wrote:
mr_easy_money wrote:raising how high engines can go evade wise.

I think that should be pretty easy, but we'll see. I don't think it's necessary, as, at least in my opinion, evasion is already very strong.

no, I don't think so either, but some people would like to see boosting the engine capacity up enough to not even need cloaking.
Northern_Warrior wrote:I might do something better and do the same thing as the mod that removes ship limits: http://subsetgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27852
I'm pretty sure he posted most of his code, so I'll see about that.

I could never get that to work, but yeah, the code is on github.
mr_easy_money wrote:oh, and why I didn't like the 50 hp zoltan is the same reason why holograms have a bad time. anything that hits for 4 damage insta-kills them. there is a vanilla thing where one of the missiles can start a fire and stun, which can kill a zoltan even at 70 hp, so if 70 hp is already fragile, 50 even more so...

Northern_Warrior wrote:You also said you don't like a 300 HP captain? Curious to know what your opinion is on that.

it's really how I picture who the captain is. you're the captain, not one of your crew members. the captain should give all the orders. giving a crewmember 300 health just feels odd, feels like it was done for no reason because that's the only thing that makes him captain.
the lack of a captain as a crewmember has always been a bit strange, and it's evolved into its own lore because of the way it's always been. if the captain dies, who succeeds him as captain? it just feels iffy to me.
Northern_Warrior wrote:I also read that you liked the UI toggle. If you want, I would also like ideas for something that works similar to that (a mechanic that is toggled or used via a hotkey that does something).
[/quote]
- you know, I think people might appreciate a physical button on the screen, maybe in the quick menu when you press ESC to toggle that. everything you can do with a hotkey in FTL there is a regular button thing you can do, but not here which feels a bit off.

- something that is odd about the UI toggle is that if you mouse over your crewmembers, the HUD reveals itself but only then. you can mouse over the where the hull and the systems would be and even see the tooltips that display (this is your hull, fuel does this, etc.).

also, why do the crew members have a red outline? to distinguish them? I feel like since they have their space they don't need to be, but maybe the captain should be outlined in red?

it might be interesting to be able to toggle parts of the UI/HUD off but not others. not entirely sure why you'd wanna do that but maybe?

you know what an interesting toggle would be? toggle the rooms on and off in-game like you can in the hangar. you could probably get some nice images that way.

I have this wacky idea for a mechanic that is probably too complex, but I'll say it anyways, a button will be useful for it. I was originally going to say a multi-floored ship, but that would make combat confusing. instead, your ship has multiple things you can see "inside" the ship. you can already see the room layout, and issue orders to your crew to fix stuff and control doors. now imagine there's a button that hides this, or rather switches to some other view. in this other view you can see other stuff about your ship, maybe this view lets you see your augments and cargo (but not move them), or maybe you can do something else? I've just always wondered about how multiple layers of the ship could be represented, inside the ship.

it probably sounds confusing because it's hard to visualize.

another idea that's always been in my head is you can see your ship getting damaged, like visually. the image of your ship will show wear and tear, and you'll know you gotta fix it because it looks pretty beat up.
I'll put this here since it's related, https://www.reddit.com/r/ftlgame/commen ... l/cvp3rgp/

I remember listening to an interview about FTL and one of the devs said that they didn't like how you can just repair up every time you take damage and your ship is just healed and you can do it again and again that it doesn't even feel like your ship is getting hurt, like there should have been some longer-term sort of consequences to taking damage. I wonder if that could be implemented somehow?

my mind's pretty tired so I just kinda went on, and it's hard to concentrate on what exactly I just said, so I think I'll stop there, and well, go to sleep. like I said, the possibilities are endless to think of. I'm rooting for hyperspace to get somewhere so maybe all these ideas will finally become a reality. you said you're doing assembly which is great and all, but think of it, an API where you can do higher-level stuff. it's sounds very appealing, I just hope it doesn't become another abandoned project like there have been in the past on this forum.

well I'm officially beat now... zzz...
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Re: [MOD][WIP] Hard-coded Modding Trial Version Released

Postby Northern_Warrior » Mon Sep 04, 2017 2:57 pm

mr_easy_money wrote:that's not exactly what I meant, but it sounds easier than what I meant. I was thinking it would be a new type of thing, weapons, drones, and augments are examples of things. it wouldn't be able to be dragged into the augment slot, it'd have a separate area. imagine you're a freighter and you've gotta offload some cargo, maybe it will take up space differently, who knows? it'd be cooler if it was its own thing instead of just like an augment, but I suppose you could make it an augment or something but put it in a different area or something.

Alright, I'll think about this.
mr_easy_money wrote:I didn't mean gas by fuel, but that would be an interesting thing. maybe you could spend some time collecting nebula gas to sell as the cargo I was thinking about earlier, or refine it somehow to make it into gas.

I was thinking about the nebula passively giving you fuel, but also starting random fires, so you would have to ask yourself, are the rewards good enough to risk it?
mr_easy_money wrote:yeah okay maybe, but I was thinking like making it into one of CE's Effectors, but as a beam weapon. the effectors in CE are bomb weapons that don't take ammo and just interrupt systems, not shields.

I haven't really played CE a lot, so I can't say much about this one.
mr_easy_money wrote:it's really how I picture who the captain is. you're the captain, not one of your crew members. the captain should give all the orders. giving a crewmember 300 health just feels odd, feels like it was done for no reason because that's the only thing that makes him captain.
the lack of a captain as a crewmember has always been a bit strange, and it's evolved into its own lore because of the way it's always been. if the captain dies, who succeeds him as captain? it just feels iffy to me.

Well, I do plan on making the captain more unique. Perhaps maybe some day it will evolve into a class system? I can see why it would be weird for the captain to just "die".
mr_easy_money wrote: you know, I think people might appreciate a physical button on the screen, maybe in the quick menu when you press ESC to toggle that. everything you can do with a hotkey in FTL there is a regular button thing you can do, but not here which feels a bit off.

Once/if I start focusing on the UI, that might become a reality. I personally prefer pressing a button on the keyboard than one on the screen for the toggle.
mr_easy_money wrote: something that is odd about the UI toggle is that if you mouse over your crewmembers, the HUD reveals itself but only then. you can mouse over the where the hull and the systems would be and even see the tooltips that display (this is your hull, fuel does this, etc.).

Yes, some bugs still need to be fixed.
mr_easy_money wrote:also, why do the crew members have a red outline? to distinguish them? I feel like since they have their space they don't need to be, but maybe the captain should be outlined in red?

I could make it any color I want. Red was the best for me personally, so I went with that. And it does make them stand out, I'd say. The captain will probably get an updated UI eventually.
mr_easy_money wrote:it might be interesting to be able to toggle parts of the UI/HUD off but not others. not entirely sure why you'd wanna do that but maybe?

Well, that is something I could do, although I feel it wouldn't really be worth the effort. Perhaps someday.
mr_easy_money wrote:you know what an interesting toggle would be? toggle the rooms on and off in-game like you can in the hangar. you could probably get some nice images that way.

I've actually been looking into doing just that.
mr_easy_money wrote:I have this wacky idea for a mechanic that is probably too complex, but I'll say it anyways, a button will be useful for it. I was originally going to say a multi-floored ship, but that would make combat confusing. instead, your ship has multiple things you can see "inside" the ship. you can already see the room layout, and issue orders to your crew to fix stuff and control doors. now imagine there's a button that hides this, or rather switches to some other view. in this other view you can see other stuff about your ship, maybe this view lets you see your augments and cargo (but not move them), or maybe you can do something else? I've just always wondered about how multiple layers of the ship could be represented, inside the ship.

it probably sounds confusing because it's hard to visualize.

Not exactly 100% sure what you mean. Perhaps something like this could be done, if I understand you correctly, but it's not really a priority right now.
mr_easy_money wrote:another idea that's always been in my head is you can see your ship getting damaged, like visually. the image of your ship will show wear and tear, and you'll know you gotta fix it because it looks pretty beat up.
I'll put this here since it's related, https://www.reddit.com/r/ftlgame/commen ... l/cvp3rgp/

I remember listening to an interview about FTL and one of the devs said that they didn't like how you can just repair up every time you take damage and your ship is just healed and you can do it again and again that it doesn't even feel like your ship is getting hurt, like there should have been some longer-term sort of consequences to taking damage. I wonder if that could be implemented somehow?

It's an interesting idea, although I'm not sure I see as the best mechanic ever. I'll think about this one.
mr_easy_money wrote:my mind's pretty tired so I just kinda went on, and it's hard to concentrate on what exactly I just said, so I think I'll stop there, and well, go to sleep. like I said, the possibilities are endless to think of. I'm rooting for hyperspace to get somewhere so maybe all these ideas will finally become a reality. you said you're doing assembly which is great and all, but think of it, an API where you can do higher-level stuff. it's sounds very appealing, I just hope it doesn't become another abandoned project like there have been in the past on this forum.

I have some plans for something more than assembly, but I'll keep those to myself for now. The rockman leaving a trail of fire, the command prompt, the new augments and the scrap mechanics seem interesting in Hyperspace though.