Subset Games Forum

rannl wrote:I think what's bothering me is the fact that a lot of users had problems with setting up the different builds of CE. This feature is starting to look like a potential future usage problem, and I'm trying to think of the best, simplest to use solution. It might seem funny, but CMD usage can be frustrating to people who aren't used to it. Add that to the non trivial usage of SMM with the CE mods, and things will start looking messy.

I certainly think your solution has merits, I'm just concerned it'll be difficult for some CE users.

I have two ideas on how to make this easy for users, but it requires some coding. If I am bored and have time on the weekend, I might try both of them. (Edit: Interestingly the difficult thing for me would be to figure out, what (and how) to change in the flagship, to make it unique, random, fair, and everything. I have never tried to create a flagship mod.)

A) Make a simple GUI (like SMM but much more simple), to let users select which mods they want to use. Then let the GUI call SMM with all the parameters to patch the game.

B) Create this as a feature in SMM (Java) itself. https://github.com/Vhati/Slipstream-Mod-Manager

rannl wrote: I certainly think your solution has merits, I'm just concerned it'll be difficult for some CE users.

Then bullet-proof script asking user which mods she/he want to activate, and constructing command line for SMM is a way to go. Or even simple GUI, as Jopyth mentioned - it's the same effect at the end.

/Estel

Wouldn't it be easier to just have the script construct an .ftl file for the user, so that they can install it themselves? This has the advantage of being the simplest solution, as well as the user having the same flagship mod until they run the script again, allowing to install it again or share it with others, if they liked it.

Sure it's not as elegant as a dedicated installer, but it works without any hacks or workarounds

Jopyth wrote:

rannl wrote:I think what's bothering me is the fact that a lot of users had problems with setting up the different builds of CE. This feature is starting to look like a potential future usage problem, and I'm trying to think of the best, simplest to use solution. It might seem funny, but CMD usage can be frustrating to people who aren't used to it. Add that to the non trivial usage of SMM with the CE mods, and things will start looking messy.

I certainly think your solution has merits, I'm just concerned it'll be difficult for some CE users.

I have two ideas on how to make this easy for users, but it requires some coding. If I am bored and have time on the weekend, I might try both of them. (Edit: Interestingly the difficult thing for me would be to figure out, what (and how) to change in the flagship, to make it unique, random, fair, and everything. I have never tried to create a flagship mod.)

A) Make a simple GUI (like SMM but much more simple), to let users select which mods they want to use. Then let the GUI call SMM with all the parameters to patch the game.

B) Create this as a feature in SMM (Java) itself. https://github.com/Vhati/Slipstream-Mod-Manager

If SMM were to save a copy of its mod list every time it patched (and overwrote that copy if it already existed, mind you!), then the flagship patcher could simply call SMM and tell it to patch the latest mod list plus itself.

Alternatively, a simpler method would be to use SMM's code to patch in the flagship WITHOUT restoring from backups. Since the same data entries would presumably be clobbered each time, this should not have any detrimental effects.

dalolorn wrote:If SMM were to save a copy of its mod list every time it patched (and overwrote that copy if it already existed, mind you!)

Unless I misunderstand what you are talking about, SMM already does this.
In your SMM's mods folder there is a modorer.txt.
It does what you are talking about.

You can even edit it yourself and the correct order shows up in SMM the next time you run it.

kartoFlane wrote:Wouldn't it be easier to just have the script construct an .ftl file for the user, so that they can install it themselves? This has the advantage of being the simplest solution, as well as the user having the same flagship mod until they run the script again, allowing to install it again or share it with others, if they liked it.

Sure it's not as elegant as a dedicated installer, but it works without any hacks or workarounds

+1. Sometimes, less is better.

Estel wrote:

kartoFlane wrote:Wouldn't it be easier to just have the script construct an .ftl file for the user, so that they can install it themselves? This has the advantage of being the simplest solution, as well as the user having the same flagship mod until they run the script again, allowing to install it again or share it with others, if they liked it.

Sure it's not as elegant as a dedicated installer, but it works without any hacks or workarounds

+1. Sometimes, less is better.

Agreed, Sleepy concurs as well. I guess we'll go for a flagship generation tool which will create a random build each time it's run, outputting it in a .ftl file.

CoryStarkiller wrote:

dalolorn wrote:If SMM were to save a copy of its mod list every time it patched (and overwrote that copy if it already existed, mind you!)

Unless I misunderstand what you are talking about, SMM already does this.
In your SMM's mods folder there is a modorer.txt.
It does what you are talking about.

You can even edit it yourself and the correct order shows up in SMM the next time you run it.

As far as I remember, SMM will load the correct order, but will also uncheck all the mods it patched in last time. It's not just a matter of knowing how something was patched, but what that something was.

I agree with Sleeper about the flagship having only a few pre-made weapons. I don't think it should differ as drastically as EL. I was just hoping for maybe some bomb, flak, mine, scatter, and maybe effector weapons instead of just the standard 4 it always has.

I hope that you can figure out whatever problem the flagship script will have. I knew that it would obviously have to be run only once every new run rather than every new game. Because of that I think you could give the player the option to look at their "secret data" at game start.
To keep the flagship a bit of a "mystery" each time, I was thinking you could give a vague-ish description of the flagship only, something like the rebel flagship appears to be equipped with advanced shielding, fast firing weaponry, mind control tech, drones, etc...
Another possibility would be to scatter some events around and if you happen on these events you can "decode" more of your secret data and gain more info on the flagship. Through crew, hiring help at a station station, random encounters etc...

rannl wrote:

Estel wrote:

kartoFlane wrote:Wouldn't it be easier to just have the script construct an .ftl file for the user, so that they can install it themselves? This has the advantage of being the simplest solution, as well as the user having the same flagship mod until they run the script again, allowing to install it again or share it with others, if they liked it.

Sure it's not as elegant as a dedicated installer, but it works without any hacks or workarounds

+1. Sometimes, less is better.

Agreed, Sleepy concurs as well. I guess we'll go for a flagship generation tool which will create a random build each time it's run, outputting it in a .ftl file.

I like this idea the best. It's quite simple. I could make a mod right now that gives the flagship a clone bay on phase 3, for example. Or I could make a mod that gave the flagship a Zoltan shield on every phase. These would basically be 2 separate mods stored in .ftl files. Either of which could be installed after every other CE module like Estel said. If you wanted to have a ton more combinations you could have a script that would create a new .ftl file for you each time you wanted by combining different pre-made files. You could just use that .ftl file to overwrite the one you already have in SMM mods and it wouldn't even affect the order. You could even keep the old one if you liked that flagship "seed" and wanted a rematch...

So I'm thinking that you could have either a bunch of pre-made flagships that the script would just choose from, or you could have different files for layouts, weapons/equipment, events, etc... Which could be combined together. Changing each of these things separately wouldn't necessarily make the flagship more difficult hard or more easy, just different.

However, some bigger changes might affect the difficulty. Let's say you wanted to give the flagship the ability to cloak on phase 2 or even 3 rather than just phase 1. Obviously that makes the flagship "much" more difficult , so this would have to be counteracted by giving the flagship maybe slower firing speed, and/or nerfed mind control/hacking. Or you could give the flagship x1.2 firing speed on its weapons, but to offset this give it only 3 shields. Other things like giving the flagship boarding AI on phases 1 and/or 2 as well as 3 may have to correspond with greater crew numbers as well, except when a clone bay is present. There are lots of things to consider... However, this could turn out to be really awesome! I'm looking forward to it.

Gunna ask in this thread too in the hopes that someone can actually help me out. I can't Better Backgrounds working on my laptop at all, and it's the only mod that won't work. Everything else works just fine, so I have no idea what's causing it.