Subset Games Forum

Hey everybody! I have returned!

Seeing how I've picked up development on my mod again (which has also led to it going from a few ships to a full-blown total conversion mod) I had several questions about the limitations of modding before embarking on my quest...

1) CAN I CHANGE ACHIEVEMENTS/UNLOCK REQUIREMENTS?

The ships I'm going to be releasing will take the places of all stock ships, so is it possible to have them become unlocked by different means as well? If so, how? Also, can the achievement icon/text/etc. also be changed to be more informative?

2) CAN I CHANGE THE NUMBER OF SECTORS/FINAL BOSS ENCOUNTER IN ANY WAY?

I don't want to divulge too much in the way of details, but the mod is effectively a whole new story arc, therefore, I'll need the ability to create my own events/encounters/etc. Is it possible to change the number of sectors the player visits before the final boss/and the boss itself?

3) CAN I CREATE NEW MENU TABS/OPTIONS/FEATURES?

The XML coding of FTL seems to be incredibly flexible (perhaps to a novice modder, deceptively so?). An example of this is that I want to include a Galactic Encyclopedia (complete with Lore, Tips and Info pertaining to new content) and was resolved on including that separately in a readme file. However, I got to thinking, and am wondering, is it possible to have it be a part of the game itself?

4) WHAT IS THE LIMIT OF CUSTOM EVENTS?

I've seen much of the Captain's Edition, so I'm aware of FTL's capacity for change. One event I encountered recently (assuming its new with AE) involved an Engi virus reconstructing one of my crew, and I thought "that's awesome!" so I'm wondering, how much control do we have over events, event progression, encounters and rewards? General question, but I'll accept an equally general answer.


I appreciate the help! (BTW, on the subject, how difficult was all of that custom content for Captain's Edition?)

Kiloace wrote:
1) CAN I CHANGE ACHIEVEMENTS/UNLOCK REQUIREMENTS?

The ships I'm going to be releasing will take the places of all stock ships, so is it possible to have them become unlocked by different means as well? If so, how? Also, can the achievement icon/text/etc. also be changed to be more informative?

Nope. Achievements are hard-coded. You can change the icons and text but you can't change how or when they're unlocked.

There are some sneaky things you can do with them though. I'm pretty sure you could modify all Defense Drones to be useless (slow firing ion gun or something) and have a Rock ship fire missiles at the enemy to acquire that achievement.

Kiloace wrote:
2) CAN I CHANGE THE NUMBER OF SECTORS/FINAL BOSS ENCOUNTER IN ANY WAY?

I don't want to divulge too much in the way of details, but the mod is effectively a whole new story arc, therefore, I'll need the ability to create my own events/encounters/etc. Is it possible to change the number of sectors the player visits before the final boss/and the boss itself?

Nope. You can do what Infinite does with the "Contested Deep Space Sectors" but the game is set to 8 sectors, boss fight in the last one. You can change the boss though to say fighting an Osprey three times.

Kiloace wrote: 3) CAN I CREATE NEW MENU TABS/OPTIONS/FEATURES?

The XML coding of FTL seems to be incredibly flexible (perhaps to a novice modder, deceptively so?). An example of this is that I want to include a Galactic Encyclopedia (complete with Lore, Tips and Info pertaining to new content) and was resolved on including that separately in a readme file. However, I got to thinking, and am wondering, is it possible to have it be a part of the game itself?

Kiloace wrote:(BTW, on the subject, how difficult was all of that custom content for Captain's Edition?)

Producing events and art assets gets easier the more you do it. Observing carefully how vanilla handles events and graphics can get you a long way, and with time you get a feeling for how everything works and what causes problems. The error checker and SMM's validate functions are also super helpful.