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Re: Modding

#16
@ Atarun, Well how much IS procedurally generated in LT? And of that how much has certain seed structures? What i mean by that is for example in Daggerfall pretty much all the generic quest types were randomly (or even procedurally) generated, so you didn't often find the exact same quests in the same order (as you would in Morrowind for example), but the devs did release an extra-quests pack later to add more variety to the base formula for quest generation. Elite used something quite similar for it's own faction quest generations iirc.

Those kind of things might be possible to mod, or they might not need be if the dev adds to that at a later date?

I suppose for a space-trade-exploration-combat type game like Limit Theory(or Elite inspired games in general) i would start with the ships as being the most obviously mod-able aspect, and that can be easy or hard. I hex-edited a ship in Elite 3 and made some different ship skin interiors for my own game, neither of which were easy or designed to be easy, so obviously Elite was not set-up to be a mod-friendly game (whereas Oolite is very much about the mods).

Basically everything in Limit Theory that is not procedurally generated could be a mod-possible option, ship skins and textures maybe, other graphical stuff like that? Those are usually a starting place in games that have not been designed from scratch to be super mod-friendly, so maybe leave as many of those kind of assets as accessible as possible for the players? I would suggest ship and equipment stats as being a very handy aspect to have access to, as Ixos mentioned.

But yeah, like i said, if the initial Limit Theory has not been constructed for modding from the ground up, then look for other ways to get that 'user created' content into the game, either via discussions/polls/competitions that could be used to get idea's for expansions etc. As a small lone-wolf indie in particular, finding a way to utilise a fan base for things like this can be a real help.
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Re: Modding

#17
@Zak Gordon: well, my understanding is that pretty much everything in LT is procedurally generated.

If it is just about giving the possibility to modders to fiddle with the basic elements and textures of ships, planets, etc, then I guess we're falling back on the "exporting PCG inputs" suggestion.
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Re: Modding

#18
Atarun wrote:@Zak Gordon: well, my understanding is that pretty much everything in LT is procedurally generated.
I don't think it works that way.

Basic physics rules need to be input somewhere to limit armor/weapons/shields/engines to reasonable and fair levels. These are constant and can be exported and modified.

It doesn't make sense to have one ship fire lasers 5 times faster then normal physics rules allow just because it had a very lucky dice roll on the procedual RNG.
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Re: Modding

#19
Ixos wrote:
Atarun wrote:@Zak Gordon: well, my understanding is that pretty much everything in LT is procedurally generated.
I don't think it works that way.

Basic physics rules need to be input somewhere to limit armor/weapons/shields/engines to reasonable and fair levels. These are constant and can be exported and modified.

It doesn't make sense to have one ship fire lasers 5 times faster then normal physics rules allow just because it had a very lucky dice roll on the procedual RNG.
You mean it totally works that way and there are inputs to the PCG engine that can be exported and could be of interest to modders. Welcome to the club. :roll:
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Re: Modding

#21
Ixos wrote:We just have different definitions of input and everything ;)
Not really, since you yourself said "Basic physics rules need to be input somewhere", so it seems most of our definitions of "input" coincides. ;)
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Re: Modding

#22
Yeah we mean mostly the same thing.

It's all in what you consider to be "pretty much everyting". For a better definition of what I don't think will or should be randomly generated you can see my earlier post last page.
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Re: Modding

#23
Ixos wrote:Yeah we mean mostly the same thing.

It's all in what you consider to be "pretty much everyting". For a better definition of what I don't think will or should be randomly generated you can see my earlier post last page.
Oh, I see. But then arguing about it is meaningless, because we don't know yet what is procedurally generated in LT... Wait and see. :)
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Re: Modding

#24
One idea that came to mind was that maybe the ship computer systems could be modabble, so that you can basically expand the capabilities of your cockpit view screen or even develop some custom AI for your ships.

The scripting support (Python, Lua, etc) could be run in a thread so that if the modder screws up and writes a slow script, only his own ships suffer, not the entire game engine.
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Re: Modding

#26
Brian: Are you allowing for moddability in your game, such as modding in new ships, planets, races and so on?

Josh: At the moment, nothing is moddable due to the procedural nature of the game, coupled with the fact that I have a sadistic love for writing code in c++ rather than a high-level scripting language. As much as it pains me to say, mod support is, realistically, probably not going to make it into the game. That’s not final, but I can’t make promises at present.

From the Q+A on Brians page:

http://www.spacegamejunkie.com/featured ... -timiness/

So yes, wow, everything IS procedural! That is very exciting (even if a can't mod stuff) imho.
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Re: Modding

#27
JoshParnell wrote:Yes, that's true, it's possible that I could expose a parameter configuration file for the numerous constants that I have hanging around that affect the PCG.
That would go a long way.
Many just love the thought of "rolling their own" and are convinced that the game is immensely better thereafter - even if it's just a 10% increase in hull values.

Well, at least you're clearly stating that scripting isn't going to happen instead of murmuring polite nothings. =P


Besides, there's always the option of creating expansions / DLC afterwards. No, that's not evil. It's just business. =)
By the time this becomes relevant, you'll no doubt be sitting on more suggestions than you could use in a lifetime.
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: Modding

#28
Gazz wrote: Well, at least you're clearly stating that scripting isn't going to happen instead of murmuring polite nothings. =P
Admittedly, scripting is a big CPU killer for X series. If Josh can implement something of a similar complexity using c++, it should work much faster especially if he also can utilize multiple CPU cores. Unfortunately, just based on some claims from the kickstarter page I can conclude that LT can eventually run into similar issues with performance deteriorating as your game progresses. Here we have unlimited universe meaning the performance hog can also grow unlimited :)
Josh will have to come up with some sort of OOS (Out Of Sight) concept to manage remote assets, both belonging to the player and persistent NPCs and he will need a mechanism to scale down their CPU usage as their numbers grow. Meaning that is not scripting that could kill the performance but the game overall design.
On the other hand, I doubt X series depth and economy would be developed without extensive community involvement. I really hope Josh will be able to come up with some extensibility concept for your asset and NPC control. Even DLL extensibility he mentioned would be a good start. Let us remember that for some games people even create external extenders based on hooking some in-game functions from an external launcher (i.e. script extender for all Bethesda games).
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Re: Modding

#29
kurush wrote:Unfortunately, just based on some claims from the kickstarter page I can conclude that LT can eventually run into similar issues with performance deteriorating as your game progresses. Here we have unlimited universe meaning the performance hog can also grow unlimited :)
Josh will have to come up with some sort of OOS (Out Of Sight) concept to manage remote assets, both belonging to the player and persistent NPCs and he will need a mechanism to scale down their CPU usage as their numbers grow. Meaning that is not scripting that could kill the performance but the game overall design.
There has already been an exchange of some thoughts on these issues in this thread. Maybe you could browse through it and add any additional ideas.
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Re: Modding

#30
kurush wrote:Josh will have to come up with some sort of OOS (Out Of Sight) concept to manage remote assets, both belonging to the player and persistent NPCs and he will need a mechanism to scale down their CPU usage as their numbers grow. Meaning that is not scripting that could kill the performance but the game overall design.
It is foolish to try and model combat in an infinite universe.
I know X3's OOS code (the actual code, in fact =) and it still computes every engagement between every ship. It counts every single laser for every involved ship. Every single round.
This only works if the universe is strictly limited - or if the part that the player can see is limited.

Mind you, OOS combat in X3 is about as simplified as possible. It was slightly less complex (and more buggy) in Reunion / TC and there were constant complaints about how broken it was.
If you limit the player, you can calculate "combat" in an entire galactic region in 1/10 ms because the player has no assets there and will be none the wiser. =)
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.

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