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Poll Result |
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What level of modding would be worthwhile to you? |
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| I don't know what a mod is / I'm not interested in Mods |
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8% |
[ 2 ] |
| I'd play mods if they were available, but I wouldn't make them |
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34% |
[ 8 ] |
| I'd be happy to make mods given the ability to alter a survival type game |
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52% |
[ 12 ] |
| Unless you can change campaign mode and alter every aspect of the game, it wouldn't be worth it |
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4% |
[ 1 ] |
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Total Votes : 23 |
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Fost
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 3734
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 Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2004 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks, I guess that's what will happen, and there are likely going to be addons for Battlescape in the year after it's release. It'd be nice to think we can keep adding little bits to each of our games, but I suppose it always gets to the point where you just want to work on something new. I suppose that's where modding comes in though, and it's definitely something we want to build more into our games if we can (Battlescape has had more thought on this subject, as a direct result of comments made on the forum). Starscape obviously has major drawbacks in the workload it would require to release it moddable unfortunately, but maybe one day we'll be able to do something, or roll all the ideas into a sequel. |
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HunterXI
Joined: 26 Dec 2003
Posts: 476
Location: Playing like there is no tomorrow.
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Fost wrote: | | HunterXI wrote: | weeell, it would be a lot easier to mod if we had your little resource compiler...  |
Yeah life's tough isn't it  Actually, being able to extract things from the pak file wouldn't help one bit, we'd need to change a lot of the game code just to support fairly simple changes. As explained about 8 million times: we aren't doing this unless we can at least give people a good chance that anything they do will work - currently I can guarantee that it won't  |
how come? do the pic files for example have to be a fixed length? |
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Fost
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 3734
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 11:06 pm Post subject: |
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| HunterXI wrote: | | how come? do the pic files for example have to be a fixed length? |
Are you saying all you want to do is change the graphics?
Graphics alone aren't so much the problem (although even they have some issues), it's everything else. Parts of most things are hard coded, so lets say for instance if you changed a piece of equipment it would probably break the ship modding screen. Even graphics can have issues - certain sprites are required to internally have a number of frames for use by the game -although I'd expect that wouldn't be a major problem for many people modding the game - it would just cause a bit of hassle every now and then.
This is why thinking apart from campaign mode is interesting to talk about (for me anyway) because in a survival type environment less of the game relies on specific data. Originally I suspected most people would want to do things like: create entirely new ships with their own pod layout, redo all the speech and create new zones and so on - which would be impossible without a lot of code support. This is kind of why I'm interested in what people think - if we knew better what people want to do, then if we ever look at this, we'll be able to make a judgement about what to do. If people only want certain functionality and there is enough interest then we'll probably look into it at that point, or it might just influence future games or a sequel. |
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HunterXI
Joined: 26 Dec 2003
Posts: 476
Location: Playing like there is no tomorrow.
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| Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Fost wrote: | | Are you saying all you want to do is change the graphics? |
hell no! I was just asking if that was the problem. Halo modding has brought me up in a very different modding environment than you guys seemingly grew up in... lack of tools and such... |
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Chibi
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Posts: 271
Location: Denver, CO, United States
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| Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 6:10 am Post subject: |
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| Fost wrote: | Originally I suspected most people would want to do things like:
create entirely new ships with their own pod layout,
redo all the speech,
create new zones |
I think the thing about the speech and the zones is a little bit of overkill. Five zones is more than enough. ;p But the enemies make up the major portions of those zones. Speech can be toned down a bit in the game as a whole. I don't have to know what a harvester is everytime I see one.
The only mods I'd want are ones to edit the items/weapons, possibly the enemy ship graphics/vulnerabilities/guns, and maybe (maybe) the player ship types. I can see why not, about the player ships. There are a lot of graphics to worry about, to redo the entire customization thing. I bet there are only like 4 or 5 player ship-layout graphics total, and the item-squares are pre-drawn on the ship schematics, am I right? That's difficult to think about modding.
So yeah, Items and Enemies. Good for me. And maybe Cannon/Turret-Pods. I still like that idea. |
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Bobacles
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
Posts: 123
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| Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 12:11 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | And maybe Cannon/Turret-Pods. I still like that idea. |
The beam weapons are very much like the Aegis' main cannon. If you put enough beam weapons on, it can even be stronger than the Aegis. Although, I yearn for a main ship weapon of some sort...
When I read turret-pods, I was thinking of the turrets on the Aegis. Man, those things are huge! There would be no way an Aegis turret would fit on a ship.
I don't think turrets would work well, though. Your ship has a very good turning rate, so you can point your weapons anywhere you want without much trouble. If you have turrets, you'd need some way to control them. If it was manually controlled, the controls will become extremely difficult. You'd have to handle turning your ship and the turrets, which is no easy task. If the computer controls the turrets, you have a problem of shooting the target that you want to shoot. If the turrets point the wrong way, you can get in serious troube without their firepower.
I'd say leave the turrets for the big ships that can't turn fast enough, and give the little ships hard-mounted weapons. |
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Fost
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 3734
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| Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Chibi wrote: | | So yeah, Items and Enemies. Good for me. And maybe Cannon/Turret-Pods. I still like that idea. |
Remember: we're still on about Survival only here, it won't work in Campaign. (So no Aegis equipment). Just thought I'd double check that, but I was pretty sure you were still talking about your 'turret drones' idea. Not sure if that's possible, since the turret sytem isn't part of the equipment stuff. Might be possible to make a weapon that can fire 360°, so it would behave like a turret, but wouldn't animate like one (possibly, not too sure right now..  ) |
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iosh
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 14
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| Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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ok I know my knowledge of programming is limited but isn't it possible just to recode the location as to how it access like this
if fileship.001
eqauls ture
then use file
if fileship.001
equals faluse
then use hard coded data.
anyways as I said not a major programmer and its been a long time since I touched programing. if its a good idea then cool if not oh well worth a try. that would give it a chance to use the hard coding and still have a little modability |
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Rick
Joined: 25 Apr 2004
Posts: 8
Location: California, USA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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So, what's the encryption on the configuration files? 
Sprites look simple. 
[edit]I've largely figured out the sprite format. Going to look at CAS later. I'm guessing they are collections of sprites as one sprite, or something, a quick look shows that it references sprite files.
Example: (Image is reduced quality + watermark, if you're in IE, you will see a gray background due to IE PNG rendering problems.)
 [/edit]
Last edited by Rick on Mon Apr 26, 2004 9:26 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Goober
Pod Team
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 449
Location: Moonpod Central
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| Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 8:48 am Post subject: |
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| Rick wrote: | | So, what's the encryption on the configuration files? |
As stated before, we don't support modding, so we're not going to give any information out at this time. Sorry. Good luck with it though
| Rick wrote: | | I've largely figured out the sprite format. |
That's cool and all, but I'm going to have to point out that we retain copyright on the content of Starscape (except where noted in the readme). The main thing that bothers me is the possibility of seeing Fost's artwork leak onto the internet and turn up in some **** rip-off game. I'm sure you can understand why. |
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Rick
Joined: 25 Apr 2004
Posts: 8
Location: California, USA
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| Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 9:07 am Post subject: |
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| Goober wrote: | | Rick wrote: | | So, what's the encryption on the configuration files? |
As stated before, we don't support modding, so we're not going to give any information out at this time. Sorry. Good luck with it though |
Hehe... VERY annoying! That question was more of a joke, anyway, since I knew nobody is going to give it up
| Goober wrote: | | Rick wrote: | | I've largely figured out the sprite format. |
That's cool and all, but I'm going to have to point out that we retain copyright on the content of Starscape (except where noted in the readme). The main thing that bothers me is the possibility of seeing Fost's artwork leak onto the internet and turn up in some **** rip-off game. I'm sure you can understand why. |
I fully understand this. I am not planning on using these graphics for anything, I am just working towards creating an image exporter so I can export my tga/pngs to the Moonpod format. I am not planning on releasing my tools without any official permission. With what you've said i've removed one of the sprite images, and reduced the quality + watermarked the other. |
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Goober
Pod Team
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 449
Location: Moonpod Central
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| Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| Rick wrote: | | I fully understand this. I am not planning on using these graphics for anything, I am just working towards creating an image exporter so I can export my tga/pngs to the Moonpod format. I am not planning on releasing my tools without any official permission. |
Well, we can't ask for more than that. Thanks for being understanding about this.
| Rick wrote: | | With what you've said i've removed one of the sprite images, and reduced the quality + watermarked the other. |
Thanks . To some people it might seem a bit excessively overprotective, but we've seen a couple of incidents where resources from games have been blatantly ripped off and used in other games. Sad, but true |
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Rick
Joined: 25 Apr 2004
Posts: 8
Location: California, USA
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| Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 9:51 am Post subject: |
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| Goober wrote: | | Rick wrote: | | I fully understand this. I am not planning on using these graphics for anything, I am just working towards creating an image exporter so I can export my tga/pngs to the Moonpod format. I am not planning on releasing my tools without any official permission. |
Well, we can't ask for more than that. Thanks for being understanding about this.
| Rick wrote: | | With what you've said i've removed one of the sprite images, and reduced the quality + watermarked the other. |
Thanks . To some people it might seem a bit excessively overprotective, but we've seen a couple of incidents where resources from games have been blatantly ripped off and used in other games. Sad, but true |
I noticed that the .002 left some redundant stuff in, as well as unencrypted files (and extra files... make.bat? ). |
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Fost
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 3734
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| Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 10:52 am Post subject: |
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Ahh, on a slightly off topic note: you may have the dodgy install/update that occurred around early 1.4 iterations. For when you are actually playing the game you may want to download the whole thing again (there was some annoying save bug that we fixed, but some people could only fix it by getting the full installer because there was a corrupt installer floating about on the internet somewhere...) |
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Rick
Joined: 25 Apr 2004
Posts: 8
Location: California, USA
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| Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Fost wrote: |
Ahh, on a slightly off topic note: you may have the dodgy install/update that occurred around early 1.4 iterations. For when you are actually playing the game you may want to download the whole thing again (there was some annoying save bug that we fixed, but some people could only fix it by getting the full installer because there was a corrupt installer floating about on the internet somewhere...) |
I just installed a clean copy, my CD version is 1.4e (I think) and I upgraded to 1.4f, yesterday! Odd? :O |
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