Ever since wands and staves have been added as new categories of procedural weapons this is something I've been wondering; does the game engine support the ability for modders to add their own new procedural weapons categories? For example, if someone wanted to add new "elemental projectors"(basically, procedurally generated flamethrowers with randomized elemental damage rather than just fire, and multiple already attacks), is it something the game engine would support or do they need to work around the engine and add such weapons by latching then to existing weapons categories?
Do they have to be listed within existing families(assault rifles, pistols, axes, swords, etc) or can you create your own family of weapons though? Sorry, just asking for clarity. I assume you mean yes but I wanted to make sure.
You can make it however you want really. Following the given categories is a bit easier as you don't have to create custom tooltip interfaces for them, which really could just be copies and whatnot. I did it relatively easily when making armor that can be augmented like the protection packs. Starbound is probably one of the most modable games out there because a huge chunk of it is changeable in files. If you would like help with setting it up, I would be happy to assist.
I don't expect to try my hand at this right away(I would likely have to read up on a LOT of documentation first as an utter newbie) but I felt it's always good to gauge early what's possible and what's not ^^; Complete curiosity and unrelated, but does the game support the ability to bring back something like the old temperature bar? I was wondering elsewhere if the game would be able to support something like that again, perhaps like a more "universal Hazard Rating" bar to which the current(and more numerous) variety of extreme climates could contribute to, so that they could even be separated in different "tiers" of severity as well(which could be fought by different tiers of EPP and cheaper&static-but stronger localized enviroprotection stations) to reintroduce the different between "mild but notable" and "extreme" conditions again.
There is no documentation for this kind of thing. Starbound is lacking in a lot of ducumentation. Perhaps not in the manner you would like it to be, but I would bet that you could at least mimic it in some way. IIRC there was a temperature type mod.
Oh? How did it get that mechanic going? Personally I wasn't an huge fan of the original temperature mechanics, but cannot help but think a more streamlined "extreme hazard exposure"(or similarly named bar) that would support the additional extreme conditions added since may have potential. If anything I'm satisfied with the current system of environment protections(though I wishes it was more "switch to proper protective pack" rather than "upgrade pack to defeat them all" like the old nanoskins were) used as a mean of "gating" planet difficulty tiers , so this is more of a "what is" kind of musing and pondering(especially wondering how this could be implemented to support some of the more explorations-focused mods out there). (if anything, I felt the old temperature bar was too incremental in a way too prone to minute min/maxing of defensive/environment armors mixing and too easily defeated by spammed campfires... a tiers-based, rather than minute numerical "temperature stat", feels like it could be a way to implement such a feature that could be fought by tweaked versions of current means like a reworked EPP packs and perhaps a new "Enviroprotection station" that would take the campfire's place as a mean of "localized static protection" without being as easily spammed in the way campfires could be).
Actually I got a new category of weapon my self done and working in nightlies (short spear) just make sure you add it to the categories.config file as a patch... how ever I am having some issues with using a new .weaponability file, I'm wanting the spear stab to use a modified version of the twohanded one that only uses one hand and it refuses to use it what so ever (having it use the default spear's one works just fine and so does changing the default spear's one to be one handed just doesn't seem to want me making my own) but I have a feeling I'm just missing something important.
Could it be related to animations or something? After all, when in "held" position, the 2 handed spear clearly bring forward both hands to hold onto the spear when held in that position. Perhaps the conflict could be there? I know nothing about modding yet, but it's an observation I often made when using the spear(especially when using a crouched position/etc while pointing the spear in a position such that the position of the arms felt "right" to be for screenshots or whatever, because I'm silly like that).
I've done all the animations thing that mostly handles the default animation when attacking normally and that part works perfictly fine (I can use a shield and spear with out issue) though it seems the .weaponabilities has their own animetion and I can get those working just fine (as I mentioned above I got it to work when making the normal spear's stab ability one handed but now the normal spear uses one hand just for the holdout ability witch seems a bit odd) but when I make a copy of it and change it to shortspear (in all locations I can find) it then breaks, I've even tried one part at a time and it still breaks... I know it's on my end somewhere but I'm sure some advanced weapon ability modder will come in and go "oh that's easy you just need to add shortspear to this one file here that is in some other folder" or the like
As to how: The mod patched base values for temperature to every biome and had an active script calculate changing body temperature for the player. Then applying buffs/debuffs according to the current temp. conditions. This means given adequate knowledge, that system could be adapted to different mechanics, like you suggest, relatively easily. (Given you know your way around Lua. ) One thing that comes to mind is that: -At the time of release, that mod couldn't reactivate the temperature bar as a ui element given scripting capabilities. HOWEVER, with the scripted guis found in nightly, I imagine it could be implemented again, if not in a slightly different way.
How did you do that? I mean, the tooltip. Right now I'd like to have a custom tooltip for my random weapons but I'm stuck.
I just edited a vanilla tooltip and renamed it, then on my armor I changed "tooltipKind" to my new tooltip.
What kind of edits did you make? I need to add another info field (a text string with weapon stats). I don't how to make the game fill it with the parameter I need.
Tooltip Parameters are added via LUA in the build scripts, you'll likely need a custom buildscript for your weapon in that case.
Thank you. I wish I could show more info in the tooltip. But if I want more (like dynamically updated labels), I'll need to reassign a custom buildscript, as Nirrudn said. And it's a little hell. This one - the yellow word - is just a static (constant) label. For anyone else: did this through writing tooltipKind:*** in the item itself. You will need to make a custom tooltip before doing this.
