Rework of a 2013 idea, hopefully someone can tell me at least that its too much of a job, would never get done. Sandbox/realistic approach to modding starbound: The idea would have to have someone code asset editors that people use to easily generate assets/content that can then be combined to create a mod pack. 5 editors: Creature/attack editor, Planet, Biome, item. The end goal is to create a hybrid of Star wars galaxies/Starflight/X-3 sandbox that feels deep and less kiddy/arcady than vanilla starbound. Creature/NPC editor: Name: The name of your creature or NPC. Appearance: Works like the player editor, where you have access to all the procedural art assets, with a color palette, to make your own creatures. Stats: Pick the stats for your creature: Hp, walking speed, types of attacks (Optional, see sub-section below) flight yes/no, amphibious yes/no, resistances and weaknesses, like +25% resistance to fire, -25% to poison, for example. To help creating balanced biomes, as you input the stats in, the creature difficulty level (1-10?) gets updated for you to see. Attack editor: Pick from the attacks library of whats already available in the game, and pick color palettes and stats for the attack you picked then save to your library for ulterior use. For example a creature already in the game could have a fire blob attack which looks like a Ryu fireball going off at a certain speed. You find that animation in the library, switch the color palette to blue, switch dmg type to cold, mess with projectile speed if you want, name your attack and voila, a new attack for your custom attack library. Default behavior: Hostile, neutral Social behavior: Solitary, social Solitary: Will not care if a member of his species is being attacked nearby Social: Will come to the aid of a member of his species being attacked close by Combat behavior: Fearful, Brave, Insectoid Fearful: Will actively run away from player at all times Brave: Will fight if attacked, tries to escape (at lower speed) when low on health Insectoid: Will fight to the death Creature/NPC drops: Type, rarity. What the creature drops when it dies and its rarity. Its loot table. Rarity: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very rare, Ultra rare. For example a dinosaur-type creature could have dinosaur meat as a common drop loot, and a laser gun as Ultra rare for that time when it ate a space explorer. Associated biome: Type of biome the creature spawns in, rarity. Does this creature spawn in ice biomes only? In forest/grasslands? On 3 of your custom planets? What chance does it have to spawn in a particular biome? You can pick this here. Ex: Thick furred Yeti - Forest: Ultra rare, Ice: rare Creature spawning rarity variables: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very rare, Ultra rare You could set your "bosses" in the Very rare and Ultra rare category Taming process: Game probably has a code routine for determining this however, so this might be a redundant setting to add. Could be required to be bribed with a certain type of food, using a pheromone on yourself, or some other kind of pre-requirement needing to be met before taming can be attempted. --- Planet editor: Size: Small (2 biomes max), medium (4 biomes max), large (8 biomes max), giant (12 biomes max) or something along the line of the planet size restricting how many biomes you can have. You can set a static amount of biomes or let it be done procedurally. Biomes: This is where you select the number and type of biomes you want to spawn on your planet. You can add regular biomes like ice, ocean, or a custom biome detailed below. You can leave any of the 2 variable blank if you want things to be done procedurally. Gravity: low, med, heavy etc or procedural Day/night cycle: Customizable or procedural Atmospheric composition: (Optional) For gas mining purposes, toxicity (determining armor type needed to survive) -- Biome editor: Creatures: The types of creatures you want in your biome. You can check or uncheck procedural. So you can have entirely custom creatures in your biome, procedural or a mix of both. You can also decide to design a static biome where a creature always spawns in that biome. You can check "always spawn" for any creature/NPC in your creature/NPC spawn table. Flora: Types of plants, frequency, procedural yes/no. Ores: Types of ores, frequency, procedural yes/no. Types of dungeons, size and frequency: 2 variables. Size: Small, medium, large, giant. Frequency: No dungeons, small amount, medium amount, large amount. You can add multiple sets: Small dungeon (none), medium dungeon (medium amount), large dungeon (small amount). Type of dungeon (one of the 6 races or otherwise some custom themed ones) Temperature: Self-explanatory Biome graphical background: You pick the type of art asset in the background of your biome. People could find creative ways to flip things around, where say, an ice biome background has warm temperature cuz its actually salt, not ice thats displayed. -- Item/Plants/Recipes editor Things you can add to the loot table of a creature, or a chest in dungeons, or somewhere else that doesnt come to my mind at the moment! Name, stats (modified +dmg on a regular weapon to add to the loot table of an ultra rare NPC spawn, for example). You can create recipes, where x,y,z items are added (custom items or regular) to create a new custom item. ------------ On top of this, an economy similar to what you had in X-3. Supply/demand. Wont go into details but if theres an actual interest to get a mod like this started, i will join in the brainstorm to help crystallize it. I have other ideas but will wait first to see if there is any interest at all in discussing these ideas further.
Considering how many files are involved with each one, creating a program to generate all of them properly and open and edit them would likely take a horrendously long time to make. Enough so you could probably learn to mod, become a master at modding, and make a massive content mod by the time it even gets half way done.
Does anyone see where im going with this though (I think the suit does)? Could we just remove some of the ideas to make it simpler? For example ideas i like the most are letting people decide the loot tables of creatures and linking specific creatures to specific biomes and/or planet types. That and grafting some kind of X-3 economy on top of starbound, making it much simpler if we must. Designing "Bosses" would be really cool too, like the Yeti boss, a rare creature in a snowy biome. No need for custom graphics assets, maybe just a size and palette change, with stats and loot table.
The issue is just for making a simple item generator like iron forge took around 2 months for 1 individual working on his free time. I think that is the best way to put it into perspective. Even then the program was never finished. You should not rely on tools essentially - learning to mod the game by hand is not hard at all - which is why around 3000 mods were made to date.
Ok thanks, specifically if i would say, want to start to hand-mod Biomes (deciding which creatures spawn in which specific biomes) using an already existing mod (like the 50 added biomes mod) would that be possible? Like i guess i have to do something like link a creature ID with a biome ID? Would you have a guide on hand to help me get started with this?
Yes - each biome you can designate which monsters you want to spawn. Just take some time to look at the files - and things will make sense. Unless you do - guessing how things are tied is pointless.
Do you have a good link for a guide to start playing with biomes setup? (saw the sticky, still if you have some pointers) Thanks!
Thanks again. Ive unpacked assets now, opened a biome file with notepad as guide doesnt detail how to open it. Stuff is really tight together and hard to read, am i doin it right
