Modding Help Ways to remove items/pixels other than recipes?

Okay, so my eventual goal is to make a space casino mod. For that I need games and the easiest to start with seemed to be a slot machine type game.

I started with pretty much no knowledge on this stuff but I have got to the point of figuring out how to make an object do a random 100 roll and spit out items depending on the number rolled using a LUA script. Right now you walk up to it, press E, and it spits out a random prize.

I need to make it take something from the player when you use it though. Like 10 pixels per try or a game token you buy/craft. That is where I am stuck. Not much of a gambling game if you don't have to risk anything.

 

Hmm, maybe this is something we will have later or are the scripting functions pretty much set already?

 

I made something similar. The work around I used was a cost for crafting it and making it a one time use. That way you can stack them up to 100 or something and make them cost 10 pixels to craft

 

Yeah, that was my second idea but I was hoping I could make it where it removes pixels on interaction to make it take less steps. Maybe they will add scripting functionality for that later down the line.

 

Can you access the quest system with lua? Quests can take items. The in-game quests actually take & replace the items they require for completion (matter manipulator, cooked meat, etc). You could try playing around with that.

 

Good idea, but we don't have that level of control over quests yet. There's probably a way to do it that hasn't been shown to us yet, though.

 

I think the biggest problem you'll run into is (AFAIK) no way to generate random outputs.

If I'm wrong about that, I'd love to know.

 

You can have random outputs from objects, not recipes

 

check out Smiley's gambling chest mod

 

Could you base it on a forge and change what the button does?

 

The reason that's not feasible is there's no way to remove the pixels from the inventory

 

Interesting, I will give that a look (since I was looking for some source of random output).

Edit: Eurgh, yeah, okay, that isn't anywhere near feasible for what I was trying to do. Damn.

 

Perhaps you could make it like a crafting station-
You buy tickets with pixels from a merchant.
You spend tickets in front of the slot machine to get a 'wrapped prize', thus allowing you to use more at once for better/more prizes.
Using the wrapped prize unwraps it into a random item from a list of potential prizes (including more tickets).
Voila, you have an addicting gambling mechanism to waste your pixels on.

 

Yeah, looks like that is what I am going to have to do until they add more scripting functions. If they do anyway.

I guess now I just have to figure out the best way to get the loot out of the prize box in the least steps possible. I was thinking making it a throwable item that has an instant damageless projectile to drop it at your feet but I can't see a way to add scripts to those for the random loot gen.

The only other thing I can think of is a placable object that instantly smashes its self and and spews out your prize as soon as you place it on the ground. Seems a bit of an annoying way to have to do it though.

 

That's really the way to do it. Look at the ironbeacon. Instead of spawning the boss, spawn a random object. Here's what I did for random npc, monster, item.

I never tested it though so it probably won't work first try

 

Yeah. That seems like the best option. I didn't know you couldn't just have it be 'eaten' and replaced with an item.
Starbound's modding capabilities are shockingly limited at times...

Anyway, I'm excited for this mod! It looks like the perfect thing to satiate my latent gambling addiction!

 

What is that command, out of curiosity? I wanted to build something very similar to the Extractionator from Terraria, and that functionality would be invaluable.

 

That's still better than I'd hoped. I can use that to check for the valid items I'd like to use (namely, fine sand and gravel). It at least gives me a launching pad. Thanks a ton.