WIP Weapon Reassembler 0.4beta

Since I have no better place to put it, some ideas for making the game "as it should be":
- Difficulty selector in the options
- Emoticon selector on a hotkey (preferably the middle mouse button)
- For Luna's sake, make upgrading EPP backpacks preserve their augments, not destroy them
- Make augments removable (There's a mod for this yay!)
- Implement cooking recipes searching by ingredient name
- Player effects description
- Weapon altmodes codex (probably will do it myself)
- Death tracker - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=732992186
- Construction materials trader (basic materials like sand, cobblestone, clay etc) - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=733536774
- Flashlight recipe revised Done by @Thundercraft

 

MelOzone It's been almost two weeks since you pushed anything to git, It has me a little worried because I'd rather not see such a great implementation of your idea die out

I bet your just busy with life but you know I just had to let you know I cared ~ have a great day ~

 

Actually I'm playing (as well as busy in the real life). I know It doesn't look like much now (at least visually), but it's already in a usable form.
Anyway, thanks for showing some care! I'm actually feeding on it, so I'm going to tinker with dyes this sunday (there are some changes on my local repo, I just don't push them to Git as they are half-done). This update is long over-dye.

PS. I also was a little busy debugging my emotes contribution to the MLP modpack.

 

Posted a small bump on GH. Won't mark it as an "update" since it's minor and purely graphical - but if anyone wants to try it out, you're welcome.
- New icon for phys damage (still doesn't work though)
- New icons for weapon parts.

A lil' teaser

 

oh hey thanks for the update/teaser MelOzone, and the new textures look great ~

 

MelOzone updated Weapon Reassembler (WIP) with a new update entry:

Elemental bump

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

A quick little teaser. Soon™. Soon you'll be a very dangerous clown you've always dreamed about.
(Damn, couldn't find the titular comics for the occasion)
Yep. There's a big chunk of work ahead involving composing some palettes. Because guns have only 5 color variations in vanilla but there's about 10 dyes (and there's no "teal" dye so you can say there's 4, not 5). I've made a quick "yellow" palette swap for the screen but I'm not quite happy with it. And it currently works in preview mode only.
But still, the colors. Yay.

...and that's where I would like to see users' feedback. If there are any folks using it (aside from me and my pals).
Are you using any dye mods? What are the most popular ones? Do you want any modded dyes to be usable here?
I promise nothing at this point, but it's probably possible to provide some compatibility on my side.

 

I just wanted you to know that there is a Gun Assembler remake (or something like that) already on the forum, is actually dead so maybe you can take some inspiration from his work or ideas, it was a very interesting mod and I know that you can expand it even further: http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/weapon-assembly.4277/ (I'm spanish so sorry in advance for any bad spelled word)

 

Thanks for lettimg me know! Maybe I'll grab a thing or two from it

 

Also, another dead mod: http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/weapon-reinforce-pod.4010, this mod makes your weapons stronger, maybe you can add a machine that does the same but the upgrade is random between the damage, the rate of fire and so on, I have too many dead mods that I want them to revive (Maybe this is the last one), so sorry in advance if I am annoying you

 

Improving weapons is already in my TODO list but it's not very high.
I analysed the old Gun Assembler mod I'd based mine upon. From one side of view, it's kinda hard to make good "improving" (especially by rebalancing individual weapon attributes) and keep the outcome balanced (i.e. not to make an overpowered version). From the other side, if the improving is not good enough, one may ask what's the point in having it at all. Additionally, I'm very lazy when it comes to making complex stuff, and I want the original Chuckles' random generator to still have a sense.
Because of all of the above, for now I think about simply increasing the weapon level. Originally the main point of my mod was "damn, I found a new shiny better gun but I like the old one more, what should I do?"
Increasing the level essentially generates the same weapon with better stats. It's still balanced since it's still vanilla weapon but of a higher "tier". Exploring remains useful for finding a weapon with different stat balance. I don't like Lineage-like systems of "sharpening" when you have a chance of breaking a weapon. Instead, to prevent a player from endlessly improving the same gun over and over, I'd like to make it comparatively costly (maybe using resources that have no purpose late-game, like ship modules or tech cards) and have an "improvement cap", so while you may "facelift" your favourite gun once or twice sooner or later you will still need to search for a replacement by doing quests or exploring. Seems fair to me.

But once again, that's currently not high in my priorities, and the concept is very WIP.

PS. No sweat about the language, English is not my native either

 

Version on GH has been updated to 0.3.5alpha. BUT. You don't need to update your local version. It's a test build, it only changes some visual parts. Functionality should stay the same.

Not-so-bad news: applying dyes turned out to be not as simple as I have expected. Well, nothing ever is.
Good news: seems like recoloring slowly takes the shape I want it to have.

If you want to try it out though, now it looks like this (once again, it currently only works in preview mode!):



How I see it:
1. All the palettes are kept in a single file (objects\wiring\ra_reassembler\ra_palette.weaponcolors). You can manually edit it (probably using Recolor Tool by C0bra5 to generate correct color swap instructions).
2. Every vanilla dye should have a minimum of 1 recolor variant (currently some dyes don't have it, and for some recolors are very much WIP). Number of variants for each dye is not strictly limited and can potentially be anything (although there can currently be some UI troubles if it's more than 9. 9 variants should be enough for everybody ).
3. Dye names are currently hardcoded. In the future, however, I plan to transfer them to the same palette file (it's already done in my local repo). So if there is a modded dye that follows general vanilla dye file structure (has dyeColorIndex) AND it is described in the palette file (and has recolor instructions assigned to it), it should work.
Long story short: if a modded dye follows vanilla descriptions, modding my palette file will allow its support. Yay.
4. As mentioned above, variants for each dye can range from 0 to, potentially, as much as you want. Although 0 is not much of a variant, it means the dye is supported code-wise but has no recolor instructions in the palette.
My palette file currently holds 1 variant for most dyes (with exception of white and some others that have 0). Red dye has 2 variants for testing purposes, and, yes, you can switch between them. My goal here is to provide several variants for each dye, so that you can pick the most matching (or those you like more, or add them in the palette if you want to).
5. To make UI more-or-less tidy, variant switchers (both indicators, blue in the picture, and buttons) are hidden by default and will show only when there is a dye in the approprite slot. So generally your window should not look like a Boeing cockpit control panel.
Sound and AltMode checkboxes had to move, and now they are not very convenient. I know about that and plan to do things about it in the final version. When it comes.
*sigh*


PS. A little behind-the-scenes look if anyone cares.
There were two potential approaches to the recoloring task.
1. Make a set of static (but extensible) palettes based on color swapping instructions
2. Make recoloring completely dynamic by changing hues through code
Second approach is more adaptable. Nevertheless I went with option 1. Firstly, there already are recoloring mods that use approach #2, and I see little reason to invent something similar. Secondly, and it is more important for me, static palettes can provide a more harmonic output that fits the game better. At the end of the day it's a matter of tastes, and I decided to choose the option that fits mine.

 

Finally. Don't repeat my mistakes. Tables in LUA are always passed BY REFERENCE.

 

MelOzone updated Weapon Reassembler (WIP) with a new update entry:

A Very Dangerous Clown

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

A little teaser on the way to 0.4. UI becomes slightly less horrible™.

I got kinda used to the black background, buuuuut this one is probably better. General rule: less text, more pictures. All of it should probably be more-or-less self-evident. Or revealed by trial and error.

PS. As a side effect, I've slightly extended the description of widgets used in Starbound panes (in-game windows). Maybe someone will find it useful.
PPS. Renaming working incorrectly (or, to be more precise, working only on assault rifles) is a known issue. Will be fixed.

 

It's good to hear you are sinking some time into the UI :L I always take pleasure in keeping up with your mod ~

 

Good news: I haven't forgotten about my little thing.
Bad news: My PC turned into a potato.

I've spent last week trying to make it work, to little avail. My diagnostic attempts suggest either a faulty videocard or the motherboard. Both cost a hefty sum.
What does that mean for users?
My upcoming 0.4 update is postponed. I would very much like to draft at least a theoretical date, but under current conditions I simply can't. I assume testing and replacing my hardware will take about 1 or 2 weeks, but only if I find a volunteer with a working desktop (and I currently have none).
Anyway, what I want to say is I'm not giving up the mod. The next weeks it can be somewhat problematic to contact me (if anyone wants to), but that's the way things are.

 

If it means anything i could gift you some of my spare hardware ~ i'll just DM you real quick

 

'kay if anyone wants to test it real quick, the pre-0.4 version is on github. The "assortment" of files, not the .pak file (didn't reassemble it yet).

- Renaming should work now (at last).
After throwing in a weapon renaming textbox defaults to its current name. If the name is the same as the old one OR empty it is ignored when reassembling (I don't like empty strings).
Be aware that hitting [Enter] while in the renaming textbox equals to pressing [Reassemble].
There's no [Rename] button any more. One button to rule them all.

- Recolor palette is (mostly) complete.
Now there are some options to choose from (at least 2 for each color except black - it still has 1). This is probably as close as I can get to completing it. Melee options are still empty since melees are not yet supported by the station.
I remind that reverting the weapon to vanilla state restores ALL of its settings, including colors. Dye remover is not yet supported. Next on the list.
Teal is present in the palette but unusable since there is no "teal" dye.

PS. I run my rig on a borrowed videocard, thanks to my pal Darw. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading this.

 

MelOzone updated Weapon Reassembler (WIP) with a new update entry:

A Very Dangerous Clown (take two)

Read the rest of this update entry...