Tue Nov 30, 2004 6:23 am
A few modding ideas/facts for the folks
Ahoy!
This is a colleciton of more or less old ideas that i (or someone else) either made for FL or that were on my endless "todo" lists.
Most of these require advanced modding skills, definately nothing for newbie modders. They usually play around with various features of FL that can be used/abused for completely different things. I have experimented and worked together with many people, some of them tested these ideas.
Special thanks to Rimshot and pSYCHO for their help with the "proof of concept" works for Infinity.
Train cargopods
Had this idea a long time ago (1 year?), Chips helped a bit to make it perfect. Excelcia 2.2 had a working prototype in the code (it wasnt available for use, but it DID work very well).
The task was to create various equippable cargopods that can be damaged, repaired, destroyed, traded with and so on. A good alternate to the huge amounts of cargo that most mods add to these ships.
The key is to define a new shield (could be basically anything - thruster, weapon, ... but shields suits best for this - tnx to Chips for this) - give it also an unused shield class so only the trains can buy the pods. Define the shields with zero stats - i.e. no shield capacity, no regeneration, no energy use, but give it a HUGE volume so no ship can carry it in its hold (like 100000000000)
Give it a reasonable amount of hitpoints and the "look" of a cargopod. Copy the archetype and material references form the existing cargopods.
Now you can create a completely new "pod" market - and have 2 different types of "goods" to trade with. The combination of pods and the known commodities can create interesting and very versatile routes for traders.
For the "pod" market you need to be aware that items - unlike commodities - have a lower resale value, so you might need to increase the price at the destination.
NPC kill display in HUD
This was meant to be a feature for Infinity. The idea was to get rid of the nano/batt usage (various reasons - unrealistic instant repair, too long fights, ships too regenerating, NPC nano/batt usage different from player nano/batt usage, ...). Anyway, we wanted to get rid of them and use it as something completely different.
The batt/nano icons would be replaced with small ships, one blue and one red one (could be anything).
These would display the current confirmed "kills" by the player - for legal (blue) and criminal (red) factions.
NPC ships would be given each one nano or batt, depending on the faction. These would NOT repair the ship or its shields as the repair stats would be nullified. In combination with the player lootdrop it would be possible for players to "steal" other's kills - or better bounties, whatever... BUT the players would be able to "delete" the record of these kills by using the "nanos"/"batts" - it wouldnt heal them but the kills would vanish.
Nice lil addon feature for RPG servers that dislike the initial nano/batt concepts of FL.
Alternative mining
First a LOT of thanks to pSYCHO for making a small proof of concept mod for this.
Its about creating alternative mining methods by using a custom faction, ships and encounters. The idea is simple - make a new ship that uses one of the asteroid archetypes (modified with additional ship hardpoints) - assign them to a faction that is always neutral and never gets mad at you - give them engines that dont have speed larger than 2, give them th agility of a biiiig battleship, assign a few commodities that can be specified as "raw material", add player lootdrop. WIth a new custom formation that spreads the astreoids a bit more this is a very nice small mining feature. The asteroids can be given a custom shield that only lets the shots of "mining guns/beams" penetrate the asteroid surface (i.e. the shield) - this would make the use of a mining ship very nice in a RP environment.
Alternative mining - part 2
Also a concept for Ininity - based on the idea Pitt (from Excelcia) had - make a simple, very lowdamage instantexploding mine that is powerful enough to just kill all small dynamical asteroids within 300m distance.
Give it a long reload time and its useless in combat, but the dream of every miner.
Both this and the other mining concept were intended to use for the mining vessels on Infinity.
Some interesting value limits
Ammolimit - encountered no real limit - Excelcia had 200000 and it worked perfectly.
System size limit - tnx to Rimshot - the problems when flying far away from the center are bound to the map settings. The zoom factor of the map is the key. Some modders noticed that the ships start "shaking" when flying away pretty far. That always happened when they got near the map edges.
Rimshot made a system with 1M diameter and it worked well !
Feel free to use these things whereever you want. Give credit if you want but im not picky with this.
I wont make these but i think some are nice ideas that could make some cool mods even better or more interesting.
will post more if things come into my mind. i know i had more but cant remember them right now.
greets,
Fjord
This is a colleciton of more or less old ideas that i (or someone else) either made for FL or that were on my endless "todo" lists.
Most of these require advanced modding skills, definately nothing for newbie modders. They usually play around with various features of FL that can be used/abused for completely different things. I have experimented and worked together with many people, some of them tested these ideas.
Special thanks to Rimshot and pSYCHO for their help with the "proof of concept" works for Infinity.
Train cargopods
Had this idea a long time ago (1 year?), Chips helped a bit to make it perfect. Excelcia 2.2 had a working prototype in the code (it wasnt available for use, but it DID work very well).
The task was to create various equippable cargopods that can be damaged, repaired, destroyed, traded with and so on. A good alternate to the huge amounts of cargo that most mods add to these ships.
The key is to define a new shield (could be basically anything - thruster, weapon, ... but shields suits best for this - tnx to Chips for this) - give it also an unused shield class so only the trains can buy the pods. Define the shields with zero stats - i.e. no shield capacity, no regeneration, no energy use, but give it a HUGE volume so no ship can carry it in its hold (like 100000000000)
Give it a reasonable amount of hitpoints and the "look" of a cargopod. Copy the archetype and material references form the existing cargopods.
Now you can create a completely new "pod" market - and have 2 different types of "goods" to trade with. The combination of pods and the known commodities can create interesting and very versatile routes for traders.
For the "pod" market you need to be aware that items - unlike commodities - have a lower resale value, so you might need to increase the price at the destination.
NPC kill display in HUD
This was meant to be a feature for Infinity. The idea was to get rid of the nano/batt usage (various reasons - unrealistic instant repair, too long fights, ships too regenerating, NPC nano/batt usage different from player nano/batt usage, ...). Anyway, we wanted to get rid of them and use it as something completely different.
The batt/nano icons would be replaced with small ships, one blue and one red one (could be anything).
These would display the current confirmed "kills" by the player - for legal (blue) and criminal (red) factions.
NPC ships would be given each one nano or batt, depending on the faction. These would NOT repair the ship or its shields as the repair stats would be nullified. In combination with the player lootdrop it would be possible for players to "steal" other's kills - or better bounties, whatever... BUT the players would be able to "delete" the record of these kills by using the "nanos"/"batts" - it wouldnt heal them but the kills would vanish.
Nice lil addon feature for RPG servers that dislike the initial nano/batt concepts of FL.
Alternative mining
First a LOT of thanks to pSYCHO for making a small proof of concept mod for this.
Its about creating alternative mining methods by using a custom faction, ships and encounters. The idea is simple - make a new ship that uses one of the asteroid archetypes (modified with additional ship hardpoints) - assign them to a faction that is always neutral and never gets mad at you - give them engines that dont have speed larger than 2, give them th agility of a biiiig battleship, assign a few commodities that can be specified as "raw material", add player lootdrop. WIth a new custom formation that spreads the astreoids a bit more this is a very nice small mining feature. The asteroids can be given a custom shield that only lets the shots of "mining guns/beams" penetrate the asteroid surface (i.e. the shield) - this would make the use of a mining ship very nice in a RP environment.
Alternative mining - part 2
Also a concept for Ininity - based on the idea Pitt (from Excelcia) had - make a simple, very lowdamage instantexploding mine that is powerful enough to just kill all small dynamical asteroids within 300m distance.
Give it a long reload time and its useless in combat, but the dream of every miner.
Both this and the other mining concept were intended to use for the mining vessels on Infinity.
Some interesting value limits
Ammolimit - encountered no real limit - Excelcia had 200000 and it worked perfectly.
System size limit - tnx to Rimshot - the problems when flying far away from the center are bound to the map settings. The zoom factor of the map is the key. Some modders noticed that the ships start "shaking" when flying away pretty far. That always happened when they got near the map edges.
Rimshot made a system with 1M diameter and it worked well !
Feel free to use these things whereever you want. Give credit if you want but im not picky with this.
I wont make these but i think some are nice ideas that could make some cool mods even better or more interesting.
will post more if things come into my mind. i know i had more but cant remember them right now.
greets,
Fjord
