RE: massive collaborative mod

[blargue]

Hello all,

Just a thought for you prolific modder types: Is there any interest in one great big collaborative mod? It seems to me that what we all enjoy about mods is they make the game bigger and add new stuff. Why not throw it all into one big pot?

A few suggestions:

1. Not all of the mods would be compatible. The Babylon 5 mod just wouldn't jive all that well because it universe specific. That said the ships are beautiful and would still be excellent starting points for new races and ships, so long as they were modified enough that we didn't really feel like we were fighting Babylon 5 bad guys with the Enterprise. Stretching images and changing colors is a heck of a lot easier than building ships from scratch and all of the weapons would still be usable once the texts had been changed.

2. Whoever throws everything together would have free range to alter the items, ships etc for the purposes of game balance. It seems to me that only one person could be responsible for game balancing.

Any thoughts???

Blargue

[koppit]

one person could be responsible for balancing, but everyone's going to have to agree on it
I like the idea, who would want to lead the project?

[blargue]

Yup, everyone would have to agree on everything. I was thinking I might volunteer but I'm still on the fence about whether or not I have the time. I'm lousy at writing code and I'm an even worse artist, but I've been throwing modes together for a while and there isn't much to it. Balancing wouldn't be especially tough either. Either way, I think it could be fun.

[lexicat]

I have been making my own personal "micro-mods" (having to do with making Esmerelda far more annoying, varied and evil). I plug them into EWW, Added Content and "Vanilla" version on my set up, but I do not have any vision for producing a full scale mod.

A throw-it-all-together collective mod would be a way for me to share. (As would writing up a how-to on adding my own micro content to the forum).

The collaborative effort is a swell idea.

Cheerio,
Lexicat

[sgqwonkian]

Must admit, I think about this all the time. The only thing that's kept me from doing it already is the fear that in the process of mashing various mods together I would have the few remaining secrets in those mods spoiled for me.
EDIT: Well, that and time. I've got a lot on my plate right now.

As for the Star Trek / Bab 5 / etc stuff, I wouldn't mind seeing it in the mix, even without any visual changes. In fact, a green enterprise stretched 20% wider is just a green enterprise stretched 20% wider. You'd still see the enterprise when you look at it. I don't think you'd be able to fool yourself.

That said, maybe two super/uber/mashed mods are in order.
You could do one that only adds things that feel like they take place in the default Weird Worlds setting, nothing taken directly from other settings, and no fried green enterprises, either.

Then a second mod could be made that includes all the Bab 5 races, the Enterprise and Defiant, the starship Yamamoto, the cat guy from Red Dwarf, the Star-bellied sneech, etc.
That way you can choose whether to play ultimate expanded Weird Worlds, or to play crazy mish-mash post-modern reference-packed copyright-infringing ultimate expanded Weird Worlds.
EDIT: It's a lot more work to do two versions, though.

One of the nice benefits of making a supermod like this is that over-powered ships existing in certain mods would feel less broken if they showed up as occassional allies/quests instead of being player starting ship choices.
EDIT: No disrespect intended to anyone. Overpowered ships are fun from time to time.

There are some logistical issues. The game has maximums and limits. A quick tour through the documents will show how many quests, races, events, ships, etc, you can have in the game, and with all the mod content out their, I don't know how close we've come to those limits as an aggregate total.

And, of course, there's the downside of if there's something you detest about a particular mod, there's always the chance of it showing up in the supermod. That may be countered by the fact that everything will show up less often since there's far more for it to randomly generate, so the element you dislike only shows up every 5th (or 20th) game.
Hmm... that might solve some of the combo issues of the game, actually, because the more degenerate items of the main game will show up a lot less often.

Anyhow, I'm all for the concept, but have too many mod ideas of my own to find the time to mash everything together.

That said, for the benefit of whoever does do this:
I freely grant permission to use any of my code or images from Sgqwonkian Crisis, Drives'R'Us and Teeming With Life in a super-mod project.
Please include me in your credits or readme file if you do utilize any of that. Thanks!

[sgqwonkian]

There are some decision that would need to be made before someone could start on such a project. There's a lot to think about, but it sure could turn out cool.

Here's a few questions I think you'd need to answer before starting on a super-mod, or else you'd end up making a lot of extra work for yourself half-way in...

1) What player starting ships to use? The original 3? New ships from mods? Terran vessels only? Multiple races?

2) For races to which multiple mods have added new vessels (urluquai, zorg, etc), how often should each mod-based enemy ship show up in their fleets?
Do you make mixed fleets or themed fleets?
Is each fleet entry from a single mod, or do you mix them?
Do you swap out old ships for new ones in the fleet lists, or generate entirely new lists to evenly distribute mod content across the difficulties?

3) For systems that only appear on specific ships in mods: should they be set to generate randomly in the supermod, or only become available by having that ship in your flotilla?

4) Does everything go in? What, if anything, should be changed? If something in a mod is deemed to be overpowered/unbalanced, should it be:
deleted/skipped/ignored,
modified/downgraded/balanced,
or kept as-is?

5) Since you have a much larger quest pool to draw from, do you increase the number of quests per game, or keep the default numbers?
Do you do the same for allies? Enemy races?

[Mafaa]

I see a huge a problem with the quest limit, if i remember correctly the bayblon mod alone had filled up all the quests.

[blargue]

Some thoughts:

Yup, quests will be a problem. In my experience more complicated quests involving interactions with multiple races are especially horrible to work with when you're combining mods. So yeah, comprimises will have to be made on the quests.

Regarding balancing, stats would need to be changed in some instances. This is why I was suggesting that one person should be responsible for the balancing - so that one person's perspective could be used to alter everything where needed. The genius that you modders have put together isn't in the quantum of damage that weapons do, or the hp for a hull. It's in the neat particle effects on the weapons, the cool graphics and the good writing. Hell, I could make a impaler missile the deadliest weapon in the game by changing a couple of numbers and I fully admit to sucking at modding! That said, the overall flavour of the mods' hulls and weapons should remain intact. Uber pwerful enemies should still be terribly tough, crazy long range weapons should still have crazy long range, but all taking into consideration whatever else has been thrown into the pot.

I know what everyone is thinking: That's going to take forever to get consensus on everything. Totally agree, so some executive power will have to be vested in the balancing fellow. Otherwise this just won't work.

As for the starting ships - not really sure about that one. Good question! Might be a good idea to just have the original starting ships (they're fun to build up anyway) and have the other player ships included as allied ships that can be recruited or bought (if I ever get around to building that mod).

Did I miss anything?

Logistically, the way this would work is modders would pipe up and "yes, you can include my stuff in the massive collaborative mod." Then Mr. balance would throw it all together as best he could, taking into consideration what the contributing modders request for the way their content could be used. Their input ranging from total micromanagement to "sure, do what you want with it, just give me credit."

Blargue

[blargue]

So a good starting point for this would be for you modders out there to pipe up and indicate whether or not your content is up for insertion into a jumbo mod... We've got a few responses already in this thread but, by and large, the majority of the mod content out there isn't spoken for.

[lexicat]

What about contests? I notice that the Oolite mod community had a "Pimp My [Standard Issue Space Ship]" contest and that produced three or four really nice additions to the downloads.

Perhaps a discussion group could kick around ideas "we need a new race that are benign, yet annoying!", "what about a planet made entirely out of cheese?", "how about artwork rendered entirely in sepia tone?" or "let's put out requests for most spectacular shield effect graphics."

they can discuss the merits of fitting it into the _existing_ collaborative mod, including the need to squeeze out older features.

then they could vote, or they could put it to a popular vote.

this could take care of the technical/organizational issues, could permit contribution by folks not interested in process, sequential releases (with archives of older ones maintained) would permit an evolutionary perspective on the collaborative mod's game play, and contests would just be fun.

:}

of course there would have to be some sort of prize incentive . . . over at Oolite they had a tee shirt.

~Lexicat