RE: massive collaborative mod

[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

[Ace_Garp]

That's a great idea.
I used to play Oolite for a while, but it got boring.
OK - I just wasn't very good at it, and most of Elite's charm now lies in nostagia)
A mod discussion group would be good too.
Two people may have convergent ideas that would be far better off put together.
I'm sure there are a lot of modders who have some small bits done, but not enough (in their eyes) to release a full mod.

[Mafaa]

Its seems we've hit a new barrier (see weird worlds v1.01) apparently you can have only so many races.

[Phlagm]

It's not entirely out of the question that I've just cocked something up somewhere, but I can't figure out what it could possibly be. I also cant figure out why rearranging races in the game.ini file makes them show up or not. I'm assuming ones near the top show up in the game more (hence pirates ALWAYS seem to be there). But then this doesn't seem to be true for races in the simulator. I mean it may just boil down to a pseudo random generator never generating certain numbers, but who knows. I tried moving all the races to the bottom that only appear when forced onto the map: Terrans, Kawangi, etc. But then people started getting Muktians and Zorg at Hope. Since I put Terrans back at the top, I haven't heard of that problem again.

Maybe if I keep adding races I'll hit a sweet spot where the generator works again..if it even is that.

[sgqwonkian]

Oh, so you'd actually moved Terrans down on the list, Phlagm? I hadn't realized that. A quote from the Modmaker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"Add the filename of your race (pirate) somewhere after Terran (The Player's race must always be first on the list, and we're keeping the player as a Terran). Now the new race will be loaded when you run the mod..."

So absolutely, there's significance to the first Race listed. I'm just uncertain to what degree order matters after that.

Perhaps the system isn't "grab x at random" maybe it's something along the lines of "50% chance to get the first one, if not, skip down a line. repeat."

I note that in the default version the mainquest-only races are at the end of the list.

[Phlagm]

Ah, well I fixed that problem, as I deduced that was responsible for the flaky behavior. I did move all the mainquest races down, but still the cambrians weren't loading. I guess the weird thing is that in the intro screen, it loads guys at the end like mad. But as it currently is, it'll load Ravians and corrupted tan ru and gathans and everyone else, but no sphyrna, but before they were loading constantly. It boggles the mind

[sgqwonkian]

Swapping the following post to this thread where it may be more appropriate. I'll add to it the statement that the A & B thing could be done by just posting an alternate game.ini file, you wouldn't need an entire seperate mod.

Originally posted to another thread:
"I can't find the thread on your race non-randomization issues. Was it just in this thread? If so, you might want to post it as a seperate thread to lure Fingers into answering your questions.

In the meantime, here's my thoughts of a possible (admittedly kludgy) work-around for the non-randomized race issues you've been having:
You could publish alternate versions: 1.1A and 1.1B, for example. Make them identical, except for the order of certain entries in the game.ini file. Always make your changes to the A version, and then every so often generate a new B by taking the latest A and swapping around the order of a couple races.
Kind of annoying, I know, but it's at least a possible temporary solution until Fingers notices these threads and can post an explanation of what's happening and why."

[mantari]

This idea is hotttt. I was hoping someone would make a massive collaboration mod. There are a lot of small elements in certain mods that I really liked and wished I could pull them all together.

[mantari]

Lord_Vader said:In my opinion, no changes should be made to ships from the Weird Worlds universe, no matter how crazy they are. I.e., those Cambrian Euryipterid things should stay as they are, the Shriek Dreadnaughts should stay the same, etc. The majority of those massive super-ships from Babylon 5 or Star Blazers mods should be changed, but in my opinion, we should keep SOME of them, like the battlecrab, just to add in some really challenging opponents.

What do you mean I can't have a Sgqwonkian RetreatShip AND Babylon 5 both inside of my player's armada?

I've been working towards my own mashup. Don't let that stop anyone from doing the same, please! Title is -- Weird Worlds: Rebooted

My particular bent will be to take the individual items that I like from existing mods and mash them together according to my own design. So context will likely be wiped out (no Sgqwonkain in crisis, but perhaps a RetreatShip ally). Also more surprises for jaded players who have learned things, like that keeping Babulon's Mantle could never ever possibly be a liability.

I am working on trying to keep balance. I also see what was done in Drives R Us with the keys to limit the number of number of superweapons that a player could have.

I'd love to have a mirror universe where you can select one 'bad guy' (or a 'good guy' and a 'neutral guy') at the start of the game, but I think the quests would become too complex to handle, with everything else I'm throwing at it.

Yes, the random number generator is going to be a core feature. Unfortunately, that's going to limit what I can take from the Teeming With Life mod. But it should allow me to throw randomness where needed, and also to come up with some extremely rare happenings.

I just wish some more of the questing bugs were cleaned up.

[clomaka]

I've actually tried combining various mods with good results, but the main thing i found is that with a bunch of quests and items for the game to randomly pick from, the chances of having a quest and a quest item on the map seriously goes down. Which, ironically, makes it less fun to play :\.