Wishlist: Modding shortlist

[Edi]

1) What kind of special abilities? Right now armor is protection only and that's it. I suppose it might be possible to have #fx_wood, #fx_iron, #fx_leather and possibly also #fx_magic for armor, making the armor have some characteristics (e.g. leather armor not affected by Rust Mist etc), but I have no idea how viable this is and whether or not these effects could be unlocked for modding. I think some similar effects could also be available for weapons, but I have no hard data.

2) I can add that, but don't count on it happening.

3) Would more likely be a map command where a province is tagged nocastle. Can't see it doable otherwise, but JK would be the one to make that call.

[Xietor]

I think KO actually said in the Kingmaker thread he may be willing to do something to make tiered research paths feasible in a mod.

Instead of having just hard for spell paths 1-9, to allow setting a difficulty for each of the 9 paths individually.

Shields in game already have special abilities.

Vine Shield-entangle
Shield of Valor-missile protection
Charcoal Shield-fire shield

To my knowledge, there is no way i can create a new shield and give it a special ability.

[Endoperez]

Unfortunately, Xietor, I think all three of your suggestions go under the "may not be possible". Weapons can't have special abilities, just secondary weapon effects (which all deal some sort of damage).

[Edi]

Xietor said:
I think KO actually said in the Kingmaker thread he may be willing to do something to make tiered research paths feasible in a mod.

Instead of having just hard for spell paths 1-9, to allow setting a difficulty for each of the 9 paths individually.

Shields in game already have special abilities.

Vine Shield-entangle
Shield of Valor-missile protection
Charcoal Shield-fire shield

To my knowledge, there is no way i can create a new shield and give it a special ability.

I don't play in Kingmaker, so I would not know. As far as the second point, I don't know how many times I need to post it, but weapons and armor DO NOT have special abilities and CANNOT give them. ITEMS are what you are looking at. If ever there was a modding FAQ question, this one is it.

[rdonj]

Edi said:rdonj: That's already in the wishes shortlist.

Oops

[Xietor]

"but weapons and armor DO NOT have special abilities and CANNOT give them. ITEMS are what you are looking at. If ever there was a modding FAQ question, this one is it."

This is just semantics. Weapons do have special abilities, whether it is through a mechanism called 2ndary effects or whatever, it amounts to the same thing.

So shields could also have special effects, whether we want to make it through some mechanism or not does not really matter.

The only thing that matters is my hero has a sword that pierces armor, or a shield that entangles. The hoops i have to jump through to make it so are basically not known by 99 percent of the player base that does not mod.

All they know or care about is what their sword or shield does when they hit someone with it.

As to the research modification:

From KO in Kingmaker thread:

Hmm, I just realized that it will not be possible to make my suggested change.

However research can go on beyond lvl 9. So it should be possible to mod a bit.

Current cost lvls:

lvl
9: 1100 * researchcost
10: 1780
11: 3000
12: 4000
13: 5000

Thus it is possible to move all lvl 7+ up one or a few lvls (making lvl 7 empty)

Suggested fix: Difficult research
Lvl 2-> lvl 1
Lvl 7-> lvl 8
Lvl 8-> lvl 10
Lvl 9-> lvl 12

This leaves lvl 7, 9 and 11 empty.
7+8 costs (420+680)*researchcost
9+10 costs (1100+1780)*researchcost
11+12 costs (3000+4000)*researchcost

Might even work with standard research.

If these costs are unfit I can change them before the patch, but it will not be possible to make another grading without a more thorough fix.

[Endoperez]

Xietor said:
"but weapons and armor DO NOT have special abilities and CANNOT give them. ITEMS are what you are looking at. If ever there was a modding FAQ question, this one is it."

This is just semantics. Weapons do have special abilities, whether it is through a mechanism called 2ndary effects or whatever, it amounts to the same thing.

So shields could also have special effects, whether we want to make it through some mechanism or not does not really matter.

The only thing that matters is my hero has a sword that pierces armor, or a shield that entangles. The hoops i have to jump through to make it so are basically not known by 99 percent of the player base that does not mod.

All they know or care about is what their sword or shield does when they hit someone with it.

Magical items have two effects:

1) They (may) give the unit in question a new weapon or armor and
2) They (may) give the unit in question a new ability.

1 and 2 aren't related. Unit with a #weapon or #armor can't have 2.

Weapons can link to other weapons. Fire Brand (weapon) uses a secondary effect (weapon) that deals fire AoE damage.

There's also an item that gives 50% fire resistance and gives a unit a spesific weapon or armor. It could be Dragon Helmet. It could be Fire Brand. The only difference is whether the item gives the wielder armor XX or weapon YY.

Here's another example:
Jade Armor is a magical item that has the following properties:
- Quickness
- Jade Hauberk
- path requirements and construction level

Jade Hauberk is an armor that has the following properties:
- Protection 15
- enc 4
- def -1
- resource cost

[Edi]

Xietor said:
"but weapons and armor DO NOT have special abilities and CANNOT give them. ITEMS are what you are looking at. If ever there was a modding FAQ question, this one is it."

This is just semantics. Weapons do have special abilities, whether it is through a mechanism called 2ndary effects or whatever, it amounts to the same thing.

So shields could also have special effects, whether we want to make it through some mechanism or not does not really matter.

The only thing that matters is my hero has a sword that pierces armor, or a shield that entangles. The hoops i have to jump through to make it so are basically not known by 99 percent of the player base that does not mod.

All they know or care about is what their sword or shield does when they hit someone with it.

Look, I'm not going to say this again: Learn your goddamn modding mechanics. Weapon special effects such as small area fire are weapon secondaryeffects, as has been the case since forever. Weapons still do not grant fire resistance, darkvision, quickness, bloodvengeance or anything else beyond what is moddable for the weapon object. That is not going to change.

Armor works in exactly the same way, except it does not have ANY secondaryeffects at all. No entangle, no fireshield, nothing at all. So that would require more new mechanics to be coded into the game, and every bleeding single one of these is doable by modding the MONSTER to give it those special resistances, inherent fire shield etc. There just does not happen to be an entangleshield mechanic available for creatures, though I'm not certain whether one could be added.

ITEMS can grant resistance etc etc and have all kinds of effects active on them (witness the ITEM charcoal shield, vine shield etc) and all sorts of things are already on the ITEM modding shortlist. If they happen there, great. If not, we're out of luck.

Now do you understand the differences and why they are NOT just semantics? Unlocking existing stuff is far, far easier than coding in new mechanics from scratch, new mechanics that are liable to break something else in the process, I might add.

A far easier solution is for me to add the subject matter of this post into the new modding guide in the weapons and armor section as well as some more explanatory stuff to the item modding section.

There is also the non-trivial problem that even if this new mechanic of merging item modding to weapons and armor were even remotely feasible, what about all the magic weapons and armor already in the armor and weapons lists? Should KO and JK go back and retroactively change all of those to match the new mechanics? Do you have any idea just how much of a headache making everything backward compatible would be?

[Xietor]

Edi,

I have no idea how hard anything is to code. In fact I have never written a program in my life. And that is why it is a mod request or wish. If it cannot be easily implemented, then it cannot be.


/peace.

[NTJedi]

Edi said:

NTJedi: I'll ask The deathmatch is IIRC something the devs consider a fun feature and if that is the case, getting that command is unlikely.

The death match is a fun feature for games without AI opponents. Once an experienced gamer watches many AI pretenders killing each other every game it becomes a sad feature.


Thanks for checking into getting this added.