Modabillity

[Comrade]

How configurable will Xenonauts 2 be? I'm asking because Xenonauts 1 had very accessible numbers and code so I could tweak my soldiers and enemies into what I wanted.

 

Mostly asking because my favorite thing to do in Xenonauts 1 was to play with my soldier's stats massively buffed so I wouldn't have to "train" them.

[TrashMan]

Yes. How moddable a game is is a big thing. It extends the lifetime and appeal of a game.

Also, allows people to tweak actual gameplay (and mechanics to a point) to their liking. To set new limits, conditions.

 

For example - adding weapons that have requirements to be equipped (like power armor). Changing the tech tree. Etc...

[Alienkiller]

There will come a modability, after the Game is stable enough in Early Access or in Final Version. Then you can Mod it if you have the feeling there is more Potential the Dev´s haven´t seen. That will be first (if you have luck) at the Middle or End of that year. Before don´t think about it.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Alienkiller

[Max_Caine]

It's possible to mod a fair bit of the game right now. You need a decent editor (I use Notepad++) and you need some kind of tool to turn the compact version of JSON files into something readable (I use the JSformat plugin for Notepad++). The JSON files control most of the data so there's a lot you can play about with. 

[Chris]

The game is currently a lot less moddable than Xenonauts 1, but when the game ships it'll hopefully have moddability levels somewhere closer to that of X1 (the fact we're using Unity means the game is going to be a bit less moddable compared to our previous engine, I suspect).

I suspect in the long term the game might allow much more varied modding (although this might require some assistance from Community Edition volunteers), because the code of the game is much better organised into chunks that can be attached to different things. For example, the idea of something granting +10HP .... in X2 it's much easier to attach that code to almost anything, so you can set a suit of armour to grant +10HP, or a weapon to grant +10HP, or a specific medal to grant +10HP when a soldier earns it, or maybe a base building that grants all soldiers +10HP.

In the first Xenonauts the code was much less modular, but the lack of all this flexibility made it simpler and easier to mod the stuff that was available to mod. So I think with some practice and assistance from the Community Edition team (in terms of helping us build modding tools), modders might be able to make more interesting stuff than they did in X1. But it'll be harder to do simple things.

[drages]

As the devs know hwo important nodding for everyone and they code it with this mind set, I don't have any doubt about it. 

 

[TrashMan]

On ‎2‎/‎6‎/‎2020 at 10:39 PM, Alienkiller said:

There will come a modability, after the Game is stable enough in Early Access or in Final Version. Then you can Mod it if you have the feeling there is more Potential the Dev´s haven´t seen. That will be first (if you have luck) at the Middle or End of that year. Before don´t think about it.

You don't make a game and make it moddable after, you create the game, the data and file structures, the classes, the game logic WITH modding in mind from day 1. Anything else is backwards and promises a world of hurt an a whole lot more work.

[Chris]

23 hours ago, TrashMan said:

You don't make a game and make it moddable after, you create the game, the data and file structures, the classes, the game logic WITH modding in mind from day 1. Anything else is backwards and promises a world of hurt an a whole lot more work.

An admirable principle but not true in practice at all; modern game engines let you edit things on the fly while the game is running in a way that older engines did not which is a far more efficient method of development. Modders aren't going to have access to the full suite of professional tools that allow us to do that (nor want to fill their computer up with it all), which is why things get externalised later as text files that can be edited by hand ... or, more likely, a simple editor gets written to allow modders to change the game-relevent values in the files once you know what they all are.

Doing it your way round involves knowing exactly how everything in the entire game will work at the end of the end of the project before you've even started work; it's certainly not the optimal way to work in modern video game design.