Personally, I am interested in developing a mod focused on limited resources with a focus on the use and reuse of such resources. But before I delve myself into actually developing, I'd wish to get some info about how much is possible with PA's modding. Obviously, Id need to know whether I can place/control the resources on a planet and put a limit on it somehow. As far as units and abilities, whether it is similar to TA: when units die they turn into scrap ready to be reclaimed & the ability to reclaim alive units? (if possible more advanced, by giving it a chance for the mass of the unit to be annihilated, and a chance to leave some scrap behind) In addition, whether we can change what unit types are available, how much resources they cost (both mass and energy) to make and also maintain (i.e. alive units cost energy and a lack of energy will mean u cant build more units or even units becoming deactivated). On top of that, whether we can alter how units are created. My vision is to create units directly from scrap that lies on the field: an engineer stands next to a scrap and alters it directly into unit or constructs a unit directly next to it (imagine an engineer holding one 'arm' towards the scrap, and its other 'arm' into another direction where the unit is constructed). A nice addition to this is to have the ability to transport units but also scrap/resources. I believe this should be possible if the latter can be handled as if it were a unit and become loaded into a ship. But the difficulty perhaps lies in 'ownership' of the scrap/resources, as it should remain neutral yet be able to get 'picked up' and 'transported'. Finally, whether there is missile/laser collision detection as in TA. I have asked this before in a different thread and it was confirmed that it will be in PA. But has it been introduced? (Needless to say, all of this should be done through a server mod.) If all this is possible, I believe my ideas for the mod can be completely realized and I will get into it asap.
I'd like to know as well, can I even implement custom units into the game? I'd enjoy testing out my megabot, as well as my own balance patch.
Nothing is possible with server mods right now, as they are not yet available. For what will be possible here is the most recent speculation: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/coming-up-soon-server-mods.59738/ I'd personally hope that the stuff you describe will be possible, but maybe not in the very first iteration of server modding. We'll see.
A couple of bits you mentioned in OP stood out to me. Transportation of multiple units / scrap is very difficult to do - it's one of the reasons Uber hasn't made a transport unit a la those that were in supcom. Chargrove has alluded to the fact that modding the economy is going to be quite difficult because they need to find a way to expose the necessary hooks without crippling performance on the way. But yeah, read the thread Cola linked to in full, it has a LOT of really useful and detailed information.
Actually multiple unit transports are as simple as changing one value in the code. (That is only if you don't mind units stacking into each other, you could easily make a floating box that could hide units on the interior.)
Did I missread something or overlooked something? Writing your own economy system is trivial (and not really that computational expensive) if only you have simple hooks that allow you to tell what a player currently can build and what they currently are building. Sure you need some info on the current state of the game, but PA could provide the required events to the js layer for sure. Can't see the performance issue there.
I'm on mobile ATM, but seem to recall gaining that impression from something Chargrove wrote in the other thread.
I'd guess it is only part of the things that need a bit thinking and then a bit of work from Uber to put the right hooks in place. But it is far away from the FOW modding that was talked about that can indeed create some performance issues.
Yep, economy should be as simple as changing some values as well, changing the build arm for each respective fab, factory, comm, metal ectravot
