What modding functionality would you need to make a campaign

OK so I have seen a few people wanting to write traditional single player campaigns for PA (and even though Galactic War sounds great, I would enjoy playing an old school RTS campaign, even if it is just some dude's mod). And modding functionality has been promised since the get go on kickstarter. However PA looks like it is primarily going to be designed as a multiplayer game based around open ended matches. This means that the game can be built with a set of tools that may not include the odd tools you'd need to make a traditional single player mission.

And even if you have no interest n a story driven single player experience, having a bigger tool-set will always get you better mods no matter what people are building. If someone wants to make a multiplayer only interplanetary ultimate frisbee mod then having event listeners and detection zones on the map is going to make programming it a lot easier.

So what modding functionality do we need that isn't required to build regular old PA?

Tools you'll absolutely need

Event Listeners
Or triggers or whatever you want to call them. Basically a way to make a bit of code wait to execute until some specific event happens in the game. "Give player_x n mass whenever they blow up y enemy naval units", "Play Tutorial01.ogg when player_2 builds 5 engineers"

Map Zones
This ties back to the event listeners. You need to be able to designate a bit of the map in the map editor as being it's own discreet area, so that you can detect when stuff happens on a particular part of the map. "Run this bit of code when more than 5 bombers get within this rectangle on the map."

Tech Tree Locking (and unlocking)
A lot of RTS campaigns start off only allowing the player build a few different kinds of things, and then slowly unlock the tech tree over the course of the game. I am not sure if this is absolutely necessary, but everyone seems to be doing it, so it must be a good idea.

Adding or Removing Things Mid Game
I can't imagine this being used in the regular game but there needs to be a way to add or remove things in a game in progress. So when a player blows up a story specific building you could run some code that blows up all the enemy air units. Or when someone reaches a checkpoint you could load in a new planet from an external map file and put it in orbit in the current solar system.

Popping Up Text, Images, Video, and Audio
Go back and play SupCom, every time an NPC talks to you they pop up a video of them talking, the audio of what they are saying, and text of what they are saying.

Placing buildings and units in the map editor
In the map editor you are going to need to be able to plop down units and buildigns, and then assign them ownership to the individual player slots that you are going to fill with AI or the actual player.

I brought up an "Editor Mode" in this thread, basically a really cheap way to let people place buildings and units.
viewtopic.php?p=659239#p659239

Tools that'd be nice to have

SupCom style map hiding
One of the most amazing things SupCom did that i have never seen in another RTS was they way you'd start off on a small map surrounded by the blacked out larger map. Then as you hit checkpoints the rest of the map would open up chunks at a time. it was really unique and could make for some really long missions, and I have no idea how you'd do it in space. Maybe with camera restriction? You could have a player start on a moon, and even though you can clearly see the planet the moon is around you can't zoom out enough or get your camera down there. And all the content on the planet stays frozen until you hit whatever checkpoint that unlocks it.

On The Fly AI Tweaking
For example you could change an AI's behavior from turtling to aggressive part way through a mission, or change their difficulty when a given trigger happens.

Briefing Debriefing screens
In the "Game lobby" you could have NPCs talking to one another off to the side while a video plays, and during the summary after you beat the mission there could also be audio video playing.

Mission Chaining
I guess you could use the old honor code, "Please don't load mission 5 until you beat mission 4". But it'd be nice to be able to write a bit of code that tells the game to go ahead and launch the next mission. And if you were clever with you if else statements you could write a branching decision based campaign.

Externally Saved Variables
I'd be nice to set a variable in one level and then get it in a later level. So early in the game you could be asked to make a decision, and then later on down the road (after loading a different map) you could open up whatever save game file you have for all your global variables to see what decision they made a while ago.

EDIT: depending on how much their in game html based UI will let you run, you may be able to do something like this already.
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_webstorage.asp

you could just write something like
localStorage.playerChoice = 5;
depending on what someone does and then pull it up later. Granted this would not keep track of different save games.

So this was all I could think off off the top of my head. If you have some other suggestions, or just some modding capability that you absolutely want to make sure gets into the final API, post away.

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

Good post, I see nothing to add.
Perhaps another post could be made about the galactic war metagame moddability.
It's really a place where really good ideas could grow.

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

thank you zachb i also want some singlepayer ,mods maybe if i get my brain right i can write a story or mission templates( if i remember what mean with that)

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

Yeah but the problem is none of us really know exactly what galactic war is going to be like. I am picturing a giant world map like what you see in the later Dawn Of War expansions. Or maybe something similar to the clan warfare multiplayer mode in Shogun 2 Total War.

It's pretty easy to conceptualize the base game "TA but on multiple planets" which is why a lot of the old TA SC modding community has started planning stuff before the game is made.

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

I agree with this list of features, and would like to add one more

the ability to hook up even-driven video pop-ups. This was a major plot delivery method in the CNC Red Alert games, your mini-map would go static and then show the live action/shitty 3d videos of your fellow commanders assesing the situation and giving you orders.

this would add personality to story driven mods



Also, what about story-based multiplayer games? You set up the solar system and a few factions, each one with different units, and each player chooses one and plays through a story of stellar conquest, which includes all the event driven triggers you'd expect from a single player story mod

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

Krogath mission go?

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

I had assumed that this would be in the final PA release, but maybe not.

We'll need a map editor that lets you build your own landscape, or at the very least place buildings and units on an already generated map.

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

I would really like if that is included,
cause making these things easier for you guys,
means motivating more people to do these things
and therefore I will have lots lots of fun playing it
and I wanted to tell you that before.

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

I approve of Uber not planning a 'story', but I'd love to see the possibility to have one.

It's not everyday you find a game which lets you smash planets. I imagine a story-driven galactic apocalypse would work quite well alongside it.

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

things we could use for making a campaign
Camera locking and triggered moving for cutscenes inside the mission would be nice
and a way to make units do specific things like make unit x walk to area y when trigger z is triggerd or make unit x blow up unit y when z is triggered and all sorts of stuff along those lines
and placing units and buildings through triggers on the map (so not just adding stuff beforehand) also if this is possible you don't really need an editor where you can place buildings and units anymore. just use a map initiation trigger and place buildings and units then
and maybe an easy way to add non standard units to single maps so that you don't actually have to mod all the gamefiles or however that will work. so you can have a campaign where your commander is on a quest to find the 100m tall super titan chassis that will make him a god and his enemies weep :twisted:
I could probably think of a few more things but I think it's enough for now ^^

Yellow

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

Pretty much everything in your list is in our design goals. We are committed to making it possible to build a single player campaign. More on this soon.

Re: What modding functionality would you need to make a camp

oh thanks,

yeah I was just brainstorming trying to think of what people would need.