[mod] UI Mod

Discussion in 'Mod Discussions' started by oxide246, June 9, 2013.

  1. oxide246

    oxide246 Active Member

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    Hey Everyone,

    I am a web developer by profession, and when I heard that PA would be using Coherent UI, effectively making the UI a web browser I got very excited! :)

    I was curious to see if the UI would render experimental webgl features.. and sure enough it does!

    Screenshot
    Screenshot

    Files
    Zip File

    Just copy the folder into your Planetary Annihilation install directory and merge/replace any files it asks you to. If you don't like it or it breaks something, you can click the "VerifyFiles" button in the PALauncher to revert your game back to normal.

    Cheers,
  2. fprobber

    fprobber New Member

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    I can only imagine the kinds of awesome UI mods that will come out. I already looked at the files myself yesterday, but I'm having problems coding a HTML UI without having access to Chrome's dev tools or Firebug. I hope there will at least be some kind of JS console at some point.
  3. oxide246

    oxide246 Active Member

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    Yeah, not having any debug tools did make it quite difficult. I ended up dumping debug into a div on the page as a work around. I did notice that in some of the files there were some console.log's being done. So maybe the Uber staff have a method for viewing this.
  4. Raevn

    Raevn Moderator Alumni

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  5. DeadMG

    DeadMG Member

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    It's disabled for the UI, at least right now. Perhaps the Uber internal builds have it enabled.
  6. shadowmint

    shadowmint New Member

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    Modding the game might not be the best idea, honestly.

    When you're playing, you're submitting usage stats to Uber on how the game runs, where it crashes, etc. I'm sure.

    If you mod the engine you might start generating a bunch of false positives about the mod'd version of the game, especially if multiple people are using the same mod so it doesn't de-sync and the game actually runs.

    Like, sure, play with it, but I'm not 100% certain spreading mods to people around is a totally great idea...
  7. iampetard

    iampetard Active Member

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    Well isn't an UI mod just an UI mod? I don't see how can it hurt the actual game development. But I agree with you, some more serious (game changing) mods shouldn't be going public at least until Beta.
  8. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    Change of tune there shadowmint. Weren't you just telling me not to curb people's enthusiasm at all, hmm?
    ;)
  9. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    You are completely wrong here. First fact there is no de-sync in PA because it's client-server game. No gameplay/logic can be changed on client-side. If you send some wrong command to server it's just won't do that.

    Second fact is UI is just bunch of HTML/JS/CSS files, like pages of this forum. So if you edit them in your browser you don't change anything on server. If you changed it and crash UI (which isn't possible because webkit is really stable) it's a good thing because we're in alpha, it's our duty to find all possible ways to crash it. ;)
  10. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    There is no reason to limit modding. Why? Because there is possibility that Uber may get a good ideas for game from the community.

    Uber got extremely talented and experienced developers, but there isn't 100 or 200 developers and there is limited time they might work on game. So developers usually just can't spend as much time to some small specific details as modders can.

    But anyway there is no server, so modding is already extremely limited. There is no reason to add extra limitations. ;)
  11. iampetard

    iampetard Active Member

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    This forum section isn't public, if you know what I mean :p
  12. shadowmint

    shadowmint New Member

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    Yeah, so long as you dont edit the json files in the units folder. I bet you that'll cause it to desync.

    Maybe~ :)
  13. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    Nope, i don't get it. :?
  14. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    There is no way to desync client-server game, because there is no sync. You may do anything you want on your client and the worst that could happen your client crashed.

    If you find any way to crash/cheat/manipulate the server it's something that should be fixed and that is high priority bug for Uber. It's like bug when you can blow up enemy commander. ;)

    So if you find the way to make server crashed it's a good thing, not bad. It's what's testing about.
  15. DeadMG

    DeadMG Member

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    To some extent ssx is right. They don't want the thing from SupCom where you could mod the UI to show you all the enemy's units and positions and such. If modding breaks the game, we should find out about it. If you can hack the game, we should find out about it. In fact, I think that in this area, just like all others, we should be as intentionally malicious as possible.
  16. ezerek

    ezerek New Member

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    Purely visual UI Mods should have very little negative effects on stability. The UI runs in a sandbox on a separate thread from the client application.
  17. Gorbles

    Gorbles Post Master General

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    UI modding is perfectly safe, considering it's all rendered client-side and separate of the game instance (as mentioned above).

    That said, I agree with the notion that we should push things to their extremes to find out what breaks and what doesn't.

    Where do I know your name from. I even know your Steam page, though you're not a friend. THIS IS WEIRDING ME OUT.

    /derail
  18. veta

    veta Active Member

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