Modding Manifesto!

[Teleros]

[quote=“SteveAdamo, post:15, topic:5281”]
unless i’ve missed your meaning (entirely possible), this is currently available[/quote]
No that was my point - it’s already promised / implemented. As far as “ease of modding” issues are concerned, I really don’t think Stonehearth has many issues at all. Most of the stuff in this thread seems to me to be more along the lines of modding capabilities rather than quality of life.

@RepeatPan

Won’t happen, is already in place (I think? wasn’t that added in r34? It’s breaking my console so I had to turn it off…), is already possible.

Hmm. Another thread I’ve seen here indicated that Radiant would (might?) stop obfuscating their code etc once the game was nearer release:

http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/why-is-stonehearth-still-using-luac-files/

[quote=“RepeatPan, post:16, topic:5281”]GMod introduced that feature and shortly after made it possible to opt-out.
…
Personally, I don’t think it’s achievable nor desirable. It’s rarely worth the hassle in real development. I can’t imagine it work here, the architecture is too… open. Too dynamical.[/quote]
Yeah; like I said it’s not a big deal for me personally, my point was that it would be a quality of life improvement. I can imagine that for a lot of minor things (graphic tests anyone?) it would come in handy, less so for more complicated stuff. Basically just throwing this point out there, but not expecting anything to come of it.

@RepeatPan

Render targets have little to do with Portal, they were present in HL2 already. I guess they’re way older than that, though.

I’m sure, but tying it all together under “Portal stuff” sounded better .

@RepeatPan

I can’t see much use for the fluids physics (or any sort of physics beyond simple kinematic) to be honest. This is going into the tiny-its-bitsy-micro managing part that players will likely not notice at all (i.e. nothing that couldn’t be simulated with some fancy effects and animations). Plus, imagine that being done on a bigger scale than the tiny rooms Portal 2 plays in.

Two things here: first, terrain features & structures like waterfalls, fountains etc, which would benefit from having reasonably well-behaved water. What does that mean…

1. Flow mechanics (ie where does the water go?)
2. Fill mechanics (ie waterfall into pool fills pool up)
3. Ripples
4. Waves & tides (seas)
5. Arcing water (eg fountains)
6. Splashes / spray
7. Refractive index
8. Reflections

Number 1 I would consider absolutely essential, and I’d be surprised if we don’t see it in the game. 7 & 8 will be needed if we’re to have even the option of better water than Minecraft (!). 3 & 6 could be done with pre-designed animations that play around objects walking in water / landing in water (then just scale up/down for the size of the object), which ought to reduce the need to model complex physics. 4 would be tough on engines, thought at least you could simply state “if body of water > X voxels, assume sea” and link that to the world gen system (for partially-explored bodies of water) to determine whether or not to get waves/tides in the first place. Still, I’d expect 4 to be the one most likely to not make it in. That leaves 5, which might be a bit of an issue for engines, but on the other hand likely wouldn’t be encountered much unless you spammed giant fountains etc: waterfalls don’t tend to arc, and just about every other body of water will be flat anyway.

Second, now that I think about it, the blobs of Portal 2 paints / gels don’t actually work like a continuous stream of liquid, but as said blobs - which is probably a lot easier to do anyway.