Encourage Modding

    Joined
    Jun 29, 2013
    Messages
    206
    Reaction score
    0
    Why does this sound familiar to something I saw on other forums? Also, why is all of the text in italics besides the very start at the end? And why did you decide never to mention the game until the last 3 lines? If you want to flame, get at least some imagination.
     
    Joined
    Jun 26, 2013
    Messages
    10
    Reaction score
    0
    • Legacy Citizen 2
    • Legacy Citizen
    Since what people learned and stuff matters so much here, I will let have you know that I study computer science in college and we have had a great amount of programming beside my own game that I have been working on for 2 years. The development speed is much faster since it\'s 2D and not 3D which leads to less boilerplate code and more pogress.

    A game supporting \"modifications\" as they are called means that the game\'s engine has the ability to search for any additions besides the default files. The engine also needs to know how to deal with the additions.

    There are 3 stages:

    1. Find
    2. Recognise
    3. Execute

    Find is simply the ability to find anything that isn\'t default.

    Recognise is the ability to determine what kind of object the addition is.

    Execute is more complicated. This is the ability to determine what to do with the addition. Should it be randomly spawned in the world? Is it of the enemy faction? Is it indestructible? Does physics apply to it?

    Find, Recognise, Execute are multiple algorithms that has to be made almost from scratch and tailored to the specific engine. To top it all, the engine needs a scripting mechanic to be able to execute. Believe me, implementing all these is not a fun thing to do.

    The only other way to mod \'unsupported\' is to change already existing files or edit the source code.

    I will also tell you my secret. I am a trained sniper partnered with a pilot and stationed on an aircraft carrier. We usually do missions like bombing villages and me sniping the survivors at an altitude of 2km on top of the flying jet while it\'s evading enemy jets that are firing at us while I am sniping the enemy pilots using my toes.
     
    Joined
    Jun 24, 2013
    Messages
    710
    Reaction score
    11
    Regarding code, I was simply talking about unsupported modding (editing source/files) being supported/encouraged on the website with proper sections for it at the forums (MichaelSeph already answered that part).

    I also wanted to spark up all \"modding\" activity (not only code related) with this forum-post because it is extremely valuable for the game and the community. Creativity should be encouraged, and could even be used to improve the main game.

    Just look at the various awesome texture modifications that were around a while ago... Now they mostly disappeared in the flood of other \"projects\" because they don\'t have their own section, not getting the love and attention they deserve, thus the creators get demotivated and abbandon their projects. But as Michael said, the new site will vastly improve upon this, so can\'t wait for that :)
     
    Joined
    Aug 3, 2013
    Messages
    18
    Reaction score
    0
    • Legacy Citizen 2
    • Legacy Citizen
    You most likely have seen this before. I just copy and pasted some gorilla warfare pasta bro.
     
    Joined
    Aug 3, 2013
    Messages
    18
    Reaction score
    0
    • Legacy Citizen 2
    • Legacy Citizen
    New to the internet? This Copypasta has been around for ages, so either you\'re to young, or you\'re ignorant. plz try hard more bro

    >inb4 You say you\'re not mad bro.

    >art though madeth, brah?
     
    Joined
    Jun 24, 2013
    Messages
    710
    Reaction score
    11
    So... Why did you post it? Thought it made you look tough? Why all the mindless swearing in the first place?
     
    Joined
    Jul 11, 2013
    Messages
    311
    Reaction score
    13
    i truly beleive that guy knows very little about programming. Even i know that modding means, an added on group of scripts that preforms an action to change a game. for example, adding guns into the minecraft inventory and crafting system, add aditional guns in the starmade shops and inventory and commands. coding can prevent that with a clever lock, if you could make it, that wouldnt allow it. but i do not think schema would devoide us of our imagination.
     
    Joined
    Jun 26, 2013
    Messages
    10
    Reaction score
    0
    • Legacy Citizen 2
    • Legacy Citizen
    I took my time to make my post readable, you just spew yours out.

    The problem with the people who can\'t program is that they don\'t know how deep it really is.

    Most people think that all it takes to rotate a wheel is to load a picture and tell it to roll, while in reality the programmer has to tell the program what \"roll\", \"picture\", and \"wheel\" is. I.e. all three needs to be programmed.

    If a game doesn\'t have the ability to recognise mods, then it doesn\'t have the definition for it.

    There is nothing like a \"clever lock\" directly here. The clever lock is that the game simply doesn\'t have the algorithms to recognise the modification (unless it\'s a default file\'s properties that has been modified).

    To be able to script mods for a game, the game must have the algorithms to read the script and the algorithms to execute it. You can\'t just take any game and slap a script on it\'s face.

    Do you really think you will be taken seriously when you can\'t start a sentence with an upper-case letter?
     
    Joined
    Jun 24, 2013
    Messages
    710
    Reaction score
    11
    Nobody asked you for a lesson in programming (second post already), as the subject and purpose of this thread is COMPLETELY different and many of you (but especially YOU) seem to fail to see that point.

    The game\'s code is obfuscated... That would be the lock here. People that like to mess around with the source first have to de-obfuscate it, and trust me: there are plenty of people that love messing around with the source enough to do that, they just need this spark to encourage them.

    They have the motivation to figure out which part of the code does what and perhaps make modifications for it.

    Thus, people that mod the game do not have to start from the ground up, they can look at code schema used earlier and modify it, making use of the structured coding, because I doubt that schema doesn\'t use some sort of structured working pattern, you couldn\'t properly make a game like this otherwise.

    This whole thread has the sole purpose to encourage people to make modifications of any kind (textures, sounds, skins, HUDs included), with an emphasis on de-obfuscation to make code mods. That\'s really all there is to it.





    And perhaps stop nagging about his post so much, because I really have trouble taking you seriously as well with all that pompous and cocky talk of yours, you could at least word it differently and tell it him in a kind way instead of sounding so overly arrogant.
     
    Joined
    Sep 20, 2013
    Messages
    126
    Reaction score
    3
    \"Real\" mods are just not usefull atm. the main code could change so much that modifications or added features could be possibly not working anymore after the next release. I can actually write mods but I don\'t want to have to get them working again after every new release. Player skins are arround but since there\'s a new player model comming out they also will be useless. I will finally make mods once I see potential for modding in starmade. Currently it\'s just not reliable to make stuff that you have to modify every 1-2 weeks.

    Sounds can possibly be changed but I need to think about this first (it\'s a lot of work to make completely new sounds...I\'m talking about creating new ones, NOT illegaly ripping stuff from other games).



    In fact starmade is just too young and in a too early beta state to mod. Minecraft had mods in beta too but on a closer look minecraft has way easier game mechanics and nearely nothing that needed to be balanced or changed AFTER it got included.

    I think every modder will agree with me that starmade currently isn\'t ready for big mods, but I\'il definetly give it a try once it is.
     
    Joined
    Jun 24, 2013
    Messages
    710
    Reaction score
    11
    In fact starmade is just too young and in a too early beta state to mod. Minecraft had mods in beta too but on a closer look minecraft has way easier game mechanics and nearely nothing that needed to be balanced or changed AFTER it got included.


    Please elaborate on this. Why does minecraft have easier mechanics? How is it easier to mod Minecraft? How does nearly nothing need balancing after including it? I see no reason to believe all this without additional support of facts for example.

    Also, Minecraft had mods in Alpha already, and up to this day, all modders still have to update their mod once the game itself updates, just count for how many versions long people have been doing this.

    I just don\'t get why everybody has to be so overly pessimistic about something that will only make the game and its community many times better....
     
    Joined
    Jun 25, 2013
    Messages
    403
    Reaction score
    11
    • Legacy Citizen 2
    • Legacy Citizen
    There\'s a GitHub group that has been looking at grafting a modding engine onto StarMade for some time.

    The bottom line problem is that Schema obfuscates his code with a scheme that\'s sufficiently convoluted to make it too much of a headache to do anything meaningful. (I worked with it enough to get the file formats for SMEdit, but it\'s just oo much effort to do much more.)

    Everything else can be solved. That is the only road block holding us back.

    If you want a moddable StarMade, pettition Schema to either stop obfuscating the source, or to adopt some other model (open source, semi-open, open-under-NDA) to let other people do what he\'s not prepared or resourced to do.
     
    Joined
    Jun 24, 2013
    Messages
    710
    Reaction score
    11
    I know some other people that have interest to help with this as well, I\'ll redirect them to that group then.

    Maybe the guys that were behind MCP for minecraft can help out too if they have interest? Although I\'ve read that they were going for Cubeworld first.

    Is there a petition somewhere out there for this by the way?
     
    Joined
    Jun 25, 2013
    Messages
    403
    Reaction score
    11
    • Legacy Citizen 2
    • Legacy Citizen
    MCP, and many other, routes have been tried. StarMade uses different, and more complex, obfuscation than Minecraft. We\'ve tried every de-obfuscator and de-compiler that\'s out there (other than the ones that cost $$$). At best they give you code that makes your eyes cross. None of them give you anything close to something that will re-compile and work. There are ways to deal with this, but they are very, very, very tedious.

    But, please, send anyone that way. With enough fingers typing, perhaps the tedious method may become practicable.

    I think a number of people (myself included) have written to Schema, to no avail. I don\'t think anyone has started a pettition. There\'s no garuntee Schema will listen to that any more than anything else. But I agree with the general tenor of this thread: if StarMade doesn\'t open itself up to modding (or at least more developers helping out), it\'s not going to make the big time.
     
    Joined
    Jun 24, 2013
    Messages
    710
    Reaction score
    11
    Aye I\'ve been having trouble contacting schema as well, he never seems to respond to any PMs...

    I\'ll send those guys over then :)



    I\'ll also look at the petition thing, maybe I can sort something, doing nothing will never work anyway.

    Wish I knew java so I could help along, but I really support the whole idea!
     
    Joined
    Aug 7, 2013
    Messages
    201
    Reaction score
    21
    Guys this is like a flame war everybody has there own opinions so leave it as that. If you think someone\'s wrong POLITELY point them out on the matter. At this point it is kind of funny watching you people talk/fight over modding like 1st graders
     
    Joined
    Jun 25, 2013
    Messages
    403
    Reaction score
    11
    • Legacy Citizen 2
    • Legacy Citizen
    You may have noticed that SMEdit is highly moddable. The real reason for that is that I\'ve been using that as a test-bed to be grafted onto StarMade if/when it gets opened up.

    You might consider looking at it with that in mind. There\'s a record/playback method that saves what you do into a mod that is based on Javascript. The idea was to lower the bar as much as possible to people extending it.
     
    Joined
    Jun 24, 2013
    Messages
    710
    Reaction score
    11
    Re-read your own comment, and you will see how hypocritical it actually is.


    At this point it is kind of funny watching you people talk/fight over modding like 1st graders


    That\'s not very polite now is it?





    Now, if you have nothing of value to add to the discussion, please stay out of it, I\'m asking you kindly. If you have something interesting to say about modding, this subject, and your ideas about it, please post!
     
    Joined
    Jul 11, 2013
    Messages
    311
    Reaction score
    13
    Now archer, you know me well, as Maple,

    I do not know much about scripting and programming. I do know there are layers and funtions. A clever lock as I mentioned, would involved scripts that transfer a sentence of code into an undecipherable code, that would have to be edited to alow a modification in that area. Now please, if you dont have anything nice to say, well how shall i word it. SHUT THE HELL UP!
     
    Joined
    Jun 25, 2013
    Messages
    6
    Reaction score
    0
    If you want to talk about something that it isnt about the post.Please dont say it no one cares :)