Modders Requests to Make Modding SH5 Easier

[maerean_m]

Originally Posted by Hitman

1.- Break the menu.ini into several files, one for each station covered, like the campaign was broken into different layers in SH4. This easy thing would alone help inmensely editing it.

2.- Do not include hardcoded graphics like the reticules for the scopes/UZO. Make them all external graphics that can be edited at convenience.

1. Already did that. It was getting too big and very difficult for many people to work on the menus at the same time.
2. They are not hard-coded and never were. The reticulum is a menu item like any other and the texture is a DDS file.

[karamazovnew]

Originally Posted by maerean_m

2. They are not hard-coded and never were. The reticulum is a menu item like any other and the texture is a DDS file.

Both in SH3 and 4, the linear bearing dial was hardcoded. We could move it and edit it's image file but we could never link any other dial to it. The text (numbers) were separate items easy to mod. But the lines were scaled by hardcode to the Angular Distance and Viewport camera settings and we couldn't move them into/out of view if we messed with the zoom levels. So we had to embed them into tga files which did not change color at night/day. Maybe we could but we did not have any documentation/tutorials and I doubt that you devs knew that Skwas will make his S3D editor .

[Carotio]

Originally Posted by maerean_m

1. Already did that. It was getting too big and very difficult for many people to work on the menus at the same time.

This really sounds great. I worked on that file last summer, trying to make a new screen for the periscope in German uboats, and I more or less stopped, when I was unsatisfied with it, because I wanted to do more, like add a button for open/close torpedo doors, move the water level indicator to the outer most left of the screen and lower the position of the fired torpedos. But still the top dials, I made, were attached to the torpedo choice panel, so when you clicked the button to hide it, then the upper panel just moved to the right. Most annoying....
But what I made till I stopped working on it further worked perfectly...

[TheDarkWraith]

Harbors - harbors are made by creating 'clones' from the items in the 'harbor kit'. Can these be real objects instead of clones? Being clones poses some limitations on what you can do with them. And because the harbor objects inherited from the base harbor object who inherited from 0x0 this caused even more problems when you tried to do some fancy tricks with the harbor objects. Basically looking for a better system of making harbors and the objects in them.
The lighthouse's rotating 'light' needs to be fixed so that it doesn't shine through it's own lighthouse (SH3 not sure about SH4)
When an object is created that depends on some player guidance (TDC for example for the torpedo), instead of it always spawning north when it doesn't have the information it needs, let it spawn in the direction the controlling object is facing. For instance: I create a torpedo rack on a ship (which is really a gun with the shell's explosion effect spawning a torpedo or the gun's firing effect spawning a torpedo) and when the torpedo rack locks onto a target and it 'fires' the torpedo will spawn in the direction the weapon is facing instead of north (000). This is what has been holding back AI torps from using real torpedoes when I have tried.
Let the ship and sub objects be able to be spawned in code. This will help with making lifeboats, fast boats, etc. If I make a ship that is actually a lifeboat I want to be able to spawn it in code. For instance: when a certain object on the ship is destroyed I want to be able to spawn a lifeboat in it's replacement (through a controller).
Ability to add new dials, buttons, etc. and to be able to map those items to objects so that they can be controllable.
Ability to turn on/off commands. For instance: you have to order your sub to dive by either pressing the key on your keyboard or pressing the dive button. Make this able to be done in code - give me a controller or something that I can use to make these events happen without user input. This will make MANY things happen that I/others have been wanting to do.
Let each crewmember be able to be customizable. If I want one to have a jacket and another not I should be able to do this (easily). Don't tie their jacket to the base 3D model of the crewmember or to it's animations. The jacket should be a seperate object that is able to be 'worn' by the crewmember. Granted this poses some addition animations just for the jacket (or other objects). Let this apply to anything that can be added to a crewmember's person.
I'm sitting in Houston's airport awaiting my next flight so if I think of more I will post more. I just can't think of anything more at the moment.

[THE_MASK]

As i said in the wishes thread , the ability to customise the crew faces and modders ability to add crew and maybe new animations will greatly add to the games ambiance .

[THE_MASK]

The ability to make our own subs/ships/boats like in the way people make trains for the auran trains simulator games would be awesome . Freeware and 3rd party addons of ships and subs would dramatically increase the games appeal . Here is a trainz 3rd party website http://www.trainzone.co.nz/download.htm

[Task Force]

make it simpler to mod the game... for noobs to modding.

[Reece]

AVGWarhawk said:
I was advised that there is a lot of SH4 structure in SH5. This was from the developers.

Don't upset me!!

Webster said:
actually, as i understood it, they said it would share a "simular" file structure so modders would be familiar with the modding methods but that the game itself is a completely all new thing with the best 2009 can offer with nothing taken from sh3 or sh4

That's what I like to hear, I feel a bit better now!