Messages

Thanks! Yeah, I only keep an eye on the Releases forum to see what's new but next time I play I'll definitely try that. I see on the ToDo they've got check for this inheritance issue. So maybe one of the things on the checklist could be running that, though IDK how useful it would be for a mod sanity check before it's updated.

It seems a checklist is a good starting point, ill put something together with the minds of the modders discord.

Thanks skullywag. And 1000101 and all the other people who spend their free time helping create content for us to play with.


I was wondering if there would be much benefit in creating a tool to do a sort of sanity check on a mod which would report things like undefined abstract classes and anything else that can be checked, and also to generate a summary of all the things in the base game the mod alters or interferes with which modders could paste in the forum and include in the mod somewhere to help keep track of what mods will work together and remove some of the human error associated.

Perhaps it could also report on conflicts between mods you have installed which the game does not report itself if there was anything like that that could be found programmatically and I suppose there is the potential for that code to be ported to the game so it could better do that itself.


How practical and helpful do you guys reckon some kind of sanity & compatibility check tool like that would be?

Is it a bad idea? What do you reckon?


I'd certainly appreciate something like that for checking mods which I'm playing with and also to check any mods I made as well.

Edit: Kinda off topic huh? Sorry skullywag

The issue is how do we find the mods with the problem?

So a question for you modders out there, would you want someone to check over your mods before submission?

I'd like to have any mods I did checked if I did any modding for this game again and I always appreciate any feedback on how I can do something better especially if it impacts performance in any way.

As far as finding problematic mods goes, if there was something like a stickied checklist of things a mod needs to do to be as reliable and compatible as possible then anyone could take a look at someone's mod and say in their thread if it complies or why not.

Like this defining abstracts issue, documenting base stuff which is changed or overridden etc, and IDK, anything else which is going to help insure it will work with less problems.

IDK if that's practical but it would be good to know when considering installing a mod if it's free of known issues and has all potential compatibility conflicts properly documented and perhaps that could be done by saying if a mod complies with some set of standards.

Could something like that work?



kaptain_kavern, it's good you ask and collaborate but not everyone will.


1000101, I was not clear on what I was suggesting. I didn't mean force people to spend time working on other peoples mods. I meant voluntarily looking over other people's work, giving feedback and a way to distinguish mods which meet some quality standards from those that don't, like maybe a separate release forum (perhaps not the best method), or a notation saying they comply perhaps.

I expect people would appreciate feedback like how they haven't defined some abstract class they're using and the consequences of not doing so and I'd consider letting someone know that to be helpful rather than conceitful. Wouldn't you?

[good]

Maybe you should start a MOD-inspector/police.

I don't think it's the communities responsibility to error check peoples mods.

Modders should be doing everything they can to properly test their mods and make sure they are correct and have as few potential conflicts as possible such as modifying core assets without good reasons and not just "I don't really know what I'm doing and this is a work around to make it work".

Most modders are probably just players who want to add or change something, don't have a programming background and aren't going to be prepared to spend hours and hours boringly researching how to do it perfectly. If someone who knew what they're doing spent a couple of minutes looking at their work, then a couple more giving some feedback in regards to foreseeable problems, good and bad practices etc it would make a huge difference to the overall quality of the mod, wouldn't it?

I mean sure it's not your responsibility and you can sit back and say 'you should just write perfect mods' but if you really want better compatibility I don't think that approach is going to yield very good results.

So why not move mods to another section if they didn't meet certain quality and compatibility standards like Canute suggested? I don't see the problem with that. It would only encourage people to write better quality mods and information on how too I guess. If there were some standards or guidelines then anyone could flag a mod for not meeting them and point them to info on how to fix it.

Nice idea!

I suspect that the "Call rain" petition is basically worthless to everybody. Maybe if plants needed water.

This sounds useful for putting out fires when your pawns are busy, especially large bush fires that are threatening your crops or base.

This adds a new building entirely, so it should be compatible with the other mods

Nice, thanks!

Nice idea, looks cool. One question: does this modify the vanilla switch or add a separate time based power switch?

The reason I ask is there are a couple of mods which modify the vanilla switch and AFAIK they aren't compatible with each other because they weren't implemented as new buildings or whatever switches are and if this mod does the same it's going to be incompatible with them too which would be a shame.

Can you make it a forum post attachment instead? I've got to admit I got pretty frustrated going though the signup for nexusmod too and it was just to DL this mod. Actually isn't it possible to make files in the steam workshop downloadable as well? Pretty sure I've seen download links to stuff there. IDK anything about it though.

Auto reroll? (so you can make a coffee while it finds a nice start)

You're in luck, Nommy.  I was able to actually figure out how to accomplish this.  If you (and/or anyone else) want to test the new feature, there's a release candidate on the first post that has it.  Download and try it out...but please let me know how it works and any problems with it you find. 

Been up way too long, so going to get some sleep.  Hopefully someone will be adventurous and give it a try and leave me some good feedback for when I wake up.

I just saw this, sorry. That works great man, thank you!

It was faster than I expected. IDK why I thought it would be slow. Maybe because of how long map-reroll takes. Anyway, is it possible to disable GUI updating while it's auto rerolling? That would speed it up a ton I reckon.

Also you're missing the Animals skill I noticed.

And I have some ideas how it might be improved though I think some are on your list already. Here's some more detail anyway:

What I'd like to see is some sort of summary screen when it finds a match so you can get an overview at a glance of what all your colonists are going to be capable of. Perhaps change the GUI so there is one button on the vanilla colonists page 'Varity Start...' which shows this summary page and then control and configure everything from there. So something like this:

A table with a column for each colonist and their pawn icon at the top to identify them with their name and basic details in the tooltip. Then the following rows in the table:

• Skill levels displayed like now so you can see if they match your set value but also if they are capable of performing that task and their passion for it perhaps like how it's done in the work tab in game. Perhaps also display if the skill or related work is impaired by any health conditions (red border?) like those that effect manipulation etc. and put details in the tooltip.
  
  
• Other tasks like cleaning, hauling, firefighting, combat etc which aren't associated with specific skills but which they maybe be incapable of.
  
  
• Health (pain) with the tool tip summarising the total effects and listing the conditions. I'm not sure what is most significant, maybe the pain from permanent conditions so perhaps show that and put other details in a tooltip and use some color coding like a border perhaps to show good/bad health and if it's temporary maybe?
  
  
• Speed (global work & movement). Perhaps this could also show something if any tasks are made slower or less efficient than normal because of injuries like those affecting manipulation etc. Maybe that would be better shown with the skills though, IDK.
  
  
• Age and gender e.g '47 m' or '19 f' and perhaps if they have a significant relationship (put details in tooltip?).

Then to add ability to auto-reroll only specific colonists add:

• Reroll check box so you can select which colonists are re-rolled with a click.
  
  
• Criteria config dropdown with 'Global, Custom, Configure...'? Or a button? So you have a way to set up criteria for colonists individually to fulfill specific roles.

I'm thinking the popup to configure individual colonist criteria would be the same the one for entering colony-wide criteria except with an 'override' check box beside everything. By default stuff is sort of grayed out showing the global value but when you check the box it lets you enter a different requirement which will be used only for that colonist instead. So you could configure specific roles or jobs for the different colonists by setting skill thresholds for each.

Is that the way you see this going?

I'm not sure how long you wanted to spend on it of what sort of scope or direction you had in mind but I've got some ideas on how it might be set it up to be more configurable like using a system similar to how you add rules for scenarios to configure the criteria so it's more flexible and extendable and so you can add 'And' and 'Or' conditions (shooting 5 OR melee 5), maybe having some sort of weight system so you can specify things/skills which are essential, nice/preferred, irrelevant or unacceptable etc, then let it run a set number of iterations and pick the most suitable match for your specifications. I don't know if that's something that anyone would actually use or something you'd enjoy creating but it'd be fun to play with I reckon.

Anyway, there's some feedback (a lot sorry), hope it helps, thanks and good luck!

[EDIT]
I just had another idea. If you set it up so it displayed everything in a table like the work tab does in game you could make it so you could just click on the numbers to set skill limits for colonist and you could have a column for 'colony wide limits' which you can click to set those, rather than the popup you use now. So when you click a skill box/number for a colonist it shows a popup where you can select what limit to use: 'none', 'colony wide limit' (displayed) or 'individual' limit which you set there (maybe same value as colony wide one by default). That would be better I think.

Ah, that makes much more sense to me now.  I have no problem cross promoting another relevant mod on the forums.  Next time I am monkeying around with the base post I'll try to remember to add something about it in there.

Cool, thanks!

One other suggestion: An option to allow or disallow inappropriate backstories. So you could choose have colonists with any backstories or only those which are appropriate for the colonist and scenario like you would normally get.

And one more: Ability to specify traits to disallow and make it reroll or warn if you get them.

I like the idea of being able to specify what kind of team you want then hit 'go' and have it try and random a legit setup for you, or you could maybe even make it calculate one instead too. That would be cool. I have to go but I can't stop getting more ideas

1 & 2 are not unreasonable requests.  I'll look into how easily I can incorporate them (i.e. I'll put it on my to work on list).  1 is probably the easiest to implement, although I've got some under the hood changes that will take some thinking on how to do it right.

Awesome!

3...not exactly sure what you're saying there.  Prepare Carefully is another mod's work.  Are you suggesting I advertise another person's mod in game in my mod?

No not in game, just a little heads up in the description here would be nice I thought.

E.g 'My mod let's you reroll more easily but if you want more control Prepare Carefully mod allows you to manually adjust all aspects of a colonist including their skills.' or something.

I'd understand if you didn't want to since it's not your work but it would be helpful for anyone who found this first and was looking for finer control rather than just a more streamlined way of re-rolling.

Looks very handy. A couple of ideas:

• Use a table to list what skills didn't meet requirements with two columns 'Highest' and 'Wanted' so it's easier and quicker to see how short you are.
  
  Ideally I'd want to see a table of skills and colonists color coded and stuff so you can see which skills didn't meet expectations, what skills everyone has and maybe some stats like totals for each skill or average and maybe total points overall would be interesting. But just formatting what you've got like a table into two columns with spaces would be easier to read I think.
  
  
• Auto reroll? (so you can make a coffee while it finds a nice start)
  
  


• A line telling people what Prepare Carefully does with a link.

Nice mod though, thanks.

Generally I want the cost of the wallswitch and the lights to be a bit less then the sum of its parts.
While both having slightly less HP then normal walls simply due to structural imbalance.
(Wall gets build, holes and slits get drilled in to place the wires. Means more materials get used but overall the wall is less strong)

I don't think making it weaker than normal walls is a good idea. That would always slightly irritate me and make me not want to use the wall lights. What if you have a normal wall set up then you add some lights into it and suddenly enemies start targeting a weak spot instead of going around like before? That'd suck don't you think?

I think all wall mods should retain the primary function of the wall which is essentially HP/blocks. So if I have x blocks I can make a wall from here to here and still have the same defensive properties regardless of whether I put lights/switches or whatever in it. And I'd rather not have to be concerned about the extra cost of putting a light on a wall as opposed to next to it when I'm tight for steel or components either. Like power conduits where you can put them next to a wall or on it, it's just a nice cosmetic convenience and it'd be great IMO if lights and switches (and sunlamps?) were the same.

That's what I'm looking for anyway and I hope you set it up that way because I'm a little OCD about it I can just tweak it but it would be nice not to have to and I figure others might like the same. Anyway, thanks.

Thanks for the update, this mod looks cool. There's two things which don't make sense to me about the functional walls though:
Why do the wall switches have less HP than normal walls?
Why do wall switches and wall lights cost more stuff (stone/wood etc) to build than regular walls?

I'd have expected to pay the cost of a wall+switch or wall+light for a wall with a light/switch on it, have it be equally as strong and take longer to construct to balance having combined functionality.

Hope you're feeling better too BTW, good luck!

Vas sent me a version he updated for Alpha 8 (thanks man!) which I've put in the first post. The conduit roof support was removed since it's not needed now you can put conduit under stuff. Download link: RoofSupport v0.8.3 (21-12-2014).zip (Sendspace)

On another note, I've not really been checking these forums or doing rimworld stuff for a while, so sorry for the delay.

Also, Vas is looking for someone to write some dlls for his mods, so if anyone is interested in lending a hand there, give him a yell. Or if you just wanna say thanks for updating this mod too.

[Edit]Glad you like it BTW, though TBH I think I've done less work on it that other people. Just as it should be