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Awesome, thanks!

I'll incorporate this later on. I agree that some metal cost is appropriate.

I might make the spike pit much quicker to build with a metal cost, and the moat much much slower to build but free (to represent the time spend hauling buckets of water).

This is something that has been on my mind quite a bit.

Has anyone done any research into how we can already influence mod loading order? For example are mods always loaded alphabetically? Or is there something else going on there?

If the mods are loaded alphabetically, we could get away with what we did in World of Warcraft before dependencies became a thing: Prefix our library mods with an exclamation mark so they'd always be at the top of the list.

The general idea would be that we'd work together to put out a few libraries that provide some common functionality, and then we'd try to avoid directly depending on each other's mods (instead preferring to depend on the same libraries).

EDIT: But yes, an actual dependency system would be much much better.

Ooh, me likey. Big fan of Nexus Mods here.

I've got to go to work for now, but I'll see about uploading my mods when I get back.

I extracted them from the game's resource files using the Unity Assets Explorer, but that is no longer necessary has Tynan has posted all of the art files here: http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2325.0

Practice is a noun, practise is a verb.

At my Medical Practice, I practise medicine.

Unfortunately, these are the only valid link flags in Alpha 2:

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None
Wall
Sandbags
Rock
Minerals
PowerConduit
MapEdge


You're probably better off using the Sandbags link flag for now, and we'll see if there's any way to add custom link flags in Alpha 3.

Here you go. Just disable the water layer in this Paint.NET file and you'll get my empty original ditch.

The empty ditch itself was created by taking the Rock_Atlas texture from the core game and flipping each section vertically, and removing the thick black borders.

[attachment deleted by admin: too old]

Will the new rock walls naturally deteriorate over time like the metal walls currently do? I'm hoping they don't, as that would allow us to fill in caves and old rooms without needing to worry about one tile in the middle eventually needing a repair job.

If I recall correctly I just turned off the deterioration system overall; it wasn't that interesting.

What Tynan is offering us here is somewhat unprecedented. The closest comparison is Minecraft, where the mods in that game have the ability to completely change how it functions from the ground-up. The only difference here is that Tynan is openly inviting that level of modability (the Mojang team just sort of begrudgingly accepted it, but they didn't ask for it).

The key to all the craziness that is about to unfold within RimWorld is that innocent looking <thingClass> element contained within all of the XML included within the Alpha 2 "Core" mod. Every single thingClass you see listed in this files refers to an executable piece of code sitting inside the core RimWorld files, which gets run each and every time that "Thing" gets created.

From every building, to every colonist, to every bullet.. Everything that you see in the game world is a "Thing" that ran a piece of code when it was created... And in Alpha 3 we'll be able to write that piece of code ourselves.

This isn't .dll modding in the sense that we're hex editing an existing file and trying to tweak a few variables, this is .dll modding in that we're being given the ability to create our own .dll files from scratch, and the game will run them for us at certain points in time.

The ability to create entirely new thingClasses should come with Alpha 3.

For now, you're limited to the following eTypes, and I'm not sure how Alpha 3 will impact our ability to expand  upon (or combine) these:

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Undefined,
Pawn,
Item,
Apparel,
Equipment,
Filth,
Fire,
Corpse,
Debris,
Puddle,
DropPod,
Plant,
Floor,
Roof,
Mote,
Blueprint,
Projectile,
ItemSkyFalling,
Rock,
SteamGeyser,
BuildingComplex,
BuildingInert,
Frame,
Wall,
Door,
Bed,
Building_WorkTable,
Building_Table,
Building_LaunchPad,
Building_PowerPlantGeothermal,
Building_PowerConduit,
Building_Battery,
Building_CommsConsole,
Building_ResearchBench,
Building_Turret,
Building_Chair

On the one hand, I'm a huge fan of community collaboration.

On the other, I recognise that being part of a community adds overhead that can sometimes be inconvenient.

As long as we can all continue to contribute freely to the collective pool of knowledge, I'm perfectly happy for anything I produce to be included in a community pack.

From what I've looked into so far, it sounds like all of that will be possible via .dll modding in Alpha 3.

The key will be in defining our own ThingClasses for use in our XML configs.

For example, instead of having something be a <thingClass>Equipment</thingClass>, we'd have it as a <thingClass>MyMod.CustomThing</thingClass>.

Then, in the C# side of things, we set up our CustomThing to fire off RimWorld's core code (e.g. for making explosions or light, or doing custom damage types)...

My hope is that we'll be able to put together some common libraries to cover off the functionality we're after, and then other modders will be able to use those libraries to their heart's content. The goal would be to push as much config as possible down into the XML files.

Hehe. Yes I want some mortars and some missile turrets. :-)

Hell yeah I'm keen for that!

I think part of the issue is that colonists can't stand on debris, they can only pass through it.

If you were to redefine debris to be walkable, that should at least allow the colonists to continue mining. E.g.
Defs\ThingDefs\Various.XML

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<ThingDef ParentName="DebrisBase">
<defName>DebrisRock</defName>
<label>Rock debris</label>
<passability>Standable</passability>
<textureFolderPath>Things/Building/DebrisRock</textureFolderPath>
</ThingDef>

You could also take a peek at how Metal is defined and try changing rock debris to act a bit more like metal... Trying stuff like this seem like a good place to start:

Defs\ThingDefs\Resources.XML

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<comps>
<li><compClass>CompForbiddable</compClass></li>
</comps>
<alwaysHaulable>true</alwaysHaulable>

Don't forget to open up the Mods menu when you start the game and enable the mod.