What would make the game easier to mod?

[Tynan]

I have a request for info for y'all.

The difficulty here for me seems to be that there are a ton of requests - everyone has their own little thing they want changed. Unfortunately we can't cover all these; I really want to make the changes that will have a big impact on a lot of modders at once. Bang for your buck, so to speak.

So it would be really great if modders could discuss and come up with a top-3 list of things that would help a lot of people at once. Consider this an invitation to discuss with each other what would help you all together.

[RemingtonRyder]

Hey Tynan, maybe it would help if you listed some things that are modder-friendly that are already on your to-do list, for elimination purposes.

[1000101]

Perhaps this thread should be locked now that we have an "official channel" for modding requests.

Any requests which have been made in this thread can be discussed and requested through said channel where Tynan/Ludeon can manage them more easily.

[Telkir]

Request 1: I would like the game to show clarity regarding the XML "best practice" that has been talked about in this thread. If a mod tries to inherit a Core abstract def without having duplicated it inside the mod's XML, please make RimWorld throw an error.

Request 2: Let mods include graphics that can override vanilla textures if they use the correct file path (a) without having to duplicate and redefine the appropriate Core XML, and (b) without having to recreate the appropriate folder inside Core (Steam mods can't do this). For example, if there's a "MyMod/Textures/Terrains/Surfaces/Dirt.jpg" file in a mod, let RimWorld seamlessly use the mod's texture rather than the default. If more than one mod changes the same graphic, mod load order would determine which one "wins".

[Arnold Rimmer]

I have just one request:
As i understand it, A15 "broke" CCL and it might take some weeks for that team to
update it, so it would really help if developers of coremods or mod-libraries could be
sure to have access to the code that they need so they can provide the compatibility
for mods. I could imagine that, if such breaks happen often, developers of such coremods
and libraries simply give up.

While the corecontent of RW is very nice, for small teams, contentcreation
might be much work. Making the game as moddable as possible in my view is then
quite important so the community can add features and content to enhance the game and
should need arise, keep it alive.

*grins*
I can understand though that one might frown upon releasing any amount of code to the public
if one uses really disgusting names for the variables.

In any case, this is a wonderful "game" already (i personally ab-use it more as a simulation).
I am warmly reminded of "Little Computer People" 

[skullywag]

Zhentar over on the CCL thread just posted this:

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16599.msg265091#msg265091

its a version of ILSPY that successfully decompiles iterators, they are very very close to perfectly decompiled. I would suggest every modder grabs this version, it means no more reliance on needing the source code. I cannot thank him enough.....

[RemingtonRyder]

^ What he said. There may be a little bit of guesswork needed, but the difference is like night and day.

[lincore]

Assuming you document your code, would it be feasible to release the documentation with new versions of Rimworld? This has probably been suggested already, my apologies if that is the case.

[ShadowTani]

It would be nice if fuel could be defined in a separate XML or inside the fuel items rather than inside the objects that take fuel (in other words, the various fueled crafting benches and the generator). As it is now it would be a very bad idea to add a new item that is suitable as fuel to the fuel filter of those fueled structures because it would create so many potential conflicts with other mods.

As an example, currently we can use RecipeDefs instead of declaring the recipe inside the objects ResourceBase - this allows a mod to make an item craftable without creating a conflict with mods that changes the stats of an item; it would be really nice if a similar thing could be done for fuel.

[merthsoft]

XML comments on the game objects.

[TrueDestroyer]

I'd like to see trap damage types moved to xml defs, can't find it there - especially this       <trapDamageCategory>Sharp</trapDamageCategory> - to define other classes like "sharp" there. Allowing poison traps, or traps that deal certain damage type like weapon projectiles. Or maybe the structure is different, and shouldn't be used like this?

[Dingo]

I'd like to see trap damage types moved to xml defs, can't find it there - especially this       <trapDamageCategory>Sharp</trapDamageCategory> - to define other classes like "sharp" there. Allowing poison traps, or traps that deal certain damage type like weapon projectiles. Or maybe the structure is different, and shouldn't be used like this?

trapDamageCategory is based on DamageArmorCategory, so basically you would like a DamageCategoryDef I think rather than just trap damage.

[kaptain_kavern]

I'd like to see trap damage types moved to xml defs, can't find it there - especially this       <trapDamageCategory>Sharp</trapDamageCategory> - to define other classes like "sharp" there. Allowing poison traps, or traps that deal certain damage type like weapon projectiles. Or maybe the structure is different, and shouldn't be used like this?

I had the same reasoning about "fermentation barrels" mechanic.
AFAIK for now, there is no way to define ingredients and products in XML only (like with other production buildings and recipes).
Having this working like other production buildings/recipes could allow us to easily make custom alcohols but also a ton of other things that requires items to "wait" until something happened; if we apply this method to other modded buildings. Like drying food, having to let smokeleaf to dry before consumption, maybe compost, etc


The same goes for butchering and corpses mechanics. It could be nice to have it more customisable via XML.

[AshbornK9]

No idea if this has been mentioned before, but the ability to make a trait be only allowed for males or only allowed for females would be nice. I've got some Fallout ones that would be unusable/require a bunch of extra tweaking to make function.

[Dingo]

Ashborn, that's already possible. There are defs for commonality and commonalityFemale so you can set either one to 0 and have it only apply to one gender.

https://github.com/RimWorldMod/RimworldModdingFiles/blob/master/Defs/TraitDefs/Traits.xml

Example for male-only trait (random value):

Code Select Expand

<commonality>1</commonality>
<commonalityFemale>0</commonalityFemale>

And female-only (random value):

Code Select Expand

<commonality>0</commonality>
<commonalityFemale>0.4</commonalityFemale>