Mods (I'm not referring to moderators) for wesnoth

[martenzo]

Could wesnoth possibly have support for mods. Under mods, I mean something like an era, but way more exessive. Like Spacenoth. The point is, that the mod is made seperately from Wesnoth, but still needs it for the code. Another thing is, that with a mod, you can change the interface, without actually tampering with Wesnoth itself.
I thought of this relating to Spacnoth, as Spacenoth is defenetly more exessive than an era. There are completely different damage types and terrains, but the basic system is still the same (procedures of combat, recruitment etc.).

[guest]

Support?

Are you aware how much "specialities" you can already do in a scenario? (I must confess, I am not fully aware of what all can be done, but I think it is quite amazing already, what kind of ideas people can make into scenarios.) Much of the user interface is themeable, too. (How much? Again, I do not know. Not all of the details, but hey, that would be a "create your own game" -kind of program, not a game.) And all of the code is available to tamper with, if that is not enough. (Although you do state that you wouldn't want to do this, if I understand you correctly.)

So all in all, I'd say there is quite a lot of support for "mods". It's really largely up to the people who want to create something. So - have you tried how much you can create with the Wesnoth engine, just using different graphics, for instance? Have you reached the limit of what can already be done? I encourage you to try, I would honestly be interested in seeing what you come up with.

I wish you good luck!

[Disto]

Support?

Are you aware how much "specialities" you can already do in a scenario? (I must confess, I am not fully aware of what all can be done, but I think it is quite amazing already, what kind of ideas people can make into scenarios.) Much of the user interface is themeable, too. (How much? Again, I do not know. Not all of the details, but hey, that would be a "create your own game" -kind of program, not a game.) And all of the code is available to tamper with, if that is not enough. (Although you do state that you wouldn't want to do this, if I understand you correctly.)

So all in all, I'd say there is quite a lot of support for "mods". It's really largely up to the people who want to create something. So - have you tried how much you can create with the Wesnoth engine, just using different graphics, for instance? Have you reached the limit of what can already be done? I encourage you to try, I would honestly be interested in seeing what you come up with.

I wish you good luck!

There are themes to change Wesnoth as a whole, one is made by Darth Fool called Dfool, not sure how to use it though. And with a campaign you can have any new terrain, time-of-day graphics, units. You can have new or different traits, i'm investigating about damage types. I believe you could even with some nice WML hack an Era or Multi-player Scenario to use these elsewhere or by using the Era.

After some quick research, you probably could rename the damage types, like you do with terrains and just use a different name for each damage type.... but i'm not sure, if someone could clarify i'd be good.

[scott]

Damage and base terrain are hard-coded I think (since WML takes their names directly).

[Xan]

Damage types are not hard-coded. In fact, you can add new damage types.

[scott]

But the WML won't change.

Here's what I'm talking about:

Code: Select all

		[movement_costs]
		deep_water=100
		shallow_water=3
		swamp_water=3
		grassland=1
		sand=2
		forest=2
		hills=2
		mountains=3
		village=1
		castle=1
		cave=2
		tundra=3
		canyon=100
		cavewall=100
		[/movement_costs]

		[defense]
		deep_water=80
		shallow_water=80
		swamp_water=80
		grassland=60
		sand=70
		forest=50
		hills=50
		mountains=40
		village=40
		castle=40
		cave=60
		tundra=80
		cavewall=10
		[/defense]

		[resistance]
		blade=100
		pierce=100
		impact=100
		fire=100
		cold=100
		holy=80
		[/resistance]

[Darth Fool]

Damage and base terrain are hard-coded I think (since WML takes their names directly).

? I am pretty sure that both damage and terrain are wml configurable. For example, if you want to have a damage type FOO, you just put that in the damage type. Now, if you want to have units have resistances to FOO you have to add that to the WML as well. Similarly, the terrains are defined in WML, and units defense on the terrains are all WML defined. A lot of this is defined in the default files used in the data directory, you just need to dig a little deeper.

There are some things that are currently fundamentally not configurable, but really, there is a great deal of flexibility already. I hope in the future to increase the flexibility of the Wesnoth game as an engine even more. The people who are most likely to be listened to when requesting new features/flexibility in the engine, are the ones who have already demonstrated a good understanding of what is possible already by having made their own eras/campaigns/whatever. This is entirely (in my mind) because they are much more likely to make good use of what they request. Still, good ideas that fire up the imagination of some dev will undoubtedly be incorporated as well.

As for spacenoth, I really hope to see it go forward. I think most of it can be done already with what is in WML. Once there is a working era / compaign / more-complete-set-of-WML-and-images, it is entirely possible and even likely that requests for improvements to the engine based on people's experience playing and designing for spacenoth will be acted on by someone in the wesnoth development team.

[Casual User]

- Damage types are only tags, i.e. it's a name the engine checks against the unit's resistance tags. I've actually made a short campaign where a 'missile' damage type existed, but I gave up when I realized I effectively had to re-write every unit I was going to have in the campaign as a custom unit (as a default, a unit has 100% resistance vs a damage type that isn't specified in its resistances).

- Ditto terrain types. Just give the new terrain a new 'tag' (name) and include it in the defenses and movement_costs.

- I'm not quite sure, but I'm 95% sure ranges are similar, i.e. that I could open the assassin's cfg file, change the thrown dagger to range=medium and he'd have an uncounterable attack (as a matter of fact, I've thought of a custom berserker based around this idea).

- As far as I know, some things that can't be made with WML (but that one might want in a mod) include : abilities, long-range attacks and AI (beyond some specifications). Clarifications would be welcome.

[Darth Fool]

- Damage types are only tags, i.e. it's a name the engine checks against the unit's resistance tags. I've actually made a short campaign where a 'missile' damage type existed, but I gave up when I realized I effectively had to re-write every unit I was going to have in the campaign as a custom unit (as a default, a unit has 100% resistance vs a damage type that isn't specified in its resistances).

- Ditto terrain types. Just give the new terrain a new 'tag' (name) and include it in the defenses and movement_costs.

- I'm not quite sure, but I'm 95% sure ranges are similar, i.e. that I could open the assassin's cfg file, change the thrown dagger to range=medium and he'd have an uncounterable attack (as a matter of fact, I've thought of a custom berserker based around this idea).

All true.

- As far as I know, some things that can't be made with WML (but that one might want in a mod) include : abilities, long-range attacks and AI (beyond some specifications). Clarifications would be welcome.

I have intentions on eventually working on making abilities and the AI more modable. long-range attacks may never happen.

[Disto]

As for spacenoth, I really hope to see it go forward. I think most of it can be done already with what is in WML. Once there is a working era / compaign / more-complete-set-of-WML-and-images, it is entirely possible and even likely that requests for improvements to the engine based on people's experience playing and designing for spacenoth will be acted on by someone in the wesnoth development team.

Or even get included as patches from Spacenoth

[scott]

Thanks for setting me straight!

[martenzo]

I meant it like this:
You have wesnoth
You download a mod for wesnoth
The mod needs Wesnoth code files to work, but you use the mod as a seperate game.

[guest]

I meant it like this:
You have wesnoth
You download a mod for wesnoth
The mod needs Wesnoth code files to work, but you use the mod as a seperate game.

How different would it have to be? Have you tried Wesbowl? You know you can play Hold'Em with Wesnoth? You could probably do a hex-based chess, if you could figure out the rules. Would Spacenoth qualify? As I understand, it's going to be rather different from the main Wesnoth. A "mod" could easily use all the Wesnoth files it needs, if they were of any use. Especially the data-files, like images or music. (Trying to use the code-files for a flight simulator might not work, but you can try... )

Anyhow, whatever you wish to create, I wish you luck.

[turin]

Spacenoth is going to involve changing the Wesnoth code itself (to add specialties, change game rules a bit, perhaps add back multi-hex attacks, etc), so it would make no sense to distribute it in this way.


Really, WML is already extremely flexible. There's no point to spending a lot of effort making it more so.

[anyeos]

I let you know what is a mod. A mod is a modification for some close code game. That game claims you to have the original files first installed. It is not possible to make a mod for Quake if you don't have the neccesary paks from the original purchased CD. Hacking the game is possible but is claimed as ILLEGAL. So you must have that files anyway if you don't need it. But here we have a free open source game. You can make a mod for this game anyway but it is called (instead of mod) campaign. That is the same technique that use close comercial games. But in the open source software you can do what you want (basically you have freedom). That is not illegal as in close software.
Now, Do you want to do some campaing for wesnoth? Then, first you can open the files placed in the "data" directory and take a look there. There you will see how the game works and you can understand how to do a campaign.
Let me tell you what in a campaign you can use the original images of the game or you can add new ones. The same with sounds, the same with units, the same with interface.
Anyway, this game is not developed for be modifiable at all in runtime. You can still modify the source code (or some files without modifing the sources directly) and make this look different. But the real advantage of a mod in a game is using the engine game. This game don't need to implement that in runtime, newly, you have freedom (and source code available). If you want, you can modify some files for this game and offer it as a separate game, the Licence (GPL) permits you do that. In a comercial game that is not possible if you don't pay a special licence that give you some rights for doing modifications and sell it as a separate game (just see some games that said: Using ID Software Doom 3 engine for example). For that reason they just created the "mod" technique that permit in not commercial purpose make a mod for a game. But you still need to pay the licence of the game as a normal player. Anyway you will not need to pay another licence but you are not able to sell that mod (and some other limitations that I don't remember). In free software you can sell the programs (remember: free as freedom, not free of charge). You can make a modification for wesnoth and you can sell it, but of course giving the source code as claim the GPL.

Bye