Modding Community Toolset

[PostCrepusculum]

Edit: Got my answer. Was pointed towards this post, which clearly states that mod are not wanted. Will leave the rest of the post up for posterity, but I've got my answer and won't be releasing any tools.

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I'm creating and have created some tools to mod Trials in Tainted Space. Figure I can release it to the public for everyone's use, but wanted to get some questions and thoughts from the dev team and general community before I did so.

Goals​

• Unlock modding for the community.
• Prevent redistribution of anything from the game itself.
• Avoid the need for dev involvement.
  • Every moment that y'all are handling asks to support this toolset is a moment y'all aren't spending elsewhere.
• Maybe? Make it easier for content to be pulled into the game.
  • Not sure how I feel about this one, but it's a thought.

Ideas​

Distributing the Toolkit/Mods​

• Browser Extension to repack/edit game files to inject the toolkit into the game.
  • The game won't have to be re-distributed with the toolkit or mod added.
• Mod Loader
  • Makes mod releases easier.
  • Prevents the need for re-distribution of the game.

Capabilities​

• Content Adding API for interactions, buttons, stories and plots.
  • Meant to add new content to the game.
• Content Edit API for inline edits
  • Meant to edit existing game content.
  • Additions vs Changes
    • Adding content is safer than changing content.
    • Changing content can result in unexpected behavior.
      • for example, two mods changing the same section of text.
  • Utilizes pre-generated hashes and positions instead of substring matches because...
    • I don't want to include game content inside of the toolkit or any mods I make.
    • Future-proofs against the case of large mod sets. Hash lookups are far more performant than substring/string matching.
    • A static code analyzer can easily tell when a text hash has changed.
• Game Engine Bindings
  • Indirectly exposes engine/game methods to the modder.

Questions​

For Dev Team​

• What concerns would y'all have? I know the game has had issues with mods re-distributing backer builds of the game in the past, so would prefer to work with y'all so that mods that utilize the toolset are incentivized/forced towards practices that would make y'all happy.
• Are y'all even open to publicly available mods and tools for Trials in Tainted Space? If it's a complete non-starter to release a mod publicly, even with mitigations, I'd prefer to know now rather than spend the time necessary for a public release of the tools.

For Modders​

• What capabilities, that I've not mentioned already, would y'all like from a toolset?
• Do folks even want a toolset? No point in my releasing things to the public if I'm the only one using it.

For Both​

• What kind of licensing would y'all like on the toolset? I tend to use an Apache license for open source projects, but am fine with something more restrictive if necessary.

Why?​

Because there's often content I'd like to see in the game. While I can submit it, I'm more apt to take things into my own hands. I can suggest content, but that requires dev team interest and bandwidth to implement it. And I'm sure the devs and the community would not want to see an imbalance of content catered to my own wants. So rather than giving y'all more work, I'm more inclined to be about it of my own volition. Then if y'all do like it, can just pull it in then.

 

[Wafflesnake]

strictly speaking, nobody can stop you from doing your own thing.

that being said, modding is explicitly not supported by the dev team. coc1 had a lot of difficulty with low quality mods, content that was banned, and many other undesirable things.

you can browse the forums and the discord for previous answers regarding modding, some notable and concise summaries are

https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/source-code-access.13569/#post-241776

https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/coc-tits-mod-for-fallout-elder-scrolls.30454/post-392491

https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/what-content-would-you-like-added.13015/post-369477

https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/what-content-would-you-like-added.13015/post-369493

as for my own opinion, i align fairly closely with the reply in the last post i linked. quite literally anybody can submit content. though many people are capable of coding, absolutely no coding is required.

Maybe? Make it easier for content to be pulled into the game.

the difficulty behind putting content into the game is not the submission system (unless a large amount of large submissions occur simultaneously as they don't always have many people doing reviews); its that content is a lot of work to write and there are not many people willing to do that work. adding a modding framework will not solve that. the writing still needs to be done. and if you're going to do the writing anyway, you may as well just submit it to be officially added. the only reason you wouldn't submit it officially is if, as the last post i linked states, the writing would not have been accepted.

 

[PostCrepusculum]

you can browse the forums and the discord for previous answers regarding modding, some notable and concise summaries are

Finding those aren't as easy as you might think. Searching Discord results in more hits for moderators than modding. Searching the forum leads to recent results, which are often about existing mods than the team's thoughts on them. And while I'm not above searching, I'm not going to trawl through nearly a decade worth of forum posts.

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Thanks for sharing that first link. That's a definitive answer that I'd not yet seen. Makes things simple. You're right, I could do whatever I want; but I'm not going to be an a**hole.

So gonna keep whatever I make, in terms of tooling, to myself and if there's any stories I think merits sharing I'll submit that up.

 

[Wafflesnake]

You're right, I could do whatever I want; but I'm not going to be an a**hole.

So gonna keep whatever I make, in terms of tooling, to myself and if there's any stories I think merits sharing I'll submit that up.

in the end imo, to a certain extent the issue is not modding itself. it's that anybody who mods can share those mods, which proliferates the many issues.

a local copy only for your use? nobody cares, no issues with confusing people with canon (unless you manage to confuse yourself), quality would quite literally only matter to the user, as would whatever fetish you choose to write, and no stepping on the toes of other writers with their own plans and preferences.