Good luck from the Nexus

For updates and discussion of Terra Invicta, a grand-strategy alien invasion simulator
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Dark0ne
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Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2015 9:26 am

Good luck from the Nexus

Post by Dark0ne »

Hi guys,

Robin from Nexus Mods here.

Just wanted to wish you good luck for the coming years of development. If you need to do any major announcements (e.g. for your Kickstarter, or a hiring drive) don't hesitate to give us a buzz.

I'm wondering if, from your experience trying to mod a game that really wasn't designed to be modded, whether you're trying to build TI from the ground up to be more moddable? Speaking to many developers on the issue, they've all said it's many magnitudes easier to allow modding for your game if you plan to allow for modding from the start, and build the game with that in mind, as opposed to trying to crow bar it in later. I know it's very early days, but food for thought at least. Had you any plans or even considered the modding aspect at this stage?

Anyway, all the best.
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johnnylump
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Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2015 4:12 am

Re: Good luck from the Nexus

Post by johnnylump »

Hi Robin!

Nice seeing you here! Thanks for letting us make our home on the Nexus and putting us on your front page.

And yes, we're engineering TI so it will be moddable. I'd have to defer to Rachel/Amineri to what degree we think we'll be able to support -- she's done some work in that regard already.
Amineri

Re: Good luck from the Nexus

Post by Amineri »

Dark0ne wrote: I'm wondering if, from your experience trying to mod a game that really wasn't designed to be modded, whether you're trying to build TI from the ground up to be more moddable? Speaking to many developers on the issue, they've all said it's many magnitudes easier to allow modding for your game if you plan to allow for modding from the start, and build the game with that in mind, as opposed to trying to crow bar it in later. I know it's very early days, but food for thought at least. Had you any plans or even considered the modding aspect at this stage?
I agree that from a "Systems Engineering" viewpoint, adding in modding support is best thought of as something you consider from the beginning, as opposed to adding it in after-the-fact.

Since our roots were modding, it's definitely something that's on my mind as I prototype stuff. I'm doing all of my prototyping in Unity, and it's 99% certain that is the platform we'll end up using. For assets and such the modding situation would probably be similar to how Kerbal Space Program handles it -- using the Unity Development tools to create additional content. Also, I'm trying to make stuff as tweakable as possible via JSON-formatted config files.

It does make developing the game harder, but in the long run I think it's worth it :)
Dark0ne
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Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2015 9:26 am

Re: Good luck from the Nexus

Post by Dark0ne »

Sounds great!

Since you're aiming for a "grand strategy" game, Paradox games are pretty much seen as the prime examples of this genre. I'm absolutely sure you know how moddable those games are due to the extremely easy file structure they've chosen to adopt. Specifically in regards to the sheer number of settings, variables and attributes that are visible and editable within all the various text/config files they use. Could such a system work for TI, or is Unity going to limit things somewhat?
Amineri

Re: Good luck from the Nexus

Post by Amineri »

Dark0ne wrote: Since you're aiming for a "grand strategy" game, Paradox games are pretty much seen as the prime examples of this genre. I'm absolutely sure you know how moddable those games are due to the extremely easy file structure they've chosen to adopt. Specifically in regards to the sheer number of settings, variables and attributes that are visible and editable within all the various text/config files they use. Could such a system work for TI, or is Unity going to limit things somewhat?
I've considered adding in a lua run-time script compiler, which would effectively be similar to what Paradox uses with the Clausewitz engine. However, I'm still debating whether adding that adds more complexity that is really warranted, since the existence of a the free (for modders) Unity Development environment allows somewhat more efficient compilation (albeit in C#, which isn't that great).

I do play a Paradox games a lot, and enjoy them immensely, but one aspect I'm not a fan of is the very long loading times. From my understanding, this comes from having to process a lot of text/lua script resources at run-time, in addition to building provinces and such from bitmaps and such. So, I'm trying to avoid such "game launch" bloat as much as I can, while still allowing for moddability. Tricky business, and the more I delve into it, the more I understand why so many developers don't pursue modding as much.
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Azmodeth
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Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2016 7:30 am

Re: Good luck from the Nexus

Post by Azmodeth »

Just make sure everything is also voice acted. This helps keep people awake, in such long and complicated strategy games, more reading for the sake of lore or story puts people to sleep, puts them off ultimately in the long run. XCOM did this well, but when going into research and reading lore after you've researched something, as an example, that was fine. But it should have been more explanative still, but with an easy way of ignoring it too.
The mind is best suited for imagination.
Andor
Posts: 40
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2016 12:48 am

Re: Good luck from the Nexus

Post by Andor »

Azmodeth wrote:Just make sure everything is also voice acted. This helps keep people awake, in such long and complicated strategy games, more reading for the sake of lore or story puts people to sleep, puts them off ultimately in the long run. XCOM did this well, but when going into research and reading lore after you've researched something, as an example, that was fine. But it should have been more explanative still, but with an easy way of ignoring it too.
Speaking as someone who loved the first Mass Effect game for the in-depth world development revealed through the in game codex I just sort of blink uncomprehendingly at this post. However since you'd probably like to take money from both me and Azmodeth I'll merely suggest that voice acting be used for the cut scene precis explanations, with the full reports available for the commanders perusal at his desk or some such. Oh, and if you are going to do voice acting, please do it well. Hammy acting does not help me enjoy a game. Even some of the Long War extra voices got a bit amateur hour for my tastes, although obviously you (and the voice actors) get a pass for actually being amateurs volunteering time for a labour of love. :D
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