Adventures and modules

[george moromisato]

As you all know from previous posts, one of my goals is to allow the creation of many different adventures/campaigns in Transcendence. Some of those take place in the canonical Transcendence universe; others may not.

Right now, the default adventure, Domina & Oracus, is intertwined with the more generic definitions for the Transcendence universe.

For example, suppose you want to create an adventure in the canonical Transcendence universe, but you don't want to pull in the plot-lines and missions from D&O, such as the Huari storyline. Today, if you create an adventure and want to use the Huari, you will also pull in the entire Huaramarca storyline (which you may not want, since that is tied to D&O). [The CSC Antarctica storyline is another example.]

I'd like to propose that we explicitly separate the design types that are common across all adventures from the elements that are specific to D&O.

For example, we might separate as follows:

COMMON ELEMENTS AVAILABLE TO ALL ADVENTURES
* All sovereigns such as Ares, Charon Pirates, Commonwealth, etc.
* All stations for the sovereigns above, including those that give generic missions (e.g., Korolov).
* All generic ship classes for sovereigns above.
* All generic items for the above.
* All generic star system definitions (e.g., volcanic system)

D&O SPECIFIC ELEMENTS
* Topology
* All static systems (e.g., Eridani, Charon, St. Katharine's Star, Heretic, etc.)
* All storyline-specific elements (Huari missions, Point Juno mission, CSC Antarctica mission)

The main advantage of this separation is that stand-alone adventures don't have to worry about all the D&O-specific missions. If an adventures *wants* to include a D&O-specific mission such as the CSC Antarctica mission, then there should be way to include a module into the adventure (i.e., all the D&O-specific elements will be available as modules).

[And, of course, the nice thing about modules in adventures is that they don't conflict with others--multiple adventures can include the same (or even slightly different versions of the same) module and there will be no conflict, since the module is only loaded with the specific adventure.]

The downside to this separation is that some existing 1.0 adventures might not work (though I'm not sure). For instance, any adventure that assumes that the Huari storyline is included might not work correctly.

[There is no downside for 1.0 extensions; if they extend D&O, then they have access to all elements.]

I'm interested in what everyone thinks about this proposal (and please ask me to explain further on any point of confusion).

[Aury]

Considering that TSB doesn't even have a working adv.ext version yet (it only loads as a normal mod due to a weird can't add sound bug), the change is fine with me.

[Ttech]

I don't think its such a bad idea, I'd love extensions to be able to be their own directories and separate their resources. (some of that is already possible though)

[digdug]

I'd like to propose that we explicitly separate the design types that are common across all adventures from the elements that are specific to D&O.

I really like this idea.

Besides the split, I suppose that adventure extensions should be able to access "generic only" or "D&O" design types, thus allowing campaigns (as by your definition) to be built in an esier way.

[Aury]

how about an ability to import design types specifically?

[RPC]

When playing around in Sandbox there were 2 related things that immediately jumped into mind:
1. Domina stations
2. Domina powers
Both of those are intricately interlaced with D&O. As for stations, one idea would be to write then out, and in fact, propably what we might do. However, even if we do override Domina powers, the fact still remains that there is an unused "I" button.
Two solutions are
1. Keep Domina powers but make Sustain require XP
2. Get rid of powers and disable "I" button OR the ability to specify other button for other powers.
Edit:
Ok my question is:
1. How will you make Domina something specific to D&O?
2. How can we compensate for missing powers if we can't use the "I" button or another similar button? If we disable Domina, will we
still have access to to the "I"nvoke button?

[shanejfilomena]

edit: got a better question

[alterecco]

I'd like to propose that we explicitly separate the design types that are common across all adventures from the elements that are specific to D&O.

That sounds like a really good idea. +1

Domina powers can be removed from the game by a mod (or adventure) today by simply making a function called domShowPower that returns nil. While that works, it might be said to be a hack. I think it would be nice if the entire Domina storyline could be excluded in a more obvious way.

[digdug]

we might do. However, even if we do override Domina powers, the fact still remains that there is an unused "I" button.

I think that the "I" button is an awesome menu that we can use for mods that are not related with the D&O campaign.

For Sandbox, I can imagine the button to be used for advanced trading routes finder, station managements (if in sandbox we can buy/hire/build stations), secondary system communications (broadcast SOS, broadcast request of fuel rods and so on), news bulletin system (a station has been built, or pirates appeared)
Lots of possibilities, at the end we have only 3 "in-flight" menus (communications, items, domina powers), we should take advantage of all of them

[george moromisato]

Domina powers can be removed from the game by a mod (or adventure) today by simply making a function called domShowPower that returns nil. While that works, it might be said to be a hack. I think it would be nice if the entire Domina storyline could be excluded in a more obvious way.

Agreed. One thing I'm proposing is that Domina powers would only appear in the D&O adventure. Any other adventure wouldn't get them (unless it included a copy of the Domina.xml module).

[Nomad Hellfist]

So, by that logic, any adventure that doesn't use Domina powers would never let the player receive the "Never invoked powers of Domina", right? Because it would be incredibly easy to maintain if one did not have any Domina powers to begin with.

Also, I was wondering if, in a future release, there would be some sort of multiverse-spanning adventure mode in which, along with the main Domina/Oracus campaign universe, players can spontaneously find themselves in other campaign universes through some strange violations of space-time, where Domina powers are temporarily disabled for universes that don't have Domina. I had been thinking this when I was figuring out how the Endless Mode I was proposing would work.
Or should that go into suggestions as well?

[shanejfilomena]

Domina powers can be removed from the game by a mod (or adventure) today by simply making a function called domShowPower that returns nil. While that works, it might be said to be a hack. I think it would be nice if the entire Domina storyline could be excluded in a more obvious way.

Agreed. One thing I'm proposing is that Domina powers would only appear in the D&O adventure. Any other adventure wouldn't get them (unless it included a copy of the Domina.xml module).

Naturally I agree totally with George, however, I am still very disappointed that the suggestion of removing Domina from the Player's inventory : and the resulting cascade failure of having the core religious story-line / items still in the game will be illogical.

While your hoofing it about Domina, you make no mention of the items , Oracus or the Oracus Shrines ( guess who they are? , thats right , your not friendly nearest pals with the Halo Gems you enjoy so much.)
IF you proceed to not utilize the power of Domina to help the player you must go on an Atheist Crusade against Domina stations and Oracus as well and all items related to the religious factions : including the Gem of Sacrifice.....which means replacing that because it is actually a religious item and not simply a defensive tool........

the Halo Gems would have to be shuffled around, the Gem Of Sacrifice would have to find a new home and if you Ying without the Yang you unbalance the entire forces of nature that are compelling the primary drive to reach the Core......
unless you replace everything.

using the powers invoked for other " purposes" which resemble the powers of Domina is just like renaming the cork : it is still a cork.

I am NOT against a move to not have Domina in an extension or features, I am just pointing out how confusing it can be to the player and the over-all game drive if you do not eradicate everything and start from 0 .
I still think the player is getting too much credit for using the powers. As " upright" as many players appear they are as about religiously motivated as the Ventari are about being pacifist ( remember: we kill stuff in this universe? thats not very Domina -like..unless you know Domina's secret, but then if you knew this.......you would support Domina and seek to make Domina more powerful as well as bring into the game more actions between Domina and Oracus followers......which could be a good solution and throw in a twist of a possessed sisterhood that runs the line from the Season of the Witch " They are the Enemies of Domina!, Kill them all so they can pay for their crimes against the Almighty....." ( just faking it here, but it is a curious thought and you Mod makers are the only besides George that could pull it off )
++edits are for typos, i get that alot.

[Nomad Hellfist]

I just realized that what George wants is essentially the custom campaign feature from Neverwinter Nights, where only the basic gameplay engine is consistent between all campaigns.
The difference is that we can't import/export our player characters between campaigns.

[PKodon]

I just realized that what George wants is essentially the custom campaign feature from Neverwinter Nights, where only the basic gameplay engine is consistent between all campaigns.
The difference is that we can't import/export our player characters between campaigns.

Hm. This is true. I'm sort of working on some things related to changing ships, and one thing I've considered is that, I'm told some information that is on the target ship is erased and overwritten by the player's info, while the player's former ship has the same info wiped. I'm wondering if the player's info shouldn't be in some sort of data structure which could be exported/imported, and whether ships the player "could" swap out to (even if it's temporary, for the purpose of modifying equipment and cargo) shouldn't have some sort of similar data structure held by the captain of the ship (who flies the ship when the player isn't in control).

I haven't proposed this to George, yet, but it's something I've been thinking about.

[alterecco]

George has already proposed that we begin storing data on the playersovereign type rather than the playership. So, where appropriate, use:

Code: Select all

(typSetGlobalData &svPlayer; key value)
instead of
(objSetData gPlayerShip key value)

if you find it too much to type, then make acouple of helpers (perhaps request they get included in vanilla)

Code: Select all

(setq setData (lambda (key value) (typSetGlobalData &svPlayer; key value)))
(setq getData (lambda (key) (typGetGlobalData &svPlayer; key)))