StarControl Forums
I'd like to hear some official word on what degree of modding will be available. Just textures, audio? Quest system? Full-fledged scripting engine that let's us solve protein folding?
You'll probably be waiting awhile for a full list of modding features but the big things that I can recall being disclosed or at least hinted at are:
So I'll chime in here on what to expect. We are planning on releasing mod tools to you guys for the game. However those tools are going to be released in subsequent patches after release. Right now our focus is on creating the game for you guys, and while our tools will work there is some work that needs to be put into them to make them more non-developer accessible. We are still building systems in the game that has to integrate with those tools. It doesn't make sense to release the tools too early to you guys when we have a lot more to modify to them as we build the game.
The dialog tool will be one of the tools you receive first. You will be able to play around with it and craft some dialog trees. However there is a scripting back end that goes along with it that we use to create content for the game. We are still adding new scripting calls on a fairly regular basis.
The ship designer tool is something we have been working on and plan to release to you guys in one of the subsequent patches after release. The tool will allow you to use prefabricated parts and put them together to create your own unique ships for your own adventures.
With regards to alien and creature creation, I don't think we promised any specific tool per say but rather the instructions for that process. You will be able to import a creature you create in you preferred modeling software that can save out to a specific format, and get them into the game. You can tie this directly to the dialog/scripting tool and that will enable you to build your own stories. There will be some animation requirements for them as well for them to function correctly (this may change).
We will disclose more information in the future as the tools get closer to being final and released.
In terms of aliens creation, it would be nice for modders to have an option to basically insert any animation or even a still picture as an alien and/or background. So that we could import old gifs from SC, or even non-animated pictures of kittens or naked ladies or whatever to serve as aliens.
+ to insert any music
+ to insert/link any voiceovers or use none
+ to insert any text
Thank you Vaelzad - I'm perfectly happy to wait for good modding tools, as long as I can rest assured that they will come eventually.
That said; I'm a little concerned that the ship designer isn't powerful enough for my needs if it only caters for pre-fabricated parts. I'd like to strongly advocate a robust scripting system that allows for custom-crafted ships. I've extensive experience in the Warcraft 3 scripting system which allowed wholly new games and heroes to be hand-crafted. Designing heroes with only the built-in ability pool in Warcraft 3 is unrewarding - the results are bland by modern expectations. In contrast the custom abilities and heroes introduced and refined in DotA (a Warcraft 3 mod) allow for a tremendously complex and satisfying game (and in its current incarnation as DotA 2 sets record after record).
The problem with pre-fab ship building is that they are limited by the imagination of the developer who implements the set of abilities exposed in the ship designer. And the developer in turn is limited by the imagination of the designer/marketing-team/or-just-plain-time. Now those are perfectly fine for creating the game that you set out to do, namely Star Control (Reborn) - but for custom mods the limit should be the global imagination.
I'd like to add that, for me, it is not sufficient to be able to create my own stories/adventures within the broader framework that Star Control will provide. I want to see custom mods that are completely new games. Tower defense style games. MOBA style games. Star Control Casinos.
Did you know that it is possible to create a Diablo-like inventory system in Warcraft 3 custom maps? (Complete with body slots for equipment, item sets with completion bonuses, randomly generated item stats that can confer new abilities.) Also it's possible to build an action-RPG-style skill tree (complete with dozens of branching abilities).
I'm pretty sure this is common knowledge by now, but until 2007 or 2008, World of Warcraft was basically an intensely more complex warcraft 3 mod using a heavily enhanced version of the engine. The architecture of course had to change in Wrath, and then was completely overhauled in Cataclysm, but yeah. It was WC3+ 
Sure, but WoW could rely on the full codebase; which is a different beast from a user-mod such as DotA.
The point, ultimately, is that what users should be able to create should be as wide open as possible.
If you look at the very last post on page 3, Weapon/Device Categories, I had posted that to address exactly this issue. Take a look at the categories in that and try to find some type of weapon that you can't represent within one of those categories.
That was written just for weapons, the similar device section is too specific to my game to be relevant here, but similar categories can be established for devices as well. These ships are very simple, and being "attached" to the 2D plane makes things a lot easier to deal with than in a 3D game.
There are very, very few weapons you might be able to think of that can't be made to work within one of those categories... from my 20-year-old "Object Editor":-)
If you look at the very last post on page 3, Weapon/Device Categories, I had posted that to address exactly this issue. Take a look at the categories in that and try to find some type of weapon that you can't represent within one of those categories.
That was written just for weapons, the similar device section is too specific to my game to be relevant here, but similar categories can be established for devices as well. These ships are very simple, and being "attached" to the 2D plane makes things a lot easier to deal with than in a 3D game.
There are very, very few weapons you might be able to think of that can't be made to work within one of those categories... from my 20-year-old "Object Editor"
Did you actually make this game?
I think the ship editor should allow you to create components based on the technology you find to include hybrid designs. I do have to say this, I have seen "design your own" games that people take what available to them and dream up some crazy creations, RoboCraft is one that comes to mind. Now it's first incarnation was great but they messed up the game completely. I digress. I think components properly R&D will work great with low chance of mishap. Cobbled components make give you more power but will have huge reliability issue in other aspects. Monster power usage or sensor blindness while firing weapons. I would be happy with basic structure components like Kerbil Space Program that I can skin with a utility as part of the mods tools. Maybe a component creator. This would be cool but the only issue is people will complain about balancing. Now I reference these other games as I have no other point of reference and frankly except for some modeling and skinning work on a Starflight Remake project I don't have much games designing experience.
Did you actually make this game?
I think the ship editor should allow you to create components based on the technology you find to include hybrid designs. I do have to say this, I have seen "design your own" games that people take what available to them and dream up some crazy creations, RoboCraft is one that comes to mind. Now it's first incarnation was great but they messed up the game completely. I digress. I think components properly R&D will work great with low chance of mishap. Cobbled components make give you more power but will have huge reliability issue in other aspects. Monster power usage or sensor blindness while firing weapons. I would be happy with basic structure components like Kerbil Space Program that I can skin with a utility as part of the mods tools. Maybe a component creator. This would be cool but the only issue is people will complain about balancing. Now I reference these other games as I have no other point of reference and frankly except for some modeling and skinning work on a Starflight Remake project I don't have much games designing experience.
Yes, actually, I did "make" it.
It is not a "design your own" system for a game. It is system of categorization for weapon types in a 2D space combat game. It is possible to represent almost any type of weapon that you can imagine. That doesn't necessarily mean that you must represent every weapon through those categories, only that almost any weapon can be represented through one of those categories. So the devs might make "custom weapons" while you still have the foundation of those weapon categories for modders/editors to make it easier for them to add new weapons to the game.
You could come up with a similar system for the devices. Like I said, my device categorization is too specific to my game to quickly edit it into something for SC like the weapon editor section was.
The weapons section was easy to slightly edit for Star Control. The devices of my top down shooter are... too specific... to that game and part of how it works. I would have to re-write a similar thing from scratch for SC. But it is really simple, actually, just like the weapons you create categories that can represent almost any device between them. These "pre-categorized game mechanics" then allow modders to very easily create almost any weapon or device they want. Modders (and devs) can, of course, also "custom design" such systems as well that are more detailed, or more specific, than the categories would represent that same system. The point of the categories is that many weapons/systems will work fine within them so they save both modders and devs the trouble of having to custom design every weapon or system in the game.
So for an example of "Device Categories" you might have a "Gravtic Effects" category that can represent any gravtic devices like a Subspace's "Repel" or a "Gravitic Mine". The "Wavelock" and "Expanding Sphere" weapons categories might also be used to create devices.
This is really meant for modders and devs and not meant as a "design your own" type of system. This *was* a "design your own" system in my game... but these "Object Editors" are the one and only thing that I would remove from it if I were to make it as a computer game today. It was very cool in 1997, it's a lot of work for not a ton of gain in 2016.
No, the Weapon/Device Categories are not sufficient.
Speaking from my background in doing Warcraft 3 mods: the original Warcraft 3 ability editor follows the same approach as outlined in the Weapon/Device Categories. You can create new abilities, template them from any of the base abilities and adjust the properties and visuals. It allows for a comprehensive set of abilities that cover all the basics well. But they are inadequate for complex abilities such as those created in great Warcraft 3 mods such as DotA. The success of those mods/games relies on interesting and intricate interactions between abilities that "straight-forward" abilities simply cannot match.
I'm interested in having such possibilities in the new StarControl too. I want to be able to script a ship that deals bonus damage when hitting the rear of an enemy ship. I want to be able to script a ship that can temporarily merge with a planet to increase offensive potency. I want to be able to script a ship that can travel back in time (restoring position, fuel, and crew). I want to be able to script a ship that damages nearby enemy ships when they (the enemies) accellerate.
The point is that having templates for the basics is nice. However, in my opinion it is not enough - the imagination and coding ability of the rest of the world far exceeds the constraints set by templates.
Exactly. Having pre-established categories like these allow anyone, even little kids, to mess around creating stuff that works. Then they are sometimes just fine for something a modder/dev wants to do as well, but if not they of course have the option of doing up something "custom" for the exact effect that they want to get.
Yea. 
StarControl modding should be like Ogres. They have layers.
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