[Design Help] Crafting

[Jervan]

Me again, hoping to initiate a little discussion into different methods of implementing crafting on a server.

So right now I have weapons that can be colored by any part (hilt, handle, blade and blade edge) and I've also coded a system to do elemental damage (so if you had a fiery blade edge, you could do basic and fire damage).

I asked my 6 year old nephew what sword he would have if he could have a sword designed for himself and he came up with this:

For reference here is how it starts off:

I think the change is awesome because it shows his personality, he loves pirates so he made it a cutlass and is young so used lots of primary colors. The problem is I was typing in commands in order to change the parts and colors of the weapon.

If I could have a system where players can choose their parts and colors easily that'd be ideal, but I'm having trouble thinking of a way to do this that doesn't require commands or knowledge of RGB.

What I do know is that the blade color will depend on the ore you use. The edge will depend on if you have elemental damage output or not. But the hilt and handle and the combination of parts used is where I think customization can go more wild. The best idea I've had is using the paint can to paint individual parts but it seems a bit limited with the colors available. Part selection is simple enough as it's more limited.

I'm rambling, I guess what I want to know is what is important to you in a weapon crafting system? Gathering ore doesn't seem much fun (I've made it as fun as I can ><). So crafting must be super rewarding or exciting somehow

[Ad Bot]

[Swollow]

you can not change the color of nodes on an image dynamically

Edit: to do what you are suggesting you would need to do something crazy like make individual images for each color and then mount several fractured models to the players right hand  to simulate changing weapons and stuff and even then theres a cap of 4 images max per player so if 3 of them were taken up by the weapon it would mean basically nothing else could be mounted because emotes and emitter effects are generally on the 4th slot (slot 3)

[Farad]

you can not change the color of nodes on an image dynamically

Doesn't Filipe's Support_Garage do something like that?

[Swollow]

Doesn't Filipe's Support_Garage do something like that?

vehicles are not images

[Conan]

you can not change the color of nodes on an image dynamically

Edit: to do what you are suggesting you would need to do something crazy like make individual images for each color and then mount several fractured models to the players right hand  to simulate changing weapons and stuff and even then theres a cap of 4 images max per player so if 3 of them were taken up by the weapon it would mean basically nothing else could be mounted because emotes and emitter effects are generally on the 4th slot (slot 3)

if you weren't following his slew of modding help topics, that's not an image. that's a bot mounted to his hand.
it acts like a weapon though.

i think it would be best if you could somehow make use of the avatar preview menu in some shape or form to color items, but that may be pushing the limit. you could simply have an image guide on the BLF describing how to do color changes and such, and link to it ingame through a /help command or something. maybe do something like /setcolor hilt to match the hilt to the paintcan color (if you want to forgo any custom gui)
optionally go the full-custom route and make a gui that's required if you want to do weapon modding, but only for little cosmetic things like that.

as for resources required for such items, mining is inevitable, but you could make it more questy by having the ore be in a special spot at the end of a quest, or hidden around the map, so its not grindy and more exploratory.

[Swollow]

if you weren't following his slew of modding help topics, that's not an image. that's a bot mounted to his hand.
it acts like a weapon though.

i think it would be best if you could somehow make use of the avatar preview menu in some shape or form to color items, but that may be pushing the limit. you could simply have an image guide on the BLF describing how to do color changes and such, and link to it ingame through a /help command or something.

as for resources required for such items, mining is inevitable, but you could make it more questy by having the ore be in a special spot at the end of a quest, or hidden around the map, so its not grindy and more exploratory.

well it would have been helpful to know that

[Jervan]

It's my favourite board, sue me  

Sorry Swollow, I intended this topic to be help with the design by getting feedback about what people find fun in a crafting system more than thinking much about the logistics

Rare ore in difficult parts of the map is a good idea. I've put the most elite ore in a 4-player-minimum-entry dungeon after that suggestion.

If you guys are annoyed about me posting new topics for each individual help needed I could make a topic for the mod as a whole? I just thought individual topics of issues fits more with the new board :P

I'm definitely avoiding client sided external downloads as a requirement, I think it inherently splits the player base. As for coloring, I'm thinking about using alchemy as a method to make dyes which you can then apply to the weapon when it's on the anvil. It means it's not as limited as the paint palette and gives another thing for players to achieve mastery of (making rare dyes)

[Conan]

dyemaking sounds interestif. you could put common dye materials ranging from ores to berries to flowers, and players who want cosmetics can take some time to get the stuff they need for the color they want

[elm]

If you guys are annoyed about me posting new topics for each individual help needed I could make a topic for the mod as a whole?

You're fine, keeping making new topics if you'd like.

[Cruxeis]

Is it possible to use animations/keyframes and change the material in game? I know you can do it using the IPO editor and stuff in blender, but can it be done in game? Everything I've tried doesn't work.

[Foxscotch]

If you guys are annoyed about me posting new topics for each individual help needed I could make a topic for the mod as a whole? I just thought individual topics of issues fits more with the new board :P

in general that's better. obviously you make help threads for your own sake, but far more importantly, afterwards they are useful to others. that's why you can't edit in the help board, cus people apparently liked to edit everything out after their problem is solved
anyway the point is, individual threads are much easier to search for. one thread that cycled through a whole lot of topics would be kinda useless for searching, because the forum software's more than a little broken, and will only find one result per thread. among other reasons

[Jervan]

Is it possible to use animations/keyframes and change the material in game? I know you can do it using the IPO editor and stuff in blender, but can it be done in game? Everything I've tried doesn't work.

You can color groups on a model if they are either Player or AIplayer datablocks using setNodeColor(groupName, "R G B A"); and hide / unHideNode works too. The main issues for weapons are collision which you have to bypass as well as a nice user-friendly way to change the parts (harder for me because I refuse players having to know /commands).