Simplified Mod API Framework

Discussion in 'Empyrion API' started by cmwhee, Mar 13, 2018.

  1. cmwhee

    cmwhee Commander

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    Hey everyone,

    I've been working on a couple of mods, and I found that it was kind of hard to work with the API in it's original form, so I made a framework to make it a lot easier

    https://github.com/lostinplace/EmpyrionAPITools

    The upshot is, strongly typed API requests with callbacks, and native C# event management.

    I implemented it using T4 templates, so if the API changes, it will be really easy (1-2 lines of simple code) to update.

    Let me know what you think! If there's a demand I might set up a stream to walk through creating an Empyrion mod.
     
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  2. Len Auphydas

    Len Auphydas Ensign

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    Hi!
    I'm interested, but, I don't know how moddable the game is and it kinda depends on that. For now I'm kinda holding off until theres more information available and hopefully more tools to work on modding with.

    but since you've been modding already I'd like to ask just a couple of questions. 1) is it possible to make regenerating blocks 2) is it possible to make armor that consumes energy?

    ...sorry if these are stupid questions I like, just started playing the game so I dont know much.
     
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  3. cmwhee

    cmwhee Commander

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    Hey there, You're right, the mod API is pretty limited at this point but there's just enough that a lot of things that people want may be within reach.

    So to start off, regenerating blocks isn't really possible, since none of the APIs allow access to specific blocks on structures/ships. It would be super cool if we had access to that level, maybe in the future.

    Regarding armor, Can you clarify what armor you mean? If you're talking about personal armor, that's not quite within reach, but I can think of a few ways you might be able to simulate it. If you're talking about ship / base armor, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's achievable using the EnergyIn of the blocks, but I haven't tried that myself.

    Let me know if I can help!
     
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  4. Exacute

    Exacute Rear Admiral

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    That's nice. I was considering doing something similar at a point, but got sidetracked. Cheers for doing it! ;)

    Looks like a decent start on a project like this :)
     
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  5. Len Auphydas

    Len Auphydas Ensign

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    if you cant modify specific blocks, then how do you affect their energy consumption....?
     
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  6. Exacute

    Exacute Rear Admiral

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    Okay. So there's two different things:
    -Blocks and how they work
    -Blocks and how they are used (blueprint)

    The first, you can adjust in the config.ecf file.
    The second, you'd have to be able to manipulate the blueprint files.
    Geostar have made an attempt at that, but it is neither real-time (ingame) (it only adjusts the *blueprint*, not any spawned structures), nor bulletproof. It's the best we got atm tho.
     
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  7. Len Auphydas

    Len Auphydas Ensign

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    ok. More API's are being added though, right? like, hopefully we'll get it sometime?

    I want to make biomechanical ship blocks that self-regenerate at the cost of energy.
     
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  8. Joyful Dreamer

    Joyful Dreamer Ensign

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    Keep up the good work. I may try this very soon. I noticed you have an Alpha 10 branch; good stuff. ;) do you know to what extent we can modify the game? For example, is it possible to have conversations with NPCs? Not sure if there is any dialogue system. Just wondering, if one was creative enough, to what extent we can modify a custom server with custom game logic. Seems we can affect about as much as anyone could through the console only.
     
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  9. Mortlath

    Mortlath Commander

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  10. Dreuseff

    Dreuseff Lieutenant

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    Wow! This is sexy! Are you still committed to this project or should I use the GitHub-TC fork?
     
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  11. ASTIC

    ASTIC Rear Admiral

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    #11
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  12. imlarry425

    imlarry425 Captain

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    Hello @ASTIC, after looking at your EmpyrionNetAPIAccess framework I've been doing my first request/response ModGameAPI dedi interface code using it. A big "me too" on the previous "Wow!"

    There were a couple of changes since the original readme.md (I'll take a cut at a readme.md revision and issue a pull request once I get everything working as described- just little stuff like "SimpleMod" changing to "EmpyrionModBase" and calling out the local package directory dependency (I didn't have an F: on my machine) sorts of stuff.

    The hello world example that sends a Request_InGameMessage_AllPlayers(msg) Hello on player_connect is working from a co-op test but I can't get the MSBuild.ILMerge.Task described in the readme to work. I keep getting...

    ILMerge.Merge: ERROR!!: Duplicate type 'UnityEngine.MovieTexture' found in assembly 'UnityEngine.AudioModule' from the MSBuild.ILMerge.Task

    ...and there are no explicit unity references anywhere I can find. Guessing they are buried in Mif or ModAPI (or maybe in both? => dups?)

    Have you run into this? Not sure what the fix is, but bundling the dlls into a single file would be a big deployment simplification over copying everything from bin into the mod folder. Any pointers greatly appreciated.
     
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  13. ASTIC

    ASTIC Rear Admiral

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    Set all external EGS references to "CopyLocal=false", because they can/must be loaded at runtime and must not be fixed in the DLL via ILMerge.
     
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