There is already a standalone tool to read yaml files which is excellent. I was thinking about an integrated tool in the N menu which would allow you to set dialogues in a POI console, define conditional or direct triggers for certain types of events like activating NPC spawners, make messages appear etc. There is actually a tool called eWCCT, but it seems to take a large learning curve to even get started. An integrated standalone tool, or non-integtrated outside of the game but easy to use would be superb.
The web pda editor tool is a bit of learning, but until Eleon stop changing things in the engine, that's about as good as it's going to get. I drop in and out of this game every 6 months, I just dropped in, in June and have had to relearn a lot that I forgot, and found that although knowledge of how to edit scenarios is better, doing so in my opinion is actually no easier on the main that it was last year when I started playing NMS and loads of other games. For some reason this game was never ever "meant" to be "user contribution" driven. With the exception of Base Blueprints almost every user contributed artefact breaks after about a year. Which is fair going actually, but not good enough somehow. Perhaps the greatest source of friction is that any guides or documents the community write, are quickly wrong within the space of a year as well. And this fundamentally points to change of direction occurring. I'm pretty sure more user generated guides will come out and make contributing easier too soon. I'm writing a new guide myself (but not about the PDA scripts.) And the fact that's it's V2 of the first guide I wrote for this game is perhaps telling a deeper story. I'm quite excited about writing my new Custom Scenarios guide. I'm about 1/8th done on it, but it's looking good even if it is behind schedule. I's proof in fact that this game has a lot to offer. So, short story, integrated tools are a long way off. Before we have integrated or publisher supplied tools, the developers need to first give us proper logging, so that modders can start to help themselves and write their own tools. This is a .NET app, module logging is literally 5 lines of code, just turn it on already so we can troubleshoot rapidly. It's a journey, and we don't even have a logging tool yet.
I realize now that I'm asking much with my suggestion, but my basic idea was: If it could be easier to build a scenario the game would be so much more popular and attracting giving lots of good plots to play the game differently. I have seen this with the inclusion of the Nemesis scenario in 1.85 which adds a lot to the game, I think that many players would go ahead making their own scenarios and publish them, but instead they are slowed-down and stopping because it's a rather complex and difficult work right now. Personally, I've come to the point to add custom POIs to the game and I'm able to give the game new starting elements (like Akua, Masperon or Skillon with Zyrax drone base presence or other such ideas), but additionally I would like an easy way to add console messages and some changed story pointers to somewhat guide the player. Even changing the content of such POIs, the enemy setup etc. requires to deal with other methods that currently only the eWCCT is able to deliver. Thus my idea to integrate a similar tool in the N menu like it has been done with the tool allowing you to copy-paste-cut blocks. If Eleon was able to add such a tool in the N menu, why not adding a tool to deal with console messages, teleporter setups, NPC placement setups etc. ? To design the game worlds they certainly have such a tool, it's enough if they include a ripped-down version of it in the N menu.
Vanilla planets are either hand written, or created using the EPD tool that is publicly available. You can tell which it is by opening the playfield files and looking at how they are formatted. Spawners are configured in the POI in-game already. Dialog isn't set up in game but realistically you would not want to use any kind of in-game editor for something so complex. Many aspects of scenario creation simply cannot be added as a built-in ingame editor due to the complexity and types of files that need to be edited. And even if such an in-game tool was created, external tools such as Notepad++, EPD, or eWCCT are so much better and powerful that you'd never want to use the in-game one anyway.
It is a lot to learn, the tools do work, but needs a lot of practise and dedication. I don't care what people say, but nobody with less than 500 hours playtime per year can hope to build a great scenario on their own with all the work it requires. Players fail to recognise the amount of effort it takes, please support the folk making the tools with a donation.
I will take a closer look to the EPD tool, thank you both ravien_ff and zaphodicus for your kind feedback!
There will be a new update to EPD in the next days, that fixes quite a few bugs. https://empyriononline.com/threads/...r-v2-22-0-exp-empyrion-v1-8-compatible.37581/ A few tips on creating playfields and scenarios: Best practice for beginners is to take an exitsting playfield that suits your ideas best. Copy it over to your scenario. Then make only small changes at once and see how it goes. If you encounter an error in game after making some changes, always make sure to find and fix it immediately, don't let them pile up. Once you have more than three exceptions, it's nearly impossible to find them. If you need help with EPD, post it in EPD's thread and I'll see what I can do to help you. /jmc
No I don't take donations, but thanks for asking. The costs of running the server are minimal. I try to keep EPD going as good as I can. The main issue that keeps me from doing more is time, not money. Family, 60hr day job, RL issues all over. Couldn't shift priorities more towards EPD even if I got donations. For me it's a fun little project that might help some people, and bonus, I get better at coding. /jmc
