Volunteering my services, doing simple changes to existing mods

[dreamdancer]

Title is mostly self-explanatory. I am currently honing my skills working with the SDX tool, and need some practice. So I am hereby offering my services doing simple add-ons or tweaks to any existing mod, for anyone who wants a more personalized experience but doesn't feel like doing modding themselves. I'm only taking requests for pretty minor changes, not overhauls, and anything that requires deep code changes(as opposed to xml) is going to be a crapshoot whether I can pull it off. But feel free to ask about anything at all, a challenge could be fun.

 

I'll include in this top post links to all the finished files, as well as the SDX packages for those who want to add the same to a different existing mod(and know how to use SDX). Also, any add-on I'll have finished can very easily be translated over to any other mod.

 

This was inspired by Neelix asking if someone could combine Tin's Dying lands with Pringlz Simple Working Sinks and Ovens. Which I've done. Of note, I did -not- get permission from Pringlz, as they don't seem to be on this forum, but rather uploaded onto NexusMods. But it was quite simple code, and I have left it wholly intact apart from patching it into the Dying Lands xmls, and an SDX package. If this breaks forum rules, let me know and I'll take this one down. The readme of their files does give permission, merely asking for credit.

 

 

Dying Lands/Pringlz simple working sink and ovens:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TdH3sZvL6kAxuEb9dUwiNrryBCoezY6a

As SDX:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VvPBrCBhLYWmiAKRdtXJcJPt8NgM5SBN

Link to Pringlz' mod:

https://www.nexusmods.com/7daystodie/mods/56/?tab=docs

 

 

 

 

Project 2: A couple weapons from True Survival, edited into Valmod.

Weapons are: Katana, Bat, Nailed Bat, Lucille, Brass Knuckles.

Brass Knuckles were a pain, as there are changes between 16.2 and 16.4, and they were broken even in TS, due to the fact that the base code has no ability to handle brass weapons. As a result, they look a little funky when seen 3rd person, and can't be repaired/scrapped(because I had to make them act like they were made out of iron... it's a hack). But they work.

 

Each weapon has a basic action. They also each have a secondary action you can enable, by finding them in the file and finding the 'Action1' line and removing the commenting around them( <!-- and --> ) will enable them.

 

To install, simply paste these files into their respective locations within a working folder of Valmod. Note that you then have to launcher from the 7dtd exe in that folder, NOT the launcher, as the launcher will overwrite these files.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MZj0ZO_W1ocjPj3KQzt3GH8YALYqU1Tw

[ScottWhite9]

Hey there

 

First off let me say this is very nice of you and very cool that you want to get better. IDK if this would be hard for you or not but...I love valmod, but i also like the weapons of true survival. Is there a way for you to add the sword, bat and brass knuckles from the true survival mod (and all the different zombies if it's easy enough) to the Valmod Overhaul? (i think the sword and bat have special names from the walking dead) anyway, just a thought. Thanks Scott

PS, sorry if it's to hard, i'm not sure about what is SDX and XML or difficulty of doing this, thanks for your time.

[dreamdancer]

I think the items should be doable. Haven't dug into True Survival much as yet, so dunno for sure, but adding items is generally trivial.

 

Adding zombies, will have to check. Watch this space.

[jhast07]

Hey Dancer. It's me again. Thanks for the help before by the way. I'm trying to add an upgrade path for barbed wire in my valmod game right now, but the game gets stuck at the load screen after I tried to mod it in. I can hear game sounds on the starting game screen. No error codes are noted as well. Hitting alt-F4 to close out of the game causes my character to load in for a split second with a 3 or 4 lines of error reads, but the game closes out before I can actually see what they are. (all I did was copy/paste barbedWireSheet properties and start adding in my own properties from existing materials to it) The attempt is to have barbed wire upgradable to razorWire with 5-10 forged steel, downgradable back to barbedWireSheet and for it to have 2500 health or so with a moderate amount of damage as to have it not become overpowered. I'll attach my blocks.xml in this pastebin if you have the time to look at it. Thanks again for all the help. razorWire is at the very bottom and barbedWireSheet is towards the top. I deleted most of the upper section of it so you wouldn't have to trudge through the entire xml to find barbedWireSheet.

 

https://pastebin.com/j8UkMGpd

[dreamdancer]

Jhast: First thing I can tell is wrong is that you reuse an ID#. ID# 2000 is already used by cntCollapsedGeneratorbank. This could cause a crash on load, though it might not be the only issue.

 

This is one of the advantages of SDX, as it allocates block IDs dynamically on build, meaning you don't have to go scouring through the file for an unused ID#.

 

As another aside, it's often better to just use the extends function instead of copying the data over again> Doesn't really matter much, just makes for cleaner code. I'll poke at it tomorrow to see if I can get it to work for ya though.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Scott:

 

Exactly what items do you want ported over? There seem to be several bats. Give me a list and I'll work on it tomorrow. Going to be a bit more than a quick slap together, since I have to extract the mesh files out of the assets. Totally doable, but going to involve some digging.

[jhast07]

Thanks a ton. I realized it reused 2000 right after I posted this, but even after changing it it refuses to load for some reason. I'm really new to this, so I'm trying to get better so I can combine different parts of other mods into this. One step at a time though lol I'll keep trying to see if I can get it to work. Thanks again.

[dreamdancer]

Oh, wait, no extraction needed. True Survival was built with SDX, so all the assets are already nicely sectioned off in a mods folder. Sweet. That'll be a piece of cake then.

[dreamdancer]

Jhast: I figured out the issue. After trying it myself with your code, successfully loading with no issues, but then trying to upgrade to yours and getting a DivideByZero error telling me that texture 267 didn't exist. Which was irksome, because obviously it exists...

 

Except it doesn't. Different kinds of blocks have different textures available.

 

https://gist.github.com/StompyNZ/0e740c259062f1a2925bab9639173c04

 

If you scroll down through that past the first list(opaque), you will find a second list of -cutouts-. Your block is a cutout. So you have to pick a texture from the list of available ones from cutouts. Problem is, the textures also change the look of the block. This is what it looks like with texture 516::

 

 

:/

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Going to see if there is some way to change the color and keep the cutout.

[Guppycur]

Those aren't quite the atlas names btw. It's not opaque, it's ta_opaque. Well, the filename is, I suppose the xml name is that... I dunno if it'll work, but try pointing to the specific atlas you want to get the number from.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

...also, you're going to quickly learn how ♥♥♥♥ty the forum's attachment system is when you reach the limit, so you may want to preemptively get into the habit of using image sites like imgur or postimage.

[dreamdancer]

The problem is the texture of the cut-out doesn't just determine the color. It determines the... cut out. Effectively the shape beyond just 'billboard'. Use a different texture and it doesn't look like barbed wire any more. If I somehow did succeed at giving it a texture from the ta_opaque set it would just be a flat plate. Spent a bit of time trying to just do a palate swap, but the codes I've found for that apparently only work for some blocks, not others. Workstation prefab model, yes. Barbwire cutout texture on a billboard, no.

 

:/

[jhast07]

The funniest thing...I read that my code worked, re entered it to the server and poof...it worked. lol Thanks guys

Oh you mentioned taking things that are made in the SDX tool and adding them to others that are from the SDX as well is relatively easy? I was thinking about wiping my server and trying to take some things from valmod and a large chunk from War of the Walkers, but I have no idea where to start.

[ScottWhite9]

True Survival/Valmod Overhaul

 

Thanks for replying. Honestly when it comes to the bats, if its not to much trouble all of them. The most important ones are the named ones like lucille and michonne sword but honestly all the bats would be great, weapons galore lol if its easy that is. I can't imagine other people not wanting this mod mix as well.

[dreamdancer]

Ok, sure. And yeah, I can see having a bunch of cool weapons floating around as an SDX that can be added into any mod being popular. Though before I release it as SDX I'll poke Spider for permission. Posting a patched together Valmod + weapons for you though I'll do today. After I figure out what I did wrong with the TinSinks thing, because apparently I made some kind of weird mistake and have to go back and figure out where everything went wrong.

[DuckDastardly]

I thanked you for the Sinks fix in Tin's Undying Lands thread, but I think I will thank you here as well. Works ingame now, at least from the point that I could pull them out of the creative menu and used the oven, and sinks/faucets just fine now(not far enough along in my game to want to waste the materials to make them yet).

 

Thank you for this and for what you are doing for people like me who either don't understand or don't have time to do this kind of stuff. So thanks again! :tickled_pink:

[dreamdancer]

Is poking around at the melee weapons from True Survival and....

<property name="DamageBonus.head" value="94" />

 

Wat. Wat? WAT?!?

 

That's.... that's not additive. That's a multiplier. The sniper rifle has the best headshot multiplier in the base game, and it only has a bonus of 9.

I... I do not think these are balanced in a way that will play well with Valmod. With your permission, Imma play with the numbers. Like a lot.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

(The katana is worse, with a multiplier of 115....)

[dreamdancer]

Now, the question is, leave in the secondary attacks from True Survival or no? They would be out of step with the rest of Valmod, as none of the other weapons in Valmod have secondary attacks, while all of the melee weapons in TS have them.

 

Hmm. Unless I hear otherwise, I am going to leave them in but comment them out.

[skolano]

Good afternoon, the MOD True Survival A16.2, as you use this mode and make simple changes to the mod, for me it is a great MOD. with very insane !!!

 

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?38584-True-Survival-JZMOD

[ScottWhite9]

True Survival/Valmod Overhaul

 

Now, the question is, leave in the secondary attacks from True Survival or no? They would be out of step with the rest of Valmod, as none of the other weapons in Valmod have secondary attacks, while all of the melee weapons in TS have them.

 

Hmm. Unless I hear otherwise, I am going to leave them in but comment them out.

 

 

Damn you're right i forgot about that. True Survival combat is awesome in that aspect of secondary attack. I wish all weapons had that honestly. I don't mind the extreme multiplier as i feel headshots should be 1 hit anyway specially with special weapons. (the katana is very end game and hard to make apparently). Do what you feel is best and easiest though, i appreciate you even just trying. True Survival is such an awesome mod i wish it could be kept up with that updates. Thanks, Scott

[skolano]

dreamdancer are you editing true survival mod ??

[dreamdancer]

No, I am not editing True Survival. Bringing it up to date would be a far greater task than I am up for. Not having written it, I would not even know where to start. What I am doing is taking pieces of it to make an SDX. An SDX is a kind of mod-package that can be applied to any other mod to add features to it. I am trying to teach myself the ins and outs of using it, for my own future purposes, and I figured that volunteering to help people would be a good way to get some practice. That's all.

 

Unfortunately, I stepped up to offer my services just before some unexpected real world stuff came up that has suddenly reduced my available free time to play around with modding, so things are going a lot slower than I'd intended. :/

[dreamdancer]

Scott: I'll start with just the simple option. Add a few weapons, port in their skins and icons, leave in a secondary attack but comment it out. You can go in and un-comment it to give them the functionality if you want. I can walk you through that if you need it. Later I might add more, and make a package that gives all weapons a second attack, but that's more involved. Was also considering giving some weapons a 'block' function. Something from an old Valmar mod that gave a super-brief immunity to stuns, bleeds and infections along with a little speed boost, in exchange for some stamina. This would be instead of, rather than in addition to, the secondary attack.

[Madjester31]

hey hows it goin

 

i was wondering if there was anyway to put war of the walkers and starvation togther like the classes and weapons tools and pois from war of walkers into starvation.

[Blazer777]

hi dreamdancer is there anyway u can add the TS weaps to dyinglands, GNAMOD and the better balance mod? take as long as u need RL comes first

[dreamdancer]

I managed to get a bit of time and put together a simple build of a few weapons from TS(katana, bat, nailed bat, Lucille, and brass knuckles) into Valmod. It turned out to be more tricky than I'd anticipated, as Valmod isn't made with SDX, so the base .dlls don't have SDX hooks. And SDX doesn't automatically move the resource files into the right places(I had thought it did that). So now I have to figure out which files actually got changed by SDX so I can upload them, put that together in a set of files that can easily be copied into an existing game directory. I could just upload an entire copy of the modified game, but I think that that would actually be illegal, and pretty scummy, since I'd be uploading an entire playable game that someone could use without paying for the base game. Not gonna do that.

 

Also, can someone check and let me know if the brass knuckles are supposed to look like you are swinging a fork at people? I copied the code from TS including the mesh file and the result is that it looks like you are attacking people with a salad fork. And there don't seem to be sound files for brass weapons built into the game. Each kind of material for weapons has specific impact and sound files for when they connect with things, and the game bases its response when you use a weapon on the material. Since there are no brass weapons in the base game, there is no affordance for having one. Idk how TS handles that. I'm thinking of making the brass knuckles count as iron, even though you make them from brass, but that would result in them scrapping into iron.... :/

 

I can work on adding these weapons(along with others if people like, there is already an existing sdx with a bunch of weapons someone else made) to other base mods as soon as I work out the best way to go about sharing these things in the first place. Any advice on how to do that would be appreciated.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

i was wondering if there was anyway to put war of the walkers and starvation togther like the classes and weapons tools and pois from war of walkers into starvation.

 

Um. Technically? Yes. It is something that is entirely possible to do. Practically? No. It would be nearly as much work as making a whole new overhaul.

[dreamdancer]

Starvation mod is probably the least vanilla of all mods. The team working on it are hard core coders, and the mod is full of major changes to the base code. It would probably be the hardest mod to mess about with beyond small xml changes. And the WotW changes are pretty extensive.