Kind of urgent: need modder feedback

[TotalyMoo]

Greetings modders!

We're considering to, in a not too remote future, host a panel discussion regarding modding. To proof-of-concept this I need to know what our modding community would want to ask/discuss during such an event.

So, if you had the chance to ask us questions/talk with us in a live environment - what would you ask?

Cheers, John

 

[BadPeanut]

are restricting this to just modding or do you want asset importer questions too?

 

[Moranic]

What is your stance on incorporating successful mods into the basegame? Are you interested in adding certain gameplay mods such as T++ or would you rather leave those mods to the original authors?

 

[TotalyMoo]

are restricting this to just modding or do you want asset importer questions too?

Assets are great too!

 

[Zed68]

are restricting this to just modding or do you want asset importer questions too?

Assets too (I answered him on reddit and he said it was part of it).


Edit : too slow...

 

[BadPeanut]

What flexibility do you hope to add to the editor in the future?: perhaps a road tool builder (custom roads not intersection), maybe assets that can use 2 class systems so we can have an asset and set it as a cargo harbour and cargo station in one? or a metro and train station in one?

 

[Japamala]

Do you have plans to provide a centralized place to keep mod buttons, like the mod toolbar in KSP?

Do you have plans to document and expland the UI framework?

 

[aubergine18]

Anything done to roads needs a lot of careful consideration and discussion before being implemented. It would be great if procedural roads could be implemented behind the scenes whilst keeping existing UI the same for end users, so that modders could do some experimenting and then provide feedback on potential next steps. Having workshop flooded with road designs would be problematic IMHO, there's more to roads than meets the eye.

 

[ziekdrama]

Do you plan on creating a modding framework in Unity so modders are able to design GUI's etc in Unity?

 

[Zed68]

Having workshop flooded with road designs would be problematic IMHO, there's more to roads than meets the eye.

Wait... Isn't that already happening ??

 

[BaskB]

Wait... Isn't that already happening ??

Wait you mean you cant find use for 13,992 different interchanges?

 

[sairaf]

- What are the plans to improve the modding API? Will it ever handle more meaningful aspects of the game such as AI and pathfinding?

- Are you willing to make simple changes to the code to facilitate mods? (Things as simple as changing private variables/methods to protected so mods can access them without reflection or making more methods virtual to allow mods to easily override them)

- Are there plans for a road prefab editor? If not, are you willing to help a modder make one?

 

[shindaru]

If a day and night cycle were to be introduced, what effect would the night lighting have on current mods and assets? Would they be able to survive the overhaul? Would custom lighting features be introduced into the asset editor?

 

[Buddaklovn]

I would like to ask about more options/tools in asset editor when finishing assets after import. I would especially like the possibility to:

Public Transport
1) Build and Delete the 'Train Stations Track' and 'Metro Station Track'.
2) Raise and lower 'Train Station Track' to make elevated, sunken and maybe even underground train stations.
3) Someway of defining or place/delete pedestrian connections between entrance points and platforms.

Road
1) A road editor/builder kinda tool. where it is possible to customize roads. (Number of lanes in each direction. Lane restrictions, asphalt colour.. ect.)

- - Not really modding but, i will post it anyway. (The possibility to mod this if not made for the vanilla would be cool too..) - -
2) Sunken road with retaining walls like the ones before a tunnel. Maybe make it so that if the road isn't low enough to dig a tunnel, It gets build like a sunken road instead until it gets lowered further.
3) Placing bus lanes like the way tram tracks worked in Cities In Motion 2. (That was amazing BTW)

Is any of the above planned or been considered?

And thank you for making this great citybuilder!

 

[Patrikwa]

Not really "modding" but related to mods and assets:
Are there any plans to make organizing mods/assets as well as searching for them on the workshop easier?

Few examples:
*) I unsubscribed a large amount of assets and there was no way except clicking each and every one of them + wait for them to become removed and have the list of assets update itself before unsubscribing the next one.
*) Mods that are outdated should be clearly visible and perhaps even disabled by default until the mod author releases a update.
*) When searching the workshop it should be possible to filter out any mods that are not compatible with the current version of C:S
*) There is a lot of "junk" on the workshop, both outdated mods that doesnt seem to have any plans for updates as well as authors that upload like 10 versions of the same mod with different settings instead of a configurable mod (for example there is(was?) loads of Autosave mods, 1 for 3 minutes, 1 for 5 minutes, 1 for 7 minutes and so on) and it gets increasingly hard to pick the "right" one.
Also there are assets that are not "correct" in the sense that they are missing LODs, contain waaay to many polygons etc.
Im not sure how to stop this from happening without someone manually watching what is being uploaded but it will

 

[pollux_ar]

I think for mods (probably for assets too) there should be a property with game version, min. required and so on, also dependency with other mods/DLC (when they arrive). If one of those criterias does not meet, the game should disable the mod automatically until it's released a new version by the author.

 

[BloodyPenguin]

Will you add arguments to some of non-API functions (yes, we use detours) if a modder tells you that it's the key to make his/her mod possible? Will you refactor the game's source code so it will be possible to override policies/add new ones?

 

[DK115]

Are there any plans to add posibilty to combine mods to a larger set loadable or unloadable at once
Same Question on assets
Are there any plans to add/create more customized tags like country, cityname, ..

Both would end up in something like load the "London" mod, etc

 

[Zed68]

Are there any plans to add posibilty to combine mods to a larger set loadable or unloadable at once
Same Question on assets

I was just thinking about it today, because I'm now on a "not so good" machine I play with low settings, no "beauty" mods (like sun shafts, ambient occlusion, etc...) and no custom cars loaded (at least the ones that don't stop you from opening a save when you disable them) and when I want to walk around my city I put the graphics higher and re-enable everything. But it is long and fastidious.

 

[BaskB]

Are there any plans to add posibilty to combine mods to a larger set loadable or unloadable at once
Same Question on assets

This +1

My cargo packs at the minute I've tried in essence to do this (6x .crp files in one pack via the workshop) but sadly the Asset Manager tool still lists all the .crp as individual files so you cant just click once to disable a pack, but need to click each of the 6 files. I made it easier by naming them all very similar but say if I uploaded a pack of all of them combined (would be 24 assets in total) that slows things down considerably.