Teach me how to use the shops and 'rarity'

[Larsenex]

Greetings modders. I recently have had some success in getting mods to work with modtek, thanks in large part to a modder here named Justin.

One mod I like is the 'clan weapons' mod which breaks game balance but is still pretty fun to see weapons like the HAG30 show up in shops mid game for 10 Million credits.

Can someone explain to me the relationship between weapon rarity, how much it costs, what setting determines when and how often it shows up in shops and where?

I see in shops there are 'base' shops, and then we have various mechs, and upgrades. I also see the special tags for planets which I assume means this is where these items will show up. But what determines the frequency of them showing as well as their cost?

Also there are upgrades to mech pieces that I'd like to see show up in shops and if possible to also show up as salvage. Smal Cockpits which have both a modifier to health and visibility. I have the mod for these components thanks to James wolf in his easy face roll mods, I just need to understand how to get them to appear in game using Modtek and how they appear and how often.

If you have insight that can help please post and teach me to be a better modder.

Larsenex

 

[Max_Killjoy]

Some starters:

Rarity applies to salvage -- appears to be a scale of 0 to 20, but everything is either 0 (common) to 5 (very rare), or set for 20 and also not purchasable.

Weight applies to how often things appear in shops -- the higher the Weight the better the chance of it appearing. But, items with no Weight listed seem to appear all the time. Short version, all the items that COULD appear in the shop at a planet are added up for a total weight, and then the individual weight of each divided by the total weight is the chance to appear. Roughly.

The Restriction Tags at the top of the Shop JSONs are what a planet/system needs to qualify for that shop, and they're additive, so that if there are 3 listed, a planet needs all 3 or it doesn't qualify of that shop. A shop file with no restrictions appears to be universal, but I'm trying to get that confirmed.

 

[Fefnir Eindraer]

Some starters:

Rarity applies to salvage -- appears to be a scale of 0 to 20, but everything is either 0 (common) to 5 (very rare), or set for 20 and also not purchasable.

Weight applies to how often things appear in shops -- the higher the Weight the better the chance of it appearing. But, items with no Weight listed seem to appear all the time.

The Restriction Tags at the top of the Shop JSONs are what a planet/system needs to qualify for that shop, and they're additive, so that if there are 3 listed, a planet needs all 3 or it doesn't qualify of that shop. A shop file with no restrictions appears to be universal, but I'm trying to get that confirmed.

oh [Mod edit: language], I made all the exchangers and heatbanks 1 rarity thinking they would appear in the shops more... >.<

I relooked at the heatbank json file. I dont see a "weight" variable.... I only see a tonnage variable.

Nevermind I see the weight variable in the shop files and not the actual item files

 

[Max_Killjoy]

Honestly, I'm not a fan of how the shops and the individual weapons, etc, interact -- effectively requiring any new items added to be added to the shop files or to get a new shop file that interacts with all the others to complicate things.

 

[Fiona Marshe]

Also, the ORDER of items in the JSON affect the rarity chance by a couple of points (first items in the list appear more, regardless of weighting) due to how the randomiser works.