Mount & BRAINS Updates Thread

[SFtheWolf]

This is the thread where I let everyone know what work has been done so far. It's too easy for announcements to get lost in the original thread, so I'm locking this and updating it whenever I have something (I don't think this is against forum rules, if a moderator knows otherwise please correct me).

For discussion, please use the other thread.

REGULAR WORK ON THE MOD STARTS THIS WEEK. SOME WORK WILL BE DONE EVERY WEEK, THOUGH THERE MAY NOT BE AN UPDATE EVERY WEEK.

I WILL NOT QUIT WITHOUT SAYING HERE THAT I AM QUITTING.

I HAVE NO EXPERIENCE, THIS WILL BE BAD AND SLOW AT FIRST.

May 7

I have the factions implemented. Currently they are (working titles):
The military
The containment teams (may possibly get merged into the military)
The police
The survivors
The infected
The bandits

Bandits are at war with everyone, even each other.
Infected are at war with everyone but themselves. Nobody can ever be at peace with the infected.
The police look favourably on the survivors. The police are very cohesive.
The military looks favourably on the containment teams (if at some point in the game a total wipe is ordered however, the army will attempt to kill everyone and everything). The military is extremely cohesive.

The skill list I have planned:

Trade - existing skill
Leadership - existing skill
Prisoner Management - removed
First Aid - existing skill
Surgery - removed
Wound Treatment - existing skill (possibly rename to Wound Dressing)
Inventory Management - existing skill
Spotting - existing skill
Pathfinding - existing skill
Tactics - existing skill
Tracking - existing skill
Engineer - removed
Horse Archery - renamed to Mobile Shooting
Riding - rename to Horse Riding
Athletics - existing skill
Shield - removed
Weapon Master - renamed to Combat Experience
Power Draw - removed
Power Throw - possibly remove/replace with Sniping
Power Strike - renamed to Brawling
Ironflesh - renamed to Endurance
Trainer - existing skill
Looting - renamed to Scavenging

Outright new skills:

Machine Maintenance(int) - reduces fuel consumption of vehicles
Rationing(cha) - reduces food consumption rate for the party

Click here for the discussion thread.

 

[SFtheWolf]

May 16(ish)

Looking into using Google Sketchup for simple model creation to jumpstart content once it's needed (I'd prefer to be able to do some of the things I need myself). Will be working over the long weekend on something more tangible, just updating to let you know I haven't forgotten.

 

[SFtheWolf]

May 18

Started work on separating out which old items should be removed, and adding some of the new necessities (firearms, new melee weapons, food, clothes and gasoline namely). I didn't have much time to myself to work this weekend so I'm going to be working on these in little bits throughout the week.

 

[SFtheWolf]

June 12

Would you believe I'm adding zombies?

They don't look like anything, but that's not important right now. I have a lot of ideas for ways to have a lot of variety among the infected. For example, I'm thinking it's possible to have a zombie that can leap on people from long distances by giving it a unique, invisible mount that has a ridiculous jump and very high charge ability, and which moves as if the zombie was scrambling along regularly otherwise.

If this goes well enough, I might be able to make some simple test videos and a toy release within the next month.

 

[SFtheWolf]

Haven't gotten a thing done since last update I think I'm still on track for having basic zombie fights by mid July though. I might release that as Alpha 0 too so you can at least mow down some zombies that look like people with bows that shoot like rifles.

 

[SFtheWolf]

So as anyone who's been reading the discussion thread knows, I've been trying for weeks and I simply cannot get the module system to build any longer. I'm starting to think that I assumed from the start that Mount & Blade allowed for actual modding and not just tweaks, and I accidentally broke some hardcoded hack which the game needs to run.

Coding for this game is slow, confining, and not fun at all in my experience. It's not even really coding, I didn't expect to be spending most of my time copy and pasting tuples and wondering why all the module files aren't just done much more simply in some kind of XML. I'm afraid I'm going to have to put this mod on hold for now. If they indeed make significant improvements to the module system in the expansion or a future patch, I will gladly resume work on it. Right now though I can't do a thing even when I want to, and so there's no point leading everyone on.

Should another game with a "real" SDK and similar engine capabilities ever arise, I would love to make Mount & Brains for that (though it would probably get called "Necropolis Now" or something else). It's an idea I've had for too long to want to give up on. Anything I do in the future should be easy to find, I'm either SFtheWolf or Shadowfire most places and my avatar is usually similar to this one. I'm hesitant to post the art site I submit to in this thread but PM me if you want the link, it has much of my music and is about the only place I intend to post updates on my games so far.

Thank you to everyone who was so supportive. I'm sorry to let you down, even though it's not my choice to.

SF