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[Sozzer]

I mostly lurk here but honestly this is pushing my buttons one too many times.

From what I've experienced and read on this board this modding community is one of the most TOXIC I have ever encountered. They act like any mod that might possibly affect the "artistic vision" of their mod is some horrible thing that can't be tolerated and one of you has flat out threatened a lawsuit against another modder who made a mod that did a similar thing as this one. I understand wanting to protect something you've poured dozens if not hundreds of hours into but acting like a bunch of paranoid Gollums does nothing but hurt the community. I don't know if it's even registered with most of you but when this kind of thing happens with the pretty much implied threat that if you guys don't get your way you may "take your toys and go home" so to speak it stifles other modders who are afraid of stepping on your toes for fear of the backlash of the players who enjoy your mods dogpiling them. This is a blatant and clearcut issue of using peer pressure to control what other people may make.

There is a difference between someone making a mod that affects a broad change that will affect other mods and someone say for example taking someone else's mod wholesale, readjusting the flux values of the ships in it and reuploading it. In the former case you are chasing someone out of the sandbox because they built a bridge over the moat around your castle. The latter case you would be justified in that person being punished or having their content removed as it would be akin to them adding something to your sand castle without permission. To extend the analogy even further the modders need to remember as well this is not their Sandbox, it's Alex's. It is not your perogative to decide what is and is not acceptable.

The solution to this problem I feel is that Alex/members of the moderation team need to get together and set down a set of guidelines on what is acceptable in broad strokes for modders to do when it interacts with other mods and what they need to seek permission from other modders whose content they affect.

As noted this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened and with the rising popularity of the game (Sseth's video having reached just shy of 1.5 MILLION views) it will not be the last and I expect it will increase in frequency in the future as more people discover this game and desire to contribute to its modding community.

[war flashbacks to gregtech intentionally bricking the game with certain mods in MC, people setting their mods to private because of a single banal comment on the skyrim nexus, that entire subforum of cancer hidden on the nexus forums]
ah yes
starsector's modding community sure is toxic
telling people to just ask before making addons, or otherwise affecting their work
how h o r r i b l e

[Yunru]

Wow, this exploded overnight (not that I'm complaining about the attention *inner attention *** preens* ).

I'd like to ask this as well, because it's a real sticking point for me:
I could if just scripted some java to add tags to every appropriate ship, and no one would say I have to ask permission to post it, courtesy or otherwise.
But I abandoned that path when I realised it would just blanket add them, and that a human mind would be needed to first analyse the context.

So answer me this: Why does making my mod respect other mods more mean I suddenly need their permission?

The answer to my mind is "it doesn't" of course, hence my honest confusion.

Edit: Reading through the first page of the linked Vesper Combine it seems people would complain, which to me is madness.
No-one's forcing the author to use the mod, and no-one should be able to decide what mods a user wants to run.

Edit 2: To address the merge csv thing: I considered it, but I'd also want to adjust the weighting of vanilla (kinda) common drops, least it crowd out the other possibilities.

[NoFoodAfterMidnight]

So an actual comment about the mod itself for a change: This mod seems to just dilute drop tables pretty significantly, resulting in you getting the large blueprint packages and rare blueprints far less often, and doesn't increase the drop rate of blueprints themselves for the most part. I think you can modify the chances of getting the packages by adding the package entry which overrides it's original entry, changing it's weight.

[Yunru]

So an actual comment about the mod itself for a change: This mod seems to just dilute drop tables pretty significantly, resulting in you getting the large blueprint packages and rare blueprints far less often, and doesn't increase the drop rate of blueprints themselves for the most part. I think you can modify the chances of getting the packages by adding the package entry which overrides it's original entry, changing it's weight.

It's a bit of a work-around, I'll admit. Initially I was going to have a java script add a blueprint tag to every relevant ship and then just have the one csv entry per drop group. But to avoid breaking stuff from other mods that went by the wayside, and to avoid causing work for other modders I opted against a blacklist system.

So now there's a csv entry for each blueprint for each drop group, unless it would be a blank one.

Although even then, blueprints would have to get rarer, as the drop groups are a weighted list, so adding a more common drop will make the others more rare.

Edit: On reflection, I could decrease the chance of dropping nothing (where present) to make everything more frequent.

I might also make a twin mod which only replaces nothing drops with common drops, but I'll have to think about that.

[Yunru]

Anyways, I think a lot of folks here are missing the point. Crimson Sky Gaurdian, many modders would probably be totally fine with what this mod does to their work if you made them "compatible" (that really is horrible terminology and not fitting at all), so why not just ask them if you ever want to modify their mods?

Oh rest assured, any modification to someone else's mod would never go public without their consent.

Also comparing what this mod does to ship and weapon mods is intellectually dishonest *at best* and a horrible deflection. Also, care to explain Crimson Sky Gaurdian how directly modifying the results other mods produce with their content "does not alter their stuff and doesn't concern them"?

The same way a weapon mod doesn't. You can fit the new weapon on their ship and it "directly [modifies] the results of other mods" especially if the AI's auto fit did it.
But just like a weapon mod, none of their files are touched, none of their code is modified. Whether the user decides to run this mod with another is up to the user, no-one else.

[Yunru]

Would it be possible for you to make blueprint packages 'unpack' into these individual blueprints instead of giving them common drops? That would fix any 'compatibility' issues if you made it sufficiently robust.

No, no it would not, sorry. I lack the java skills for now (especially since I'd have to actively change how something already works, rather than just appending something to it).

I will, however, keep it in mind. If someone doesn't beat me to it, I'll eventually get around to it.

[Yunru]

Although I would like if there was some options in the mod to set the drop rates so that the rare blueprints get more common, but not just too common.

If you have excel or libre office calc, feel free to play around with the drop_groups.csv, both for the mod and vanilla. You'd have to either decrease the chance of nothing drops to make everything more frequent, or just the common drops to make them less common.

Unfortunately as it contains no java files, I can't add a nice easy config (although given how mangled it is atm to avoid compatibility issues, it wouldn't be easy even then).

The weighting is further complicated by there being two types of drops: one which matches a value (and will keep adding items until that value is met), and one which just rolls a set number of times on a list.
If an event calls for the former, you either get a package, or the cash-equivalent amount in common blueprints. If the event is the latter however, you could get a package, or just one blueprint.

[Tartiflette]

Edit: Reading through the first page of the linked Vesper Combine it seems people would complain, which to me is madness.
No-one's forcing the author to use the mod, and no-one should be able to decide what mods a user wants to run.

You should read a few more pages because you'll quickly see how mod authors actually wanted to make their mod compatible with Vesperon Combine, but the method used first wasn't letting them do it and instead was introducing unsolvable issues for them (as well as not working the way the author imagined it would).

To me personally it's less about asking permission and more about letting individual modders handle the compatibility so that they can ensure it is bug free with the specific inner working of their mod.

[Yunru]

To me personally it's less about asking permission and more about letting individual modders handle the compatibility so that they can ensure it is bug free with the specific inner working of their mod.

Right, and I want that. Less work for me? Beautiful.
But there's only two ways that can reasonably be achieved (and really they're only one):
1. Relist every affected vanilla ship with the originally planned common_bp tag. Then have one drop listed per grouping. That way adding more to the group doesn't change the ratios. This isn't really an option because relisting all those ships breaks compatibility with any mod that alters them.
2. Have a java file that dynamically adds the common_bp tag (either to vanilla ships, or to all ships that lack a blacklist tag of some sort). This would be my preferred option, but I don't know enough java for it.

Hence I'm currently dealing with option 3: Do it all manually and adjust the numbers for every case.

[Tartiflette]

I can certainly relate to that, I started modding without knowing anything about coding in general and it was a pain at first. You should consider joining the Discord: there is a dedicated channel there to ask for code tips and help. Plus you would be able to test things with other modders quickly.

[Yunru]

Something I've noticed is that single blueprints are massively more valuable than packs. For instance, the Buffalo (A) blueprint has a value of ~26k, while the Hegemony Auxiliary Pack has a value of 20k.

I'm guessing this is to inflate the value of rare drops, but it obviously causes a problem here.

Would like suggestions on how to go about addressing it.

[Dreamyr]

I mostly lurk here but honestly this is pushing my buttons one too many times.

From what I've experienced and read on this board this modding community is one of the most TOXIC I have ever encountered. They act like any mod that might possibly affect the "artistic vision" of their mod is some horrible thing that can't be tolerated and one of you has flat out threatened a lawsuit against another modder who made a mod that did a similar thing as this one. I understand wanting to protect something you've poured dozens if not hundreds of hours into but acting like a bunch of paranoid Gollums does nothing but hurt the community. I don't know if it's even registered with most of you but when this kind of thing happens with the pretty much implied threat that if you guys don't get your way you may "take your toys and go home" so to speak it stifles other modders who are afraid of stepping on your toes for fear of the backlash of the players who enjoy your mods dogpiling them. This is a blatant and clearcut issue of using peer pressure to control what other people may make.

There is a difference between someone making a mod that affects a broad change that will affect other mods and someone say for example taking someone else's mod wholesale, readjusting the flux values of the ships in it and reuploading it. In the former case you are chasing someone out of the sandbox because they built a bridge over the moat around your castle. The latter case you would be justified in that person being punished or having their content removed as it would be akin to them adding something to your sand castle without permission. To extend the analogy even further the modders need to remember as well this is not their Sandbox, it's Alex's. It is not your perogative to decide what is and is not acceptable.

The solution to this problem I feel is that Alex/members of the moderation team need to get together and set down a set of guidelines on what is acceptable in broad strokes for modders to do when it interacts with other mods and what they need to seek permission from other modders whose content they affect.

As noted this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened and with the rising popularity of the game (Sseth's video having reached just shy of 1.5 MILLION views) it will not be the last and I expect it will increase in frequency in the future as more people discover this game and desire to contribute to its modding community.

[war flashbacks to gregtech intentionally bricking the game with certain mods in MC, people setting their mods to private because of a single banal comment on the skyrim nexus, that entire subforum of cancer hidden on the nexus forums]
ah yes
starsector's modding community sure is toxic
telling people to just ask before making addons, or otherwise affecting their work
how h o r r i b l e

I guess I should be thankful then that I never got into Skyrim or visit Nexus Mods much. I also didn't state that it was "The most toxic mod community ever" I said that it was the most Toxic I had personally encountered. I am unsurprised there are other worse communities out there but it does not change the fact that this community when it comes to certain ideas or concepts in modding is toxic. The fact that you are trying to go "Well there's worse communities out there so this is fine" is disingenious at best and outright malevolent at worst.

I have no problem with modders protecting their work from being copied or misused by others. I have a problem with modders using that as a excuse to dictate what other people can and can not do with the game. It's also extremely hypocritical. I don't see modders having to go ask Alex whether or not they can change a specific thing in the base game. So why is it okay for modders to insist the same?

[NoFoodAfterMidnight]

Something I've noticed is that single blueprints are massively more valuable than packs. For instance, the Buffalo (A) blueprint has a value of ~26k, while the Hegemony Auxiliary Pack has a value of 20k.

I'm guessing this is to inflate the value of rare drops, but it obviously causes a problem here.

Would like suggestions on how to go about addressing it.

Both the blueprints you're adding and the rare blueprints are technically the same item, and their value is based on the price of the ship/weapon/wing the blueprint is for set in the plugin for that item. You could make another plugin from "com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.impl.items.ShipBlueprintItemPlugin", change the way the price is determined, and create a new item in special_items.csv pointing to your new plugin. Then add that item to the drop tables instead. That plugin should be able to be put into your mod like any other plugin.

Changing the value of the BP packs is also an option, it won't affect the value of the singles.

[Yunru]

Both the blueprints you're adding and the rare blueprints are technically the same item, and their value is based on the price of the ship/weapon/wing the blueprint is for set in the plugin for that item. You could make another plugin from "com.fs.starfarer.api.campaign.impl.items.ShipBlueprintItemPlugin", change the way the price is determined, and create a new item in special_items.csv pointing to your new plugin. Then add that item to the drop tables instead. That plugin should be able to be put into your mod like any other plugin.

Making another plugin was unnecessary, all I had to do was make another template item and give it a different tag. But thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Uploading version 1.1 now.

[NoFoodAfterMidnight]

And that changed the pricing of it?