[ModAPI] Open up the classes related to the Animation Controller and Bone manipulation.

Stollie shared this feedback 5 years ago
Under Consideration

Hey guys,

A bunch of them are already opened up, can you open up the rest so we can spawn npc's and manipulate their bones and tie them to animation controllers etc.

It would give modders some fun tools to make NPC's that could be controlled by the player or use as opponents to players during boarding operations etc. or just to make them do meme dances - because why not?

Cheers

Replies (15)

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11

Imagine a npc ship mod that would spawn npc crew inside and when doing damage to the ship the crew would start repairing it. Would make much more alive npc ships in singleplayer :D

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10

Thats actually what I orginally intended with the NPC crew mod, however I ran into issues when trying to access the above classes, I could make skinned entities, I could read their bones and I could spawn them into the game but I couldn't animate them since all that stuff is blocked off :(

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7

That would be amazing! Boarding an enemy ship with your rifle and fighting NPC's that walk around inside would be so much fun.

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10

I've been waiting for something like this since the game started. I'm not a modder, just a simple builder, only a couple of ships in the workshop, but what is the point to build a super cool battleship, that requires a massive crew, but not have the crew to run it?

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5

PLEASE, when i started playing keen teased npcs. YEARS ago, still nothing.


It's what this game needed, they could have capped our build potential and worked on npcs and had a much more successful game.

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7

Hey Keen, I don't tend to post on these issues EVER but I would absolutely love it of modders could create other entities to include in my game, from crew to creatures, Sektan has done some wonderful stuff by modifying your spiders and wolves, imagine what modders could do with greater access to these features, multiplayer could be enhanced by allowing players to have bots on their ships, single player would not feel so empty, we could create teeming stations with stores and missions etc etc, so please Keen, open the API for these guys, hell, they might come up with something you can include in vanilla if all goes well? I know you got your hands pretty full right now but please consider it <3

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6

I believe Medieval Engineers already has something of a similar nature, you can use the modding animation tools to easily animate pretty much anything you like without even having to code.

If we can bring this type of authorship over too SE plus unlock the ModAPI classes so coders can create their own entry points into this animation system, we could potentially use AI logic and raycasts to do some pretty cool stuff.

Proper pathfinding in SE would be impossible on 'grids' for modders but all we need to to is detect obstructions around the 'entity' (i.e. walls) and it's collision box and have it move towards the player we could simulate some sort of NPC type action with proper walking/shooting animations etc.

Keen actually did have a demo out a while back of them controlling NPC's that could pathfind on grids as part of GoodAI - most people expected to come to the game eventually. I honestly have no idea what ever happened too it, might have proved to just be too difficult to optimize.

Furthermore, if you look at Digi's animated interaction mod, you can see the level of control that can be done on the player model with moving fingers and arm, even if we could simply open up the classes to allow us to affect non player models as well, should still be able to do some fun stuff.

So in short what I'm saying is there are a range of options open to Keen dependent on how much work they want to put into making this request possible.

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5

Some further additions here, after investigating controlling Bots through the ModAPI, I discovered all the Bot entities are prohibited and that the sounds for things like the wolves attacking is hardcoded instead of serialized from XML which limits the ability to add more bots.

I was able to add everything about new bots except sounds due to this limitation, however, due to the bot entity classes being prohibited I couldn't affect anything through those methods either.

Please consider opening these as well as serializing the sounds for Bots so that the system can be expanded upon by modders.

Finally, part of my NPC Crew mods expansion is limited by the fact the toolbar classes are also prohibited as I can't swap blocks out for players without ruining their toolbars everytime as the upgrade entry points are limted to the blocks it the mechanic was assigned too back in 2015/2016.

Please consider opening up the Toolbar classes as well, I know a lot of modders would appreciate it.

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3

I really hope they open it up cause loving your mod right now, would love to see those guys walking around and tinkering

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3

You and me both! :D

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2

I really hope NPCs get added even though I'm new to sapce engineers it'd be so fun and they couldl like drive vehicles and go in structures and make a map where you can fight them and have a team or something

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2

Got my approval.

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5

I'm not a modder, but I am an avid player who loves to build huge capital ships and fleets, and anything that gets me NPC's that can crew them has my vote.

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2

Adding crews to the even as vanilla or supporting the modders would be a huge positive change in my opinion and will make the game much more lively as singleplayer or MP

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2

+++

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1

Crew would be so cool. For once I wouldn't have to complain about not having friends. NPCs have been my friends for ages.

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1

This totally has my vote!

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2

@Keen


Would be nice to hear your thoughts about this idea! I’m of the mind that this would bring a wave of excitement for old and new players alike. Interesting that this has been sitting here for well over a year without any acknowledgement whatsoever.

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3

Any updates on htis?

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4

Please consider this request. Modders are doing incredible things that Keen just can't compete with (this is a question of manpower at some point.) Take for example : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1633058917&searchtext=npc+android+crew . This is great. What would be greater is having a skeleton crew walking around and having more possibilities on the animation classes might allow modders to do even more extraordinary things.

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2

OH Yes some nice NPCs would be nice addition to have :)

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