[MOD] Crafting Mod

[ChosenByFew]

I'm looking to make a mod that expands crafting to include all the items originally in the game, and to also add a tier for armor-crafting above "standard." I've mostly got the first part down - most of the blueprints now go to some vendor or another, though I know I've missed a few, and I made a blueprint for the Topper because the print never actually existed - but I wanted to know where I could find the rules for armor crafting. Every time I check a reference to an armor blueprint, it points me to the armor itself's ID. That makes sense if a blueprint is auto-generated for each armor, rather than making a whole new reference, like the game does for weapons, but I can't seem to find where the rules for armor blueprints/research are kept, i.e. what causes armors that don't have explicit crafting rules to follow the same convention as the other armors, and what causes there to be 3 tiers of armor grade.

If anybody knows/can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

I've uploaded what I've done so far. It includes:
Topper Blueprint (for crafting toppers, obtained and used the same as any other blueprint)
Triage Research (for crafting splint kits)
Advanced Triage Research (for crafting advanced splint kits)
Added certain armors to the crafting stations (not all, I'd appreciate if someone could leave a message with any they notice I've missed)
Rework of the Armored Rags armor so that the stats line up with the way the armor actually looks (this was the only armor the stats bothered me about, oddly enough)
Changes to weapon, armor, hat, under-armor, clothing, boot vendors for the Ronin, United Cities, and Holy Nation factions:
a) added many blueprints (not all, I'd appreciate if someone could leave a message with any they notice I've missed) that weren't on any vendor lists to begin with
b) tweaked the over-arching philosophy of weapon/armor sales for each faction to go with what I interpreted as their design philosophy - i.e. United Cities, as the 'nobles,' have all types of katanas and samurai gear; Ronin, the... well, ronin, have the hackers, one or two of the lighter heavy weapons, and lighter leatherish armor; Holy Nation, as the powerhouses, have all the heavy weapons and the holy armor. They all sell random various pieces of gear from other cities that traders have brought in, but only blueprints for their own gear. (If anyone wants to correct me on faction design philosophy, go ahead. Only vendor lists have been tweaked, NPC equipment has not been touched)

Version .2 available now. Includes:
Steel-folding Techniques research plan (requires research level 6 and Advanced Smithing) which unlocks:
-Weapon Smithy IV (400% max efficiency, 2 operators)
-Damascene weapon tier (currently set at 2 tiers effectiveness above Edge 5, pending balance)
Cloth Armor Crafting Station
Split all armors into crafting stations based on armor material denoted in the in-game tooltip
More armors added for sale
More armors added for crafting
Added Police Armor and Police Helmet to the Free Traders outpost vendor list (they're Free to Trade whatever they want, right? Even things that the authorities of the other factions might not want them trading)

EDIT: Confirmed, found weapon tier data under weapon manufacturers. One of the properties is weapon models, and each one has an "overall level mod" that is tied to the ability of the weapons that have that model from that manufacturer. However, still haven't found out why my Edge 4 and Edge 5 Nodachi have the same stats. Also, the Catan No. 3 level mod (40) seems to be the one that results in a weapon's derived stats being equal to its base stats? Industrial 008 has that level mod, too, but I'm beyond that point where I can still make those, so if someone could check that for me, I'd appreciate it. It'd be interesting to know why the base is at a level mod of 40. Seems random. I feel like 100 would be better, with the "overall level mod" being a percentage multiplier on the weapon's base stats. Or 1, with it being a decimal multiplier. Oh well.

EDIT Cont: I've really made my post super messy now, haven't I?

EDIT2: Is there a way to make a tech require a certain level of another tech? I.e. making a new tech require Weapon Smithing 14 before you can research it? I tried putting in a number other than 0 as val1 under the requirements property, but it didn't have any effect I could discern.

EDIT3: I seem to have hit another snag. Using mods, you can add things, but you can't take them away. If you try to remove something that's in gamedata.base, it'll still read it out of gamedata.base when the game loads. This makes it difficult for me to remove Cloth material armor from the Leather Armor Crafting Station so that you can only craft it at the Cloth Armor Crafting Station I made. Theoretically, I could use the construction kit to edit gamedata.base to remove what I want to, but then a version update would undo it, plus I wouldn't be able to share it, which is kind of the point at this juncture. If anybody knows a way around that, I'd appreciate being informed.

[Sydious]

I think it may actually be hard coded into it mate. But I'll have a look and see if I can find anything. If I manage to I'll drop a dl here for ya.

[ChosenByFew]

Yeah, I came to that conclusion after a few hours spent looking around the construction kit and not finding it. I've found a ton of useful stuff, but have come to the conclusion that currently it's not possible to add armor crafting tiers with the construction kit.

Nor is it possible to use a mod to block things in the gamedata.base file, which means everyone who downloaded v2 has a leather station that makes some of the stuff on the cloth station. There's still a lot of stuff that is only craftable on the cloth station, so it's worth the build for completion purposes, even if the armor itself is lackluster compared to the leather, chain, and plate stuff.

I've tried contacting someone after seeing some of his weapon models from a while ago and deciding that adding them had to be my next project. I don't know if he still visits here, but if he does then hopefully he'll agree and we'll get some pretty new weapons in. Frankly, I have no idea how to model or texture, but if someone else who knows how is really interested in making stuff for the game (either existing weapon models or new ones, it doesn't matter, it just has to stick to the current sabre/hacker/katana/heavy scheme because I can't code in new weapon skills as of yet) then PM me and we'll see what we can do.

I'm also looking into increasing trade caravan activity, especially to player towns. It doesn't look like you can edit AI packages yet, just add them to NPCs. There's a "wandering trader" package that sends them back and forth between towns, but, as I'm not able to see what's actually in the code for the packages, I'm not sure if they actually buy/sell stuff, or just wander between towns. If they *do* buy/sell stuff, then theoretically just adding a new faction that creates wandering traders should increase activity, that way I don't mess with the existing Free Traders faction (which could result in more compatibility issues for future patches) but there's too many variables in there for me to effectively test: how does one sell items? Is it possible to sell items yet? How long am I going to have to wait before a wandering trader comes by my town in game so I can actually see if he buys/sells anything? If he doesn't buy/sell anything, how can I be sure it's because he hasn't been coded to, and isn't just because I haven't set up my shop properly?

[PnzrNorm]

To my knowledge, all Wandering Trader NPCs (Adventurers Guild and Traders Guild, to be specific) do not shop at player-created shops, but they function in NPC towns.
Conclusion is the Wandering Trader job is hard-coded, but it may be possible to add an additional block for the tasks you want the new Faction to perform.

As far as modeling and texturing, I have extensive knowledge in both of these (Maya 2014 for 3D modeling and UV mapping, and port UV maps to Photoshop for texture and bump mapping), but I am unable to afford buying new licenses for these applications as of yet.

[ChosenByFew]

I've definitely seen the wandering traders come to my town, but they never came in the gate, even when open and town/shop was set to public. It was within loot range, though, so I thought maybe the store was browsed and nothing was bought.

How would I add an additional block to the Wandering Trader AI? So far I've only used the forgotten construction kit, and there doesn't seem to be any scripting to that, just objects, properties, and references.

[Hatsune_Neko]

Trading is bugged
its not really working for anyone right now
It part of the programing, not something that can be modded.
I played with the FCS when i did my mods, but there is no way that i know of to add a block to the AI to make trading work correctly.
Just gonna have to wait for that part to be fixed.

[PnzrNorm]

I'm not very knowledgeable about modding yet, but what I meant is that if it is possible to add new NPCs, Factions, etc. to Kenshi, then there might be some way to add new Tasks/Goals for them to perform.

Then again, the Tasks/Goals may also be a part of the programming, as Hatsune mentions.
Although from the podcast Chris did with JPS, he did mention that all of the tools available to modders are the tools he uses to develop Kenshi, so I heard that as "technically there is some way for modders, with knowledge of programming languages used in Kenshi, to be able to append additional 'blocks' of code that will allow adding additional components to FCS".

Though as I said, haven't delved into modding Kenshi yet, though that would be cool to be able to "assist" Chris develop this by appending your own code to his code, though that is the whole other world of open-source projects.

[ChosenByFew]

Yeah, at this point "modding" is almost more of an alternate development that Chris could decide to use or not as he sees fit.

As I mentioned, I have not found a way to script using the FCS. I assume he scripts with something else then uses the FCS to place objects, give properties, make references, etc. He may very well be using a version of the FCS that he hasn't released that allows scripting. Or perhaps the released FCS can do it and I just haven't looked hard enough for that functionality.

Whatever the case, I sadly think I'm at the limit of what I wanted to try doing, at least until the next version of the FCS comes out or someone with modeling/texturing experience wants to team up with me to put some stuff in the game. Or if anyone has any other ideas for the mod.

I'm thinking I might go back and add detailed flavor descriptions to things, such as I can with the knowledge I have. Anybody know if there's a history of the game world I could read up on somewhere?

[PnzrNorm]

There is a paragraph description of Chris's vision for Kenshi on the About page (link at the top of the index page).
About

Try browsing the modding forums some more to see if anyone else has been able to find a way to script.
It might involve modifying the core game data, but I think I remember reading that it was possible somewhere before.

[ChosenByFew]

Thanks for that. Has there been an official release on whether or not it's a world that's always just been like this, or post-apocalyptic? I was thinking if it was post-apocalyptic, it might be cool to add ruins or something to some corner of the map, that you could explore and fight baddies and maybe there's a robot dude there who's like a boss and maybe you can find secret blueprints for lost technology or something. Maybe that's how I end up finally implementing Steel-folding Techniques into the game. Lots of maybes!

Unrelated note: so glad I'm not getting memory leak crashes anymore!

[Hatsune_Neko]

Has there been an official release on whether or not it's a world that's always just been like this, or post-apocalyptic?

From Steam Forums
Kenshi is in a alternate universe not of earth in a "Non" Apocalyptic world.
The dev has said a few times in interviews there is no lore for Kenshi as a whole. he leaves it up to us to make our own for the time being.
Will that change? unsure.

[DOB85Y]

For some reason i'm unable to build the Weapon Crafting Station IV. I can add materials, but the progress bar stays at 0% when my engineers try to build it.

[Hatsune_Neko]

this is the modding forum. ty the bugs forum.

[HankKits]

I have a request, some smaller weaker interior versions of larger objects for use when living in a town, like an interior furnace. It would allow people to start out in a way other then looting corpses.

[ScarabParamit]

I have a request, some smaller weaker interior versions of larger objects for use when living in a town, like an interior furnace. It would allow people to start out in a way other then looting corpses.

I don't know where this mod is already...and where creator want to lead it.

I work on large mod, one of plugins is a BASE addon with almost all game content you could build and a lot added from decals to numerous light sources in diffirent colours and buildings/furniture to be placed verticaly as well as reworking of research trees, turret balance etc. or ramps that you can place as bridges or stairs whenever you want.

What you describe is easy to make - as this topis is not about my mod i will describe for its creator...
...just make a copy of furniture You want to mimic and change element under "parts" to other thing...You can make a barrel thats a research bench. "Functionality" is an element where You choose what this element is supposed to do with proper animation - so chest has "general storage" and bed has "sleep" etc.

As for weapon manufacturers and models i alredy did in plugin Weapons at least 6 companies with models from 5 to 10...as i remember.

Models are where you determine texture and indyvidual additional description
Manufacturer is where you make an overall description of model, link models and its levels...and place to what weapons this models will be used.
In Weapon you link mesh (3D) and all other vars that will be modified by manufacturer and model modifiers (on the left) and rised or eleveted by levels on "the right" in table in manufacturer window. Other value is chances of occuring.