The best way to learn is to simply take a look at what other people have created, and try, possibly asking others to troubleshoot whatever your mind created. There are no other ways, because whatever you could've done, it's the experience that counts the most. Many modders here begun their adventure with coding when they tried to create their first mods for this game. I'm one of the few exceptions as I'm a programmer by trade (not that it matters there), even if I work as a cashier (but then again, I'm lazy as all heck and I don't have much time to code stuff either way, so an hour of commute versus five minutes was the deciding factor here), and I can tell you by looking at code written by other modders that I got no advantage from that, because they quickly learned the various quirks in the code. In fact, not having your mind tainted with the official manuals can help there, because the code isn't difficult and if you attempt to do something without knowing that it's supposed to be impossible, you might be able to find a roundabout way to do it. Quote for truth.
You have really all given me a lot of confidence about the whole modding thing. I mostly just worried that anything I did would just end out being far too derivative of someone else's work, but I have really wanted to get into modding (in general) for a while, and I think this might be the right place to start.
Don't worry about it. If we get two skills that are similar but not the same, then it only serves to increase the variety. Heck, there were people out there who enjoyed playing a character with all seven Dragon Aspirant skills (which are pretty similar, with the biggest difference being their element), so it's not that people wouldn't enjoy it. The general rule is to have at least one thing that can be considered unique, and you can start changing it from there after you get the feedback. Also, please don't kill me, Daynab...
Modders here have also been super friendly on the forums too, which says a lot about the community as a whole. I would really like to become part of that. I'll have to get busy brainstorming...
Any changes to a room that has spawned. Removal of a skill, item, monster, or recipe that has spawned. EDIT: Changing the mod's NAME in mod.xml too.
Yeah. Essence just updated the Compleat mod, just changing a single skill, and the save games with it (like the one I was playing) are no longer working. It's not the end of the world though, just a good excuse to go make a new character!
Here on the forums it is common for most well maintained mods to be updated frequently. This is done despite the knowledge that it is likely to break saves. But for Steam, this would lead to disaster. Steam requires moderation like ID uses. He has released two versions in the past few months. And is working on what will be 2.0 of the mod, yet he has no intention of throwing it out until it is fully done. Ultimately, nothing can be done to prevent save breakage. It is unavoidable and people need to know that. But if you use Steam and the lazy mod update method, you are kinda asking for unpredictable results. If it were "Subscribing" to a mod to get messages about new versions of the mod that would be entirely different. But as it is, it spells doom and gloom for saves.
Meh, it's really not that big of a deal. If your save breaks, time to roll something new anyways! That is half the fun of roguelikes anyways. But yeah, using the manual mod method eliminates the issue (cause you can update at when you want to) and using the Workshop is a bit of a gamble. But it's still nice that people (modders and mod users) have the option to use it.
I am not exactly sure how to change things in mods downloaded from the Workshop. As far as I can tell the workshop changes them to .dat files and I can't find a way to mod them. That being said, Omni is totally amazing awesome and got me the version of the mod I had before and now it works like a charm! So thanks to the both of you!
Is there a secret handshake or special knock or something? Do we have cards or badges or something? Not that I really need no skinking badges, but still...just checking...
Meh, I was looking to try life again with a different build anyways. I was thinking of using the millionaire and silly-good-looking skills next time around...see how that worked out...
Not entirely true. Or at least, I know for fact that was not true under 1.0.9. Some changes to rooms cause crashes and incompatibility, yes. Maybe even most. But there were a couple of minor things I tweaked to a room at one point and not only did it not crash the save game I'd had in that room, it actually updated the room when I went back into it. I believe the change that didn't crash it was an alteration of description= text, and maybe some properties on a customblocker. It's been a while since I did that, though, so I don't remember the details terribly well. Yep, those will do horrible things to your save games. Adding recipes can also mess up games, though it probably won't stop the save game from loading. I remember one update of ID where I added half a dozen recipes to the end of my file, and while it didn't break any save games that were using just ID, someone reported that their crafting character suddenly had most of their hidden recipes from other mods replaced with hidden recipes from ID. Apparently the game remembers recipes found as "the 183rd recipe on the list" (not "recipe for clockwork ravager") and then recompiles that list every time you launch. Good to know. I never would have thought of that one. Thanks for pointing it out.
Yeah, adding recipes can do all sorts of strange things, as I have found out today. No crashes or the like assosicated with my recipe addition (downloaded the Meltdown mod off the Workshop and then loaded up a game I'd been playing before), but all the recipes from the mod are hidden for that specific character, but not hidden for new characters (and they shouldn't be). My in-progress character actually has found some of the recipes off bookshelves, while the new character had them all already. But hey, having to make a new character or deal with small annoyances like the above is a very very small price to play to get to use the awesome mods people keep making.
As far as I can tell, that works out extremely well in todays American society. A very poor comment on Americans. Full disclosure, I am American and those are not my skill sets.
