MODDING SUPPORT Major Update - Upcoming Stormworks 'New Era'

Indeed a "new era", the developers release an update announcement and 454ss looks into what this will look like and gages the community reaction!

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[halliwedge]

Finally, now the community can just add the blocks and functionality that we've been begging for since the beginning.

[machkeznho]

Thanks for including our thoughts and concerns in this video.

[stevenmiller]

I think my biggest concern for this is the developer is getting to the point they are done with updates and handing it over to the players

[yannick]

Tiles probably means the map, as in you can only replace some plot of land but not expand the map. Just a guess, because many of the old mods actually add new parts, like Thales Aviation mod does.

[OddlyTugs]

"But if you change the file name to something that doesn't match with vanilla names (e.g. sensor_temperature.xml) then it will add that modified sensor as a new vehicle component."

[omegatheta]

Generally I’m pretty ok with this update announcement. I can see the concerns but I also feel like their approach is such that they can roll out fully functional tools to support modding.

In the “it breaks the feel of the game” thing though, I find that to be kinda elitist.

Cause no matter how many mods I have, you are going to have substantially better looking and performing builds, because you have worked to make them and I’m just, a utilitarian.

I make floating block that do thing I want.

And like, the whole Lego comparison, it’s kinda inaccurate because most people don’t have the high level skills to make the blocks themselves. Modding just adds accessibility for high skill folk to make new things.

Little Timmy isn’t going to have an idea how to make a blender mesh and export it because little Timmy is just a pleb.

Overall I think this will be a good thing going forward and that the concerns of folk that it will inherently lessen the game for its inclusion to be kinda overblown

[ProfessorMackin]

Speaking from my almost 2, 000 hours experience in Space Engnieers, it seems like the most popular mods on the workshop are the "Vanilla Expansion" type of mods that add new/missing parts like new slopes, lights, different sized wheels, fixing funky and annoying hitboxes, etc.

Sure there are a lot of over-the-top mods, but that seems to be the case for any game. It seems like the Stormworks community is pretty loyal to the overall vibe and aesthetics for the game, and I feel like the mods will largely reflect that sentiment.

There might be people who make "one-part fuselages" and such, but I feel like most decent builders will shy away from such mods. They'd prefer to do the problem-solving and troubleshooting. If anything, I feel likenwe will see some absolutely amazing creations that might have a few modded parts to mostly make a build more refined and polished. But, it's not like it wouldn't take planning and effort to do so, in contrast to the Sims 2 example you brought up where finding the "perfect" modded block takes more time and effort than the actual building/designing.

And as an avid LEGO fan, I feel like this will end up being more like when LEGO releases a new mold for a new part than everyone 3d printing their own bricks. There will likely end up being a few "essential" mods that become very popular and standardized, and most modded vehicles will end up using the best/most popular mods. I.E. How almost every modded tank and armored vehicle in Space Engineers uses the AWG modpack.

I'm excited for what this will bring to the game. I'm hoping this will make building 1:1 replicas of things, as well as more properly-scaled builds easier to accomplish.

Also, I didn't expect the shoutout of my last comment! Glad my two cents was worth mentioning. I'm still fairly new to the game and still learning, but it's quickly becime one of my all-time favorite games and I'm excited for what the future might bring to us.

[cegicreator]

16:10 that's a major problem with the minecraft moding community currently where you need to download 20 mods that in the past only 1 would do the same as those 20 mods. it gets messy really fast.

[gexpert]

I hope modding allows functional items
Like modding in winches with an rps input

[rmntrsng]

im really excited for the map modding! i think we need an Arctic and roadway update anyway, which the devs probably wouldnt do, but now with mods the community can cook up something. I also would get a chance to mod stuff myself, which i have never done before

[mathias]

id say the most important part of modding will be getting the big, high quality mods from other sources into the workshop, thales aviations parts for example

[grit]

I think it's too little, too late. Geometa has actively deterred modding for years, and banned too many creators from Discord and the Workshop. My personal experience so far is there's nothing here that modders couldn't already do, they're just adding workshop support for it. One of the biggest hurdles I encountered was the lack of consistency in how the xml files are structured, with many parts having data for functions they didn't even have. So far with the beta, they haven't addressed that issue so it's still a guess on what value affects what function of the part. Static blocks or simple changes have always been possible. But I tried to create a new hand-powered winch and could not decipher any existing parts well enough to figure out how to add the proper code to the xml. It's just a mess.

[story_]

Finally, I will be able to test the max speed on my vehicles on perfectly flat infinite terrain with mods, since there really aren't big open flat spaces! 🎉

[deltacx]

5:20 difference being real modded parts actually function correctly unlike manhandling a existing oart to kook a specific way

[allanzilli]

I will like to be able to Place block or parts sow I can modify my creation with out always using stormlab like space engineers

[Tingdere]

Imagine adding a race track / dirt bike track to the world. That would make fast creations a lot more fun!

[x_quinn_x]

How about we think of this a different way... Every QnA they have held has been a 30 to 60 minute long video of the Dev (sorry I forget the person's name) reading questions and then ultimately saying "you're right that should be a thing I will add it to my list", or "no sorry we don't have the resources", or "we simply don't have plans for that". With modding, all those small additions, fixes, and adjustments can be done by the community in a way that is supported by the games systems properly. It means the Devs can re-focus more on fixes and issues with core technology of the gaming engine and less on making lots of small fixes which, while they don't take much time to fix, can all add up and take away time from more important fixes and additions. This way fixes and adjustments the community can make lets them put the resource where it really matters and could potentially lead to more mechanics and improvements for stormworks.

Of course, I totally expect us to be inundated with lots of themed content, and a lot of overpowered components, which I honestly don't really mind as you can choose if you do or don't want to use them, but it also has the potential to add so much more to this game. And not just for the limited sized ships and vehicles we have now, but also for all those full sized ships and vehicles it could mean much better optimisations at that scale depending on how the game handles the difference between a 1x1x1 block compared to a 1x8x1 block as an example.

It is true they could also be thinking about how this could free up resources to work on their other game sure, but even then they aren't abandoning stormworks they are just trying to make sure their studio continues to be able to employ who they have and keep its doors open, a problem a lot of studios face.

What I think will be interesting is how the making the components part of this works... in the current game, you can already make copies of existing components and then change the copies stats to what you want while still having the original version able to still be used in game... I don't see this changing, but maybe if their intention is only overriding components then maybe we will still be able to make a copy of an item with a different name and then override that copy with changes... seems more complicated than it needs to be but still fine.

I am not seeing too many downsides compared to all the upsides this can bring, but time will tell.

[bmw]

Finally with modding update we can have turbocharged diesels and gasoline 2 stroke or 4 stroke engines

[kthurmsafran]

The thing im most excited about is range testing trains reliably.

[RakaiVDentist]

The mod we really need is to add composite node to all compact components