Expanded Faction Outposts

[ABakedWaffle]

I think it would be neat to have some *proper* Va'ruun outposts, things in their cultural style, as well as Starborn outpost constructs that you unlock after visiting temples and doing research in Starborn technology.

[aurreth]

The Va'ruun parts are in the game, so that is doable.  The furniture has already been modded in (Better Living II), but someone will have to do the work to set up the snap templates before you can build outpost habs.

There aren't any Starborn outpost pieces other than furniture (these are already available in the mod The Starborn Aesthetic.)  But there's nothing there for Starborn outpost habs.  I have a partially built starborn temple construction kit, but it's far from usable.  Outpost habs would require someone to model and texture actual building pieces, no small amount of work.

[ABakedWaffle]

On 10/12/2024 at 4:34 PM, aurreth said:

The Va'ruun parts are in the game, so that is doable.  The furniture has already been modded in (Better Living II), but someone will have to do the work to set up the snap templates before you can build outpost habs.

There aren't any Starborn outpost pieces other than furniture (these are already available in the mod The Starborn Aesthetic.)  But there's nothing there for Starborn outpost habs.  I have a partially built starborn temple construction kit, but it's far from usable.  Outpost habs would require someone to model and texture actual building pieces, no small amount of work.

I can understand the trouble with doing it; I just think it would be very nice to be able to build beautiful, organic (curving, twisting, round) structures. Big bubble-like domes for housing people with separators for the rooms, or the ability to make actual buildings by having building parts instead of just habs. I'm using Buildable Walls and Doors, and it's.... not working out well, honestly

[aurreth]

B.A.S.E. gives you individual hab walls and floors in all the vanilla styles (no Va'ruun yet), with a little work you can make all kinds of hab shapes.  It can be frustrating at times to get things to snap together the way you want (I get annoyed and frequently just use the console to rotate and move things), but it does allow for a lot more customization.

[ABakedWaffle]

7 hours ago, aurreth said:

B.A.S.E. gives you individual hab walls and floors in all the vanilla styles (no Va'ruun yet), with a little work you can make all kinds of hab shapes.  It can be frustrating at times to get things to snap together the way you want (I get annoyed and frequently just use the console to rotate and move things), but it does allow for a lot more customization.

Does it play well with OUT?

[aurreth]

10 minutes ago, ABakedWaffle said:

Does it play well with OUT?

I don't use that because it increases the outpost build radius by setting the Actor Value.  This causes a lot of problems.  The proper way to do it is to change the Outpost Beacon so that it sets the AV.  That's the way the vanilla game works, the beacon, ship decorator and house decorators all set the AV to the value they need.  When OUT forces a value it screws up the ability of other decorators to properly set the value.  Additionally I believe OUT changes the radius to 300, which is unstable.  250 is the max stable value.

There are quite a few mods which mess with the Outpost Beacon when adding buildables as well, making them incompatible with most other outpost mods.  I avoid those as well.  The only mods that should touch the beacon are those that just change the build radius (my own mod and one other).  Or if someone figures out that removing a build restriction requires changing the beacon.  For any other purpose there are functions already built into the game that allow adding to menus, or adding menu categories, without touching the beacon itself.

[ABakedWaffle]

4 minutes ago, aurreth said:

I don't use that because it increases the outpost build radius by setting the Actor Value.  This causes a lot of problems.  The proper way to do it is to change the Outpost Beacon so that it sets the AV.  That's the way the vanilla game works, the beacon, ship decorator and house decorators all set the AV to the value they need.  When OUT forces a value it screws up the ability of other decorators to properly set the value.  Additionally I believe OUT changes the radius to 300, which is unstable.  250 is the max stable value.

There are quite a few mods which mess with the Outpost Beacon when adding buildables as well, making them incompatible with most other outpost mods.  I avoid those as well.  The only mods that should touch the beacon are those that just change the build radius (my own mod and one other).  Or if someone figures out that removing a build restriction requires changing the beacon.  For any other purpose there are functions already built into the game that allow adding to menus, or adding menu categories, without touching the beacon itself.

Well, that sucks. What causes the highest stable value to be 250? What happens if you go over that?

[aurreth]

16 hours ago, ABakedWaffle said:

Well, that sucks. What causes the highest stable value to be 250? What happens if you go over that?

It seems to be hard coded in the game.  No vanilla decorator sets the sets the radius higher than 250.  No idea why houses are that high since none of them are that big, but that's what the game uses.  There was a lot of testing conducted by mod users when my Beacon Override was released, and I ended up reducing the radius from 300 to 250, which proved to be stable.

For an outpost, extending the radius beyond 250 causes object placement problems.  Best case you have to place your object within 250 meters and then move it beyond that or it is invisible.  Worst case the beacon stops functioning, you can no longer place or remove objects, and the entire area becomes unusable because the game thinks there is still a beacon there.  250 is stable, so extending the radius past that causes more problems than it's worth.

 

[ABakedWaffle]

2 hours ago, aurreth said:

It seems to be hard coded in the game.  No vanilla decorator sets the sets the radius higher than 250.  No idea why houses are that high since none of them are that big, but that's what the game uses.  There was a lot of testing conducted by mod users when my Beacon Override was released, and I ended up reducing the radius from 300 to 250, which proved to be stable.

For an outpost, extending the radius beyond 250 causes object placement problems.  Best case you have to place your object within 250 meters and then move it beyond that or it is invisible.  Worst case the beacon stops functioning, you can no longer place or remove objects, and the entire area becomes unusable because the game thinks there is still a beacon there.  250 is stable, so extending the radius past that causes more problems than it's worth.

 

Cringe. Maybe they'll correct that in a future update

[aurreth]

5 hours ago, ABakedWaffle said:

Cringe. Maybe they'll correct that in a future update

One could hope, but don't hold your breath.  Beth never wanted you to build colonies or factory complexes, just small mining outposts linked by those cargo landing pads, which is why the vanilla game has so few options for outposts.