Custom Prefabs

[Fiddlestickz]

Greetings

 

Settlement Blueprint mod is a great achievement for the FO4 modding community to share their great settlements with the community, but i looked around and there are no 'Custom Prefabs' mods, where you can save selected structures from your settlement.

 

The concept is very easy:

In workshop mode you can pick up entire structures by holding down the use key. Now the mod would simply allow you to save those picked up structures as 'Custom Prefabs'.

 

 

The use of the mod doesn't end in personal use, it could start a wave of custom building and a wealth of genious structures which are shared like in Planet Coaster or Cities Skylines. Someone built a nice Tavern? Grab the custom prefab and add it to your settlement!

 

This would be the one thing that i would love to see in FO4.

 

Thanks for reading!

Edited April 23, 2017 by Fiddlestickz

[Ethreon]

You have the best way to get this done - settlement blueprints. There is not much else that can be done.

[montky]

that is an interesting idea, fiddlestickZee

 

did you have something like a Visual Similarity Reference Value Index (V.S.R.V.I.) in mind?

or, are you trying to use an 'area radius grab' to hold a configuration hashing-ref string

and then take a screencap of that as a ctl+c "copy and paste go-to buffer"?

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

there are a few projects in the pipeline,

to allow you to have a 'ctl+c" buffer, to hold a few maybe 10-20 different

"go-to" designs that you can copy and paste rather than

manually have to build a new compilation-object etc.

pro - quick and easy buffer allows for more continuity between stuff.

cons-

-cannot have more than 300 attached pieces, so you will need elianora's mod etc to

make as many set-dressing items static etc.

-sometimes grabs other objects and messes up your settlement hehe.

 

another approach was to make a transparent decal,

which fetches the attached-object data as a string,

allowing you to copy all attached to the transparent decal...

pro-

very simple and intuitive to use for most users.

con- potentially long times for the game to duplicate large complex structure,

not compatible with 'place anywhere' at this time for reasons unknown...

 

the decal also allows for quick moving on just the duplicated items.

this makes standardized symmetrical lighting a breeze,

rows and columns of planks, fences etc, much less frustrating.

 

there are teething issues with both approaches,

a lot of A* in A, hyperdefining or over-constraining overflow hurdles hehe.

though indeed,

it will let folks share more complex settlement components a lot more easily,

allowing for

nCr, nPr, n^X worth of new settlement configurations!

 

that being said,

some 'time trials' so far,

have shown that manually recreating a likeness can be quicker,

thanks to new settlement build menu overhauls,

than trying to duplicate from the source file.

 

ideally, in the near future when we get a stable Ctl+C 'go-to" buffer,

we'll be able to implement a tag-ID system,

to make "variants on a theme"-

explore similar combinations of a particular look.

 

so, rather than making all the slum rooms or lean-to's all cookie cutter,

if there were some way to automate cycling through the component ID's,

to make a variant that is pretty much the same, but with slightly different parts,

that would be AWESOME for less 'cookie-cutter' looking stuff.

 

the Wall's might all have a 'visual similarity categorization reference value" -

a Table of Fail/ Visual Similarity Reference Index might form...

that might be a 1 - 5 or 1 - 10 system,

so, an exterior junk wall might be a 2,

and if we can cycle through all nCr of the other walls also tagged with "2",

that'd be excellent!

it's like a "pseudo-random paste".

 

new custom standalone weapons parts or buildable items

might be assigned a "Visual Similarity Reference Index value"

based on a self-reporting assay or AGI visual similarity comparative routine...

that'd be one heck of a mod to collab on hehe.

 

 

 

[damanding]

Making prefabs requires 3ds Max to do navcuts and similar things so that NPCs can use them. Look at Ethreon's mod list or look at Snappy Kits to get some mods with prefabs.

[Fiddlestickz]

Ethreon, yeah i tested the tranfer out works perfectly, and i can duplicate structures in that settlement. But still would be nice to have.

 

Montky, That's a lot to take in, thanks for posting! I see this is way more complicated than i imagine, i have no coding experience so i have no idea whats going on in the background. In my head i pick up the structure, press a key and it copies itself into the prefab TAB for later use, that would be the most ideal outcome.

If it is somehow possible despite all code hurdles, it should be as intuitive as possible of course and i would say the function that is already in the game to move bigger structures by selecting them with holding down the use key is already very useful. If there would be a way to expand on it and add a save function for the highlighted selection, that would be perfect.

 

damanding I am not necessarily looking for NPC compatible prefabs, even though the selection you suggested is nice. 'Custom prefabs' would be about moving complex structures from one settlement to another. While Settlement Blueprints is truly genious, you are still confined to that one settlement.

Also when i let's say build a big house out of the available building pieces, test out if settler can navigate it properly, it basically should work perfectly if the mod makes a copy of it at another place with the same pieces.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Fiddlestickz