SSR Modding

[665b0293df2c1Hikari]

Let us, for the moment, assume no official mod tools or utilities happen. What will our options be as of this particular moment knowing only what we do now and assuming they stick with Unity 5?

[665b0293df44fvoodoo47]

unless they lock them in some evil way, replacing the stock resources should be possible.

[665b0293df60aHikari]

Define 'stock resources' here for the sake of the peanut gallary. Are we talking just the textures and music, Actors/Objects, Everything?

If so this reminds me of system shock 2's state of moddability. Which is 'third party program swaps out resources and stows the original in a backup directory.'

As you said, assuming they don't do some stupid twirpy bullshit DRM lock that makes it impossible to get at the game assets.

[665b0293df7ccJosiahJack]

There are ways of hacking the unity asset files, though they aren't very friendly.  Making the game moddable is the single most important goal to make it enjoyable for the next 22 years in my opinion.  However, Unity makes it such that you have to purposefully make methods to mod it such as custom filetypes outside of the assets files.  Or simply release the source then anyone can open it in Unity Personal, barring usage of pro features.

[665b0293df9a4Aurora]

Personally I consider moddability and good modding tools, most notably a good level editor, to be one of the most important things in keeping a good game alive - for decades, even. Look at Doom, Quake, and Half-Life. It was easy to create custom content for them because their engines and tools were so accessible. Now I should say Valve Hammer Editor is a good example of this, whereas ShockEd is not, because of how complicated it is owing to a lack of some basic functions. Yet, it is infinitely better than the babby-tier editor in Doom 2016 that basically only lets you stick together prefabricated lego blocks. I think high moddability, alongside co-operative multiplayer support, could over time make SSR a much greater game than Night Dive Studios ever envisioned. We should really push for this.

[665b0293dfb31Gawain]

Modifying the levels will not be practical. Unity doesn't have dedicated level geometry like doom, quake, unreal etc. They of course could use one. But it would be just like JJ said; Not native file format for Unity and would require significant amount of additional work.

[665b0293dff57Nameless Voice]

Yet, it is infinitely better than the babby-tier editor in Doom 2016 that basically only lets you stick together prefabricated lego blocks.

I think this also has a lot to do with the way modern engines work.  They are much more efficient at rendering prefabricated blocks (e.g. meshes built in an external program) than at doing CSG.  It's also generally easier to make those prefabricated blocks more detailed using dedicated modelling tools.
Most professional games hardly use CSG at all any more, except for the initial mapping layout.  Later, the architecture is modelled separately and imported as static meshes.

[665b0293e0067JosiahJack]

BSP.  Unity has no BSP functionality, unfortunately, and actually suffers performance if the game geometry is all one object.  Unity has no per poly occlusion method.  This is what encourages the modern style.

[665b0293e0156Nameless Voice]

it actually doesn't support it at all? Really?
UE4 actually has really good CSG tools, you are just discouraged from using them because it handles static meshes better.

[665b0293e023aGawain]

Not natively. I'm sure there are 3rd party extensions for that.

[665b0293e03d7icemann]

Shadowrun Returns + it's expansions come with a level editor, and that game is done in Unity. Might not be the most easiest level editor to use (equal level to dromed in difficulty) but it works.