Addon creation?
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Addon creation?
I've been playing tome for a few years now and I love it! I love this community, the fact that a "dumb questions" topic exists shows how awesome you all are. Now, down to business. For all the time I've spent on this game I've always wanted to create an addon. But I have no fricking clue how to code or even how to start making an addon for tome. So could somebody either point me in a direction to find out how to code stuff for Tome or something?
Re: Addon creation?
Did you have something in particular in mind that you want to create?
My feedback meter decays into coding. Give me feedback and I make mods.
Re: Addon creation?
Unzip the game files and crack em' open with your favorite text editor.
A little bit of a starters guide written by yours truly here.
Re: Addon creation?
Not to discourage you...asd2613 wrote:I've been playing tome for a few years now and I love it! I love this community, the fact that a "dumb questions" topic exists shows how awesome you all are. Now, down to business. For all the time I've spent on this game I've always wanted to create an addon. But I have no fricking clue how to code or even how to start making an addon for tome. So could somebody either point me in a direction to find out how to code stuff for Tome or something?
Ok, I guess that is my intent, as I think you'll end up frustrated. If you haven't coded before, I don't think a ToME addon is quite the place to start—unless you are doing something really simplistic. Even then, I think you'd get more satisfaction by starting with your own small programs. To create an addon, you have to understand the code that already exists, and that can be more of a challenge than writing something yourself.
Re: Addon creation?
To act as a counterpoint, I find the most fun in programming when I modify something already existing and poke and crawl around how it works and get it to do something new and cool. I find this way more accessible and achievable than starting from scratch and having to research even the nitty gritty and most tedious stuff of how to set up and get started. So, if someone wants to get started programming by modding, let them.
Re: Addon creation?
Yeah, I agree with aspects of that, but I was thinking in terms of ToME specifically. It's just sooo big with many interacting systems. When I started on my first addon—I just wanted to enlarge the font size—I already had years of experience coding in many different languages. I enlarge the font size, but it was a bigger challenge than it would seem on the surface. Boosting the number was easy enough, but then that would cause buttons to be hidden, weird misalignment, and other UI issues. I had to dig into the nitty-gritty of DG's dialog system. I was impressed with DG's streamlined and efficient code, but at times that could also make it difficult to understand. It also made it harder to modify in a way that didn't cause problems elsewhere. I got it to work, but the resulting code was pretty ugly.
But I guess I was thinking of the kind of addons I wanted to make, which often involved deep systems of the engine. Making a new class or race would probably be a good place to start, as there's a fair amount of support for that with the hooks available, etc. Like Micbran said, you could download some of the class addons and see how others have done it and use that as a framework for your own.
But I guess I was thinking of the kind of addons I wanted to make, which often involved deep systems of the engine. Making a new class or race would probably be a good place to start, as there's a fair amount of support for that with the hooks available, etc. Like Micbran said, you could download some of the class addons and see how others have done it and use that as a framework for your own.
Re: Addon creation?
Yeah 'system' focused addons like the font change are very tricky. Content focused addons where you're adding or altering classes, races and items are comparatively simple.