|
How do you mod / edit this game?
Kudos has been designed to be as simple to mod as possible.
You can do all kinds of changes, from simple tweaks to some
of the numbers that control how the game works, to adding
new custom avatars and jobs to the game. A built in auto-update
feature allows you to download new files directly from within
the game from our website, and approved mods that are offered
through that process will be credited to those who author
them.
What can I edit to tweak the game?
I *strongly* recommend backing up any files before you change
the, You can get in a horrible mess otherwise. One of the
most interesting files to poke around at is called 'config.txt'
in the games 'data' directory. There are tons of numbers here,
and most of them are self explanatory. You can edit this file
in any text editor.
How do I add a new avatar?
The avatars are the people images on the background that
represent the player. It's quite easy to add new ones. Each
avatar needs two files, a background, and a character profile,
and they need to be specially named. You will find the default
avatars in the 'data/bitmaps/avatars' subdirectory of your
kudos directory. If you want, you can also add avatars to
the MyDocuments/kudos/mods/avatars directory instead.
The background for each avatar is a 1024 by 592 pixel bitmap
file in normal windows 'bmp' format. It's put together from
a number of different 'layers'. To help people make their
own backdrops, here are downloadable bitmaps to use in combining
to make your own image in whatever paint software you prefer:
The left hand layer is at the bottom, followed by your new
avatar at 81% opacity, then the grid image at 8% opacity,
all merged into a single bitmap. I used Poser 6 as the software
that made the avatar images, but you can use anything you
like.
As well as having the background file, you need to generate
the three images that show your avatar as neutral, happy or
sad. The 3 images are taken from a single 'dds' file. DDS
is a format that you can export from adobe photoshop or paintshop
pro with the right plugin, which is freely available. The
DDS file is 512 by 512 pixels, and split evenly into 3 invisible
'columns'. The left image is neutral, the center is happy,
and the right is sad. Here's a thumbnail showing how it looks:
All you have to do with these files to get them to work in
the game is give them the right name. A male avatar must start
with "m_" and a female one with "f_" and
they must have exactly the same name except the background
ends with "_background"
example:
m_mymalevatar.dds
m_mymalevatar_background.bmp
How do I add new Jobs?
Each job can be added as a new text file in
the MyDocuments/kudos/mods/jobs directory. If you have gone
to the internet updates screen and downloaded everything,
you will have at least one 'sample' job there already. You
can name the files however you want, and edit and create them
in any text editor (such as notepad, which comes free with
windows). Here is a breakdown of the different entries in
each file and what they do:
| name |
This needs to be unique across all jobs.
Other than that, it's ignored. so you might want to use
your name or something else unique (ie: joes_chefjob1). |
| guiname |
The name of the job that gets displayed in the game. |
| maledesc |
Descriptive name of job for men. used to distinguish
'actor' from 'actress' etc. |
| femaledesc |
See above. |
| employer |
Text displayed in the game. The name of who you work
for. |
| workplace |
Used in the end-day description. "you arrived at
the pub" uses the word 'pub' for example. |
| industry |
One of the pre-existing industry categories. Used to
determine which section in the job search dialog this
job belongs. |
| minsalary |
Base starting salary per year in pounds. |
| maxsalary |
Maximum salary per year in pounds. |
| tips |
Minimum and maximum tips for jobs where tips are
given. You can leave this empty if there are no tips. |
| locked |
If zero. job is normal. If 1, job is only available
by someone personally offering you the job if they know
you . |
| rarity |
The percentage chance of this job being advertised on
any particular day you go job hunting. |
| sociability |
Likelihood of meeting someone new in your job (out of
1.0) . |
| socialkudos |
not used. |
| promote0 -2 |
three entries (all *must* be filled) which determine
the three characteristics which determine job performance
and success. These can be attributes (such as iq) or skills
(such as peopleskills). In both cases, what's needed is
the 'name' of the attribute, not the 'guiname' so 'iq'
not 'IQ'. It's possible for 2 or even 3 of them to have
the same value if you want a single attribute to be the
only determinant of job performance. |
| commutedistance |
In miles |
| duration |
How many days the job lasts before the contract ends,
or -1 to carry on indefinitely. |
| [prereq] |
Prerequisites for the job. the format is 0=skill,value
where 0 is the index number (must go up 1 on each line),
skill is an attribute like 'iq' or 'peopleskills' and
value is the minimum level of that skill required. |
| [effects] |
Best to keep this to a max of 4 otherwise they won't
fit on the GUI. These are the daily effects on the player
of that particular job. they are in the following format:
index = name,effect,degrade
Where index is 0,1,2 etc on each line. name is the
target object such as 'confidence', effect is the effect
that a single days work has on the target. Degrade is
the multiplier that is applied to the effect each turn,
so it gradually fades away. Its normally something like
0.99, so you lose 1% of the effect each turn. Some of
the jobs use 'defined constants' which you will find
in the 'config.txt' file inside the main Kudos/data
directory. in that case, text such as _TIRED_DEGRADE
is used to represent the number. |
But hold on, where are
all the existing jobs in the game so I can take a look at
or edit them?
Aha, they are cunningly combined into a 'csv'
file, which is just pure text, but formatted nicely so that
'excel' or other programs that load csv files can read them.
The layout is therefore very different, but the data is the
same, and you might want to take a look at them to get ideas
for the right values. They are all inside 'jobs.csv' in the
games kudos\data\simulation directory.
I have modded the best
job ever! what now?
You can post your superb creation on the forums
HERE. If it's as cool as you claim, I can add it to the games
auto-update list so billions of other Kudos players get to
enjoy your work. You even get you name listed up there in
the credits on the internet update screen. Fame at last! (probably
best to test your job works well first)
|
