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ComSenMod (now for A18)

Hey Crater Creator,

I am working on a combo pack using War of the Walkers as the base mod.

Is it okay if I use some of the ideas from your mod?

I am adding things like your loot balancing and some recipe ideas.

This is for personal use and maybe sharing with my friends, but I might release it for public use if it works well for us.

Just wanted to know how "comfortable" you are with sharing your brain child. :)

 
Sure, AlienZ. ComSenMod is basically my way of sharing all the things I think are good ideas for everyone, or at least the subset of that which I've figured out how to change. So using it as the foundation or a component of your mod is like choosing my brand of ice cream for your sundae, and that makes me happy. :) I'd just ask to be credited if you share a derivative mod with others, so people know where those original ideas & leg work came from.

I must be okay with these changes being assimilated elsewhere, since the second best outcome for ComSenMod would be for Gazz to look at it, say to himself "...that makes sense," and incorporate all the changes (that don't conflict with new stuff) into Alpha 16. :D

 
Searched for nests in the trees until I realized that this is fiction :) it would be Good to fix baked potatoes and he will prepare the coals without a grate. Add more recipes, such as fried potatoes with meat, fried potatoes with mushrooms, pizza... In the loot drops a little number of items: one nail, three coin, single arrowhead... Garbage bags in the woods all empty. After drinking meat stew is not refundable empty glass jar.

 
Sure, AlienZ. ComSenMod is basically my way of sharing all the things I think are good ideas for everyone, or at least the subset of that which I've figured out how to change. So using it as the foundation or a component of your mod is like choosing my brand of ice cream for your sundae, and that makes me happy. :)
lol

Good way of putting it!

I'd just ask to be credited if you share a derivative mod with others, so people know where those original ideas & leg work came from.
Most definitely!

I must be okay with these changes being assimilated elsewhere, since the second best outcome for ComSenMod would be for Gazz to look at it, say to himself "...that makes sense," and incorporate all the changes (that don't conflict with new stuff) into Alpha 16. :D
Good luck with that!

 
Searched for nests in the trees until I realized that this is fiction :) it would be Good to fix baked potatoes and he will prepare the coals without a grate. Add more recipes, such as fried potatoes with meat, fried potatoes with mushrooms, pizza... In the loot drops a little number of items: one nail, three coin, single arrowhead... Garbage bags in the woods all empty. After drinking meat stew is not refundable empty glass jar.
I don't understand some of this, but I'll do my best.

For cooking, I followed a simple rule. If you need water, then you use the pot. If you don't need water, then you use the grill. Maybe you're asking to cook a potato without the grill? As far as I know, you need a grill or foil or something so that the potato doesn't burn.

At this time, I don't think ComSenMod will add any new assets to the game. There are other mods that do that. The goal of ComSenMod is to fill things out: to make the most of what's already in the game. So unfortunately pizza isn't feasible. However it would be nice to find some recipe to use animal fat - I see it as an underutilized resource.

In ComSenMod you find more things like nails, coins, and arrowheads in one container. You need a lot of these things to be very useful, so ComSenMod gives you more at once in hopes of reducing clutter.

It doesn't make sense that you lose the glass jar when you cook stew... but it doesn't make sense for the jar to reappear when you eat the stew, either. It's not a jar of stew, it's a bowl of stew. I think the common sense solution for this would be to change the model from a glass jar into a disposable paper cup. Then it would make sense that the container disappears when you cook the stew. However, I'm hesitant to make the jump from xml edits to new artwork, because it'll probably make it harder to use ComSenMod in multiplayer.

This is kind of like requiring a candle to make a campfire - in my mind, the candle is actually a butane lighter. :) Then when I tried it, I realized candles are only found in one or two houses, so I allowed torches as well. Everyone starts with a torch, but it creates an interesting choice in the early game, and I can speak from experience that losing that first campfire before you've made any tallow creates a major survival setback. :)

Currently I'm thinking about replacing some or all instances of bottled water with murky water, off a suggestion by Roland. What makes common sense here kind of depends on the nature of the zombie apocalypse - is it a super virulent strain of airborne pathogen that can permeate into nearly anything? If so, then other beverages you find are also probably bad. If not, then a lot of sealed bottles of water still exist that should be fine.

There's also balance to consider. You find less water in ComSenMod because female zombies drop generic loot. Is that a big enough reduction to the amount of clean water you find? I'm doing my best to judge from my own playthroughs, but it's hard to draw a conclusion based on one person.

 
I don't understand some of this, but I'll do my best.
I write through the translator.

For cooking, I followed a simple rule. If you need water, then you use the pot. If you don't need water, then you use the grill. Maybe you're asking to cook a potato without the grill? As far as I know, you need a grill or foil or something so that the potato doesn't burn.
Potatoes in the coals. Without a lattice.

At this time, I don't think ComSenMod will add any new assets to the game. There are other mods that do that. The goal of ComSenMod is to fill things out: to make the most of what's already in the game. So unfortunately pizza isn't feasible. However it would be nice to find some recipe to use animal fat - I see it as an underutilized resource.
The game is quite products but very few recipes. Why not roast potatoes with meat or mushrooms in the pan? There are different canned food can be cooked in a pot and get high-quality food.

In ComSenMod you find more things like nails, coins, and arrowheads in one container. You need a lot of these things to be very useful, so ComSenMod gives you more at once in hopes of reducing clutter.
That's the problem. Finds little. For example, three nails. Didn't make the box. Or one arrowhead. And what is it for?

It doesn't make sense that you lose the glass jar when you cook stew... but it doesn't make sense for the jar to reappear when you eat the stew, either. It's not a jar of stew, it's a bowl of stew. I think the common sense solution for this would be to change the model from a glass jar into a disposable paper cup. Then it would make sense that the container disappears when you cook the stew. However, I'm hesitant to make the jump from xml edits to new artwork, because it'll probably make it harder to use ComSenMod in multiplayer.
It eats up a glass jar together with the stew? It is not logical! If I'm not mistaken, this was fixed in alpha 14.

This is kind of like requiring a candle to make a campfire - in my mind, the candle is actually a butane lighter. Then when I tried it, I realized candles are only found in one or two houses, so I allowed torches as well. Everyone starts with a torch, but it creates an interesting choice in the early game, and I can speak from experience that losing that first campfire before you've made any tallow creates a major survival setback.
Why not melt the fat in a tin? The water boils, and therefore the fat can...

 
Working on a mod

Hey Crater Creator,

I'm using your mod on my server and it's great. I've been making many adjustments, actually so many that I have a list of changes that's as big as yours. I'd like to "release" (I mean post) my mod (based on yours).

It's says in the policy that I need to ask for your permission so that's what I'm doing, can I post a mod that's based on yours?

If not then I'll just start over, and make something my own completely. Either way I'm good. Let me know what you think.

Thank you for your work.

— im not a native English speaker.

 
Welcome to the forums, sbwebguy! Great to hear you're enjoying ComSenMod enough to use it on your server.

Thanks for asking about making a derivative mod. You have permission, but I do ask that you credit me in anything you release based on ComSenMod. If your mod is mostly ComSenMod with a few changes, or a compilation of several mods including ComSenMod, or whatever the case may be, that should be clearly documented.

Good luck with your mod. If you're agreeable, I might look at your adjustments some time and incorporate some of them back into a future version of ComSenMod.

 
Also, a heads up for everyone. The big addition for the next version of ComSenMod will be fixes for weather survival.

Weather survival in vanilla definitely defies common sense. Most of all, I've been tired of nonsense like warming up by taking off my shorts. As I fully anticipated, this rapidly snowballed into redoing the insulation values for all clothes, and then adjusting the biomes and weathersurvival.xml settings for balance.

I'm currently testing my settings in single player (about to fight the first horde in a pine forest). I will *probably* release as soon as I'm happy with the balance & testing, rather than waiting for Alpha 16.

 
@Crater Creator: Thank you for this, we'll give you credit for ComSen, this mod will be completely based on yours. We are using it on our server and just posting it here later so others can try it. Nothing more. We'll link to your mod as well so people can check it out.

 
Crater-Creator Fix the weather a good idea. Good mod, but there are deficiencies. To loot the number of items low. For example, two nails, one arrowhead, and four tokens... It would be good to increase the number of rounds in gun safes and cabinets, not less than 20. Found concrete mixture in amount of 29, why? You need at least 100, then it will be good. Will it be fixed?

 
Crater-Creator Fix the weather a good idea. Good mod, but there are deficiencies. To loot the number of items low. For example, two nails, one arrowhead, and four tokens... It would be good to increase the number of rounds in gun safes and cabinets, not less than 20. Found concrete mixture in amount of 29, why? You need at least 100, then it will be good. Will it be fixed?
Okay, Tarch. You've convinced me. In vanilla, you find arrowheads in trash one at a time. In ComSenMod, you would find between one and five. But I see your point, that finding one arrowhead isn't fun even if it doesn't happen often. You might go a long time before finding any more, and in the meantime it takes longer to make one arrow and load it in your bow than it does to use that arrow. So based on your feedback, I went through all the loot and adjusted the "count" values for many things. For example, now you find between 4 and 12 arrowheads at once.

If taken too far, this will make the game too easy. If you always find ten nails, for example, then it's like changing the recipe so a crate requires one nail, except things are bloated with inflation. You shouldn't always find as much as you need from one container. You should have to gather resources from multiple places sometimes. On the other hand, finding one nail from ten or more different trash piles is too tedious and hit-or-miss. So I set the junk group to have between five and fifteen nails.

This is the philosophy I used when setting the numbers on about twenty different items. I'm testing my values now. I'm sure they'll need more tweaking before I'm happy with the result.

I did not change the "guns+ammo" group, which gun safes use. I feel the number of rounds is already useful, especially because you find a weapon and ammo at the same time, and the weapon comes loaded with ammo. I feel that scarce ammo is part of the game, so maybe explain why you think more ammo is a good idea.

I don't understand how you found 29 concrete mix. I set it to a range between 100 and 200 units. This matches the rebar frames, which have a range between ten and twenty units. Maybe I don't understand the effect of skill levels and loot settings as well as I thought.

 
Crater-Creator At the military base there with the safe open, it found 1 ammo for the shotgun. It's funny how something. This is how to open your refrigerator and discover 1 pea on the middle shelf. 29 concrete mix found in a box working tools store.

 
Was it a gun safe or a munitions box? And, do you remember if there was a shotgun that came with the ammo?

The concrete really makes no sense. There is no concrete mix in vanilla, and I just checked the concrete mix in ComSenMod. It only appears in Working Stiffs crates, and the quantity has always been between 100 and 200 units.

Code:
<lootgroup name="workingStiffs" count="1">
<item name="pickaxeIron"/>
<item name="shovelIron"/>
<item name="fireaxeIron"/>
<item name="hoeIron"/>
<item name="clawHammer"/>
<item name="wrench" prob="0.8"/>
<item name="repairKit" count="1,4"/>
<item name="woodFrameBlock" count="10,30"/>
<item name="rebarFrameBlock" count="10,20"/>
[color="#FFD700"]<item name="concreteMix" count="100,200"/>[/color]
<item name="nail" count="10,40"/>
<item name="wood" count="50,250"/>
<item name="anvil" count="1"/>
<item name="ironDoor1_v1"/>
<item name="sledgehammer"/>
<item group="nailgun+parts"/>
<item name="calipers" prob="0.67"/>
<item name="toolAndDieSet" prob="0.67"/>
<item group="rareTools"/>
<item group="automotive" prob="2"/>
<item name="forgedIron" count="5,15" prob="0.21"/> <!-- together 2% per crate -->
<item name="forgedSteel" count="3,12" prob="0.12"/>
<item name="fertilizer" count="1,3" prob="0.5"/>
<item name="electricParts" count="4,8" prob=".5"/>
<item name="electronicParts" count="1,3" prob=".2"/>
<item name="mechanicalParts" count="4,10" prob="1"/>
<item name="scrapPlastics" count="4,8" prob=".4"/>
</lootgroup>
 
Can we add a way to craft emptyJar from "filled" jar?

Example: you can just dump the water inside "bottledRiverWater" and it'll obviously turn to "emptyJar"

Here is addition to recipes.xml:

Code:
<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="bottledWater" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="bottledRiverWater" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="beer" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="coffee" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="goldenRodTea" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="grainAlcohol" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="redTea" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="snowberryJuice" count="1"/>
</recipe>
 
Can we add a way to craft emptyJar from "filled" jar?
Example: you can just dump the water inside "bottledRiverWater" and it'll obviously turn to "emptyJar"

Here is addition to recipes.xml:

Code:
<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="bottledWater" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="bottledRiverWater" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="beer" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="coffee" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="goldenRodTea" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="grainAlcohol" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="redTea" count="1"/>
</recipe>

<recipe name="emptyJar" count="1">
<ingredient name="snowberryJuice" count="1"/>
</recipe>
I like this idea. The ability to empty out whatever's in the jar would be sensible. It strikes me as analogous to scrapping. I think you could scrap a full jar to an empty jar if empty jars were their own material. Then we wouldn't have to add a bunch of recipes.

I have an item on my To Do list to scrap arrows to get either the arrowhead or the feather back, where I plan to use the same approach. It's just an area of modding I haven't tackled yet.

 
I think cornBread should stick to cookingPot because it requires bottledWater.

Edit: Same goes to blueberryPie

 
I think cornBread should stick to cookingPot because it requires bottledWater.
Edit: Same goes to blueberryPie
Okay, I see what you're getting at. I broke my own convention that if water's in the recipe, you use the pot. But intuitively, you don't boil breads or pies - you bake them. Grilling is the closest thing we have to baking.

So I researched real recipes for cornbread and blueberry pie with a cornmeal crust. The real recipes use more shortening than water. So in the game, these recipes will require animal fat instead of bottled water.

This kills 3 birds with one stone.

  • It maintains the water=pot convention.
  • It keeps these recipes on the grill, which makes the most sense
  • It satisfies my desire to use animal fat as a cooking ingredient, in general.

Neither food hydrates you, so this doesn't create an exploit to get free hydration, either.

I think this will make the game better. I'll test it along with other changes for the next release of ComSenMod, coming soon™. Thanks for catching this, SenLim!

 
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