Modding issue. Game load time makes prgress tedious

[dreamdancer]

So, I have begun to play around a little with the idea of doing more extensive modding than 'tinkering with a couple xml values'. But I'm running into a dilemma. Every time I make a change that could have impact, there is the desire to boot up the game and see what happened. And in the early stages, there is a lot of trial and error involved. "What does this value do if I do this?" happens a lot. But as things are, each new change requires a full load up of the game, since everything is frontloaded. Which is laborious. Since A16, the load time of the game has been a long process. Not such a big deal to do before an hour of gaming, but it becomes a huge chore to do it for every little code alteration. :/

Curious if anyone else has come up with any sort of way to reduce this burden? It has become a pretty strong disincetive for me. Which is annoying because I have all these -ideas-. Modding is all about seeing something missing in the game ecosystem, that you'd like to play, and making it yourself. And I would really like to start working on something to address what I see as the core failing of the game: The fact that things get progressively easier, rather than harder, as the game progresses.

 

[xyth]

Test in Naz rather than a randomgen world. Saves lots of time. Some folks make a custom randomgen world thats very small and flat with no terrain, buildings or objects placed...but I find using the prebuilt Naz world is good enough.

 

[Tin]

Test in Naz rather than a randomgen world. Saves lots of time. Some folks make a custom randomgen world thats very small and flat with no terrain, buildings or objects placed...but I find using the prebuilt Naz world is good enough.

Slacker layful:

joking

 

[KhaineGB]

Test in Naz rather than a randomgen world. Saves lots of time. Some folks make a custom randomgen world thats very small and flat with no terrain, buildings or objects placed...but I find using the prebuilt Naz world is good enough.

Totally this. I do a lot of modding on my laptop, which BARELY runs the game as-is, and I found Naz is perfect for testing things that arent related to random gen (specifically rwgmixer).

I also have my tablet nearby for youtube or twitch-watching, which really helps.