Gearhead Garage (Custom Mechas)

[EuchreJack]

To make Tech Vulture more fun, I created a custom mecha kit that is simply a body component with a flight jet (to allow space travel even if the player has no spare limbs to attach to it).  I even gave it the back story of "being ancient mecha cores that were originally mistaken for asteroids".

I'm now thinking of adding a small, cheap shuttle that players can purchase for the sole purpose of actually being able to loot the derelic spaceship in the home system.  It'll have a mounting point so it can be equiped with a machine cannon or something and given to a lancemate once the player gets a real mecha.

[IronJelly]

The idea of custom mecha is really cool.  Some concept characters I've made would totally have their own mecha they started building with their father as a child, rather than a stock one.

The next logical step is the ability to:
a) publish it, and maybe get it rated by other people on the forums
and b) have it possibly appear in future games after you have made it.

I don't know how easy or not this would be to do though.  I imagine the basics are already there, I mean the customized mecha you can make must be stored, so it would just be a matter of extracting that.

[Onisuzume]

Well, some possible problems you might run into:
1: Armour value of the module.
2: Other module properties (Hardened/anti-beam/etc.).
3: Module mass (a number of existing mecha have -mass on their modules).
4: Different mecha types (battroid/gerwalker/etc.).
5: Different mecha sizes.

A few GH2 versions ago I made a number of "blank" mecha for easy customising, although I sort of halted that project. The total number of mecha you'll be making for that purpose alone will probably outnumber the existing mecha (which is around the 50-60, not counting variants, GH1 has 80+).

[Joseph Hewitt]

You can post design files you've made yourself here, and if people put them in their design directory those mecha will appear in the game automatically (assuming the files are valid and have proper Faction/Type attributes). Modified mecha which you've created in-game are a different story, of course, but I'm working on a method to share those as well.

[SharkD]

It would be cool if you could export your character as well. I.e. just drop the file into a directory and have it chosen randomly as an NPC.

[Onisuzume]

Modified mecha which you've created in-game are a different story, of course, but I'm working on a method to share those as well.

Aren't those stored in the save file?
It'd simply be a matter of finding the headers in that file and exporting the associated data.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Aren't those stored in the save file?
It'd simply be a matter of finding the headers in that file and exporting the associated data.

Yes to the first bit, no to the second. Mecha in the design folder are stored in a human readable format which gets interpreted by the gearparser unit. Mecha inside of a save game get stored as a raw data dump. Converting the latter to the former is possible, but not as simple as a cut and paste.