Is it possible to add 'mobs' in this game, through a mod?

[Selective Genius]

I wanted to know if it's possible to add neutral/friendly mobs to this game (Kerbin animals, Duna and Laythe aliens etc.). This will add a lot to the 'exploration' part of the game. Recording each specimen of flora and fauna, finding out about alien culture and tradition, stuff like that..

Edited July 19, 2019 by Selective Genius

[coyotesfrontier]

It's probably possible, but it would take an insane amount of effort.

[theJesuit]

Animated statics.

Oxymoron much? 

But yea, a 'static' that moves around. Currently only trees and rocks and variatons of these. I don't think that intelligent life is possible.  We've got nothing IRL to model it off anyway.

Peace.

[Gargamel]

TBH, I doubt it, highly unlikely, given the fact people have been modding the game for so long, and "Aliens" have always been a constantly requested feature, somebody would have figured out a way to do it.   Maybe with the new Breaking Ground interactions it might be possible, but I don't see it really happening....

[Selective Genius]

So has SQUAD allowed modders to introduce new 'static' surface features for breaking ground? I wont mind a few ruins at Duna or Laythe...

[KerbolExplorer]

12 hours ago, Selective Genius said:

So has SQUAD allowed modders to introduce new 'static' surface features for breaking ground? I wont mind a few ruins at Duna or Laythe...

I saw some planet packs custom adding terrain scatters beffore the DLC so its posible with out buying something extra.

So some ruins are something possible to make just that for some reason no one has done it until now.....

[kerbiloid]

Gophers.

A brown pixel with two ears suddenly appears in 50 m meters from you. And immediately hides before you approach.

Very simple modelling (just several pixels, you anyway can't see them close), and no FPS loss.

***

As there is/was the famous Critter Crawler long before the Breaking Ground, probably not the mechanics itself is the problem.

Spoiler

 

Also, as in BDArmory (originally from the same author) there is Guard Mode, switching the behaviour of a craft between peaceful and agressive, and the same mod automatically performs evasive actions at least in air, probably simplest forms of behavior are also not a no go.

Modelling is definitely not a problem at all, there were a lot of creature models.

So, probably just nobody, who can, wants to bother with.

Edited July 23, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Shadowmage]

On 7/20/2019 at 7:36 PM, Gargamel said:

somebody would have figured out a way to do it. 

Its less 'figuring out how to do it' and more 'do I have 6+ months to dedicate to modding in such a feature to an acceptable degree?'

Nothing really to difficult, just a few big time-consuming bits, and a bit of scripting:

• Create a ton of models, textures, animations.  The time consuming portion.  Seriously. Time. Consuming.
• Randomly spawn models dependent upon planet/biome, in the area immediately surrounding the player.  Entirely doable.
• Use some 'simple' scripts to add some rudimentary AI.  Relatively simple, but can take time depending upon how complex the desired AI should be.
• Hook into the KSP science system to add science defs and interaction.  Not sure on this one; likely tricky, but probably doable.
• ?
• Profit!?!

15 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

So, probably just nobody, who can, wants to bother with.

Pretty much this I think.

(I had a hand in the resurrection of the critter-crawler; it is far less related to npc-animals than you might think; being essentially a collection of wheels synced to an animation)

[FreeThinker]

Perhaps this might be usefull to create a mob

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by FreeThinker

[theJesuit]

Also there was a KK mod that added moving vehicles driving around the KSC.

Peace.

[Manul]

17 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

Its less 'figuring out how to do it' and more 'do I have 6+ months to dedicate to modding in such a feature to an acceptable degree?'

Nothing really to difficult, just a few big time-consuming bits, and a bit of scripting:

• Create a ton of models, textures, animations.  The time consuming portion.  Seriously. Time. Consuming.
• Randomly spawn models dependent upon planet/biome, in the area immediately surrounding the player.  Entirely doable.
• Use some 'simple' scripts to add some rudimentary AI.  Relatively simple, but can take time depending upon how complex the desired AI should be.
• Hook into the KSP science system to add science defs and interaction.  Not sure on this one; likely tricky, but probably doable.
• ?
• Profit!?!

Pretty much this I think.

(I had a hand in the resurrection of the critter-crawler; it is far less related to npc-animals than you might think; being essentially a collection of wheels synced to an animation)

There is a more easy way to do it:

1) Paint kerbals purple,red and yellow

2) Add weapon manager and surface AI modules to "AlienKerbalEVA" part. BDA now allows more than two teams so they can be mutually hostile/friendly

3) Make the evil ones shoot laser beams from their eyes. The friendly ones too. Or maybe not laser beams but the rainbow beams of love.

4) Create a CC contact pack that spawns aliens and "gives them a purpose"(tm)

5)????

6) Profit!

[Kerbart]

Imagine...

Aliens are introduced. They always look the same, can be found at the same planetary body, etc. How long before the excitement wears off? “The aliens don’t do anything.” I’m sure Squad will get very limited return on their investment.

So now, even more time is spent on writing interactive scripts. It might take two more months before people complain, at the cost of another six months.

However... take a look at Astroneer. Plants in a wide variety, some of them aggressive. That is surely something to be added to the game!

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

Aliens are introduced. They always look the same, can be found at the same planetary body, etc.

And they are between us Kerbals...

Maybe, a (basic quadrupod + basic bipod + basic hexapod + basic small crab) skeleton mod could do something for that.
To implement the basic mechanics and let other modders create models of body parts and assign to them special objects or tags.

Edited July 24, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Shadowmage]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Maybe, a (basic quadrupod + basic bipod + basic hexapod + basic small crab) skeleton mod could do something for that.
To implement the basic mechanics and let other modders create models of body parts and assign to them special objects or tags.

Now there is a concept that I could see myself picking up (not saying I'm going to though).  Develop the framework for others to add the models (the science hooks, some pluggable AI system to interact with animations, settings regarding spawning, etc).  I'm big on frameworks (and not so big on modeling/texturing/animating)

[The Dressian Exploder]

Take the existing script for the little guys walking around in the VAB, merge it with the script of BG surface features, design some models/textures/animations for it and BAMMO! You have some fauna to sprinkle around a planet and do science on. (Maybe?)

That gives me an Idea! We could introduce an easter egg where somewhere, there are two Human astronauts walking around (Laythe? Maybe the Tylo Cave?) and if you approach them you can hear them saying things... "Hey, johnny! There are a couple 'lil green guys here!"       "That's it. we're finally going mad here..."

[DoctorDavinci]

On 7/19/2019 at 2:27 PM, Selective Genius said:

I wanted to know if it's possible to add neutral/friendly mobs to this game (Kerbin animals, Duna and Laythe aliens etc.). This will add a lot to the 'exploration' part of the game. Recording each specimen of flora and fauna, finding out about alien culture and tradition, stuff like that..

Yes, quite possible and has been done ... I'm still working on it and have added an encrypted config file system to contain all craft and other stuff (story line, mission/holo cache/geocaching information etc...)

I also have Scuba Kerb, a geocaching system (holocache) as well as a few other surprises in store

(spawning of vessels, kerbals that chase you and a ton more ... been at this for over a year)

Watch the videos in the spoiler if you dare 

Spoiler

 

 

[MK3424]

Hmm Kerbal Konstructs has a function where you could let vehicles roam around on a given path (or i could be mistaken) 

So.. mods might be possible if it was coupled with walking animations.

[DoctorDavinci]

1 hour ago, MK3424 said:

So.. mods might be possible if it was coupled with walking animations.

Let me put it this way .....

If I were to happen to come across a fully rigged model with animations I can spawn that model anywhere in the 3d game world and make it move around, dissapear, reappear etc....

I've can even load a kerbal in the SPH/VAB so importing a model to the game would be fairly easy

I do code, I don't do models 

 

[Selective Genius]

23 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

If I were to happen to come across a fully rigged model with animations I can spawn that model anywhere in the 3d game world and make it move around, dissapear, reappear etc....

I've can even load a kerbal in the SPH/VAB so importing a model to the game would be fairly easy

I do code, I don't do models 

Sir, you and I, we could achieve great things if we work together. Terrible, but great.

Will .blend files do? I usually model in blender, although I have not done character rigging yet.

[KerbolExplorer]

On 7/27/2019 at 5:46 PM, MK3424 said:

Hmm Kerbal Konstructs has a function where you could let vehicles roam around on a given path (or i could be mistaken) 

So.. mods might be possible if it was coupled with walking animations.

That could actually very usefull for adding birds roaming the KSC(because we are always hearing birds in the KSC menu)

 

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Maybe actually these are squids roaming from the nearest gulf.

 

[DoctorDavinci]

So, for all to be brought up to speed, this is where OrX was at last spring (northern hemisphere)

I took a break and now have been slowly redesigning OrX to not require BD Armory over the past few weeks

OrX Scuba Kerb will be an unlockable tech as well as a few other goodies such as Spider Kerb (does what a spider can) and Super Kerb (able to leap a building in a single bound) as unlockable tech

The intention is for OrX to be able to have addons created by other modders and to bring purpose to your kerbals

Geocaching is a major part of what I am creating and I intend to make it work so that a player can use the mod to create their own story in KSP ... Users share a single .orx file that contains the story the user wants to tell

It should work with any part mod ... BDA will likely need some modifications to work properly with OrX but that is totally feasible (meaning setting up battle scenarios to share with your friends and the community via a single .orx file)

Edited July 31, 2019 by DoctorDavinci

[coyotesfrontier]

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but old versions of Kopernicus Expansion allowed you to create mobs. It was removed in the updated version due to being unnecessary and unfinished, though:

https://imgur.com/a/xyXxE