General modding chat

[open acorn]

game do be oh no!-ing again
only happens when I include the plane.Plane.AddForce(force.x, force.y, force.z) line
I can't quite figure out what about applying the force is making it crash, there's no mod error logs, and the game crash logs aren't very helpful

surprisingly it doesn't crash when saving the lua file with the line included though

also doesn't crash when loading in servers

I wonder if this has something to do with it then

[dapper jay]

lol i was right

PioNet is a networking framework that the game uses

[open acorn]

in a server it works perfectly fine, but Oh No!s in singleplayer
huh?

might have something to do with how adding force still happens each frame of having the escape menu open (resulting in ridiculous velocity when exiting the escape menu), which is kind of really stupid

[open acorn]

welp I guess it works in singleplayer now somehow

[dapper jay]

What the plane doin

[icy schooner]

Does anyone here do mod commisions? Im looking for a really simple thing. Nothing crazy

[sour bridge]

Is there a tutorial somewhere for how to get into Trailmakers modding?
Ideal would be something made for idiots.

[open acorn]

someone should make a mod

[warm canopy]

someone should update the modding api

[dapper jay]

hey thats my line

[cinder spruce]

at this point ill settle with bug fixes

[icy schooner]

@open acorn why the laughing reaction to my message? im actually curious.

[cinder spruce]

cuz its funny

[warm canopy]

How much you offering? 💰

[cinder spruce]

i mean thats what commission means

[radiant lion]

I did one once

[cinder spruce]

free commissions

[icy schooner]

Again, it should be a very simple mod. I could dm you and you could tell me what you think

[sweet dove]

@radiant lion for some reason the "start active" and the "Z lock" options dont stay. When i select them and leave build mode, it didn't save them, they are no longer salecter

any idea why?

[cinder spruce]

due to one of the hotfixes, coloring certain blocks with mods has become impossible, likely wont be fixed until 2.0

[sweet dove]

How so? I'm the one coloring the block, and everything else works. These two setting are the only ones failing

[cinder spruce]

i believe it depends on if its primary or secondary based on the block

all the settings that are toggled on and off such as z lock, lead target, and start active are stored and changed from the primary value, while all the other settings are stored in the secondary value

[sweet dove]

so it should be a problem with the primary colour then

then again, there are other on/off setting that work. I see no pattern

[cinder spruce]

i dont know exactly what causes it but many issues involving colors with mods are just not working as intended

and it is not fault of jess, it cannot be fixed as of now

[sweet dove]

Figured, it was working fine before and jess didnt update the missile mod afaik

that sucks then, 2.0 will take a while

[cinder spruce]

you could also post anything cmm related in https://discord.com/channels/296562030624899072/1174457776601305118, just to keep modding channel clear

[sweet dove]

woah didnt know there was a thread for it

my bad then 🙏

[cinder spruce]

it actually released on the thread before steam ws

[sweet dove]

i need to explore #1126842222898315274 more then

Thanks for the help friend

[radiant lion]

Also a paid one :)

[open acorn]

seeing as most (if not all) 3D models can be constructed with 90d edge triangles/right angle triangle (image for some very basic examples, every triangle should have at least one line that goes from a point to an edge at 90 degrees), I might see if I can do some sort of really low resolution deformable terrain

[dapper jay]

jess and terrosoul have already done that so yeah

[open acorn]

oh I had no idea, are either of such mods public?

[radiant lion]

Deformable? No. Procedural? Yes

[dusk finch]

Solution, play on a previous version and don’t deal with the new updates aids

[cinder spruce]

u cant anymore

it broke in hotfix 3, now its hotfix 4 so yippee

[dapper jay]

You can probably use the depot downloader to download hotfix 2

[dapper jay]

simp??

[warm canopy]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3333440426

Johannes favourite mod 2024

[cinder spruce]

?

[dapper jay]

Theres a tool for downloading previous versions of games on steam

[formal crane]

I didn't have a good way to finding spawnables while prototyping mods.

So I went through MOST of the current spawnables, screenshotted them and named them accordingly to their name.

I hope to add a note column later to specific whether a spawnable has special behaviour.

names + images can be found on wiki now
https://trailmakers.wiki.gg/wiki/Modding:Spawnables

[cinder spruce]

wth is kungfuflaglol

[open acorn]

red flag

in race island

[cinder spruce]

kungfuflaglol

[open acorn]

truly the best naming system

[regal bear]

This is great! Thanks for doing that.

BTW I noticed that the image you have for the PFB_SmallRock_Spawner_01 is actually the PFB_Mine so I duplicated that image for the PFB_Mine entry. The PFB_SmallRock_Spawner_01 appears not to have a model at all.

[formal crane]

@regal bear Yeah.. I didn't double check whether I got the names right.. It was a painful manual process.

I hope to give them a review at some point, but it would be nice to get some help with it regardless ❤️

[copper oak]

Does anybody know how one would go about making audio mods for this game? I really just want to swap the weapon sounds out for something chunkier, but for one I've never made a mod before, and for two I do not know what software one would use for converting sound files to and from .wwise files or whatever they are.

[near parcel]

You can't

[final wave]

is block editor having issues? as of the last update (i think) i cant use custom colors

[open acorn]

since 1.9 hotfix 3 iirc
should only happen to propulsive blocks

[final wave]

been having issues with everything, not just propultion

[open acorn]

strange

[median cobalt]

how does someone do a custom modtransform

seems like theres 0 documentation on it

[radiant lion]

Do a custom mod transform? Like create one from scratch?

Cause that you can't, unless you just mean a custom object

[median cobalt]

i DO mean make one from scratch

i need to make a custom one as the mod that should allow me to make more than one spawnpoint, doesnt

unless someone tells me why setting a spawnpoint DOESNT TAKE A SINGULAR VECTOR as position

and why it parses a vector as userdata

that also makes no sense

[shadow iris]

is asking about modding
"this makes no sense"
surprise.jpg

[near parcel]

that doesn't make sense. ModTransform is a wrapper type around a unity Transform object, which represents the position/rotation/scale of an object in the world. It doesn't exist in isolation, so you need to spawn an object to which it is attached

[radiant lion]

I'm guessing you are using tm.players.SetSpawnPoint()?

[near parcel]

none of the functions do that

[median cobalt]

yep

[radiant lion]

Seems pretty straight forward, a vector for position and one for rotation (tho the playerID part I feel could have been avoided)

[near parcel]

that takes a player id, a string, and 2 3d vectors for position and rotation. It doesn't parse any vector as userdata, because it doesn't take any vector (array) inputs in the first place

[median cobalt]

oh, hang on, mightve just been a typo in the code, its not throwing a moonscape interpretation error for uint32's

it mightve worked

ok nvm it did work i just managed to forget a ;

eyyy ok it works i think i dont have anyone else to test the spawn system with

[near parcel]

how? lua doesn't use ; unless you are trying to combine multiple statements in a single line

[radiant lion]

Iirc you can use ; instead of ,

(I am sure you can in tables, possibly also in functions, which might be what he means)

[near parcel]

only in tables, and it's cursed that it's allowed

[median cobalt]

ok turns out

even if it works fine for 90% of cases

spawnpoints sometimes arent being set at all

can i somehow just define two spawn points and then call them afterwards

[near parcel]

you are likely misunderstanding what spawnpoints are

to create a "spawnpoint", you need to set the spawn position/rotation for each player id, and associate all of those pairs with a single spawn location id you can use afterwards

[median cobalt]

is that spawn location ID individual per player

can i litterally just name it one string if i only need to have it be one spawnpoint per player

cuz if not i might have found the issue

[near parcel]

spawn location id is the name of the "spawnpoint", which is made up of a spawn position/rotation for each player id

[median cobalt]

so its just a table of spawnpoints named after the string

meaning i COULD technically just predefine it with one table

[near parcel]

essentially, but you need to create each spawnpoint through the tm.players.SetSpawnPoint() function

[near parcel]

yes, that's the intended usage

[median cobalt]

rn what i have is just when the player joins hes being given a spawnpoint at random based on the team he is in, but i could technically just predefine the team association and spawnpoints

[near parcel]

essentially you need to do

for i=0,7 do
    tm.players.SetSpawnPoint(i, "spawnpointname", position(i), rotation(i))
end

[near parcel]

if you want it to be based on the team, you need a different spawn location for each team

[median cobalt]

actually alot simpler than i thought

for rotation, forward would be X+ right

if 0 0 0

should work right

oh wait forgot one part

there

[near parcel]

the team is ignored there

[median cobalt]

why is it ignored

[near parcel]

you are associating positions to player ids. You need a spawn location id for each team, and each of them should have a spawn point for each player id

[median cobalt]

so its team dependant

or what

i cant set spawnpoints that ignore teams and set teams manually?

[near parcel]

with your code, the player id determines the team of the player, and the player id can't be changed

[median cobalt]

what id do i need instead

[near parcel]

You need a spawn location id for each team, and each of them should have a spawn point for each player id

[median cobalt]

then tell me what this is

[near parcel]

2 teams = 16 spawnpoints

[near parcel]

you are using a single spawn location id

read the documentation

[median cobalt]

the documentation is why i have to ask here

and you wrote it so im asking you

how would i tell it to use spawnpoints for a different team

which is NOT specified in the documentation

[near parcel]

Sets the position and rotation of the spawn point for a player ID at a given spawn location. Each spawn location is a group of spawn points, one for each player ID. spawnLocationId = id of the spawn location. playerId = player ID for which the spawn point will be used when respawning at the location

spawn points are completely unrelated to teams. You need to manually handle that if you want

[median cobalt]

so if i make spawnpoints and set the player to a different team it should not be interfering

what youre telling me right now instead is that spawnpoints are bound to be per-team

either way, with this set the moonscape interpretor is currently having an aneurysm

the system i use seems to work , creating spawnpoints in-time but failing sometimes

it fails to find a player for a tick, then implodes and recovers somehow

[near parcel]

correct. It won't change the spawnpoint for that player, so if you have 2 groups of spawns at the base of each team, players won't spawn at the base of their team. They will chose a base based exclusively on their player ID, disregarding their team. If you assign player IDs to teams, the teams likely won't be balanced in amount of players and players won't be able to change team

[median cobalt]

well it would probably be unbalanced either way when the number is odd

right now my issue is that players arent "found" and their spawn position is not being considered

[near parcel]

with your method, you could have a team of 4 players and a team of 0. If any player changes their team through the in game UI, it will also break

[median cobalt]

well it doesnt break right now with people changing it to 4 or 5 but the main issue is when someone joins they either spawn correctly, spawn incorrectly in the water, the interpretor freaks out OR it outright crashes me, all of which are inconsistent

[near parcel]

i would need the code and the full errorlogs from the mod

[paper bone]

this should get the angle of the "neighbor" object towards the "element" right?

local direction = neighbor.getTransform().GetPosition().Angle(neighbor.getTransform().GetPosition(), element.getTransform().GetPosition())

-- or simplified

local direction = neighborPos.Angle(neighborPos, elementPos)

[near parcel]

no, it doesn't make any sense to calculate the angle between positions. You only have 2 points, but you need at least 3 to define an angle

your code assumes the 3rd point is the origin, which is completely arbitrary

btw, you would usually call the angle function as tm.vector3.Angle(vec1, vec2)

[paper bone]

i want to apply a force to the "element" object but i want it to be pulling away from the neighbor. How could i calculate the direction the Force needs?

[near parcel]

diff = elementpos - neighbor
direction = diff/diff.magnitude()

not sure if it's +diff or -diff at the end atm it's +

[paper bone]

alr thx

[formal crane]

Truly terrible discovery. table.unpack actually doesn't flatten or whatever as I would've expected.

local arr = {2,  3, 4}

local elements = {}
for _, num in ipairs(arr) do
    table.insert(elements, {id = tostring(num)})
end

local test1 = {table.unpack(elements)}
for index, value in ipairs(test1) do
    tm.os.Log("test1 " .. index .. ": " .. value.id)
end
-- This works as I expected!
-- test1 1: 2
-- test1 2: 3
-- test1 4: 4

local test2 = {
    {id = "1"},
    table.unpack(elements),
    {id = "5"}
}
for index, value in ipairs(test2) do
    tm.os.Log("test " .. index .. ": " .. value.id)
end
-- This does not work as I expected! Only got the first element :(
-- test 1: 1
-- test 2: 2
-- test 3: 5

[near parcel]

table.unpack() unpacks a list-like table into multiple values, so you can do things like local foo, bar, baz = table.unpack({1,2,3}). It's mostly useful for variadic functions

[formal crane]

Yeah thats what I realised. I think it JavaScript where you can unpack and array into the declaration of another array like this, but it actually makes up the different insertions. Super useful. Just caught me off guard.

[near parcel]

the second case doesn't work as expected because when you use an expression which returns multiple values inside another expression, only the first is used unless the expression is variadic

https://www.lua.org/pil/5.1.html

this should work to flatten a list by 1 level

local function flatten(list)
    local out = {}
    for _, v in ipairs(list) do
        if type(v) == "table" then
            for _, vv in ipairs(v) do
                table.insert(out, vv)
            end
        else
            table.insert(out, v)
       end
    end
    return out
end

[paper bone]

in my softbodies mod it for some reason still struggles with applying the force, i checked it and the value makes sense, just nothing happens. It has no trouble getting the Position of the element but doesnt like to apply the force
doesnt even give any errors.
help would be very appreciated

thanks dyno

[formal crane]

Have you tried 1. going with very extreme values just to see if the scale is off or whatever.
2. tried one of the other force types

[paper bone]

yes i did both of that

doesnt even work with a Test Prefab

im starting to believe the AddForce funktion is bugged. atleast with mod Game Objects

[dapper jay]

i have discovered something weird

Ive made a mod for grabbing creations, and you select them by clicking on them with your cursor

since there is no way to get the block that you clicked on, i get the closest block to the click position, and if the distance is smaller than some value, then i deem that the block you clicked on

theres just one weird thing about this

here are the distance values of me clicking on my car in danger zone

and here are the values of me doing the same on the same car in test zone

[paper bone]

lol

[dapper jay]

so basically, what the fuck?

[paper bone]

Dyno doesnt like you to post the code

[dapper jay]

heres my code

its weird because im basing things on the blocks' relative distances

so, there should be no difference whatsoever

[warm canopy]

Noiro had a grab block mod aswell

[dapper jay]

damn my game crashed

im testing this more and its so weird?

in one rotation clicking on the wheel works, in another it doesnt

also my game crashed for the second time after refreshing my mod

meanwhile on test zone im unable to replicate this issue

im hoping that im just overlooking some weird thing in my code but i dont think i am?

[paper bone]

Edit: it does work with custom Objects, just not Prefabs

[dapper jay]

i have also had issues with not being able to apply forces to prefabs

[topaz arrow]

can i somehow get velocity of a block (or at least the velocity that a cluster of blocks has)? i tried via the structure, but it seems to give me the velocity of the main vehicle if i drop the block via a detachable thingy

[dapper jay]

you can calculate it yourself

[topaz arrow]

i know that, but i hoped for a built in method, especially since it seems like something useful enough to be included

[dapper jay]

if its not listed in the docs then it doesnt exist

[topaz arrow]

😦

[dapper jay]

if only we had dependencies

[scenic echo]

is there a way to get a players rotation?

[radiant lion]

Yes

Perhaps GetRotation()

[scenic echo]

thanks

[topaz arrow]

is there a way to assosiate explosion objects with players? so that killfeed recognizes who got killed by who when the death was cause by a modded explosion?

[dapper jay]

probably most likely not

[topaz arrow]

damn, thats a shame. after a quick look at the documentation, only thing i could figure out was spawning in a blueprint that immidiately explodes

but that seems like a bad way to solve this

[loud slate]

I did this in my mod but it isn't 100 % accurate

[scenic echo]

is there a way to detect if the server is lagging, like going at 50% speed?

[paper bone]

maybe check if the delta time is over a certain value

[scenic echo]

i did already and it kinda works but not for what i want to do

i want to make a mod that when the game slows down like 50 % speed it speeds it up with tm.physics.SetTimeScale()

with the delta time i can see only when ticks per second slow down, which is not what i need

[dapper jay]

shouldnt it be as simple as this

local target = 1/60
tm.os.SetModTargetDeltaTime(target)
function update()
    tm.physics.SetTimeScale(tm.os.GetModDeltaTime() / target)
end

[scenic echo]

it seems like it just lags the game

[dapper jay]

maybe swap getmoddelta and target in the division

[scenic echo]

the same thing

[dapper jay]

welp too bad

[scenic echo]

nevermind

i did something wrong

now it just put the game to 1000 speed

[near parcel]

that will break physics

[scenic echo]

i know

[scenic echo]

what does tm.physics.GetTimeScale() do?

from what i checked it just gives 1

[radiant lion]

Yeah

Iirc it gets how fast the game is running

Compared to nornal

[scenic echo]

so if i laged the game it should give something like 0.5 for example

[dapper jay]

no

[radiant lion]

No

You can set it to different values

And like that you can get it back

[scenic echo]

don't think it works

time mod sebi gives tm.physics.GetTimeScale()

or does it only give it back if it's in the same mod

i'm using my mod then a workshop mod to change time

yes it only gives it if it's the same mod

thanks

[near parcel]

it essentially gives the value you set it to with tm.physics.SetTimeScale()

[scenic echo]

yup

[open acorn]

🤔 I guess you could send data over the time scale thing between mods (albeit with some difficulty, and probably a lot of lag)
might be able to do it better with complexity if getting it shows the decimals put into the set function when ingame it doesn't

[paper bone]

or just make the sky dance by using the ToD

[open acorn]

or I guess spawning objects and raycasting to detect them, sending data in binary or booleans

[scenic echo]

how can you get the modder role?

[paper bone]

i think they get handed out manualy

[open acorn]

indeed

[scenic echo]

do you need the modder role to make a suggestion on vote-moding-features?

[paper bone]

i think so

[scenic echo]

=/

[paper bone]

just ping johannes||(on your own risk)||, he probaply doesnt have anything better to do after all he is the community manager

[hardy meadow]

Given!

[dapper jay]

does every mod have its own environment? otherwise you can just use globals

[paper bone]

Yeah every mod has its own environment

[dapper jay]

and you cant mess with tm either iirc

welp too bad

[regal bear]

Some simple water physics in use in my heavily updated Velocity Island map (releasing soon).

Basically things just bob up and down if they have enough bouyancy or else they sink. If you are in the seat there is some 'pseudo' drag as well.

The transparent water surface is a scaled power core crate.

If you load the map in any level other than Test Zone this fake water is not loaded - you get real water from those maps.

[median cobalt]

can mods directly alter the accumulator block

[cinder spruce]

nope

[median cobalt]

damnit

one day

[cinder spruce]

cant interact with much besides basic things like thruster power, health, drag

[median cobalt]

i mean setting the value

just setting the value itself

[cinder spruce]

still no

[median cobalt]

yea as i thought lol

[cinder spruce]

its more block properties rather than the actual in game input system

[median cobalt]

when block properties get final support by modding

im sure to finally make a code block mod

though it might actually cause another layer of interpretation

which would make it 3 layers

[cinder spruce]

we havent had many major modding improvements since 1.7 and none confirmed for 2.0

[topaz arrow]

code block? like programmable computers and stuff?

[cinder spruce]

i think we need a better ui system that can actually incorporate sprites

[topaz arrow]

thats true

[median cobalt]

yea basically

[topaz arrow]

i so want that to be in trailmakers! sadly i doubt that will happen though

[radiant lion]

when we'll be able to interact with logics i'll make sin/cos ecc.. gates

finally inverse kinematics in tm

[topaz arrow]

also, no clue where to ask elsewhere, but is there a channel for asking questions? not necessairly with building stuff exactly, like one of the things i would love to know is what is the function that determines hinges deflection based on input?

[radiant lion]

there is no function :)

best i can offer is a graph made by alva, but iirc there is no direct function

[topaz arrow]

thank you!

[paper bone]

damn that is annoying me now

[topaz arrow]

also, any clue if theres a way to have it be linear?

[topaz arrow]

theres probably a function for it (or a math equation or sth), just not known to the community

[radiant lion]

not as far as i know (tho once we get logic interactions i was also planning on a block that mitigates this issue)

[radiant lion]

well, it's technically not supposed to be there, it's a bug, so it's also not known to the devs :p

[topaz arrow]

i feel that once we get logic interactions the modding scene will boom

[topaz arrow]

https://tenor.com/view/huh-confused-what-rabbit-cute-gif-15285567

its a bug????

[radiant lion]

btw if you want all actual values for the hinges you can find them in alva's guide

here

.logic

[mint oxide]

Trailmakers Logic Block Guide

by ALVAROPING1

[near parcel]

there is an approximation using iirc 2 quadratics

[paper bone]

not if the rest of the modding api is still in the same state of brokeness. i dont think

[radiant lion]

ye

[radiant lion]

but it will mean i can make one more big scuffed mod, like when we got GetColor and i made missiles

or files and trackmaker

[paper bone]

yeah true

[topaz arrow]

i think itll boom, not to the maximum potential, but there definitely will be an increase, which may push the devs to fix the modding api

[radiant lion]

the biggest thing that will increase use of mod and by consequence how devs see them is a youtuber using them

[paper bone]

you just want to rotate them with logic? Else you could theoretically also use Modded forces to turn your hinges. But i dont know how precise that would be
would also be very jank

[radiant lion]

can tell on experience

[topaz arrow]

its hard to fix? why... the servos seem to work fine. sth isnt adding up to me

[radiant lion]

something about the speed steering whatever thingy iirc

steering help (?)

[paper bone]

yeah thats what its called

[radiant lion]

i prefer the other way

[median cobalt]

you can already make sin/cos

[radiant lion]

eeehhhh

[median cobalt]

it involves two accumulators to create a quadratic function

but it is jank, thats for sure

[radiant lion]

time for scuffed robot arm then

btw also atan?

[topaz arrow]

steering help is messing this up? man, i would trade steering help for linear stuff any time (and getting speed readouts, angle readouts, etc)

[near parcel]

hinges are designed for controlling vehicles, not for generally rotating blocks. That's what servos are for

[radiant lion]

can't hear you, too busy doing exactly that

[topaz arrow]

ye, but precise control is fairly important. trim is a great example. i know that on one of my vehicles, trimming between -0.5 to 0.5 does very little, and then after that its very sensitive. still seems counterproductive in my eyes, tho ive never liked magically adjusting numbers so im a bit biased

[radiant lion]

(it's a whole mess of a pid and calculating a final position that wouldn't cause an "illegal" rotation of the hinge)

[near parcel]

controlls working well on controller is way more important. Even if the hinges were linear, you would still be typing magic numbers because you aren't going to calculate the exact torque a given angle value will have

[radiant lion]

||just add a new block called "hinge 2: electric boogaloo" it will be just like hinge 1, but no steering help||

[paper bone]

can the wheels go like this: 👉 👈 or do you also check for that?

[radiant lion]

it's based on seat position, so they can't go 👉 👈 (unless you land from a jump, since actual hinge strenght is 0 they fold on themselves for a moment)

[paper bone]

you can even captialise on this idea since doing it for free would be to easy

[topaz arrow]

honestly i thought this would be an even worse issue on a controller, tho i havent used one much. and i dont understand your point about them still being magic numbers, because the angle would be linear to my input, which is what in my eyes should happen (tho again, havent used a controller that much in this game)

[paper bone]

ah interesting

[radiant lion]

i'll take the chance to repost this, too bad it cuts right when it happens

[topaz arrow]

or make it one of the advanced options: "linear inputs (also disables steering help)"

[paper bone]

you cant really capitalize on that tho

[topaz arrow]

please dont give them ideas like that. im too afraid that it might come true

[near parcel]

regardless of the actual curve used, your process for fine-tunning it would be the same:

1. type a random value
2. Test it
3. Depending on which direction it goes, increase/decrease it
4. Repeat
   if you are clever, you will use binary search to make the process faster, but the steps won't change

[paper bone]

im sure they have enough ideas already. I think atleast||(guess)||60% of their community buys most of the dlc's right as they come out, otherwise they wouldnt pump them out so frequently. So when you want to suggest a feature you might want to start thinking about its capitalization or fear its never getting added :P

modding cant really be capitalized that well on and is only available for 1 version of the game, so nothing you really can advertise with

[topaz arrow]

that may work for a trim set before operation, but the vehicle im talking about changed flight characteristics dramatically between the start and the end of flying (custom munitions, heavy and change aerodynamics cuz fins). unless you mean fine tune for every configuration of munitions, and automatically switch between them, this method wouldnt work.

[near parcel]

the vast majority of times trim is used it's with a constant input

[topaz arrow]

damn, thats a shame. i just got one of the dlcs, and i doubt ill get any of the other ones. guess im a minority then

[topaz arrow]

not from my experience, tho i guess i play in a fairly specific niche. i can see why steering help may be used by others, and why others may not want to lose it, but i still would trade it to have linear hinges

[median cobalt]

have all the blocks in the build mode been documented with their mod names

id need the names of the popup headlight , both gyro blocks, the hue light panel and large stabilizer with their hp values and complexity values aswell as the carseat and racingseat

the truss blocks might not be special unless their hp has changed which then means i need them too

as well as the windshield

(we should really add a tiny list of block names and their technical names )

[open acorn]

people have already done that with base logic, pretty smooth as well, but iirc it does require an absurd amount of logic

[radiant lion]

Just check, iirc rids block mod tells you

[median cobalt]

I cant find that one, you got a link to it?

[open acorn]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2434490277&searchtext=block+editor

[median cobalt]

Ty

[median cobalt]

oh god you can set the custom block color as your main one i think

hold on

[scenic echo]

yeah

i did that with a wierd green

[median cobalt]

waaait a second does this mean it can also be saved without mo-

IT SAVES

[scenic echo]

it's a great unintentional feature

[median cobalt]

time to mod the mod to support hexcolor modifications

[radiant lion]

Doesn't it already do?

[median cobalt]

i had the wrong mod loaded, it does have it

ok neat, multiplayerHP is now updated

[cinder spruce]

it technically existed before 1.9 but you had to go to your profile file and change the values there (also required turning off ur internet for a second and it just was a pain)

[radiant lion]

Before we also had a bug that allowed to copy-paste modded colors to other blocks, was kinda useful, but reasonably removed

[scenic echo]

what does tonumber() do?

[near parcel]

tries to convert a string to a number

[viral vortex]

Hello fellow builders. I am trying to upload my custom map made in Trailmappers and I always get an error message with "Upload was not successful" I am pretty sure I got the correct map directory and the mod works on my session. Any ideas to try ? And do I even have to upload it ? Can other players play with me on unuploaded map ? Thanks a lot

[median cobalt]

i really wonder when were going to be able to fundamentally modify the dethrone UI and use it in any map with anything in it... now that im thinking about it

if you had access to the functions to draw the bars, and then change the text, you could infact make Team Deathmatch or normal FFA Deathmatch with it

[open acorn]

with the state of modding right now, asking "when" to anything in specific related to modding might not have an answer

I should play dethrone some time

[median cobalt]

im throwing it out there anyways, im sure some of the dev team might take a stab at it

[dapper jay]

Can you make custom dethrone maps by spawning the crown object thingie?

[radiant lion]

Nope

At least before, doubt it changed

(the crowned minigame in workshop)

[dapper jay]

sadge

[regal bear]

Yes you can run a server with your custom map and others can join it without you having to upload it to the workshop.

If you still can't get it to upload it to the workshop double check that you've typed the mod path correctly:

• Eg for a mod in a folder called MyMap it should be mods\MyMap

Also check in the actual folder for your mod to see if there is a problematic file.

Other than that I'm not sure what else to check.

[sweet dove]

Where can I find or look for the formula and inner workings of a CCIP system?

Constantly computed impact point

[cinder spruce]

not too sure what that is but
like every other modding feature, “it probably isnt part of the api”

scratch that its 6 am i cant read

[cinder spruce]

wonder if jess’s leading could work for something like that, just a simple bullet targeting computer

[radiant lion]

Not if the bullet is affected by gravity

[cinder spruce]

not sure how much the normal bullets and lasers are affected but it could be negligible

or you could simply adjust the reticle compared to the closest targets distance

[cinder spruce]

they are affected in some way

[topaz arrow]

if you want, i can give you a basic function for 2d for that, and explain whats going on to give you the understanding necessary to implement it in ur own work

if you do want that, ping me here or dm me

[sweet dove]

Yeah i'd like that

I was hoping for a 3d one, but 2d is a good start

Send in dm pls

[topaz arrow]

https://tenor.com/view/salute-military-gif-6014601990672757711

[median cobalt]

ive noticed block.setprimary is very buggy, why is that

[cinder spruce]

something funky happened with hotfix 2 for 1.9, which means now any mods that rely on that do not work anymore. Jamie identified it as a bug from an attempted optimisations that broke coloring with modding

[median cobalt]

it does work

its just a new function

but the way it fetches the active block sometimes just doesnt return a valid block

or cannot access the color

i keep having to replace the block and then color it to get the paints properly

[median cobalt]

does OnPlayerLeft and OnPlayerJoin really not return the id that joined

also whats the maximum amount of letters in a header and message

[radiant lion]

I think it returns the whole player data, do you gotta do player.playerId

And there isn't a defined maximum, depends on text width

[median cobalt]

so its actually the function with the argument (player) already just supplied altogether

so its tm.Players.OnPlayerJoined(userdata player)

that might be more convenient

[radiant lion]

Yep

[median cobalt]

neat

does the message and header support unicode?

like full unicode

neh it doesnt

oh messages do have finite length

its 32

[median cobalt]

getting a very annoying case where ui id's are unable to be globalized for use later in the code

this is critical for what im working on right now

can we assign id's to messages manually

pls say yes

else this is litterally impossible to make

[open acorn]

yes

ok I've said it, bye now

[dapper jay]

what are you making?

[median cobalt]

ive bandaid patched the hell out of it

ive made a hp bar mod

to go along with my multiplayer HP mod

[dry escarp]

how are players joining my campaign with sandbox items? how do i do this?

last guy said he edited his game files but i cant figure that either, just TMS files that i cant read

[open acorn]

probably changing the respawn id of the spawnpoints with a build with sandbox items they want to have

[hoary skiff]

yk trailmakers mods feel like a fun toy to me

like they aren't powerful enough

they'll get there

the api will improve with time

[cinder spruce]

give it a year or so

no api changes confirmed for 2.0

only bug fixes

[topaz arrow]

is there a way to have a GUI? like a window in which i can paint or sth? or even just a window with the default font that uses the default ascii characters and has no spaces inbetween lines (for ascii art gui)?

[cinder spruce]

i believe alvaros screen utilities might work

you cant do much with the formatting of the ui system

#1141065535929450597 message

[topaz arrow]

looks promising, tho i cant find anything about glueing it to a player or anything, let alone players camera, so might sadly not work for this application. thanks for replying tho!

[near parcel]

it's not designed for that, it's intended for static screens. Depending on your usecase you might be able to use a static camera that can be toggled to open the UI though

[topaz arrow]

well, i wanted to make a "radar" display to show where players are, maybe even have the ability to "lock" onto them on the screen. i figured ascii art would be best for that, but i tired and the spaces between lines and lack of basic ascii characters makes it impossible. was wondering if theres another way to do it, but apparently there might not be

[cinder spruce]

assuming this is for missile mod, you could probably make a ring around the player that displays the direction of a player or a missile lock (no vertical indicator for balancing ig) and spawn 3d models around the ring as “UI” to replicate a radar. and have a circle spawned to show the selected target

just some ideas

have the models essentially be made of a plane with no back face to make the model invisible when not facing it

[topaz arrow]

could be, but ive flown the realistic warfare mod, and it tires to do something like this, but the problem is that the jitter may make the ui hard to read or look at

[radiant lion]

There is also the thing with custom models that can't really follow players at high speeds, as well as them always having the top be collideable, technically both fixable, but annoying, (having to add to the position and checking if there is no build where you want to spawn the object)

[cinder spruce]

[open acorn]

following players at high speeds can be achieved, just not a simple setposition, and they require being a kinematic rigidbody, then adding the velocity * deltatime to the existing position of the target, although every few frames or so it will jump ahead before snapping back (due to frame inconsistency, and deltatime being time since previous frame)

[cinder spruce]

what

[dapper jay]

what the what

[open acorn]

what what the what?

[dapper jay]

what if there was a mod

[cinder spruce]

what if modding never existed

[open acorn]

that would be terrible

[scenic echo]

I'm trying to make a track with blender but it has weird collisions, is there a way to fix them?

[warm canopy]

Spawn it as a customobjectconcave

https://trailmakers.ludixi.com/info/?function=tm.physics.SpawnCustomObjectConcave

[scenic echo]

Thank you

[fervent dove]

Hello, could someone pls say me how I can Mod the game?

[cinder spruce]

https://trailmakers.wiki.gg/wiki/Modding

[scenic echo]

is there a way to change the grip of roads spawned with tm.physics.SpawnCustomObjectConcave? Like to make a ice road and make it really slippery

[radiant lion]

Hah, you wish

||we all do||

[open acorn]

nope
and it's highly likely to be the case for a while
-# as adding a single function to change the physics material of an object would probably be quite a lot for the devs (jk)

[cinder spruce]

-# way too much to ask, why are you even suggesting it

[empty dust]

i have a mod suggestion

how about splitscreen cameras?

[near parcel]

not possible

[empty dust]

sad

[cinder spruce]

basically the answer to every interesting mod idea, makes me sad

[cinder spruce]

does anyone have an example on how blueprint spawning would be done?

[radiant lion]

Not on hand, but you have to load the blueprint as you would a texture, then feed it to the spawn blueprint function

[cinder spruce]

alr yep i got it working :)

[shadow iris]

how long would it take to load a roughly 8k texture

[cinder spruce]

probably depends on the computer

[shadow iris]

i5-13600kf, 32gb ram, 3060ti

[cinder spruce]

though i wouldnt know how to get a rough estimate though

[shadow iris]

its still doing some thing i think

its been like 4 minutes

wtf when im in the map network usage goes to 750kbits/s rather than like 80

i wonder if thats loading texture

nvm

yeah i dont think it likes an 8k texture

[cinder spruce]

probably not a great idea

[shadow iris]

ill try 4k instead

im gonna use it as reference to build this underwater map

so probably doesnt need to be loaded in tm

ok whatev its not actually gonna fnish

this even without the floor texture and only being this 1 prefab already is a good concept

[open acorn]

possible but would take a lot of work on the devs' side

[cinder spruce]

why does this return as a table?

[near parcel]

It doesn't

[cinder spruce]

ah wait nvm, thanks

[cinder spruce]

im trying to get the block count of the spawned structure but it keeps giving me an "attempt to call a nil value" on line 12

local positions = {tm.vector3.Create(0, 305, 0), tm.vector3.Create(50, 305, 0)}

tm.physics.SetBuildComplexity(2500)
tm.physics.AddTexture("tower.png", "towerBP")
local originalBlockCount = {}

-- Spawn structures from all set positions on the array
for i, pos in ipairs(positions) do
    tm.players.SpawnStructure(0, "towerBP","towerTarget" .. tostring(i), tm.vector3.Create(pos.x, pos.y, pos.z), tm.vector3.Create(0, 0, 0))
    local targetstruct = tm.players.GetSpawnedStructureById("towerTarget" .. tostring(i))
    -- Store the original number of blocks in structure
    originalBlockCount[i] = #targetstruct.GetBlocks()
end```

[near parcel]

#table gives a number

[cinder spruce]

yes, im trying to get the total block count of the structure so im using # to get the array length, if using GetBlocks() gives an array of all the blocks in the structure.

[near parcel]

# likely has higher precedence

[cinder spruce]

ok wait i dont think that is the issue, GetSpawnedStructureById() is returning nil. the structureID should be the same as the structure spawned on the previous line right?

ah wait nvm i got it i had to index targetstruct on line 12

[cinder spruce]

what does this do?

[radiant lion]

Same as delete, but inatant

Or possibly the other way around

[open acorn]

instantly remove build from existence
does it in a single frame, so yes you can spawn a seat and put the player in it then remove it in the same frame and make it look like you kicked someone from a seat (how seat lock mod works)

[cinder spruce]

yea for some reason destroy was just not working at all

and started giving me unity errors where i shouldnt have been

[dapper jay]

what the FUCK!?

[cinder spruce]

wha

[cinder spruce]

?

[dapper jay]

nothing 😔

[cinder spruce]

all that anticipation for nothing 😔

[dapper jay]

I was just very surprised

[shadow iris]

has anyone tried using animated pngs for textures

[near parcel]

i don't think so

[cinder spruce]

pngs can be animated?

[near parcel]

yes, but it's a different file format (.apng)

[dapper jay]

i doubt the game has support for anything other than png tbh

[cinder spruce]

doubt it has support for practically anything

unless .apng somehow behaves the same as .png in some way, i dont know enough to say

[dapper jay]

should probably test it

[errant arrow]

does anyone know how to update the mod you made

[open acorn]

if it's about an uploaded mod: go to workshop ingame > find your mod under "my uploads" > press the edit button > input the directory again then save

[cinder spruce]

nah he wasking how to re-export a trailmappers map if he already exported it before (he didnt know you can just export again to modify it)

[open acorn]

ah sorry, the fact it's in the General modding chat, and clearly states "update the mod you made" is what confused me

[cinder spruce]

he asked in here and trailmappesr at the same time

[open acorn]

oh ok

[cinder spruce]

sorry what

[open acorn]

bro what

[scenic echo]

how can i make a texture not be shiny?

[near parcel]

Set alpha to 0

[open acorn]

make it more transparent, the transparency is the roughness of it, which does imply transparent textures can't be made, and yeah, they can't

[scenic echo]

IT WORKED, THANK YOU

[dapper jay]

what if... we had bullet prefabs... or something....

[dapper jay]

we used to have them but they got removed for some reason

[open acorn]

I mean
we had bullet prefabs

[cinder spruce]

i tried to make a mod like way back in 1.5 before autoaim to try and replace the bullets out of guns with the old homing bullet prefab, i had no idea what i was doing and just gave up lol

[dapper jay]

i used the cannon bullet prefab for one my of my things and then one day it just stopped working because the devs deleted the prefab

[dapper jay]

pretty sure thats not possible anyway so rip 😔

[radiant lion]

Reason was a whole bunch of errors being thrown in the background

[dapper jay]

fix them smh

[cinder spruce]

too hard ig

[dapper jay]

😤

now my death cubes arent as fun

[shadow iris]

what if you just use dithering within the model itself

and then apply a texture on that

[open acorn]

hmm
Test Zone doesn't have a pre-existing map, and get mouse click position exists, I guess it would be possible to make a map with any map ui one wants, with player tracking, and teleport points using custom cameras and custom objects seeing as Test Zone has a free TAB key, just so long as it doesn't require water

[regal bear]

Yep I'd been thinking the same thing. I just don't really think I have the skills to put all that together. Are you going to give it a go?

[open acorn]

welp I am working on a map for test zone so I guess I will now

[regal bear]

Cool

[dapper jay]

terrorsoul's golf map is really cool but wow the game does not like it

ive fallen through the track a few times by now

[warm canopy]

Don't yeet the ball 😛

[dapper jay]

i didnt

stuck

[warm canopy]

Damn thats odd, I havent had that issue before

[dapper jay]

its the same part where i fell through last time

is there a reset key?

[warm canopy]

Nope, not unless you fall through

[dapper jay]

rip

[warm canopy]

First time im seeing that issue

How is the ball even clipping into the ground

[dapper jay]

was rolling around also a bit janky for you?

[warm canopy]

Not as much recently since the latest update

Are you using a certain graphics setting?

[dapper jay]

what certain graphics setting?

[warm canopy]

Can you host a server or shall I, Want to see this issue

[dapper jay]

the ball snaps around as if the position variable didnt have enough bits to represent the position properly lol

[warm canopy]

Oh that particular issue is the "rolling" animation, had to add it as we cant apply force to non rigidbodies and rigidbodies dont tend to roll properly

Thats a tuning thing with the rolling time

Your ball physically stops rolling but its still doing the rolling animation

[dapper jay]

oh

rigidbodies dont tend to roll properly
how did that happen lol

[warm canopy]

Devs...

The amount of work arounds I've had to do lol

Im guessing your graphics quality settings are lower because I can see the test zone floor

[dapper jay]

are they?

i assume every map is supposed to have a skybox?

some dont for some reason

[warm canopy]

Yeah your missing things that I see on my end

[dapper jay]

hm

was i supposed to load it on a different map?

[warm canopy]

We have the same graphics settings aswell

Two secs, let me try test zone again

I get the feeling test zone isnt compatible lol

Damn I thought I tested this

[dapper jay]

loaded the map on treasure island and everything seems to be loading now

yeah the mod is much cooler with the skyboxes lol

[warm canopy]

Lol

[shadow iris]

wtf i drop out of tm for like 3 months and now theres golf?

has anybody tested using animated pngs since i brought it up?

[dapper jay]

also its really clever how you used a creation for getting mouse input

[dapper jay]

oh yeah frfr (no)

[warm canopy]

Yeah had to come up with a work-around, also by playing on treasure-island or dangerzone youll also get the underwater biome and the isle biome

[dapper jay]

the underwater one is really cool

[shadow iris]

hm if i use a curvy mesh then could i use an animated png assuming it works to make a fish

issue is no transparency

[dapper jay]

even if it doesnt work, you can script the texture change now

[shadow iris]

https://tenor.com/view/dog-chattering-teeth-scared-spooky-gif-22755553

"now" what have i missed

why not script moving the fish at that point

[dapper jay]

this was added a while back

[warm canopy]

Thats how I'm doing the ball selection

[dapper jay]

oh shit lava map

[shadow iris]

hmm would it be possible to convert a speedtree to obj if it doesnt already export to that and then use one of those ingame

[dapper jay]

speedtree?

[shadow iris]

fancy tree designer thing

its expensive but fancy tree

[dapper jay]

if theyre not 5 million polygons each then probably yes

[shadow iris]

that would be funny

trying to find a model that isnt 5 million polygons on sketchfab first

the issue is that it uses planes of leaf rather than modelling each individual leaf (makes sense tbh)

[dapper jay]

WHAT

[warm canopy]

xD

Once you get into the higher difficulties it will start throwing all sorts of things at you

[dapper jay]

are these tracks procedurally generated?

[warm canopy]

Yeah

[shadow iris]

https://tenor.com/view/shocked-computer-smile-yellow-smile-surprised-gif-26981337

[warm canopy]

You have no idea how much pain the course generation code has caused me

[dapper jay]

oh i can imagine

[shadow iris]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/807809192537882647/1287515916636127253/caption-4-1.gif

[dapper jay]

i assume you use SetTexture to change the courses look as well?

[warm canopy]

Just spawning it with customobject

Each biome has a texture atlas

Also I think I just fixed the test-zone issues

[dapper jay]

belvin

apparently the custom cameras dont work with some camera modes

[warm canopy]

Yup

[dapper jay]

yeah the two orbit cams

weird

everything else works fine lol

[warm canopy]

Test Zone fix is now live

[dapper jay]

what was the issue?

[warm canopy]

I had reverted to an older version of the code yesterday and it rolled back the changes I'd made to the biome spawning part, it should have been relative to the current start height but it was just getting the values straight from the file. I made the biomes using trailmappers. I have to hard-code the start positions based on maps as different maps are different floor levels

[dapper jay]

ah i see

is the skybox clipping through the track here?

[warm canopy]

Uh oh xD

[dapper jay]

whoops

[warm canopy]

This is the desert map?

[dapper jay]

i think so

[warm canopy]

The procedural really did do a beeline straight for that rock

All that other space but nope

[dapper jay]

it was hungry 🤫

[warm canopy]

Small fix pushed for that lol

In some of the early versions I had courses criss-crossing over each other, random gaps, overlapping

[dapper jay]

i tried loading the mach loop 😭

missing faces!!

[shadow iris]

this is good

[dapper jay]

guys i still have 2 days

[cinder spruce]

oh carp

[paper bone]

could've been a hole in onee :P

[warm canopy]

Very close

[cinder spruce]

fixed

[dapper jay]

no way

[cinder spruce]

ikr

such a hard fix

totally didnt just flip the normals

[dapper jay]

oh lol

i should come up with a cool idea and make it until the deadline tomorrow

[dapper jay]

OH I HAVE AN IDEA

[topaz arrow]

...whats the idea?

[dapper jay]

something... cool...

[cinder spruce]

and ur gonna do it in 9 hours?

[dapper jay]

its pretty simple tbf

it needs more scripting than mapping really

[dapper jay]

idk if this would really count as a map though

maybe if i made a skybox for it

[shadow iris]

literally just pastes the original flappy bird 2d background on it

job well done

hmm uses apng for tht

[dapper jay]

it looks very bad

[cinder spruce]

show

[dapper jay]

lol

[cinder spruce]

might wanna change the tod

[dapper jay]

3am animation coding

[shadow iris]

try putting it really really close to the pillars so the shadows are minimized

[dapper jay]

its weird how the shadow makes it seem like there are holes in the model, even though there arent

[cinder spruce]

i love the way melvin flies off when u crash

is he based off a rigidbody or what?

[dapper jay]

it does use a rigidbody but only for the faster refresh rate lol

i just set its position and everything

[open acorn]

that's amazing lol

[dapper jay]

it is so jank

it probably looks fine on video but the input lag is crazy for some reason
it takes a few frames for melvin to jump and it feels really bad

there are 3 pairs of pipes that constantly go left, and if their x position falls below a certain value i just put them back at the right side of the screen
the side effect of this is that the pipes get this weird transition thing where you can see them quickly moving between those two positions

i fixed it by making them invisible for like 10 frames 😭

[dapper jay]

question, can the game not parse this?

because i just keep getting this

[topaz arrow]

ive seen some weirdly placed commas at the end of these structures (or sth that looks similar at a glance). try putting a comma after 1 (no clue why it would work, but i also got no clue why it works in the other case so who knows)

[radiant lion]

Isn't that a problem with reading the file tho? I'd expect the JSON conversion to be done after

[dapper jay]

it seems to be a problem with tm.os.ReadAllText_Dynamic

but i have no idea why it wouldnt work

[radiant lion]

What's the doc say about it?

Also have you tried not having the file not be a .JSON? Would be weird if that was the case, but you never know

[dapper jay]

i basically just copy pasted the code from a previous project(on the left), and that one works fine

although the save file for that looks like this

ill try switching to a dictionary later(name: score)

[gusty scroll]

hello there i have a question me and a friend want too use the custome missle mod but we dont know how too can somone maybe explain it i we never moded trailmakers

[topaz arrow]

i can explain, tho im not sure if here or somewhere else would be better. this seems more like a chat connected with making/modifing mods, not using them. i can help either in DMs or in the custom missile mod channel thingy

[devout umbra]

Does anyone know where the file that controls the colour of damage is found?

[near parcel]

you can't change the color of damage

[ionic jacinth]

Why is it that we can control the power of engines, propellers and thrusters with the api but not outboard engines or underwater propellers?

It seems like it would be quite easy to implement a 4th set of functions that would change the underwater propeller speeds...

[ionic jacinth]

Another thing that feels incomplete, is the subtle message update functions; you can update the header and text, but not the icon.

[cinder spruce]

you cant expect much out of the api, as it benefits only steam and devs dont exactly like focusing on a single platform

@warm canopy i remember you asked earlier in chat how i did the towers and was in class so here

i simply saved the block count of the creation as they spawned in a list, and constantly checked if the block count is half as much as it started as

i want to try to make a more in depth mission maker where its a bit easier to set up

[warm canopy]

Ah nice, that's a really cool idea. In the past I've had to have a snowball pfb that I check if it gets destroyed

[cinder spruce]

i also just put dynamite into the tower so it was basically guaranteed to get destroyed with rockets in 1 hit

[cinder spruce]

also congrats on the win

ur just too good

[regal bear]

@warm canopy absolutely stunning map/mod man! ||Congrats on the win you totally deserved it!||

[shadow iris]

what win

i am very confused

||rianlesski behavior when he doesnt get what he wants (winning)||

[regal bear]

Amazing work by everyone who submitted. Some of that stuff just blew me away!

I reckon the best thing was to have an actual modding showcase! Thanks to Johannes/Flashbulb for doing that 🤓

[open acorn]

yeah I genuinely don't know what everyone's on about
competition? what.

[topaz arrow]

can someone explain how the ModBlock.addTorque() works? what are the X, Y and Z values?

[ionic jacinth]

Why does my image in this subtle message have these weird white bars? My image is 100px by 100px. Has anyone else had something similar happen?

[open acorn]

you forgot to erase some edges

[open acorn]

it adds rotational velocity around a global axis, eg. if you have a 4x8, then you add positive torque to it around the x axis, its z most point will then point down and rotate in that direction. If you have a full build and want to rotate it, just add torque to any of the blocks, it always rotates about the centre of mass

[ionic jacinth]

There are no edges at those positions.

The texture wraps around

Which shouldn't happen if you have a (5px or more ??) border

I will fix it, but it won't involve erasing anything...

I just had to move it down and to the left.

[dapper jay]

someone should make webfishing mod

[primal salmon]

what are the other map making mods again? I'm looking for the one that spawns stuff into the game

[hoary skiff]

I noticed Exocross map is not on the workshop anymore, it was my favourite map, any know reason why it was deleted?

[cinder spruce]

trailedit works as an in game builder system through mods

trailmappers is good for an external program that exports straight to your mod files, found on the steam store and reqesting access (its instant access)

theres likely some others too that you can look on the workshop for

[open acorn]

trailedit, maptrail, and some other one I forgor

[shadow iris]

trail(insert suffix)

and most of all, (insert prefix) trail

[ionic jacinth]

Made in Heaven!

[loud slate]

Does anyone know where Trailmakers saves it's username?

[near parcel]

elaborate

that has nothing to do with mods

[loud slate]

I know that it saves it in here C:\Users\<user>\AppData\LocalLow\Flashbulb\Trailmakers\BackendProfile but that isn't the only place

[loud slate]

Well it does (making a python communication mod) addon which isn't against the TOS i think.

Communication between python and lua

[near parcel]

again, it doesn't. Mods never interact with that

[loud slate]

Yea mods don't but the Python side would write a suffix that has the player's steamID there

[near parcel]

if mods can't read/write to it, doing so externally won't achieve any communication, and trying to modify that file outside of the game will just cause it to be pulled from the backend again

[loud slate]

Yea that's what I was asking that is there a way to save the new username. If there isn't then it is a dead end to identify players.

[near parcel]

no

[loud slate]

Not even externally?

[near parcel]

no. You can only change it in game

[loud slate]

Aw man :(

[near parcel]

and changing player's usernames is a bad idea anyways, it's terrible for UX

[loud slate]

I thought of using invisible spaces as the distinct characters

(Already made that)

[radiant lion]

you know right that with mods you can write and read from a file in said directory

and python can also read and write to that same directory

[near parcel]

(not the same directory, but to a different one for dynamic data)

[radiant lion]

||ye, I kinda forgot to mention any directory before saying "said"||

[loud slate]

They can into the same directory (I tested and made it working in the python to lua direction)

I uploaded the mod to workshop for myself and it worked

It's just not in the same mods folder that it writes to

[near parcel]

the locallow/flashbulb/trailmakers folder can only be read/written by the game, not by mods. Mods can only access mod_folder/data_static (read only) and either mod_folder/data_dynamic_willNotBeUploadedToWorkshop (read/write, only for local mods) or steam/userdata/<userid>/585420/remote/Mods/<modid>/data_dynamic (read/write, only for mods downloaded from the workshop)

[loud slate]

yea meant the userdata

which python can access

[near parcel]

then just use that instead of the username

[loud slate]

yea but this was for the distinguishing of clients connecting to the host if they are using the plugin

[near parcel]

just use their userid/username from the mod's side

[loud slate]

that will make the same named users' data conflict

that's why I wanted to change the username since they can be gotten from the mod's side

[radiant lion]

Ignore edge cases

[near parcel]

^it will basically never happen in practice

[loud slate]

ill ignore edge cases for now

[ionic jacinth]

Why don't functions for spawning projectiles that are shot from certain guns exist?
Seems like something that would be easier to implement compared to other requested modding features.

[dapper jay]

there used to be bullet prefabs but apparently they spammed errors in the unity editor so the devs just snapped them out of existence 🫠

[ionic jacinth]

I hope they oneday take another crack at getting it implemented somehow...

[loud slate]

My brains couldn't ignore the edge cases but I found a fix :D. Changing the version uploads the data to the backend effectively changing the username.

Now it automatically kills your game and restarts it thus automatically updating the username

[loud slate]

I made it! It finally works! Now you can communicate between Python and Lua and be able to save and load JSON data non-locally to discord.

[loud slate]

Oops well not quite yet (still some bugs). Well now everything works

[errant dew]

This is kind of moding in a way does anyone know how the blueprints pngs store the data and if you can edit the blueprint by editing the png outside the game?

[open acorn]

yes
and yes
they store their data via encoding values into the r g b of transparent pixels down at the bottom of the blueprint
you can indeed edit it, but it is quite difficult, the closest I've seen is the data of the blueprint laid out (with a few errors here and there), and since image editing is possible, it's definitely possible
the simplest of edits I know of is removing the username of whoever created the blueprint, it can be done by simply erasing the last 8 pixels of the transparent coloured ones

[errant dew]

I do not know a lot about transparent pixels so I will do some research but this helps a lot Thanks!

[near parcel]

Editing actual creation data isn't possible though, that's stored as compressed binary data and basically any change will corrupt the blueprint

[worldly ice]

hey so uh i'm making a race on stranded with trailmappers and it's permanently stuck at 98% loaded in-game. is there a way to fix this or do i have to tough it out and guess if the assets are spawned right instead of exporting and checking manually like i have been doing until now?

i fear for any answers to this problem i have since it's less than 10% done

[worldly ice]

this guy was the problem.
thank you noiro for helps

[shadow iris]

we need gridicolas to appear for 1 day to fix purple space chirp

[errant dew]

ow ok lol

[open acorn]

transparent pixels are the same as fully opaque ones just that one value (alpha) is changed

[cinder spruce]

is ModBlock.SetHealth() still broken?

[shadow iris]

probably

if it was fixed people would probably be raving about it in here

[cinder spruce]

can health only be set in builder?

[shadow iris]

?

i think its broken in general

[cinder spruce]

can you only modify the values when a structure is in builder

ah

thought i asked if it was fixed

forgot i said "still broken"

[open acorn]

nvm
just remembered f277f4's web-powered byte stream compiler, where you can get the blueprint data as a file, and feed it into his image generator again to get an image back, where it does actually recompile the blueprint data, works flawlessly, and since editing the byte stream isn't as difficult as editing images, yes editing blueprints is definitely doable
doing it with mods however... I doubt, unless you sacrifice your computer and free time to make something that compiles it into what you see when opening an image in notepad, then save many kilobytes of output to a file in the dynamic directory with .png at the end

[near parcel]

Afaik f277f4's tool just extracts the data and injects it in a different image without modification. Modifying the actual data would require knowing how to interpret it, which isn't known

[open acorn]

oh wait nvm there was also that github thing
managed to use it just now to parse my first ever blueprint

[near parcel]

That doesn't seem to work correctly. It's missing a ton of data that must be stored in the blueprint (rotation/colors/block names/ids/...), and there is data you don't know how to interpret that likely must be consistent with other data (edges/weld groups at the end for example)

[open acorn]

true, it didn't mention completely parsing it

[open acorn]

someone should make a tm mod with the api

[cinder spruce]

im gonna make a tm mod without the api

[open acorn]

[cinder spruce]

what

[open acorn]

depends on how you do it

if you do it somehow really weirdly and still use normal modding format but somehow avoid the api then that's fine
but if it's dll modding...

[cinder spruce]

oh i was just joking on making a mod that just does not use the namespace of tm

although that mod is basically gonna do nothing at all

[near parcel]

You can't avoid the api, since it's what runs your code

[cinder spruce]

oh dear bout to get ’d

though it was only conspiracy, didnt actually do it (and i dont even know how to)

[devout umbra]

anyone know where the default block style is found in the files

[near parcel]

why?

[devout umbra]

just curious i want to see how it changes

[near parcel]

you can't change it

[devout umbra]

where is it saved though

if i were to change it manually

just for a test

[near parcel]

compiled with the game. You can't change it

[loud slate]

@devout umbra I think its saved here just edit the dwfault block and version and it should save

[near parcel]

that's only the user default, which you can just change in game. You can't change the actual files

[loud slate]

I was referring to this

[near parcel]

i am too

[dapper jay]

i dont think they were referring to userprefs

[loud slate]

Oh okay

nvm then

[devout umbra]

I found a way if anyone wants to know there's a lot you can change in it like your character colours, block colours, how many coins you have but for it to update you need to open the game whilst your offline otherwise I think it fetches it from the server

[paper bone]

Yes thats what he is pointing at here. This is already a known method

[scenic echo]

is there a way to have mods on campaign maps like airborn and stranded?

[cinder spruce]

you can use mods on the respective sandbox version of the map but not on the campaign version

[scenic echo]

unfortunate, i wanted to make a hard mode of the airborn campaign

[open acorn]

reprogram the airborne campaign restrictions
airborne sandbox still has quests

[scenic echo]

Can you ban/unban blocks with mods?

[cinder spruce]

dont think so but noiro was coming up with a way to do it for a certain campaign map he is making

[open acorn]

no
but you can delete builds and explode blocks (just 1 block, unless they patched scaling explosions) that are of the same name as what's in a table

[cinder spruce]

how precise would the deletion process be with explosions?

[open acorn]

when I was testing it a while (1.7) back it was near perfect
spawning explosion at the block position and scaling it down to 0.01

[scenic echo]

The scaled explosions are what delete the blocks in my old combat mod so it still works

Did you get any powercores from quests in the airborn campaign?

[open acorn]

no, they're from powercore crates

[ionic jacinth]

Have we had any confimations of modding api changes/additions in either 1.9.5 or 2.0?

[cinder spruce]

https://discord.com/channels/296562030624899072/1279044523086970911

[scenic echo]

if i wanted to store a block and it's position in a table, how would i do that?

[near parcel]

get the block->get its position->store references in a table however you want. What's the problem?

[scenic echo]

store references in a table however you want <- idk how to do this, do i need a table like Table[][][]?

idk how to store the block in a efficient way, i could initialize a table with 0, 1000 times and then just write it on there but idk if that's a good way to do it

i found out

[near parcel]

that depends completely on your usecase and what information exactly you want to store

[scenic echo]

.

[near parcel]

https://xyproblem.info/

[scenic echo]

good to know

[dapper jay]

somewhat related: could blocks get an id property?

would make storing info for blocks a lot easier

[radiant lion]

It sure would be an easier way to check if the selected block changed

[median cobalt]

you mean without manual labor of storing an n-size id table?

i mean you can definety go ahead and just store n-size id tables iterating through the creation, but the issue will lie in finding the block you want to check for

you could group them by type, if its frame, gun, tech(thrusters etc) but that will be alot of tablespam when 8 people join a server with more than 2 creations

you can restrict it to the one where the player is in the seat, stripping off some computing time

meaning debris gets ignored

but this might still leave you with 8 500+ entry tables

so if we get an id property that might cut it down to perhaps 30 wanted blocks per creation

id say it should get added

along with tm.players.GetPlayerViewMatrix

[near parcel]

mods are run server side, they have no information about players' camera

[near parcel]

the only thing an ID function would do is allow having references to blocks that persist across repair/respawn/build mode, which is still useful but wouldn't change amount of computations you have to perform

[hoary skiff]

smh simply have the server request the view matrix from the client and have the client send the entire thing every single time the function is called

effeciency

[near parcel]

that's extremely inefficient. Typical ping is ~40ms, which would freeze the server process for 2-3 frames on each call, potentially >5 frames for far away clients

[hoary skiff]

that's why I wasn't being serious lol

although, potentially it could be asynchronous

would make it less useful than it already would be, since a highly delayed view matrix isn't very useful

[near parcel]

that also adds a lot of complexity to mods for when things are run/avoiding race conditions

[hoary skiff]

ofc

[errant dew]

Is a dedicated a thing and if not would it be possible to make. like a way to host a server without being in the server.

[open acorn]

not with mods, with external stuff (it being illegal though) yes

[errant dew]

Ok, thanks. (I will not make it just wondering if it is a thing)

[novel cargo]

@cinder spruce @open acorn

[cinder spruce]

somehow kept trying to grab the position of the block even though it was destroyed

[hoary skiff]

okay I've done something crazy in a very hacky way

https://ninja.dog/qIJpg9.png

I listen for every line in the log file for the mod and if it looks like an error according to a shitty regex I wrote I extract the line and column and run it through a source map

the generated code looks like this and the error is on line 25, so the error message says it's on line 25

and I'm running that through a source map

[open acorn]

huh, I thought I had already fixed that, must've missed something though

[median cobalt]

Im siding with him here. This client to server transport is less than 2kb and if properly sent doesnt impact ping in the slightest.
The ping issue is due to bandwidth throttling, not functions

You can have 2ms ping to a server and it still restricts the max bandwidth to a total burst of 200kb/tick, barely enough to run structure info

It must be addressed for 2.0, it makes gameplay uneccesarely slow and when uncapped can go from a max of 200kb to a whole 10mb

People will be making more complex creations, undoubtedly - so having a low max bandwidth is going to cripple multiplayer

[median cobalt]

That looks promising. Let frans know about this, we really need better error logging (esp. When the interpreter throws its own errors)

Shut up dyno

Gotta post an image of what i wanted to say, hold on , 4 lines of code is too much for dyno

(dyno needs fixing left and right)

Im very used to this type of error logs

So theres a great suggestion from me - it does help alot more

[hoary skiff]

this solution is specifically for typescripttolua so that the error messages point to the right place

unfortunately trailmakers doesn't have debug.traceback so it would be pretty complicated to get an error trace working

the way I'm thinking about it would involve a new first argument on every single function that contains its error context and passes it down to every function it calls

[near parcel]

No. Ping is mostly due to the distance between the devices, the speed of the physical medium through which the data has to go, and how much load there is on the network. The amount of data you are sending has nothing to do with it.

[hoary skiff]

it does if it's blocking

if you're sending more data and it's waiting for the data it'll take longer

which will create a pause

[near parcel]

What i mean is that regardless of how much bandwidth you have and how small your data is, you will have to wait for 1 round trip time to get the data from the client, which is significant for a blocking call. Ping usually refers to the delay between a computer sending a packet and it arriving at the receiver computer, not how long a full message takes to send

[hoary skiff]

been trying to get this to work better, but I can't think of a good way of extracting error messages, can log messages (eg. tm.os.Log) have newlines?

because if they can this is a bit harder

actually I might be able to get away with overwriting tm.os.Log and wrapping all code with pcall to listen for errors

and then logging that in whatever way I need to

[near parcel]

Yeah, log can have newlines. All log mesaages are prefixed with a timestamp of when they were printed, so as long as you assume a modder will never print a log message with a timestamp in the same format as the game right after a newline, you can use that as the log message begin/end

[hoary skiff]

just realized I don't need to do any of that, every log message will change the log file once, so when I'm listening for changes in the log file I can just get the new text (since it always adds to the end of the file) and that'll be the entire log message

same with errors

one file change is one log message

it means it wouldn't really be possible to scan the file after the fact and read the logs, but I think it's reasonable to have the listener running while you're making a mod and I can store my own representation of the log messages

[dry sentinel]

Genuinely curious, are you studying / have studied electrical engineering?

I’m studying computer science atm, and you seem stupidly (in a good way) well versed in a lot of areas

[near parcel]

watch for changes->read the file and transform it to your format in a separate file->clear the original log file->wait for the mod to create it again? Should avoid having to compare file contents at all

[near parcel]

no, software engineering

[hoary skiff]

that is a good idea, but it might run into issues if my script tries to clear the original log file while the game is writing to it

but just listening for changes should be fine, I don't really need to compare file contents, just have to read the file from where it left off

[near parcel]

unless the game tries to write a huge file at once (>4KB), all file operations should be atomic

[hoary skiff]

that's fair enough, but personally I don't really think the added complexity is worth it

[near parcel]

whatever is easiest is best. If you can maintain a file read pointer across file writes and see the updates, that's the best solution

[hoary skiff]

nodejs fs.watch has me covered here, since it tells me if the file gets deleted or renamed and I can just get a new read pointer when it's available

should be pretty simple, I'll share the code once I have something working well enough for me

[novel cargo]

@tired hound in here :)

[tired hound]

thx

anyone know how to upload mods?

[novel cargo]

(a map made with Trailmappers btw)

[near parcel]

trailmappers->export map
in game->upload mod->set name/description->set mod location to mods/<map name>

[novel cargo]

@tired hound

[tired hound]

i got it lol

[primal raven]

Can I have some help setting up the modding environment I'm trying to use ALVA'S documentation with the VSCode Lua Language Server Extensions but I don't receive any prompt to enable it here's my workspaces JSON file

{
    "Lua.workspace.userThirdParty": [
        "\"C:\\Users\\Kai\\Documents\\LuaAddons\""
    ],
    "Lua.workspace.checkThirdParty": true
}

[near parcel]

If you open the workspace settings through the gui version, does it show the settings there?

[primal raven]

yes

[near parcel]

Do you get autocompletions if you delete the default documentation file?

[primal raven]

doesnt seem like it

[near parcel]

I'm not at home atm to check, i can check the setup i had tonight

[strange kraken]

Is it possible to get the creation (the seat) that the player is in?

[radiant lion]

tm.players.GetPlayerSeatBlock(playerId)

[strange kraken]

oh, thank you!

[strange kraken]

is it a ModGameObject?

[radiant lion]

ModBlock

[strange kraken]

ok, thanks

[strange kraken]

how can i get the "modder" role so i can post in the suggestions channel?

[open acorn]

ask a dev for it

[strange kraken]

Oh, ok... do i just dm a dev?

[open acorn]

I guess

[strange kraken]

alr, thx

[open acorn]

or you could ping one when they're online

[radiant lion]

Definitely not right now, it's midnight for them

[near parcel]

also you need to show that you are a modder

[strange kraken]

is it possible to directly set the position of a structure?

[near parcel]

Iirc only on first spawn. You could dispawn it and spawn a new one though

[strange kraken]

i got it to work trough some AddForce shenanigans

-- s - our structure
local v = ((TARGETPOS - s.GetPosition()) - s.GetVelocity())
v = v * (1/tm.os.GetModDeltaTime()) * 0.02 * MASS
-- then add the force v

But it can cause a sonic boom if teleporting too far

[near parcel]

Because you aren't setting the position, you are moving the creation. The further the target is, the faster it will have to move

[strange kraken]

yeah, i wish there was a way to just teleport a structure

like disabling the physics for a single frame, moving the structure and enabling it back

[cinder spruce]

spawning some blueprints has a large lagspike that could last a few seconds in my testing, wouldnt be ideal for constantly updating the position

[strange kraken]

ah, now i need to make the same thing for rotation

[radiant lion]

There should also be the problem of not being able to spawn whatever build the player is in, only being able to use the ones you load

[strange kraken]

that's harder than position

[radiant lion]

Depends

With quarternions it should be quite simple

[strange kraken]

can i even add torque to a structure??

doesn't seem like it

[radiant lion]

I thought so

Else you'll just have to apply it to a block and hope it's on the main part

[strange kraken]

oh come on, now my game crashes onle i load my mod

[strange kraken]

Value ">> TM Replay V1 (by G-5) <<
Warning: TMR works only in singleplayer right now" is longer than the allowed length (max. 64 characters)

duh

i was debugging it for an hour and this was the problem...

is there any way i can get the (first) seat block of a creation? (without the player being in the seat)

[radiant lion]

Checking the names

[strange kraken]

does anyone have any idea how to rotate a structure so it faces a given rotation? I'm trying to implement it for more than 2 hours and I'm clueless

(sorry if I'm asking too many questions here)

[radiant lion]

Should just be a quaternion multiplication between the rotation it's at and the one you want

Maybe inverting one of the 2, but I am pretty sure you don't need to

[strange kraken]

hmm, weird, i tried that and it didn't really work, but I'll try it again later, thank you

[radiant lion]

It's been a while since I did it, but iirc the w likes to switch from negative to positive, and with it all the other values, aka, based on its sign you'll need to invert all the others

[shadow iris]

how feasible would it be to make raft in trailmakers; i call it raftmakers

garr how am i gonna make them float

hm

do i stuff the parts i want inside, inside of the tire or something?

scaling it by an equal amount in all dimensions seems to be more functional

but i dont want to spawn crates on top of scaled up tires

[shadow iris]

could also:

• automatically delete buoyant player-created blocks
  then,
• have players scavenge for barrels and build off stuff floating on barrels

[shadow iris]

this is really annoying to balance, would it be better to spawn singular large/medium buoyancy blocks instead of barrels?

[paper bone]

U could just apply forces on them that simulate the water buoyancy, of course this would work best without waves

[open acorn]

I mean you can create a new respawn point and respawn the player there, assuming the player's in the structure

[strange kraken]

oh, that's smart)

[strange kraken]

a good solution for just teleporting once, but for continious movement this is surpisingly smooth

[shadow iris]

the idea is to have things floating in the waves and you have to go out to get them

and what about if the barrels, which already slide out from under creations, are getting force while supporting something?

[paper bone]

try it

[shadow iris]

having the halfpipe, the scaffolding structure, and all of the billboards as prefabs would be cool

these too

[cinder spruce]

will there ever be options for fog? either in the vanilla game or through mods
its really annoying on making large scale maps