Zombiespawn - Spawn - loot

[Marco1]

I am trying the map editor as I've already said in other posts; being new to this (and not expert in general about videogames, not to mention modding)  I often have doubts about almost everything. I hope you won't think "why are you doing this then?" . Doing something for this community (like a map or a building) would be just another way to express how I really like this game... Btw I am not young (compared to a lot of people here) and actually I'm not even a gamer, so that's not a good start 

 

Anyway...

I tried searching in the forum first, but I couldn't find the answer I was looking for.

So at this point I think I know how to use tilezEd, WorldEd and BuildingEd (maybe not every feature) and I am asking myself what I need to know and what I want to do in order to create a map.

To be more precise, I was thinking about creating a new map, but my biggest concern is I don't want to touch original files of the game, except the map (lot files). So I thought, without knowing how to mod the game, "what should I expect"?

My idea is:

to use same map size of muldraugh and westpoint (or edit/overwrite some parts) and just overwrite the lot files in media/maps.

 

1. Then the first doubt is: Zombiespawn map. Watching the file from the editor, it looks like a grayscale version of the map, white -> a lot of zombies  black-> none. 

Is that correct?  If yes, what else to know about this?  If no, what to know about this?

 

2. It looks like the character's starting position is randomly picked from a list of coordinates (located in a file of the game), but I  have no idea how it actually works.

Probably I'll have to manually add starting positions in some file, if that's correct, which file?

 

3. About loot: at first I was sure it was about the type of container, but remembering gigamart where shelves had food, another post in this forum came to my mind, a post where someone was saying about room names had something to do with loot type.

I checked a file "suburbsDistributions.lua", maybe it has nothing to do with this, but looks like every container behaves according to the room's name, I suppose if I want to have the same behaviour of a shelf of gigamart I just have to call my room "grocerystorage". If that's correct, I also would like to know if loot has a default setting, like saying I call my room "ASDF"  and that means counter will contain this or that by default (food, clothes, etc etc.).

I don't want to create 20+ tbx files plus all the tmx files realizing later I can't do this or that and can't use this or that in the game as I intended.

 

 I'm pretty sure I will hear a lot of : "actually, it doesn't work like that"

If there's more, but really more, to know, don't even reply to my questions, don't waste your time, just let me know and I will forget the idea to create a map and maybe I'll just try some simple tbx.

 

 

Thanks in advance.

[Neutz]

I was having a play with the loot "zoning" the other day, couldn't seem to get it to work. The suburbsdistributions.txt is the file that has all the containers. From what i can tell, (and what the wiki says) you create a new object in tilezed (press O) and zone out the area, so you would zone out an area in a house for the kitchen to contain all the "kitchen food" items, then you can right click it and set the properties, here is where you choose the text from suburbsdistributions.txt for the container type / propertys etc.

 

Thats as far as i got, the containers i zoned didnt seem change at all. Hopefully that points you in the right direction, a dev may shine some light on where to go from here

 

- Neut 

[Marco1]

!

[rorschach]

Or maybe none of the above.

Maybe the people who could most usefully answer your questions haven't had a chance to read this post yet.

I certainly can't help you, though I wish I could - ask me a science & nature question instead!

[Thuztor]

Maybe my Mapping Guide could answer some of your questions. If not, the coming versions will.

[Marco1]

!

[Marco1]

!

[Jatta Pake]

To be honest, I didn't check this thread because I thought "Damn, I haven't even got to the stage of doing spawn points yet!"

 

Great questions and it looks like Thuztor's answered most of them.  I'm still confused by number 3 though, but then again, I'm not really a gamer or modder either.  

 

You seem to have a good grasp of the tools and your plan to start conservatively seems logical.  I don't think these are dumb questions, in fact, they are very deep.  Look forward to seeing what you make!

[Marco1]

!