Idea for mod: rotating newbie advice text

[Peter34]

This mod really consists of 2 parts.

One is the actual programming/scripting structure to make the mod happen.
And the 2nd is the text that's shown to the newbie player, as well as perhaps some restrictions or detections on when particular texts can be shown or are no longer shown, although that'd be in an advanced version of the mod.

The non-advanced mod is, I'm sure, easy to script. But I'm very new to scripting, indeed super new, so it's not something I can make.

The very simplest version of the mod is that every 2 or 3 minutes, a random line is chosen from advice.txt and printed to the console.

A slightly tiny bit more advanced version has advice.txt divided into section, and for the first 60 minutes, only advice items from section 1 can be shown. For the next 60, section 1 and 2. For the next 60 again only section 2, for the next 120 randomly chosen from section 2 or 3, for the next 120 minutes only from section 3, and from after that still only from section 3 but now only once per 10 minutes, not once per 2 or 3 minutes.

advice.txt would be a work-in-progress, contributed to by many people, including myself, and would contain items such as
Press Q to drop a held item back into your inventory
Press F to pick up items from the ground
Press Shift+RMB to "copy" settings from a machine or chest, then Shift+LMB to "paste them"

I know much of that is already included in the pre-game introductory screens, that you're offered before the game begins, but let's face reality, players don't want to read those. It's much better if the advice is given by the interface on an on-going basis, during play.

And, the beauty of this idea is that it's very easy to script.

At least the most basic version.

A more sophisticated version could base the advice.txt section transitions on achievements achieved by the player. For instance, section 1 of advice could stop showing up once the player has researched Oil Processing. Stuff like that. Maybe even keeping track of how many time the R rotate function has been used, and after 4 times disable that particular advice text item completely.

Of course, in an ideal world, we fans and modders wouldn't have to do this. The devs would do it. But the fact is, the devs have had years and years to improve the game's teachyness without doing so.

And as I said, the beauty of this idea is that the scripting part is quite easy, requiring little work.

After that comes the adding-content phase, which is trickier, but where I can and will do my best to help.

[matjojo]

This mod really consists of 2 parts.

*snippy snippet *

Have you looked into this in any way shape or form?

I know that you can spawn a pointer just like at the start of a "free" game to do say anything you want, and you can also use the 'to do' thing that is used in the non 'free' games, so with that you would be able to create tips and tricks that you can show, I don't know if you can create the tips and tricks screen like at the start of any 'free' game, if so you might be able to do something with that.

[sillyfly]

Hmmm... you mean like the tips and tricks? Sure, they need to be updated and extended, but I'm not sure you need a whole new mod for that...

Edit: Now I see you mentioned it. So... making tips show automatically during gameplay (as opposed to only on loading/starting games)?

[ratchetfreak]

Hmmm... you mean like the tips and tricks? Sure, they need to be updated and extended, but I'm not sure you need a whole new mod for that...

Edit: Now I see you mentioned it. So... making tips show automatically during gameplay (as opposed to only on loading/starting games)?

So like after you research trains you get the tips for how to build the track (with the new system), setting up train basic schedules

then after you research train automation you get the tips to use the conditions in the train stops, how the signals work

[matjojo]

Hmmm... you mean like the tips and tricks? Sure, they need to be updated and extended, but I'm not sure you need a whole new mod for that...

Edit: Now I see you mentioned it. So... making tips show automatically during gameplay (as opposed to only on loading/starting games)?

So like after you research trains you get the tips for how to build the track (with the new system), setting up train basic schedules

then after you research train automation you get the tips to use the conditions in the train stops, how the signals work

well, yeah. that would work. something like that.