[Feasibility Study] Skirmish Mode start

[Tenlar Scarflame]

So this morning I expressed the idea of having a Skirmish Mode game start (alongside Campaign and Free Play) in which you could build two custom opposing fleets, pick an environment to fight in, customize the Skunk a little bit, and set everything off in a one-off battle.

My question is, how much of that idea can be achieved using mods? As I understand it a lot of the GUI is pretty locked down, so building a whole set of menus and knobs and dials into the splash-screen menu might not work very well.

However, if we know how the starting universe is built, maybe it would be possible to create an external program that could put together a custom 'skirmish mode' starting universe that would launch the next time you clicked Free Play. Is a better way of doing this possible, given what we know about Rebirth's modding potential so far?

Personally I think a Skirmish Mode option would do wonders for keeping people interested in the game while the sandbox game's issues are hashed out, but I understand that such a thing probably wouldn't be on Egosoft's radar for a very long time. So, I come to the Modcave for guidance. ^^

[Killjaeden]

I think a Skirmish Mode option would do wonders for keeping people interested in the game while the sandbox game's issues are hashed out

It would highlight bugs and flaws and AI problems that appear in large battles, so the players can turn back to sandbox when that is semi fixed, so the battle problems can be semi fixed

[Tenlar Scarflame]

It would highlight bugs and flaws and AI problems that appear in large battles, so the players can turn back to sandbox when that is semi fixed, so the battle problems can be semi fixed

Fair enough

It really seems, though, that people have had more fun in the Taranis plot battle than in any other part of Rebirth so far... even if they're not working 100% correctly, big fleet fights are still pretty rad. AND it would give people a straightforward way to test out combat-centered mods.

My first approach might be building an external program that can build a custom Save file- inspiration comes from stk25's savegame editor. I don't know if I'll have time to get to it this weekend but I'll definitely post results when I do.

[Tyrant597]

It is definitely possible. In fact, Egosoft actually wrote a battle script, it is in md/test_bigBattle.xml . You could trigger it however you like, wouldn't necessarily have to start a new game, or choose a specific game-start.
You could even have the battle take place in a custom zone, so that it wouldn't affect the 'real' universe at all.