Basics of Module Creation
Basics of Module Creation
An informal walkthrough of how to get the basics of a module up and running.
Remember: Any module you have downloaded can be opened in the module editor so you can see how it works. (This is true of combats also.) If there's a particular trick you liked and want to replicate, and you can't figure out a way to do it yourself, crack open the module you played and see how they did it.
When you create a new module you'll need to give it a name. This will serve as a filename and also its identifier on mod.io if you ever upload it. Don't be scared to give your module a placeholder name, though -- when it's done you can use the 'save as' button to duplicate the whole thing under a more sensible name.
Aside from that, remember that everything here can be changed later. You don't have to get things right first time.
First Time in the Module Editor
When you open the module editor for the first time, or when you click the 'new' button within it, this is what you're going to see. You'll note one button here is aggressively highlighted, which is the 'create beat' button. You need to click this first because modules are structured in beats which 'contain' all the other stuff. No container, no module. Anyway, click the button to get a beat into your module, then ignore it and look over at the left.
Module Metadata
I think this is metadata? I've never been super-certain about what metadata is. Anyway, this is where you put down all the details about your module. The key things you'll need to think about for a working module are:
- Module Title. I don't think this is strictly necessary, but you should put something in here anyway.
- Starting Beat. Players who fire up this module will start here. This is automatically set to the first beat you just created, but can be changed later. I found switching it around was really useful for bug-testing later on, but remember to change it back to your actual starting beat before release!
- Starting License Level. What level range is this module meant for? At the time of writing I don't think this data is surfaced anywhere, but it's useful metadata anyway and you can enforce it to prevent players bringing LL12 demigods into a LL0 scrub module. Or not!
- Lancers. This bit gets it's own subheading.
Lancers
Right now this module is for zero Lancers. I don't know what happens if you try to run a combat scene with no Lancers but it probably isn't good. You'll want to 'add seat' until you have the number of Lancers this module is for -- there's a maximum of four and, let's say, a practical minimum of one. If in doubt, go with four. Each Lancer with a 'seat' will be fully player-controlled during combats and level-ups. Lancer seats all have an index (0-3) which is how the game will refer to them in triggers, and are set to one of four states: flex, origin, custom, or fixed. To understand these, you'll need to know what an 'origin character' is.
Origin Characters
(Really testing how low the sub-headings can go on MediaWiki here.)
An origin character is basically a fixed NPC that can join the player's squad and can level up and such. The distinction between them and 'module NPCs' is that origin characters can level up, that level up is controlled by the player, and they have the full range of PC level up options. They have consistent portraits, and are easy to refer to in triggers, so they fill the role of NPC squadmates who have consistent characters throughout the storyline. A module can have as many origin characters as you like, and there are triggers which can add and remove them, but I'm not getting into that in this tutorial.
Lancer Seats
So, back to Lancer seats.
- A fixed seat is set to a particular origin character for your module. When a player fires up this module, that seat will always be filled with that character.
- An origin seat requires the player to pick an origin character from the list your module contains, but could be any of them.
- A custom seat requires the player to create a new character for the module, or load an already-created character. Note that if you've set a starting license level for the module and left the 'enforced' checkbox active, this new character will have to be in that level range. I don't think enforced LL applies to origin characters but I haven't checked.
- And a flex seat can be an origin character or a custom one as the player sees fit.
For now, add four seats and leave them all on flex.
Beats
Okay, back to that beat you created about twenty years ago. You'll see it has several features:
- There's a unique ID in the top right, next to the delete button. You don't need to care about this.
- The white dots are inputs on the left and outputs on the right, indicating where other bits of module connect to this one. As your starting beat, this needs no inputs, and as the only thing you have right now, it has no outputs yet. We'll get to that.
- It has a number and a name, here set to '1' and 'My First Beat' respectively. These do not need to be unique. You can definitely have beats without names, and I think you can have them without numbers, but they do show up in-game so you probably should fill these in. Beat numbers increment automatically as you add more beats, but not if you copy a beat and paste it.
- Five kinds of beat. Short repair allows a short repair; full repair gives a full repair, no choices offered; level up gives a full repair and bumps all characters currently in the party by one license level; none gives you no repairs but lets you look at your lancers anyway; and hidden doesn't even let you do that. Hidden is most useful for weird trickery with beats that aren't really beats but that's for a different tutorial.
- Background lets you set something to display while the beat is... beating. You can noodle around with this to see what you can select, but the important thing is that files in your module's media folder have to start with "bg_" or they won't be selectable here.
The important thing to understand about beats is that they act as 'containers' for all the stuff that follows them. In practical terms this means that whatever background image you pick will be the background for any other elements connected to the beat (unless that element has a background of its own) and that if players have a chance to pause (e.g. at a combat briefing screen or between conversations) they will be able to go back and adjust their lancers based on the permissions granted by the kind of beat. So if you have a combat briefing after a full repair, they can go back and tune their builds specifically for that combat because they're still 'in' that full repair beat.
Back to the Module Editor, Briefly
Take a look at the top of the module editor screen and you'll see a row of icons. These will create 'moments', which are the individual chunks of module you glue together to make a complete thing: in order left to right you'll see beats, combats, expositions, dialogues, branches, receivers, triggers, and endpoints.
You've already created a beat (which technically isn't a moment, but a container for moments, but that doesn't matter right now). This tutorial will now cover the rest of them, in a different order to the way they're presented, and excepting triggers and receivers. Those are for more complex setups than this intro is meant to cover.
Endpoints
The easiest one to explain. When you connect an endpoint, it creates an option in the attached beat to end the game and return to the main menu. They do not offer the user a chance to save their game. Endpoints have no settings to tweak, and cannot be made to autoplay: they always provide the option to quit out but do not compel it.
Expositions
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Dialogues
I keep calling these 'chats' in my internal notes so you'll probably see me slip into that vernacular.
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NPCs
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Origin Characters 2
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Conversations
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Fights
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Module States and Branches
This is the wizard stuff that turns a module from a series of fights into something fancy. A little can go a long way if you use it right.
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