[QUE] Start up issues and possible solutions

Game Dev Tycoon modding
#1

I generally think that it is a problem that your games are so disconnected in the beginning of the game. It makes you lose the feeling of being a single company with a specific profile (which I always aim for in my games).

Case in point:
I just started a new game, and got the four topics: Medieval, City, Mystery, and Government. I am in Y2, M7 and I have used up all the great combinations, which work well with the consoles that are available (PC and G64). That is, I have made Medieval Adventure (great for either console); Medieval, City, and Government Strategy (great for either); and City and Government Simulation (great for PC).

I now have four choices:

  1. I can make a Mystery game, but since I cannot target “Mature” audiences yet that is not optimal.
  2. I can make another great combination that doesn’t work great with the consoles (like Medieval RPG or Action) - that is not optimal.
  3. I can make a non-great combination that works great with the consoles (like Medieval Simulation for PC) - that is not optimal.
  4. I can make a combination that I already made, but I cannot relate it to the previous game released a year before with the exact same combination - that just ruins the illusion (imagine someone making a game with a yellow dot chasing ghosts one year after Pac Man and NOT calling it Pac Man 2 [or Ms. Pac Man] - just crazy).

All these choices are bad if you want great combos, good sales, and a company story that is coherent.

I see two solutions:

1.Make it so that you always start with four topics that are great for the audience “Everyone” that have at least two great combinations that are useful for G64 or PC (so, Adventure, Strategy, or Simulation).

  • Can this be implemented through a mod? I mean, can you change the fact that the topics are random?

2.Make sequels available immediately after you create your first game engine (along with “Save Games” and “Linear Story”) - this way, it would make sense to make the same combination again one year later ( = you could just make Pac Man 2).

  • Can this be implemented through a mod? I mean, can you change when different research becomes available?

Maybe, it’s just me that finds this annoying, but I really don’t wanna ruin my sales or ruin the story of the game by making a game with the exact same combo a year later that is not a sequel. So, if this can be fixed with a mod (or even better, a tiny little update), that would be great.

Elsewhere on these fora, I have mentioned (and many others have too) that it would be amazing if you could create series, franchises, or characters, and that game awards, longer selling games, possibly end-of-year reports, and more information in game reports would enrich the game greatly.

But that can wait - for now, I would just love sequels from the beginning or better starting topics. Is that moddable?

#2

I have changed this to the modding category.

In short, yes all of this is theoretically possible but does require some JavaScript knowledge and is not supported out of the gate in the modding API.

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#3

Ok - I just tried to aim for some goals that seemed less difficult/ambitious than the character/award items. But maybe they’re still pretty difficult. Guess I’ll just have to wait for the mod-geniuses to work up their skills :slight_smile:

#4

well, if someone does want to try this here are some hints:

To override how the order of topics are calculated you can hijack the General.getTopicOrder method.

To enumerate through all research items (engine parts etc.) you can use Research.getAllItems(). With this you could change properties on specific research items to make them appear at different times (hint: change the canResearch method).

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