Mod development practices

[4nk8r]

I'm curious if there are any mod developers here that have tried out or used PapyrusDotNET in their mods?

 

I've been considering dipping my toes into writing a mod, so I was reading up on the limitations of the Papyrus language and all the things that have been created as a work-around for those shortcomings (skse, jcontainers, papyrusutil, etc.).  I read about this dotNET project, but I'm a sysadmin by profession despite having dabbled a bit with C, perl, php and python.

 

No matter how I approach modding I'm going to be learning a new language and way of doing things, but was wondering which were the more efficient and rewarding methods of writing those mods?  I don't know which elements are going to be more or less useful or problematic than others.

 

Thanks for your time and input.

[Guest]

Hello.

Let's start by saying that a mod usually can have just a little bit of scripting.

With the exception of frameworks mod, usually the mods do not require a huge amount of scripting.

 

For the little by of coding required, Papyrus is just fine. (Skyrim version, at least). And, yes, it is not perfect. And it can be a nightmare to do something that is pretty easy in another language.

But remember that a too much heavy scripting will lead to poor mod performance.

 

Try the standard Papyrus, but before that be a friend of the CK (or the equivalent tool for the game you wish to mod.)

 

[Kimy]

It really depends what you want to do. As CPU said, many types of mods require next to no scripting (albeit you can't necessarily say that only frameworks do). I'd just make a plan for what you want to do and then get familiar enough with the CK to determine your scripting needs. Let's not sugarcoat it, if you're familiar with a "proper" programming language and modern design paradigms, first contact with Papyrus is going to make you want to pull our your toenails. It's an extremely crude language and that's the nicest thing I can say about it. Also the API was quite obviously developed without any stringent plan in mind. I swear that API functions got added by the tool devs on a "just what's needed to get the main quest done" basis, so whenever a designer needed a function they added stuff like IsStargazing(). There are so many functions missing to get basic stuff done, that it's not even funny. That's where SKSE comes in, though - it closes MOST of these gaps and adds in stuff needed for developing code for mods that aren't quite like the vanilla content. There is absolutely zero reason not to use SKSE - you can safely assume approximately 100% of everyone still playing Skyrim to have it installed. You might also find StoreUtil and PapyrusUtil to be very useful. And since the vast majority of everyone frequenting LL is using SexLab - these two libraries come bundled with it, so using them won't create any extra dependency for your mod. \o/

 

Personally, I can't see the need for PapyrusDotNet, though. As in not at all. And that's coming from someone who wrote a fairly scripting heavy mod.

 

YMMV.