Guide to adding new content to CDDA for first time modders

Game Talk The Lab
18

Adding more NPC dialogue part 3: New Missions

NPCs can give the player missions. Mission structure is fairly complicated and some parts of it aren’t in JSON yet, but you can add simple fetch quests and monster kill quests in JSON.

Mission data is stored in data/json/npcs/missiondef.json. There’s some documentation at https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/doc/MISSIONS_JSON.md but I’m going to expand on it. Each mission looks like this:

  {
    "id": "MISSION_RANCH_NURSE_9",
    "type": "mission_definition",
    "name": "Find Advanced Emergency Care",
    "goal": "MGOAL_FIND_ITEM",
    "difficulty": 5,
    "value": 50000,
    "item": "emergency_book",
    "start": "ranch_nurse_8",
    "origins": [ "ORIGIN_SECONDARY" ],
    "followup": "MISSION_RANCH_NURSE_10",
    "dialogue": {
      "describe": "We need help...",
      "offer": "Have you heard of a book called the 'Guide to Advanced Emergency Care?'  I really need a copy.  The doctor is requesting a lot of supplies that I'm not familiar with but I believe I could make if I could get a copy of the book.",
      "accepted": "I'm counting on you.",
      "rejected": "Come back when you get a chance, we need skilled survivors.",
      "advice": "Libraries are the only place I'd think to look.",
      "inquire": "Do you have the Guide to Advanced Emergency Care?",
      "success": "Thank you for your assistance.",
      "success_lie": "What good does this do us?",
      "failure": "It was a lost cause anyways..."
    }
  }

Relevant bits:

  • "id" is the internal mission ID
  • "type" must be “mission_definition”
  • "name" is the sentence displayed when you look up your missions, so make it as clear as possible
  • "value" is the cash value of the mission, in cents. So a mission worth $500 in goods on completion has a value of 50000
  • "goal" is a special string. Currently, JSON only missions can only really take “MGOAL_FIND_ITEM”, “MGOAL_KILL_MONSTER_TYPE”, and “MGOAL_KILL_MONSTER_SPEC”.
    • MGOAL_FIND ITEM means the player must find any copy of an item and bring it back.
    • MGOAL_KILL_MONSTER_TYPE means the player must kill a number of a specific type of monster, like shocker brutes.
    • MGOAL_KILL_MONSTER_SPEC means the player must kill a number of a specific monster species, like MUTANTS
  • "item" is the "id" of the item to retrieve, from data/json/items/
  • "count" is an optional number that is number of items to retrieve. if it is absent, only 1 item is needed.
  • "monster_species" is the monster "species" to kill for MGOAL_KILL_MONSTER_SPEC. You can find a list of species in data/json/species.json.
  • "monster_type" is the monster "id" for MGOAL_KILL_MONSTER_TYPE, from data/json/monsters.json and data/json/monsters/
  • "monster_kill_goal" is the number of monsters to kill
  • "start" can either be
    • an optional reference to a hardcoded, C++ function that sets up the mission at its start. “start” is optional, and existing start functions often don’t have anything to do with the mission - for instance, almost all the Tacoma Commune/Refugee Ranch start functions involve building up the ranch, and the mission is still valid even if they didn’t run.
    • an object containing information on a target overmap special and target terrain. See the doc for details.
  • "end" is an optional reference to a hardcoded, C++ function that concludes the mission. See above.
  • "origins" is a list of types of NPCs that can generate the mission.
    • “ORIGIN_SECONDARY” means that it comes from the "followup" of another mission.
    • “ORIGIN_OPENER_NPC” means that the starting NPC can have this mission
    • “ORIGIN_ANY_NPC” means that any random NPC can have this mission
  • "followup" is a mission "id" that the NPC will offer after the player completes this mission successfully.
  • "dialogue" is an object, with each value being a dynamic line that the NPC says in response to the player asking about the mission. These are normal dynamic lines, as described above, and can use dynamic line filters and snippets
    • "describe" is what the NPC says to indicate they have a mission
    • "offer" is what the NPC says to further describe the mission, specify what the player needs to do, and indicate how the NPC will reward the player
    • "advice" is what the NPC will say if the player asks for advice on the quest
    • the other values have fairly self-explanatory names

Any NPC that has missions needs to either have their "chat" talk_topic added to the first talk_topic in data/json/npcs/TALK_COMMON_MISSION.json, or have a responses entry like this:

      { "text": "Can I do anything for you?", "topic": "TALK_MISSION_LIST" },

Reaching the TALK_MISSION_LIST talk_topic will cause CDDA to display the data/json/missiondef.json data for the NPC’s current missions. It’s not necessary for you do anything other than make sure that your missions have valid "dialogue" objects.

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