More questions about contributing

[TheMurderUnicorn]

So, I have more questions about what is and isn’t appropriate for contribution/on github.

I enjoyed making the cache mod so I thought I’d start trying to add stuff to the core game. Spruce up some of those old locations and such. Unfortunately, I still have questions. So, basically, I’d like to do the following things.

1. I wanted to add a new version of the butcher shop. I figure this is fine, who doesn’t want more variation of buildings, especially those that currently have only one layout.

2. In viewing the butcher shop I noticed the itemgroups. I want to add a hacksaw to the list of spawnable butcher’s tools. To me this seems like it would be fine – it’s a basic tool and I’ve definitely seen butchers using hacksaws.

3. Another itemgroup is made up of raw meat. I’d like to add the new butcher items (lungs, brains, etc.) to the list of possible meat spawns. Again, figured this would be fine unless butchery is still getting adjusted, in which case it should probably wait until that’s sorted.

4. I’d like to add a rare variant (the two other entries would be default weight (1000) and I’d make this variant like a 10 weight) that is a bit more closed up, and in the back there’s a ton of human meat and organs. To me this seems like a great idea, but I don’t know if it jives with the overall theme you’ve got going. This is the thing that I’m really second-guessing myself about.

You can review the itemgroups in data/json/mapgen/butcher.json if you care.

So, those 4 things are what I’d like to do. However I’m still uncertain of what is and isn’t acceptable to push. The first three, I think, would be fine, and I was just going to submit a PR and if you wanted to approve it, great, if not, okie doke. The fourth, however, with the human meat, feels like it’s something I should get approved before even bothering.

I thought maybe I should open this as an issue on github (the forum seems like the wrong place to ask about this) but there’s a lot of issues already and I don’t know github well enough to know if that’s the appropriate place for this kind of feedback.

Also, if I do these things and want to submit them – am I supposed to submit them as separate Pull Requests? Like, one for the new layout/adjusting itemgroups and then a separate one for the human butchery because I suspect it would get declined? Or do I just mash it all into one PR and then change it as necessary?

Sorry for the long ass post. I know I’ve been asking a lot of questions like this lately. I’m still very new to github and this is the first project I’ve ever tried contributing to.

[mlangsdorf]

You can open an issue on github to get feedback on a proposal, but there are literally 1000 issues on github so you may not get much feedback - stuff gets lost in the issues all the time.

In the absence of feedback, you can just do stuff, open 1 or more PRs, and wait for feedback. It’s entirely up to you which approach you want to take, and I personally endorse both. Sometimes I open up issues to get feedback, like for the vehicle speed rework that just dropped, and other times I just do stuff and get feedback in the PRs. You’re going to have decide for yourself which approach to take, because it really is task dependent.

All that said, the cannibal butcher shops seems pretty reasonable to me and not that big an effort. I’d probably do one PR with the conventional stuff - yay, more butcher shops! - and to get your feet wet on github and submitting a PR for the main repository. After that is merged, if you still want to contribute, do the cannibal shop in a separate PR.

[kevin.granade]

Cannibal butcher shop is a ok. You’ve thought it through and made it reasonably rare (i mean IRL it’s going to be 1/1,000,000 if that but lets make some compromises). Maybe drop the weight all the way to 1 if you can stand it, I know it sucks to put work into something and have it be super obscure, but half a percent of all butcher shops serving human meat is still a bit much…

In general breaking things up into more PRs is better, but I do understand that theres overhead for every additional one you add.

[TheMurderUnicorn]

Thanks for the input, ya’ll.

I just noticed, though, that there are no human organs yet. I’ll probably hold off on the cannibal bit until there are organs with the hflesh flag. Or I’ll do it eventually and just use standard organs.

[redxlaser15]

If I ever properly figure out how making structures work in the json I’d totally like to contribute too. If someone could give me a quick tutorial on how it all works then that’d be great! And is there a way to forcibly spawn it in or something to verify that I built it correctly?
Would it be unreasonable to have an ‘exotic’ butcher’s shop with some rather - odd - meats inside? Stuff like bug guts and such? It would obviously be similarly rare to the human butcher shops.
I haven’t seen a butcher shop since ai started playing again, so it’s vaguely possible that hides already are in there, but if not, would that possibility be on the table?

[TheMurderUnicorn]

CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/7ace076dcbfbd97fe3a069bb1b9f49b3e0dd9e82/doc/MAPGEN.md

That’s a basic rundown. I’ve mostly learned through trial and error. You can find the files in dir/data/json/mapgen. The best way to learn is to try.

You can force-spawn buildings by going in the debug menu, pressing ‘g’, then pressing ‘o’ and using ‘/’ to search for the name of what you’re trying to spawn. You can also view it in a natural way by using debug to reveal the map and then teleporting to the location.

Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of ‘odd’ meat in the game. I don’t know the rules on adding items, I’ve just been doing a little mapgen stuff, working with things that already exist. Hence what I said about the lack of human organs. I could create those items, no problem, but plugging them in to the harvest code and all that jazz is beyond me, so I defer until someone else does it.

I also had not seen a butcher shop in a long time. In testing, however, they seem to spawn an awful lot.

[redxlaser15]

I figured I’d end needed to do lots of expirementing, I just needed some basic guidelines. When I get the opportunity, I’ll go check this out.

Thus far, I can’t do much other than creating items and the recipes for them. I’ve delved a tad into monster making, but not much.

[redxlaser15]

W-why flag my last post? I’m just asking whether I could add a certain monster or not. It’s a question about contributing and so it isnt off topic. After all this thread title is “more questions about contributing”
All I wanted to know was if something would fit enough lore-wise for me to try and add it into the main game.

[kevin.granade]

The topic is not, “anything about contributing”, it’s “@TheMurderUnicorn 's questions qbout contributing”.

If you want to ask questions about it, open a new topic.

[mlangsdorf]

It’s almost as if something had already written the thing you asked for:

Guide to adding new content to CDDA for first time modders

This thread is meant to provide a quick, accessible overview of how to add specific features to CDDA. It’s intended for people who want to add a thing, but don’t know where to start. Hey, what if CDDA had a new way to craft an item (a recipe!) new item! new location! better NPC dialogue! new quest! new monster! new morale effect! new vehicle part! new vehicle! All of these can be added to the game by editing text files, because they’re data files and most of CDDA’s data is stored in …

[redxlaser15]

Okay, I guess. It didn’t necessarily seem like it was suggested to be that specific to me, but I won’t argue about it.