Overriding Autonotes styles without touching data/json/

By the time autonotes were created anyone developed their own style of overmap notes. And autonotes is a really useful feature but I disagree with imposing one style on everyone. I’d like my descriptions to be much more concise and it’s just never going to be merged.

Is there a way to make a mod or somehow override the default descriptions? Hopefully in a way that does not require syncing with upstream changes, just containing overridden known values, not the whole file redefined.

Related discussion: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/38648

Yes. Start with downloading Cheat Engine, learn Assembly and write a trainer for Cataclysm - it’s that easy :grin: !

Ah, you want to do it with a mod…? Well…
As far as I can tell, you probably can mod it like any item.
Check the data/json/overmap/map_extras.json for the id and type, use the copy-from entry and just redefine the description, sym or color as you like.

I can’t test this right now, but I will as soon as I get a chance to do it…

Finally found the time to test this - and the answer is yes, it can be modded.
Here’s my example modinfo.json (you also could split this up into an extra file…):

[
  {
    "type": "MOD_INFO",
    "id": "autonotes_mix",
    "name": "Nicer notes",
    "authors": [ "Valase" ],
    "description": "Makes some changes to auto-notes.",
    "category": "misc_additions",
    "dependencies": [ "dda" ]
  },
  {
    "id": "mx_point_burned_ground",
    "type": "map_extra",
    "copy-from": "mx_point_burned_ground",
    "description": "Oh my god! Someone burned down all those plants!",
    "sym": "#",
    "color": "dark_gray"
  },
  {
    "id": "mx_casings",
    "type": "map_extra",
    "copy-from": "mx_casings",
    "autonote": false
  },
  {
    "id": "mx_fallen_shed",
    "type": "map_extra",
    "copy-from": "mx_fallen_shed",
    "sym": "=",
    "color": "brown",
    "autonote": true
  }
]

Some things to keep in mind:

  • Changing "autonote" to false (or true) and adding this mod into a existing world does not deactivate (or activate) these autonotes. Those need to be set in the Autonotes manager.
  • Adding this into an existing world does not change/replace already placed autonotes (but it will use the new description/symbol for the next one you’ll find).
  • Setting the "autonote" to true is not enough. You will need to define a symbol and a color.
    Otherwise it will just place a normal “N” note (it still works, it’s just ugly).
  • Don’t be as stupid as me and use the # symbol for anything, it’s weird seeing an “unexplored” tile in the middle of your map.
  • This is just an example. There’s much more one could and can do. Experiment!
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Thank you! I will :slight_smile:
Can’t mark the thread as solved for some reason.

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