MODDING.txt

MODDING

Certain features of the game can be modified without rebuilding the game from
source code; you should be able to just modify the pertinent files and run the
game to see your changes.  This attempts to document these features.

1.1 Adding a profession.

The data on professions is contained in data/raw/professions.json 
The format of the file follows:
[
   {
      "ident" : "example", <-- This is a unique string that identifies the
                               profession; it is used internally by the game as
                               opposed to in the user interface.
      "name": "Example Profession", <-- This is the name that will be displayed
                                        on the user interface; this is
                                        what you actually "see" in-game.
      "description": "An example profession.", <-- This field contains the
                                                   description of the profession
                                                   that will be displayed in the
                                                   character creation screen.

      "points" : 0, <-- This value describes the point cost of the profession;
                        note that negative numbers are accecptable.  A positive
                        value will deduct points from the players total whereas
                        a negative one will give the player creation points.
      "items": ["jeans", "tshirt", "sneakers"], <-- This list contains the items
                                                    a character will start with
                                                    if they choose this
                                                    profession.
      "addictions" : [ <-- This is the OPTIONAL list of starting addictions.
         {
            "type": "nicotine",  <-- The identifier of the addiction.
            "intensity" : 10, <-- The intensity of the addiction.
         }
     ],
     "skills" : [ <-- This list is also OPTIONAL; it contains the starting
                      skills and their modified levels.
      {
         "name": "melee", <-- The identifier of the skill that will be modified.
         "level" : 1 <-- The value that the skill will be modified; note that
                         this is NOT the starting level of the skill.  It is
                         the value that the player's starting level will be
                         modified by.  In other words, if the player puts 1
                         point into melee to give themselves level 2 melee,
                         taking this profession would add one additional level
                         resulting in level 3.
      },
      {
         "name" : "dodge",
         "level" : 1 
      }, <-- It is possible to list multiple skills for a single profession;
             it's an unused feature in the current game.

     ]

   },
]
1.2 Example of adding a profession.

Let's say we want to add a survivalist profession; this profession represents a
character who was already living off the land before the disaster struck.  We'll
say this profession starts with archery, survival, traps, beef jerky 
and a few survival items.  We'll set the starting cost at 3 points since
it modifies skills and items.  We could do that with the 
following entries:
   {
      "ident" : "survivalist"
      "name": "Wilderness Survivalist",
      "description": "You live off the wild and wander the world; you've never
                      had\na place to live or items other than what you can
                      scavenge off the land.  People called you crazy; now,
                      after the disaster, you're the sane one."

      "points" : 3,
      "items": ["pants_cargo", "boots", "beltrig", "selfbow", "jerky", "arrow_field_point"],

     "skills" : [
         {
            "name": "archery",
            "level" : 1
         },
         {
            "name" : "survival",
            "level" : 1 
         },
         {
            "name" : "traps",
            "level" : 1
         }
     ]
   },

After adding this to the professions.json file, we should see the new profession
show up in the character creation screen.

1.3 IMPORTANT NOTE on JSON FILES:
The following characters: [ { , } ] : "
are *very* important when adding or modifying the JSON files for technical 
reasons.  This means a single missing , or [ or } can be the difference between
a working file and a hanging game at startup.  Many editors have features
that let you track { [ and ] } to see if they're balanced (ie, have a matching
opposite); Notepad++ is a popular, free editor on Windows that contains
this feature.  On Linux, there are a plethora of options, and you probably
already have a preferred one  :-).