Compability

[Knogern]

With the influx of usercreated girlpacks being made for beta versions, I think you should start to look at ways of making them compatible for future content.
As more and more content are added, more traits, etc; old version packs will be 'weak' with less content.

One possible hotfix for this could perhaps be to, at the start of a new game, have an option to randomize all girls. This would not be popular for those of you who are fmailiar with the different characters, but for others (like me), it would not only make the 'old' girls worth the effort and add to the replay value as you would have different girl setups each game.

[letmein]

Right now, all packs *should* be compatable, if not accurate or balanced.  I think.  So far as I know, that should continue to happen - although it is true that the game might require a change requiring a new version of the .girl or .rgirl files.  If that happens, there's not a whole lot anyone can do about it except redo the old packs, which would be pretty easy, if time-consuming.

Randomizing all girls' stats at the beginning of a new game is an interesting idea, though...   So far as I know, it should certainly be rather easily doable.  As a selectable option, I could see it being implemented.

[trex]

This might sound stupid, but you can't add a girlpack into an existing game and see them show up, right?
And with items, you can't just load a different set into an existing game? (I tried to and the save crashes with a set different to what it started out with)

[zodiac44]

The non-random girls are taken from the .girls files when you first start a new game, so there is no way to add new non-random girls to the game once you have started it.  The random girls are read from the .rgirls files at the start, so you can't get any new types of random girls, but you will always have access to more that the game generates.

Items are read from the .items files either every time you load a game or load the program, I'm not sure which.  If you remove a .items file which contains an item in either your personal inventory or one of the girl's inventories, IIRC, the game crashes on load.  Ditto if you delete an inventoried item from a .items file.  If you add a new item to an existing .items file or add a new .items file, the new stuff should be available after loading a saved game or reloading the program.

Long story short: adding new items = ok, removing inventoried items = crash.

[exodia91]

randomizing unique girls wouldn't work well, if its even possible given how the file system works, if you tried to totally randomize all the stats you would come up with some crazy game breaking stuff, or you would have to restrict all girls to a single cookie-cutter random type profile and they would all be nearly identical.

[zodiac44]

Not really, you could use the given stats and traits in the .girls files, with each stat being modified by a random number (say in the range of +/-20), and each trait having some probability of appearing (with a bias towards those listed for a particular girl in the .girl file).

[necno]

Adding new .girl files is done when loading a save game. However a modified .girl file will only get loaded when starting a new game.
.rgirls (random girl) files are loaded anytime, no need to start a new game.

[zodiac44]

is that a change with a recent release?  I remember (back in 1.25 I think) that it used to be that new .girls files were loaded only on a new game.

[necno]

Hmm i can't remember when it was implemented exactly. It would have been the same time as the .mast files were saved for each save game.

[zodiac44]

The .mast files have been around since I started playing, so it was quite some time ago.  I suspect the feature doesn't work (or didn't work - I haven't tested it since 1.25) then.  I recall downloading girl packs in the background while playing, and when they finished, I unpacked them but didn't get any new girls even after quitting and reloading.  I'll try it again to see if it's working now.

[edit]

I have confirmed that this doesn't work.  The .girls file is recorded in the .mast file, but the girls do not show up in the game or in the save file.

[DocClox]

Interesting. I've just been looking at that function. They should be being loaded...

I'll look a bit more at it

[necno]

Its good not to have to worry about hunting bugs as much now. I can focus on adding new features.

[letmein]

Yay!  New features!  I can always use more things to needlessly complain about productively criticize!