Real Cable Mod Progress update
I have jumped track from the rails mod (poor pun intended) to work on the cable mod for the time being after seeing how much positive feedback I got on the idea from a comment I made on reddit. There’s nothing visually impressive about the work I have done so far, but here is where I stand.
The Name
I am thinking of using Real Cable Mod as the name for this project, but I am not heartset on it just yet. Any suggestions would be great.
Spine Components
I am working through getting the spline components to be built between the anchors. Right now I have find the closest anchor within and draw a debug arrow between the two.
see the red lines? that’s what I am talking about
I spent a good four hours debugging this and realized that my whole problem was that the blueprint was including itself in the shortest distance calculations, therefore the debug arrows were drawing from the anchor to the same anchor… ugh.
Current Road Map
- Next step is to draw a spline with the start and end points at each anchor and render a spline mesh over the spline.
- Then I will have the blueprint add an additional spline point between the two existing and drop it down a short distance getting that hanging look to the cable.
- After that, it will be to set the tangents of the splines to match the rotation of the anchors.
- Then creating the actual placeable object for the anchors, ingame feedback that another unconnected anchor is within range.
- And finally get it all to transmit power.
- I also want to limit the distance cables can stretch so you can’t have one cable go from one side of the island to the other. The distance right now is going to be 10m but that may change once it gets in game.
Thoughts…
- I may add
plug ends to the cables that aren’t directly connected to anything, but that is more of an aesthetic choice.
I may add a corner piece for going around building corners. - Powerline poles to carry cables over distances, with visual ingame feedback that the poles would be close enough to each other for the cables to reach.
I appreciate the time you have taken to read this, please comment if you have anything you would like to add or to let me know I am headed in the complete opposite direction that I should.
It’s looking really good. How will you handle connecting the individual devices ie refrigerator, lamp? As the vanilla version is an eyesore with it’s individual wires running straight through everything to make a direct line to it.
That is an excellent question.
I have not looked into that yet, but I will mull it around.
Do you have any thoughts on it? I would love the input.
So I’ve had a think about it, but I can’t come up with a solution that would hide/tidy wiring that would fit the “makeshift” anchor point wiring theme. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.