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Severe lack of exposed variables and ingame functions

Modding ARK: Survival Evolved
#1

Alright, so I made a post a few days ago regarding my project to create PvP/PvE zones on a map. Becouse of this I’ve been experimenting with multiple ways to do this, but I keep running into the same problem whichever route I try to use.

I’ve tried three different approaches so far, trying to use SphereTriggers to mark where different zones are, and OnActorBeginOverlop events as trigger points:

1: Simply altering the Damage Type Adjusters of the PlayerPawn. That is, altering the damage multipler to 0.0 for all damage types that come from other players.

  • This didn’t work simply becouse…well…there is no access to alter these values through the unreal system. The variables are hidden for use only in C++ code.

2: Creating two different PlayerPawn blueprints. One that has appropriate Damage Type Adjuster values for PvP, and one for PvE. When entering a different zone I would spawn the appropriate PlayerPawn, make the player possess this Pawn while removing the old one.

  • This approach doesn’t seem feasible becouse I would naturally need to copy the inventory/exp/stats of the old pawn to the new one. And again, these variables(probably Structures in this case) do not seem available to reference or work with in the editor.

3: Use the nCanBeDamaged variable to activate godmode on any player that takes damage from a human source, and heal them approriately. This approach is of course the worst for many reasons, and I really don’t want to do this since it’s riddled with shortcomings and issues. A player could be 1-shot before godmode kicks in etc etc,

  • It’s still doesn’t seem possible however. From what I can tell there is no way to actually heal a player. Applying negative damage doesn’t do it.

Since the devs will not be releasing c++ possibilities to modders anytime soon, it’s clear to me at least that there’s a DIRE need to expose more variables/arrays/structs or functions that can directly retrieve/write information from/to them. Without this the editor seems extremely limited, and it makes me sad :frowning:

Edit: Just to have it said, I -am- new to the Unreal Engine so I could simply be missing things. The above is the wall that I’ve run into however.
Edit 2: Drathek correctly pointed that out that c++ possibilities might be added, although it’s been said to not be soon.

#2

I don’t have any idea where you thought that we wont have any C++ possibilities in the future.

#3

Hm. I guess I overread into that. I was sure that they had said that it would not be available at all.

Still, it will be a good while before we have those sort of possibilities. And unless more possibilities are opened up to the blueprint system I will stay a sad panda. :frowning:

#4

I agree. It would be amazing if they had more variables writable in blueprints, so you could edit them during runtime.

#5

More variables and functions will be exposed to blueprint over time when we get blocks of time to sit down and start exposing them :slight_smile:

#6

In your next Dev Standup meeting, tell the HBIC that the peasants are getting rowdy! Push back that Pink Dye a few days, and keep the modders rolling forward. We’ll send you Starbucks Gold Cards!

#7

Having played a fair share of online games and MMOs … I’ve noticed the best way to deal with PvP is just to provide PvP players with a “buff” or “debuff” to balance out with PvE… and zone it from the very start.

That way, from day 1, you give people to choose when and where they can PvP… and you don’t need to ****** around with constantly balancing tweaking damage/mitigation for player vs NPC targets.