Question 1: Decal Props
It's more a feature request than a question:
The game ships with some "decal" props, for example the ground tiles, the road arrows and the beach volleyball field. These decal props are applied directly to the ground:
With a few mod tools hacks, it is possible to create these props in the asset editor. But these always have a fixed size of 8x8m because there is no way to save the size and tiling factor. It would be so great if we could do this!
Can you add official support for these kind of props?
Can you at least add the serializers for the decal size so we modders can provide proper tools for this?
Or am I missing something and this is already possible?
Question 2: More missing serializers
In a way this is similar to the first question, but in this case I know that it would be quite simple to implement it:
A few properties of assets can not be saved, for example spawn/unspawn positions (important for cargo stations and airports), sub-buildings (important for large buildings), prop light effects, prop "special places" etc.
By implementing these serializers (a few lines of code for each), you would allow us to develop better asset editor tools (similar to my Sub-Buildings Enabler) without requiring the asset user to subscribe to the mod. It is not required that you fully implement these features with GUI, just give us the base to work on!
What is your opinion on that?
Question 3: Better error handling for mods
Please add try-catch clauses to all Mod API-Wrappers so that mods are isolated from each other. Right now so many problems are caused by this (one mod fails and blocks the successful loading of other mods). Also make sure that a user is always informed when a mod caused an error. Any word on that?
Question 4: More Mod API-Extensions and Hooks
The Mod API is a nice base, but for many tasks we still have to modify game core classes. This leads to conflicts between mods and often also slows down the execution. Can you add more hooks? Maybe ask the most prominent developers what hooks they would like to see. I would like to see hooks for vehicle/building/network creation and release. Also a hook before and right after a prefab is initialized (PrefabInfo.InitializePrefab)
Question 5: Official support for custom networks
Can you add support for custom NetInfos? Projects like NetworkExtensions or Extra Train Station tracks would really benefit from it. The minimum we would need is a serializer that creates crp files for the networks (including textures & meshes) and a tutorial how to invoke it with a mod. This would also improve the experience for many players because the packed textures and meshes are already optimized for the game and the loading becomes faster. Missing networks (because a mod fails to load after a game patch) are also a common reason why savegames are broken.
Question 5: Access to game source code, especially the loading sequence
Can you let us take a look at certain parts of the games source code? There are some parts we can not decompile, and a lot of the decompiled code is hardly readable. Especially the loading seqence and shader code are still a mistery for me. I would sign an NDA for that.
Alternatively, you could also release parts of your internal documentation to help us understand what goes on. For example the GUI system documentation (which does not really contain any sensible stuff) could be released.