Could pet NPCs be possible?

Xemiel

Terrarian
I've been thinking about a kind of mod I'd like to see, but it occurs to me that it might not even be possible. Every mod I've seen so far that has added new NPCs to the game still seems to follow the same rules as the base game: you must have a certain size house, a flat surface, a comfort item, and a light source. And, worst of all, you can only have one NPC per valid house :( {Seriously I hate that one. Best you can do is make a big house with multiple rooms, but somebody invariably ends up living in the living room instead of the actual bedroom.}

But is that hard coded into the game? Is there any way for a modder to bypass that? {I know the Happy Home token exists, but it doesn't let you have small houses nor does it let you have roommates. It just lies to the game and says "Oh yeah, there's totally a light source, flat surface and comfort item here!"}

The reason I'm asking is mostly to think about having pets in the game, but it could extend to children or even homeless characters ^_^ Pets and children tend to live with people, after all. But if you could get around the house requirement, a ton of options open up. Families, for example. {I'd seriously donate to any modder who added the half-goblin child of the Mechanic and the Tinkerer.} Pets are obvious: you could get a puppy or kitten NPC that lives with any other NPC. Or if you could throw out the house rules *altogether*, you could have a village cat, owned by no one but who lives in the area your other NPCs live in. Or, I dunno, a tame unicorn. Or a friendly slime! Or the homeless ex-adventurer murderhobo who rejects society and lives under a tree. I dunno, unless the housing rules are sacrosanct, the possibilities could be endless.
 
That sounds like a mod I would love to see too!

As far as animals concerned, I know that it's possible somehow. If you have Chad's furnitures mod, there is the bunny house or something, and 4 type of birdhouses, all of them "releases" one of the respective animals, that stay near its house and can't really be killed by monsters (or if it happens somehow, it will respawn at its house) they can't be named or anything, but they work kind of like pets this way. I think to the same logic (and code) it would be possible to create similar animals around the town. It's not the same as town NPCs, but still something.

As for town NPCs, I guess that's a different kind of thing. technically, you could have various sort of town NPCs, I think having cat, dog, etc. town NPCs would be very possible, but they probably still would work the same as other town NPCs, and need the same type of houses. A problem with them would be, that they would take up space in the housing menu, and I heard that it can only support 50 NPCs. (I did not tested this myself) any more than that, while can move in, won't appear on the housing menu, and therefore much more difficult to assign them to a certain house...

There is Alchemist NPCs that has the young brewer, who is a child, (of the brewer and the alchemis, I think), he cannot be assigned to the same room, but you can always have his room be part of the house of the other two's house.
But if we're at it, I would be curious to see the child of the goblin tinkerer and the mechanic, indeed!

Also, depending on "town" layout, if you build houses with several rooms, you could have NPCs who according to you would belong close to each other, have in the same house. Or have them to be neighbors - NPCs tend to walk around and visit the neighbor houses, if they're close enough.

And I think it could be possible to have different sort of "town NPCs" too, like the traveling merchant and the skeleton merchant, but I have no idea how.

I guess the biggest obstacle with ideas of adding more town NPCs is that past 50 NPCs, it would be more difficult to assign them to the house you want. Otherwise, it could be really fun to have lots of NPCs, to make the towns much more colorful!

As for having NPCs not assigned to a house, I dunno how that could be done, but maybe if they would follow similar codes like traveling merch. and skeleton merch. ...?
 
Well, for them to not be assigned to a home, they'd need an anchor of some sort. I'm curious if modders are *capable* of creating that? Sounds like Chad kind of sort of did. If he can make an NPCish spawn by a crafted and placed item, that's an option. Like, just using the ex-adventurer murderhobo as my example, maybe he has a tent he sleeps in, so you craft and place the tent, and poof, NPC. Or a stable for the unicorn / horses / whatever [though that'd be one massive placed object, certainly]; or a baby's crib or child's bed; or a dog house, or a cat tree, or or or. Problem still lies in not having names, which is not the end of the world. It's definitely a step in the right direction.

The difficulty then is making it unique, for specific town NPCs. Not sure how that could be achieved, honestly, but there's still many mod-related capabilities I'm unaware of.

But if placed objects can act as anchors for NPCish beings, whether they're people or animals or whatever, then that would also solve the 50-NPC-limit problem. I'm guessing that's a hard limit that modders can't work around?
 
Actually, now that you say that, I guess that could work really nice. Not perfect, like, just as you point out too, those NPCs wouldn't have names (or they would just appear, like how critters do, like "bunny" or "bird", but it could work nice for animals around the town, that's for sure. it wouldn't be possible to interact with them, but they could add some more colors to the town.

The more questionable is the town NPC-like characters. sure, that example you say about a hobo's tent could work too. If it's just deco and more colors to towns, you could easily add people like halberdiers or whatever other guards guarding areas (like, just generally walking around) or soldiers patroling an area, archeologist walking around fossil site, friendly lizhards around the temple or a jungle village or anything. - and the fact that they could be "summoned" by a placeable item would mean, you can have them where you want, so that means quite the freedom with it too. And if they are characters like "guard" or "hobo" or such, it's not very strange if they're just called that.
You couldn't interract with them though, which isn't perfect. but I guess the base idea is quite cool too.

As for the 50 NPCs, I dunno if it couldn't be changed. maybe it's possible, but I'm very new to coding, so I dunno. But even that does not means that you can have 50 town NPCs at max, but that you have 50 town NPCs in the housing menu. other NPCs can move in too, I think, you just can't assign where you want them to live.

Another interesting idea could be to make NPCs similar to traveling m./skeleton m., but like, a bit different. like how about some strange merchants (not sketon but whatever sentient surface monsters or something) appearing on the surface randomly, like skeleton merchant does underground? (but such a merchant wouldn't be the same as an NPC set to a certain place then)
 
Ooo, I like the guard idea! I didn't even think of that. Imagine if you could build, at some reasonably high cost, an actual town guard to help fight back against Invasion events. Kind of like a permanently placed Sentry Summons. But maybe when an actual boss shows up, they say something like "I'm not paid enough for this!" and run off :D I think it'd be nifty flavor. Or pets and children can hide, too, whether they're special object related spawns or whether they're real NPCs. I'd love that.

I do still want *named* proper NPCs who break the current rules. That's the ultimate goal, even if it's out of reach at this point in Terraria. Maybe if it's pitched right on the suggestion forum, if the developers would like the idea. It's sounding like it's not something modders even *can* do yet, but there's a part of me hoping that maybe just neither of us know enough about modding to know that it is or isn't possible with the right code.

Whether it's by mod or needs to be coded into vanilla Terraria, I can still dream :)
 
Ooo, I like the guard idea! I didn't even think of that. Imagine if you could build, at some reasonably high cost, an actual town guard to help fight back against Invasion events. Kind of like a permanently placed Sentry Summons. But maybe when an actual boss shows up, they say something like "I'm not paid enough for this!" and run off :D I think it'd be nifty flavor. Or pets and children can hide, too, whether they're special object related spawns or whether they're real NPCs. I'd love that.

I do still want *named* proper NPCs who break the current rules. That's the ultimate goal, even if it's out of reach at this point in Terraria. Maybe if it's pitched right on the suggestion forum, if the developers would like the idea. It's sounding like it's not something modders even *can* do yet, but there's a part of me hoping that maybe just neither of us know enough about modding to know that it is or isn't possible with the right code.

Whether it's by mod or needs to be coded into vanilla Terraria, I can still dream :)

I think that by the logic of those furnitures in Chad's furni, that spawn a critter, it could be possible and... I wonder how those critters are coded, whether it would be possible to have them have different AI - because critter's AI is different than town NPCs' XD
If it would be possible to combine such "entity spawning" furnitures with an entity that follows a town NPC AI while not being an actual town NPC... I wonder if that's possible?
It's questionable whether they could have unique names or just "guard" or whatever and questionable if you can talk them, but I think, if the AI could be changed to, for example the standard town NPC AI, they would behave like most town NPCs, and not just like critters.

As for actual town NPCs, it's possible to create more - for example, if you have more ideas for the mechanic and goblin tinkerer's child?
I did created a small mod (with lots of help) that has two new NPCs (Corru Crim NPCs, check it out if interested) so I do think similarly we can create other NPCs, like a young half-goblin or anything.
The only problem with that is, it causes some annoyance past 50 NPCs (question if that can be solved somehow?)

I guess as for stuff like guards, hobos, random travellers or anything though, it's something like "town NPCs are cool, but only town NPCs that have some actual role. - be it that they sell stuff, heal you, give quests or anything. NPCs like town guards could be very very cool, but since they wouldn't necessarily buy and sell anything (plus only 1 of them isn't that much defense for the town XD) - alternatively, an NPC like "guard captain" who is an actual, proper town NPC, you can talk to and stuff, and he sells items that spawn town guard at the item's area. that might could work?
so what I mean, I'm assuming players wouldn't like their housing menu be clogged by 10 town guards, a tame unicorn, 3 stray cats and a dog, but all those still could add lots of colors and make the town more lively, so if they are "deco" that could work. and if they could have different AI than critters', like town NPC AI, then such "deco" town NPCs might could behave very similar to town NPCs (unique names and chatting is questionable. shop is probably unnecessary for them) without clogging the housing menu!

I think, that could work! No idea how to code that, but I think it is possible!
 
AH! Having a legit vanilla-style NPC Captain of the Guard, who sells the component needed to craft a ... let's call it a guard post [which would be hilarious if the object is a literal post] for the permasummons-style Sentry à la Chad's pets... that idea is absolutely brilliant.

And yeah, NPCs for the sake of NPCs isn't fun. Any added to the game *should* have a purpose, *especially* if they take up room in the NPC interface. {The half-goblin child was almost a spitball idea, just made on the fly when thinking about children living in the same room as a parent. I have *no* idea what their purpose might be, yet.} The ex-adventurer, homeless though I'd love for him to be, would still need a purpose. I can think of a few, such as providing boss types like a monster-slaying guide... I'd say he could offer quests like the angler kid, but that'd be a direct ripoff of Thorium's Tracker – I think his story is that he's an ex-adventurer. But yeah, having some advice on dealing with monsters the way the guide tells you how to deal with crafting and early gameplay, that could be cool. Especially when you get to Moon Lord, and all he has for you is, "Kid, why do you think I'm an *ex*-adventurer.

Pet NPCs wouldn't need a purpose though, other than being a pet, but then they shouldn't be in the NPC interface to begin with, so that shouldn't be a problem. And really, the purpose in having a pet is *having a pet* ^_^

Since it's entirely likely that even mods can't help us get everything I hope for out of this idea, I'm going to write up a formal post for the suggestion forum later today. The only hope of a developer seeing an idea and thinking "hey, the game needs this" is a writeup that is both clear and concise, and this thread is brainstorming... basically the opposite of concise :D
 
AH! Having a legit vanilla-style NPC Captain of the Guard, who sells the component needed to craft a ... let's call it a guard post [which would be hilarious if the object is a literal post] for the permasummons-style Sentry à la Chad's pets... that idea is absolutely brilliant.

And yeah, NPCs for the sake of NPCs isn't fun. Any added to the game *should* have a purpose, *especially* if they take up room in the NPC interface. {The half-goblin child was almost a spitball idea, just made on the fly when thinking about children living in the same room as a parent. I have *no* idea what their purpose might be, yet.} The ex-adventurer, homeless though I'd love for him to be, would still need a purpose. I can think of a few, such as providing boss types like a monster-slaying guide... I'd say he could offer quests like the angler kid, but that'd be a direct ripoff of Thorium's Tracker – I think his story is that he's an ex-adventurer. But yeah, having some advice on dealing with monsters the way the guide tells you how to deal with crafting and early gameplay, that could be cool. Especially when you get to Moon Lord, and all he has for you is, "Kid, why do you think I'm an *ex*-adventurer.

Pet NPCs wouldn't need a purpose though, other than being a pet, but then they shouldn't be in the NPC interface to begin with, so that shouldn't be a problem. And really, the purpose in having a pet is *having a pet* ^_^

Since it's entirely likely that even mods can't help us get everything I hope for out of this idea, I'm going to write up a formal post for the suggestion forum later today. The only hope of a developer seeing an idea and thinking "hey, the game needs this" is a writeup that is both clear and concise, and this thread is brainstorming... basically the opposite of concise :D


Yeah, I think the guard captain thing could work nicely! He/She could have similar - but still different sprite than basic guards so it's easier to sprite too, I guess. Maybe captain would have different helmet or something.
And
the guard summoning items could be of various types (and maybe relatively expensive, so it would be difficult to just create an army of them XD) Like guard wielding sword, or spear - of halberd - if you say "town guard" why I would imagine halberdiers?, also could have guards using bows (rifles?) or anything else (mage guards wouldn't make that much sense maybe). they also could come in various designs, but that's really just some eyecandy. And as long as we're talking about melee, they won't really help with boss fights (bosses usually fly around too much) so they really would be like, helping defending the town from various mobs like slimes, zombies, etc. but not really kill bosses for you.
(alternative additional silly idea: another type of guard; firefighter guard, armed with water gun or something that would put out fires nearby (in Overhaul mod, that could make sense, IMO - question though how would it be possible to code, that he/she aims at the fire, instead of monsters. maybe it's not possible to code. dunno)

Yeah. I think that if we're talking about actual town NPCs, they must have a purpose, to justify why they take up a slot in the housing menu. These "deco" NPCs in the idea however not, I think. Maybe we could call them something else than "pet" to avoid confusion, like if they would be "pets" following the player)

The half-goblin child sounds like a cute idea - if we would go by the logic how they young brewer's shop is like, that is, he's selling combo potions I think, it's like he learned stuff from parents (brewer and alchemist) and added some more new ideas to it. So by that logic, young half-goblin would sell some sort of mechanisms? But all vanilla ones are for sale already... (and I think the jeweller sells traps too, so those are for sale too)

The ex-adventurer... I do think we have one around in Thorium, the cobbler. His quotes suggest he, along with some others, fought against several bosses, and sealed away the Ragnarök in the end.
But yeah, the hobo idea sounds good too. That's another ex-adventurer. Of another party.

Depending on what behavior "furniture-spawned" entities can have, if you could chat with them, such NPCs alternatively could provide advices or informations. no idea if it's possible though.

Quest giving NPCs are fun, but only if it's something unique, I guess. Angler gives fishing quests, Tracker to kill rare monsters, Cook to bring him ingredients, the Clerk provides a hub for tons of various quests... there wouldn't really be point for another tracker if it wouldn't serve a special purpose, but some other type of quest might could work fine.

That's a good idea! I also asked on discord, and got some answer (if it was regarding my post?) like "I don't see why not" but generally not much help regarding it besides that just yet.
But I do kinda feel, if it would be possible to code something like this, it could help with getting more NPCs without clogging the housing menu, which probably would be really cool! Plus could make the town even more colorful and lively!
 
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