🎯 Problem Statement
Right now, if you want to change things like weapon prices or vehicle costs, you have to:
- Make a new mod.
- For the arsenal: override the game's config files or other mods' config files, then manually edit each file to change weapon costs or rank requirements. This is time-consuming and the current tools aren't very user-friendly.
- For vehicles or buildings: override prefabs and search through attributes to find and change cost or rank values. This process is tedious and not straightforward.
These steps are complicated, especially when you're not changing how the game works, just tweaking some values. It also leads to many small mods cluttering the workshop, which can cause bugs and make managing dependencies harder.
Additionally, changing vehicle costs and ranks isn't easy because you have to edit the actual prefab files. This becomes a hassle when dealing with dependencies, making simple tweaks more difficult. And its not coherent with the arsenal.
✅ Proposed Solution
When a server starts for the first time (or with new mods), it should create a config file (a copy of the one in use) and save it in the server's files. This file should be editable with a text editor.
Instead of using the current "diff method" that only rewrites dependencies, create files that list all items in the arsenal.
At server startup, check that all references and values are correct. If not, shut down the server with a clear error message to make debugging easier.
After the check, use these config files as overrides for the ones used by the server (whether from mods or the base game).
Also, allow config files to define vehicle and building costs and ranks, so there's no need to create mods just to edit prefabs.
For mod configs, suggest to modders that they can make their config folders editable from outside. If they want to keep configs internal, they can create an "internal_config" folder, which works like the current system (not editable from outside, only through a new mod and override).
[Note] : This feature would greatly help server owners who aren't into modding. It would allow servers to remain vanilla while still tweaking some values, like increasing rocket costs.