Ren'Py Lab Rats 2 - Reformulate [v2025 4.0.37]

[Diconica]

VREN doesn't care about what the mod does, the base game has some major issues (memory leaks, lots of spelling issues, broken mechanics etc), the bugfix resolves most of them and we need to integrate VREN's "work" back into it every time we go up in version, this is very time consuming and one of the reasons we moved to a new update every other VREN release.

Technically we don't need to keep adding his stuff in.
We could just make a branched version of the game that splits off sort of like Linux distros.

Drop it up on github and sourceforge.net
If his supporters start playing the modded version more he might just catch on to listen to people here.

The only real restriction is that they have to download the base game from him.
That isn't much of an issue. It wouldn't be hard to create something to download it and strip what we don't want in it out and keep what we do want then install the mod.
It isn't exactly hard to follow his guidelines and still branch it.

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[0800vids]

Technically we don't need to keep adding his stuff in.
We could just make a branched version of the game that splits off sort of like Linux distros.

Drop it up on github and sourceforge.net
If his supporters start playing the modded version more he might just catch on to listen to people here.

The only real restriction is that they have to download the base game from him.
That isn't much of an issue. It wouldn't be hard to create something to download it and strip what we don't want in it out and keep what we do want then install the mod.
It isn't exactly hard to follow his guidelines and still branch it.

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I do get your idea but I don't know how happy he will be if you use his idea and base game to make your total own game. At some point it stops being mods and will be competition toward his product. So it just becomes a case of copyright infringement or similar.

 

[Strec]

I do get your idea but I don't know how happy he will be if you use his idea and base game to make your total own game. At some point it stops being mods and will be competition toward his product. So it just becomes a case of copyright infringement or similar.

As I know downloadind almost any file on F95 without the author expressly saying it's ok is already a copyright infringement

 

[0800vids]

As I know downloadind almost any file on F95 without the author expressly saying it's ok is already a copyright infringement

I guess you do have a point there^^

 

[Diconica]

I do get your idea but I don't know how happy he will be if you use his idea and base game to make your total own game. At some point it stops being mods and will be competition toward his product. So it just becomes a case of copyright infringement or similar.

Not really people create entire stand alone mods for skyrim and other games.
He gave permission to make mods on his thing. He asked for credit and not to blatantly redistribute a full version.
You can avoid that by using his files as he said and just use the assets.
Since it still relies on his works it is still a mod.

Those companies generally realize when something like that gets enough attention they need to step up their own work.
So should he. If the mod is getting more traction than his own game then he should take that as a sign he needs to improve it.

That said you are correct he could take it wrong and just get upset about it. People do the wrong things all the time.

It doesn't fall under copyright infringement because he gave express permission and you would be following the rules he posted if you follow what I said.

 

[Diconica]

As I know downloadind almost any file on F95 without the author expressly saying it's ok is already a copyright infringement

In a lot of cases you are correct. There are a few exceptions though.

 

[destrit121]

Just make an entirely new game. It's not like the art assets are so awesome, in fact the art is the least appealing aspect of the game. The storylines, the management and the general "building an empire" feel is what keeps me coming back again and again, and even then there's NO WAY I would play this game without the mods and the bugfixes that you guys so generously provide. I love people like you guys, thank you so, so much for what you're doing. Fixing this game to make it playable and much more enjoyable.

Game ideas can't be copyrighted anyway, so just team up with some people who know what they're doing (art primarily, the chicks in this game are generally awful) and you could make a serious hit game. I would definitely do it if I had some practical skills. All I have are ideas.

Whatever you modders and bugfixers want to do, I wish you good luck.

 

[Yukemoto]

Just make an entirely new game. It's not like the art assets are so awesome, in fact the art is the least appealing aspect of the game. The storylines, the management and the general "building an empire" feel is what keeps me coming back again and again, and even then there's NO WAY I would play this game without the mods and the bugfixes that you guys so generously provide. I love people like you guys, thank you so, so much for what you're doing. Fixing this game to make it playable and much more enjoyable.

Game ideas can't be copyrighted anyway, so just team up with some people who know what they're doing (art primarily, the chicks in this game are generally awful) and you could make a serious hit game. I would definitely do it if I had some practical skills. All I have are ideas.

Whatever you modders and bugfixers want to do, I wish you good luck.

That would take a LONG time. the dev has already done all the legwork, it would take a long time to create a new product with randomly generated varied girls, and core mechanics, without ripping them off the original game wholesale, I'd support what they did as well, but a new separate game is a larger undertaking than you're implying.

 

[Diconica]

You know what the sad part about this is.
He wrote 90% of the code for it.
All I did was write a short sequence to make use of it.
What I wrote probably took less effort than what he wrote to start with and I replaced.
So I find it just mind boggling as to why the fuck he wrote the crap he did.

I wrote out a post bitching about what he could have done which pretty much laid out what was needed.
https://f95zone.to/threads/lab-rats-2-v0-47-1-vren.7260/post-7116463
Then I decided fuck it. Just do it. So I did.

So yep I'm stumped if he was being lazy his laziness probably was more work than if he made use of what he already created.
While my code appears longer 14 lines are comments and 12 are a lot of it is copy paste.
Also I wasn't really creating something. I just wrote a sequence that did what we do manually when we create a serum.
Everything he did he had to try and figure out what values he was going to use and how it would tie together and work.

I also don't get how he didn't catch the fact it was making Serums that could never be produced with the traits we are given.
I seen the first contracts and look at the tier 0 serums and realized no combination would allow me to do any of them I guessed what he did. So tracked it back to the code and I was right.
Maybe he does play it but since he has the days for it renewing the contract set to every Monday he just didn't see enough of them. You can change it to were it renews them faster though. So did he or not? No Idea. My guess is no.

 

[Strec]

Same for my sales automation, just a few lines to allow limiting by player the max threat generated.

 

[Diconica]

That would take a LONG time. the dev has already done all the legwork, it would take a long time to create a new product with randomly generated varied girls, and core mechanics, without ripping them off the original game wholesale, I'd support what they did as well, but a new separate game is a larger undertaking than you're implying.

It could take a long time. It doesn't have to.
It depends on a lot of factors as to how long it will take.
Skill level of he developers is a major factor.
How you decide to tackle the assets for the female characters would probably be the biggest.
If you manually generate them it's going to take a long time.
If you create them by using something like blender to render the assets and write a script to run all the posses and with the various clothing and so on. It would take a lot less time.
That time can be reduce depending on the hardware you throw at it.

If you use something like SVG graphics for drawing the images you could write a system that manipulates the image the values in it to create the different sizes rather than having to draw them all. After all its vector based graphics.

What game engine you choose to use can play a huge role.
The fact is you could switch to another engine that uses 3d models and skip the entire issue of render time when it comes to assets. That would also give the user the ability to look at the scene from any angle.
That however is going to give you all sorts of other issues like having the male in it and so on and customizing the male and female characters.

That said you could also create a mod for something like skyrim that is a complete replacement for the world and so on.
You would need to create the 3D assets to go in it. However, you could use the characters they have and so on.

For myself the issue is he assets regardless if I choose 3D or 2D rendered.
I could code the game engine and game from scratch in under a month.

 

[destrit121]

That would take a LONG time. the dev has already done all the legwork, it would take a long time to create a new product with randomly generated varied girls, and core mechanics, without ripping them off the original game wholesale, I'd support what they did as well, but a new separate game is a larger undertaking than you're implying.

Obviously it won't be done overnight, but why would it have to be? This game has been in development for four years after all, and I've yet to see any competition in this genre. I honestly think it's ridiculous that the mod team hasn't banded together to start a new project with the same idea. Open world, empire building, resource management, corruption mechanics... It sure would be more interesting than yet another incest harem VN with the same recycled characters and storylines. Right?

From what I can tell, the modders have had great ideas about how LR2 should've been developed from the start, but those ideas have gone largely unnoticed by the original dev. Instead he puts out updates so riddled with bugs that I personally deem them unplayable until the mod team have done their magic with it. Which they do for free, by the way. For four years straight.

It's ridiculous that it is this way. They should start their own project, and bring in an artist to make the girls prettier while they're at it. I have yet to see any competition in this genre at all, and that sucks, because all the elements for a fantastic time killer is right there. Someone just have to step up and lead the charge.

 

[Yukemoto]

Obviously it won't be done overnight, but why would it have to be? This game has been in development for four years after all, and I've yet to see any competition in this genre. I honestly think it's ridiculous that the mod team hasn't banded together to start a new project with the same idea. Open world, empire building, resource management, corruption mechanics... It sure would be more interesting than yet another incest harem VN with the same recycled characters and storylines. Right?

From what I can tell, the modders have had great ideas about how LR2 should've been developed from the start, but those ideas have gone largely unnoticed by the original dev. Instead he puts out updates so riddled with bugs that I personally deem them unplayable until the mod team have done their magic with it. Which they do for free, by the way. For four years straight.

It's ridiculous that it is this way. They should start their own project, and bring in an artist to make the girls prettier while they're at it. I have yet to see any competition in this genre at all, and that sucks, because all the elements for a fantastic time killer is right there. Someone just have to step up and lead the charge.

Not for free, we're spoiled by their excellent work. Work they've done for free up till now, but I seriously doubt they would go through such a great undertaking if there was no return on their time and skill outside of community enjoyment.

 

[destrit121]

Not for free, we're spoiled by their excellent work. Work they've done for free up till now, but I seriously doubt they would go through such a great undertaking if there was no return on their time and skill outside of community enjoyment.

??? Uh, what do you mean? Patreon exists for this very reason... My point was they shouldn't do all this work for free, did you seriously think I meant the opposite?

 

[Diconica]

Obviously it won't be done overnight, but why would it have to be? This game has been in development for four years after all, and I've yet to see any competition in this genre. I honestly think it's ridiculous that the mod team hasn't banded together to start a new project with the same idea. Open world, empire building, resource management, corruption mechanics... It sure would be more interesting than yet another incest harem VN with the same recycled characters and storylines. Right?

From what I can tell, the modders have had great ideas about how LR2 should've been developed from the start, but those ideas have gone largely unnoticed by the original dev. Instead he puts out updates so riddled with bugs that I personally deem them unplayable until the mod team have done their magic with it. Which they do for free, by the way. For four years straight.

It's ridiculous that it is this way. They should start their own project, and bring in an artist to make the girls prettier while they're at it. I have yet to see any competition in this genre at all, and that sucks, because all the elements for a fantastic time killer is right there. Someone just have to step up and lead the charge.

I'm with you on the idea that its surprising no one has made a real competitor to this.
That said you are some what limited in what renpy can handle.
Those limitations can be reduced depending on the skill of the developer. If the developer can program in C and make Python extensions they would be capable of offloading some of the more intensive stuff that would bottle neck in python.

Example: Lets say I make a bunch of NPCs to go around town so I can interact with lot of characters. We aren't talking a complex AI simple state logic systems. It wouldn't take to many to bog down renpy or python. But using C a single thread with a 3 ghz cpu you could handle around 30 to 40 thousand if written properly. Using multiple threads you could handle a lot more.
So if you wanted to do something like having a large town or city with people to interact with each having their own schedule and personality and so on it would be better done with C or C++ by a long shot.

The point of that is modder skills are going to limit a lot of what they can do. I'm sure there are some that have the skills if needed. But if they don't that might be why they haven't done a lot more.
Also they have lives of their own to live.

 

[Diconica]

Not for free, we're spoiled by their excellent work. Work they've done for free up till now, but I seriously doubt they would go through such a great undertaking if there was no return on their time and skill outside of community enjoyment.

Funny, there are quite a few opensource free games available today.
As someone else said there is patreon.
Just because you put something out for free doesn't mean there isn't a way to make money on it.

 

[Strec]

Cool, kill the mod, go on Patreon

 

[the demeter flower]

I'm not on this website because I like paying for pornography, my dude.

 

[darklyter]

Sorry to ask a couple of dumb questions, but after way more hours in this game over the past few days than I like to think about (Game is great, mod is phenomenal... great job all!)

1) How do you trigger Ashley/Stephanie past them giving each other dirty looks on Sunday mornings over a muffin? I'm pretty much maxed out (+love/obed/slutty daily dose), have tried making them both 'girlfriend', put them in the same department, etc. Tried sleepovers and dragging one of them with me to the other one. I have the strip club fully loaded if that tells you where I am timeline wise.

2) How do you start the Starbuck chain? I've never been able to find the barista to talk to

Thanks!

 

[Gwynn]

Sorry to ask a couple of dumb questions, but after way more hours in this game over the past few days than I like to think about (Game is great, mod is phenomenal... great job all!)

1) How do you trigger Ashley/Stephanie past them giving each other dirty looks on Sunday mornings over a muffin? I'm pretty much maxed out (+love/obed/slutty daily dose), have tried making them both 'girlfriend', put them in the same department, etc. Tried sleepovers and dragging one of them with me to the other one. I have the strip club fully loaded if that tells you where I am timeline wise.

2) How do you start the Starbuck chain? I've never been able to find the barista to talk to

Thanks!

1) These characters are part of the main game, and thus this mod does not add new content for them. The progress you made is (to my knowledge) the extent that is available in the main game until such time exists that the dev adds more content for them.

2) I don't know what the conditions are to open up the Kaya chain. I've always had this story pop for me after seeing the new event icon at that location. Perhaps someone else can better answer your question.