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The Bookstore

Works in 1.4

Adds a new bookstore to the Outpost.

This mod is intended to be used as a framework, a kind of "Tabula Rasa" for codex entries, where other modders could put their own books, and create their own categories.

A lot of modders add books to the game. Some of them are manuals of how their mod works, others contain lore of the new species and races that they introduce to the game, and others are just silly stories to add some fun content to the game. All the modders that add this kind of content face one problem: How do I give my books to the player?

Some of them have their own "outpost", where they could put shops and bookshelves with the books, but they can't always put all their books there, and not everyone can made their own "outpost". Others find some unimmersive ways, like making the book just appear in the player's ship. Finally, others just leave the job to luck, and let the books appear as "loot" in some dungeons."

This mod offers an optional alternative to that. What does this mean? This means that the modder could make a patch to put his books in the bookstore, and if the user doesn't have this mod, then nothing happens and everything is fine... but if the user has this mod, then they can go to the outpost and buy the books. This mod is also very versatile; if you use it and don't like it, then you can uninstall it without any problems.

Also, I don't want to publish just an empty canvas, so the bookstore offers some of the stock books (one for each race), the colony deed manual, and some story compilations.

But books have more than one use, so... what are books useful for? Sharing lore and instructions are the most common use of books, but they are also useful for other things.
The books are great for starting quests:

You could put a book as loot, a book that tells the legend of a mysterious planet full of pixels... but if the player doesn't have the patience to look for the book through the universe, they could just go to the bookstore and buy it.

Books are also a good way to guide the player a particular way. Instead of just starting a formal quest, a book could say things about new planets, biomes, creatures, and buildings, where to find them, and what you could expect as a prize for finding them. Even some sub-plot or mysterious history could start with a phrase in a book, and end in a formal quest.

You could even add info about the updates of your mod as "News" from a newspaper ("New discoveries in matter", "There is a new gun rounding the world", etc), or codex entries that you could just simply erase from your mod when they become old.

Finally, the books are a good way to learn new recipes, i.e. "How in the world did that Floran learn to build that computer?... Eassy, Floran buyss a sschematicss at the Booksstore".

So, I release these tools for you. However you choose to use it, it's in your hands.

For Modders: If you want to learn how to add a book or a tab to the bookstore, it's pretty easy, just check the instructions at github.[github.com]

P.S.: I want to give a special thank to v6ooo, as I made the interface of the bookstore using his "Many Tabs" mod as a base. I encourage the use of that mod, it's pretty useful. Also to KelpTheGreat, for fix my broken english.

Please, check the collection:
The Bookstore Compendium