[wesp5]

I haven't confirmed it yet but I'm guessing that the null vec3d errors in GOL_4_Un_Situation.fs2 are caused by attempting to launch 6 fighters from ships with only 4 bay paths.

Okay, I have narrowed it down a bit now. Launching 6 fighters from the Hyperions is no problem, but as soon as I launch only 1 fighter from the Nova dreadnaughts, I get the null vec3d error. So I suspect there is a similar issue there like with the Dilgar ship and it's not about the numbers of fighters that are actually launched...

[emi_100]

I will upload the normal maps and some textures updates ASAP

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well it's not like the Sekhmet because I can't repo it in a test mission with just a Nova and wings launching.  Although as predicted you do end up with 2 groups of 2 fighters stacked on top of each other which not only looks bad but causes them damage.

[emi_100]

Here are the updates textures.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well I just found out a TBP game breaking bug exists since 3.6.13.  Anytime you fly a default ship in a mission you are given shield energy regen that you aren't supposed to have.  Basically this means that power to your engines and weapons has been cut to power the shields that don't exist.  So if your wondering why some missions seem a lot harder then they used to there is your answer. 

Of course this is another area where it's being labeled TBP's fault for bad data.  So at this point it looks like 3.6.12 and Zathras 2.0 is the end of the line.  I'm not going to continue work on something that the SCP can change a whim and decide it's our data's fault and I don't expect anyone else to work under those circumstances either.  TBP has always been the red headed step child of FS2_Open and frankly I'm tired of it. 

[Slasher]

Surely that wasn't intentional on SCP's part.  The first fourth of FS1 is spent without shields and it sounds like 3.6.13 and later builds would change things in those missions too.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

All FSPort player ships have shields they are just disabled in FRED.  Retail code disables shields if the shields are disabled in FRED or if shields are set to 0 in the table and that is the way TBP did it by setting shields to 0 in the tables.  That is now being ruled the wrong way to do it and we need to fix all our tables.  So it not only affects TBP but any other mods written before the 3.6.13 change that set ships to not use shields by setting shield value to 0 in the tables.

[Trivial Psychic]

Regarding the discussion of a full EMW campaign, it should be noted that Den5's "In The Beginning" incorporates the EMW demo missions (with some slight alterations IIRC).  I had taken it upon myself to revise this campaign and make it compatible with the current mod (and comprehensible in English), but alas this was several years ago and my attempts often ran out of steam or encountered RL complications.

[Slasher]

So has the "shields" field been removed from the ships.tbl or does the engine just handle a value of 0 for that field differently now?  This seems like, either way, it would retroactively change the balance for any mod that used a value of 0 for shields in the table. 

[FUBAR-BDHR]

It only affects the ship class of the player.  What it does to AI ships I don't know.  If your default ship is say a tiger and you change to a badger your ETS will be fine.  If you stay as a tiger it's broke. 

[Slasher]

Huh.  TBP's done it that way for years.  I didn't think SCP was supposed to alter things that could break old work like that. 

[wesp5]

I didn't think SCP was supposed to alter things that could break old work like that.

I really don't understand all the technical details here, but can't someone complain about these changes? On the other hand, what would be needed to fix them? There can't be many ship tables in TBP, no? I remember about 3 or 4 and some of them are unused as you told me...

[MatthTheGeek]

I know FUBAR is regularly talking with coders in the #scp channel. Don't worry, this is not a closed environment.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Huh.  TBP's done it that way for years.  I didn't think SCP was supposed to alter things that could break old work like that. 

Nope as long as it doesn't break retail or fsport they can change whatever they like and the mods are expected to adjust. 

Also the problem is not just fixing this issue.  That I could do.  The issue is with the attitudes of most of the SCP towards TBP.  They don't see it as a valid project just some mess they wish would disappear.  That I can't fix and it makes continuing work on the project an uphill battle.  It's only a matter of time before some other project wants a change in behavior that breaks behavior for TBP and I wont be able to work around it.   Why continue to put time and effort into something that is just going to end up useless anyway?

[wesp5]

The issue is with the attitudes of most of the SCP towards TBP.  They don't see it as a valid project just some mess they wish would disappear.

Huh? Why do they think that? Is there another FS2 game out there even close to the size and beauty of TBP? I played the much hyped Diaspora lately and compared to the fantastic world of Babylon 5 you all brought to life here, it's only a handful of short missions with grey ships firing volleys of grey projectiles at other grey ships ! Or is this because of the IPAndrews trouble from the past and the way TBP can't be continued in a combined way because of it? Maybe then for sure we should release another big DVD issue with all the cool campaigns already done !

[niffiwan]

I'm an SCP newcomer so I don't know the TBP history (that's probably a good thing, I don't believe I've got any pre-existing prejudice ), but I'm not sure where the "SCP is sick of TBP" thing comes from. In this particular case I think the reason you're getting so much blowback from parts of the SCP is because there is an "easy" workaround for the problem (which is the new preferred way of implementing the no-shield feature), and a code side fix looks like it could be a real pain.  I don't believe the change wasn't intentional, I think it was an accident as a result of fixing mantis 2326. 

It's only a matter of time before some other project wants a change in behavior that breaks behavior for TBP and I wont be able to work around it.

I can't speak for the whole SCP, but I believe that if there was something that broke TBP that didn't have a work-around, it'd be fixed.

[Slasher]

I'm not privy to SCP's internal decision making myself.  In the past I always thought they were pretty accommodating.  We had our own little checkbox in the Launcher at one point.  But TBP is one of the few mods/TCs here that has been around since before the source code was even released.  I guess they got tired of dragging us into the future?  If that's the case, I can't blame FUBAR for calling it quits. 

[karajorma]

As probably the only other person on both projects, I don't think this there is as much of an issue between TBP and the SCP as FUBAR makes out. There is somewhat of a bone of contention around the fact that TBP doesn't want to release a new version (which quite frankly no one in the SCP can fully understand the reason for at this point) but as long as the issues with TBP can be fixed in Zathras then there's no issue between the two projects.

And if something comes along that can't be fixed in Zathras, it's going to have a hard time getting into the codebase cause there's a good chance I'll rip out any code that does that myself.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Apparently you haven't been on IRC lately then.  It's been nothing but complaining about TBP.

[12/03-20:11] <Zacam-Work> Add the flag into a TBM for Zathras and anybody still playing vanilla TBP can go **** themselves for being so die-hard legacy shafted.

[12/03-20:13] <FUBAR> yea any mod made before 3.6.11 did it the only way available then 3.6.13 broke that
[12/03-20:13] <Zacam-Work> No.
[12/03-20:13] <Zacam-Work> Don't confuse "any other mod" with TBP.
[12/03-20:13] <Zacam-Work> Just don't.

[12/03-20:30] <Zacam-Work> But expecting that we're going to continue having to default "like it used to" for a production -plagued- with these kinds of issues that continue to bring to light the very reason why TBP released the way that it did, no.
[12/03-20:30] <Zacam-Work> Zathras can over-ride that to continue the "expected" behaviour with the newer flag via TBM as a forward compatibility to the older data.
[12/03-20:31] <Zacam-Work> Just like any other mod that was too cheap to do it the right way the first time.

12/03-20:44] <@Goober5000> As far as I'm concerned, the default, no-change behavior should be the same as retail.  If that's the case, we'll fix it.  If, instead, SCP worked differently for a long period of time but now works as it did in retail, well, that's unfortunate but not our problem
[12/03-20:44] <@Goober5000> second sentence should read "if that's not the case"

[12/03-22:20] <Zacam-Away> FYI, the TBP adv.ships.tbl defines the shields for the Aurora as "20" not "0"
[12/03-22:21] <Zacam-Away> sorry, ships-adv.tbl, whatever the **** that was supposed to be for.
[12/03-22:21] <Zacam-Away> and in ships.tbl, the Aurora also has a value of "20", not "0"
[12/03-22:22] <Zacam-Away> Per TBL pulled from TBP Release DVD, b5_core_3_4.vp
[12/03-22:22] <Zacam-Away> Content flaw.

Yea that last one was a flaw.  The flaw was Zacam looking at a table the engine doesn't even parse.  And note Goobers exact words on anything that breaks anything but retail.  It's not their problem. 

Same kind of things are happening in mantis.  Funny thing is most of those bugs were filed for Diaspora. 

I think this is all coming from the push to get under 100 bugs for 3.6.16.  It's getting out of hand with the try to fix as many as possible without really looking at the underlying causes.  File a ticket for a null vec3d caused by bad data and get a response of closed due to bad data.  Null vec3d not fixed so while the issue may not be able to happen again for that one circumstance it the data still isn't being validated to prevent other circumstances from causing it.  BTW that one was a Diaspora bug but they *****ed none the less about bad TBP data.   

[Slasher]

I hope other mods, Diaspora in this case, don't suffer for vanilla TBP's well known content problems. 

That said, it sounds like the SCP is moving back to retail behavior they didn't intend on deviating from in the first place.  That makes me wonder what else might change in the future.