Modding, Mission Design, and Coding > The Modding Workshop

Modder's Digest Quasi-Weekly (Latest 22-01-08)

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EatThePath:
This week the notes should cover up to and including the 20211016 nightly. I've also made the PR# a link to the github page for that PR in all cases, to save time.
Advisories

* Most recent nightlies will make your pilot file incompatible with old versions of FSO. This was not an intentional break as I understand it a fix is planned, but recovery of broken pilots might not be possible. 
* Animation code changes have created a hard crash for certain kinds of bad turret data. For instance if a turret is not a multipart but is set up with initial animation data in the table, it will crash. This should become non-fatal in the near future, but if you're crashing on nightlies at the moment, this could be why.Mission making

* SEXP Containers can now store persistent data across missions (#3462)
* The texture replace sexp can now set animated textures or invisible textures. (#3728)Lua Scripting

* Tables can now store custom data associated with their entries to be accessed in lua. Initial implementation includes weapon and ship tables. see the github PR for documentation currently. (#3699)#Tables

AI Profiles

* New "$fighterbay departures use carrier orientation:" and  "$fighterbay arrivals use carrier orientation:", settings make path metadata orientations be relative to the mothership, when otherwise they are relative to the world. These will default to on in mods targeting future versions in game settings. (#3698)Mod Settings

* New settings allow for a minimum size to weapons and other effects at long range, increasing the visibility of distant combat. Not yet on the wiki, see the github PR for documentation currently. (#3656)Particles

* New "+Parent Velocity Factor:" lets particles inherit the velocity of the thing they were spawned by (#3691)Ships

* New '$Wingmen Gauge Dot Override:' sets wingmen status dots on a per-ship class basis. If no animation is specified then the default dot animation specified in the HUD table wingmen gauge is used. Wiki link here. (#3711)
* new '+arrival rvec:' value for path metadata  allows control of incoming ship's orientations (#3698)Tools

* The cheats to switch weapons now use the weapon's raw table name rather than the displayed name (#3702)

Kiloku:
The $Custom Data stuff is now also documented in the Wiki.

EatThePath:
Just a heads up, I'm heading out on a vacation today and this has a good chance of disrupting this and/or next weeks' posting. They should still happen, just maybe a bit late.

EatThePath:
Well, the above turned out to be pretty wrong.

Nightlies not going up properly gave me a very appealing excuse to keep putting the next digest off, but since they've kicked back on, here we are. This should match up with the 20211121 nightly

Advisories

* The two issues highlighted last time have since been resolved.Changes

* The AI will disregard the optimum range values of weapons that are locked out (#3762)Mission making

* Passive lightning can now be toggled with a ship flag (#3772)
* The game will now detect and warn about ambiguous event and goal name references (#3774)
* show-subtitle and show-subtitle-text now have an optional value to set the spacing between lines (#3765)
* New destroy-instantly-with-debris sexp allows the creation of ship debris without any other death effects (#3752)
* new script-eval-bool allows a script argument to return a true or false (#3755)POF Models

* New $rotate_accel value in pof submodel properties controls how fast rotations start. Wiki (#3786)Lua Scripting

* new isValid support for gamesound handles (#3743)
* drawImage now accepts an angle in radians to rotate the image by (#3777)
* New 'On Mission About To End' and 'On State About To End' hooks (#3731)
* Neb2_awacs mission value can now be read or changed (#3746)#Tables

* A new set of visibility factors for nebula missions has been added. Starting here on the wiki[/url] (#3676)
* Nebula poofs can now use animated maps (#3697)
* new '$Passive Lightning Arcs:' in ships table allows the definition of lightning arcs on the ship's hull. Wiki. (#3733)
* new '+Target Lock Objecttypes:' option for homing weapons allows weapons to be defined as locking on to only ships or only targetable weapons. (#3588)
* HEAD ON: APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE BITMAP. New laser properties allow effects to crossfade to a second image when viewed from directly ahead or behind. Wiki (#3748)Tools

EatThePath:
Whoof. I could make all kinds of excuses, but I've let this slide too long. even that being the case, this post only catches us up to about the 8th. I'll do what I can to follow up faster than two months.
Advisories

* Some bugfixes have led to a change in the fundamentals of how the engine tracks the passage of time. This should ideally not impact actual gameplay, but some bugs related to it have been found already. If you encounter anything weird that might be timing related or in general things not working that used to, please report them so they can be looked into. (#3878)
* Due to changes in controls handling, loading the January 5th or later build will convert your pilot files to a new format and you will have problems using that pilot in older versions of the engine.  0124 and later should allow your pilots to be loaded in old versions again, but your controls bindings in the old version will be reset to defaults. Before updating to any version after 20220105, back up your save and pilot files. But if you are up for it, please help test these extensive changes. (#2958)Changes

* Support has been added for multiple joysticks as well as saving and loading controls presets separately from pilots. Multi-joy requires manual editing of configuration files until launcher support catches up (#2958)
* Mods can set their own PXO lobby banners. (#3819)
* The hard upper limit on the number of files FSO can load has been removed. (#3872)
* Custom fonts don't break out of their boxes in multiplayer screens anymore. (#3908)Mission making

* "$Asteroid targets" field in mission files lets you set asteroid targets beside the default.  (#3704)
* "$Closeup Label" field in mission files allows setting of the name used when a ship is clicked on in briefings.  (#3798)
Lua Scripting

* drawImageCentered and drawRectangleCentered added that allow you to define the position of the center of the thing you are drawing (#3800)
* Custom lua SEXPs can now be defined as receiving and returning references that can be various combinations of ship, wing, team, and waypoint amoung other things, like many built in SEXPs. (#3637)#Tables
New Tables

* New Animation.tbl holds new extended animation data for ships, with many new features. See wiki for all the details (#3793)
* New Lighting_Profiles.tbl allows configuration of the post-processing tonemapper. See wiki for details, and play with the possible settings in the F3 lab. (#3801)Game Settings

* New "$Turret target recheck time:" setting allows control of how often turrets check for new potential targets. (#3803)
* new "$Don't automatically select a turret when targeting a ship:" does as it says to better emulate targeting in FS1. (#3888)Weapons

* Secondaries can now require and consume energy if the $Energy Consumed field is set.  (#3847)
* The default volume levels for new pilots in the gamesettings table are actually used now (#3809)

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