[chief1983]

It is, and now I think the behavior is silly

Do we need a +destroy flag then as well?  Would be the easiest way to know you're on a clean slate.  If optional entries in the original tbl entry can't be overridden then we have a problem it sounds like.

[Fury]

There has been discussions on #scp about having an argument that can remove specified flags, but not original tbl entry. I don't even know if it would be possible to differentiate original tbl entry from tbm entries. You'd probably end up ignoring all tbl and other tbm entries, not just original tbl entry.

So for example, you have a ships.tbl entry you want to ignore, how would you not ignore a tbm containing a cockpit for the ship, or perhaps newtonian flight model for the ship, or any other additions like that? I don't think it'd be easy to code something like that. And then you'd get people who not only want to ignore original entry, but all other tbm's too that are loaded after. Seems more trouble than its worth.

Per-flag based ignore or remove option would be better. At least FUBAR and IssMneur have engaged in such discussion before on #scp.

[T-Man]

Does the tbm have the "#ship classes" at the top and "#end" at the bottom? I suspect that's a silly question (i'm a complete n00b with tbms to boot) but i noticed they arn't on the bit you uploaded.

[headdie]

yes they do

[chief1983]

If I want to _completely_ ignore all previous entries up to that point in parsing, I should be able to.  I can't believe we've gone this long without that being an option.  I don't care if cockpits or whatever were previously defined, that would be the risk involved.  Per-option could prove useful as well for certain flags of course, but a full override would also be very useful I think.  It seems that only certain optional flags have really caused an issue though, such as $Flags and SBanks/PBanks.  So handling those separately might not be a bad idea after all.

[Trivial Psychic]

How about an option to overwrite on a per-line basis?  Add a +replace_line, then the next entry will be completely overwritten.  If you want to erase an entry, for example have the $Default PBanks:  line erased, just leave all the info from the line, basically everything you'd put in after the ":", blank.  Under this proposed code, it would let the computer know to completely erase the $Default PBanks: line.  On the other hand, if you're worried about the ship flags, the +replace_line use would let the game know to dump all previously present flags, and use ONLY the ones listed in the tbm.