[FelixJim]

I'll have a look at it - I'm a big fan of having everything perfectly left-aligned but at least an option for a centred title wouldn't go amiss for others.

[FelixJim]

Bump for great justice! And partially because the script's been updated. But mostly for great justice. Check back to the first post.

New features:

• FREDer functions. Lots of FREDer functions. You can really tweak the script to your liking if you have a specific use in mind for your mod. Download the FREDer pack for more information
• Boxes! It's amazing how much better this looks with boxes. Can be turned off in settings
• New model rotation. Swivels and zooms semi-randomly. The old, simple rotation can be re-enabled in the settings if you don't like the new method
• Ability to edit and centre titles (off by default)
• Flashing "Press [key] to close." message. Flashing can be tweaked or turned off in the settings

[FelixJim]

A few minutes after uploading v0.3 I suddenly thought of a scenario in which a mistaken FREDer could crash FSO - this is now fixed in v0.31 - so make sure you have that version.

[mjn.mixael]

Something I just noticed recently.. You have a script function or variable (I'm not sure which) that's called 'loadship'. That's the exact same on as in Admiral MS' Shipave script! I did a find and replace on the old script the clear the conflict.

[FelixJim]

Ah, that would cause problems, yes. All the variables are stored in a table called "imt" to avoid just this thing, but I really ought to store all the functions in there as well. Seeing as doing this will break any mission making use of the FRED functions I'm going to make a push now and release a fix - the chances of anyone releasing anything this evening using this script are low enough for me to not worry too much.

[mjn.mixael]

[FelixJim]

Updated to v0.32

Bugfixes:

• Default model rotation now goes at correct speed
• All functions stored in the 'imt' table - should prevent conflicts

Future updates to the script should not cause break any previous usage from now; (aside from having to reedit the settings, but this might be fixed later) should be drag-and-drop replacements.

Future plans:

• Comment script properly
• Set up a separate optional settings file so that you can update the script without having to change anything
• Smooth out model spin more
• Look into a solution for text overflowing boxes
• Decide whether setting this up as a complete mod would make it more accessible to ordinary players and be worth it
• Any other suggestions I think are worth adding. Feel free to ask for things!

I also forgot to mention that in the 0.3 update the ability to switch between screens without going back to gameplay first was added.

[mjn.mixael]

Well, as long as you are asking for suggestions...

One thing I found myself wanting was an easy way for us non-scripters to change the default text/border color. Default to green, but I'd love to be able to specify an RGB of my own.

[FelixJim]

One thing I found myself wanting was an easy way for us non-scripters to change the default text/border color. Default to green, but I'd love to be able to specify an RGB of my own.

That would be a useful thing to have - it'll be added in. Thanks for the suggestion!

[mjn.mixael]

So, I'm going to be a total modder here.. but well, I am! Take or leave whatever, but I'm going to expand on my previous request.

Looking through the script to find the chunks to change, I came across the fact that it seems that you change the color of the text of the subsystems based on health? That, and the fact that I found the main places to change the colors made me want a little more control to really make it look nice and fit the style of my mod.

I'd love to be able to set the border color and the text color separately. Bonus points for the following, but may be overkill. Setting the title text color, the 'press this button to return' text color, and setting the health color values each would be extra handy.

So there, it is.. you can give me that blank stare now.

That said... I'm loving this script.


Lastly, I thought of something you may or may not be able to do with the custom descriptions. If I understand it correctly you have to use a script call to assign a custom description to a ship? What about a way to link a custom description to a ship class in the imt.descriptions.txt? My idea, as I was reading about custom descriptions, was to use that as a way to add notes and hints on tactics and strategies for hostile craft. But I wouldn't want to do that if I needed to run a whole bunch of script calls at the beginning of each mission. Did I just make sense?

It also seems as if the script is having a hard time getting tech descriptions from XSTR("TEXT",####). Ship wasn't in the techroom. So... instead, how about a setting to allow non-techroom ships regardless?

[FelixJim]

All your colour requests are perfectly doable - I've been looking at user-set colours for the based-on-health colours, and setting the border colour, title colour and press-to-leave colours separately should simple enough to add in as well. The colour system needs looking at anyway - I have a feeling there's a potential bug in there somewhere.

The custom descriptions feature was purely designed for specific ships, but there's no reason a similar, but separate, feature shouldn't be set up for an entire class without having to do anything FRED-side. I can see a new file called imt_classdescriptions.txt taking a form like:

Code: [Select]

GTF Hercules: Custom Description.
SD Demon: Custom Description.
These would be applied automatically, but any custom descriptions applied using imt.dsc() would take priority.

A straightforward true/false setting would be useful allow for letting you access ships not in the techroom. It'll be added!

In other news, I've got the new settings system set up (although it still needs a bit of  rearranging to improve efficiency) - you can store your settings in a text file which override those in the script. This'll mean you don't have to reset all your settings every time I update the script.

And thanks for all these suggestions - it's good to have someone take an interest. The scripting board doesn't seem to get much love generally.

[mjn.mixael]

That all sounds great to me!

I try to make sure I pay attention to new scripts because they allow us FREDers to do things we otherwise couldn't. Admiral MS' shipsave script, for example, was originally intended to replace Red Alerts but I found it highly useful for checkpoints and in-mission cutscences with it's copy-ship functions. I have a few useful ideas for this script as well, especially with all the FRED based control you added...

[FelixJim]

Hotfix release
I can't believe I released something with this huge a bug - the previous version would crash every time you restarted a mission. I wonder how many more releases I can squeeze into such a short time.

Bugfixes:

• Restarting the mission no longer causes FSO to crash
• Requirement for "End of File" at the end of imt_descriptions.txt removed, fixing a bug where FSO would crash if it was not present. It is removed from the sample imt_descriptions.txt, but documentation still erroneously demands you have it in place. It won't cause any harm if it is there - it'll be treated as just another custom description.

New features:

• Settings file support added, but it is unoptimised, has not been fully tested and no sample file or documentation exists yet - I do not recommend you rely on this feature yet
• Ability to set the colour of the text and border (not separately yet and untested)
• Script is mostly commented now

This is a hotfix release to fix a major bug, and the new features are in whatever state they happened to be in, if you catch my drift. Several colour settings are commented out as they are not implemented yet.

[FelixJim]

Updated to version 0.4.

New features (in no particular order):

• Presence in techroom override added - can now set the techroom description to appear regardless of the ship's presence in techroom (off by default)
• Colour settings added - colours for the title, text, border, press-to-close, subsystems at high health, subsystems at low health and "Disabled" message can now all be set individually. The subsystems and "Disabled" message can also be set to use the regular text colour (off by default)
• Ability to set settings via imt_settings.txt is now in a state where I can recommend using it; example file and documentation included in modder pack
• Settings for the positions of all elements added
• Setting to centre title removed, as it's replaced by the above - hint for suitable value included in script comments and modder documentation
• Ability to set custom descriptions for ship classes in imt_classdescriptions.txt added
• Ability to set custom descriptions for specific ships tweaked slightly - now the last custom description applied will be used, not the first
• Ability to edit settings from FRED using imt.c() added; should be used carefully, this is a powerful function
• Auxiliary script added to modder pack to provide an alternative to the auxiliary text files - imt_settings.txt, imt_descriptions.txt and imt_classdescriptions.txt will not work from inside a VP, but the auxiliary script will
• Settings added to disable the target specifications section for specific IFFs and ship classes
• Ability to set background images added

Bugfixes:

• Users can no longer crash FSO by passing bad data through imt_settings.txt
• Not exactly bugs, but all magic numbers eliminated from script and some optimisations (not significant enough to notice, but what the heck) performed

Worth reiterating: Script will still happily work if you just drop it into data/tables without any of this extra stuff.

[BLARGHER]

This is very nice. Complements the Tech Room without making it redundant, which can be quite hard to do. This would have been particularly nice for WoD and DE too. If my mod ever comes out, it will certainly have this.

[FelixJim]

Mods like WoD and DE were part of the inspiration for this, yeah; as good as all that new stuff is, it can be a little overwhelming at times. And good luck with your mod!

[FelixJim]

Bump. Updated first post with some very stimulating "Coming Soon!" features. I don't know how soon because I'm waiting mainly for this patch: http://scp.indiegames.us/mantis/view.php?id=2891 to go through and beyond nagging good people who give up their time to help us all out of the kindness of their hearts I can't hurry that along. Anyone considering using this script might find it helpful to know what's in the pipeline, that's all (especially as the way settings work is undergoing a backwards-compatibility-breaking overhaul).