[Nuke]

i was going through nukemod on another bughunt. i get a message that tells me ive got too many explosions. its not my fault, i only have 5 new animations, which is actually 1 less than the last version of nukemod. its the media vps, there are using about 17 entries out of the 20 explosion limit. this leaves mods with only 3 slots. i want my mod to work with any combination of media vps. if i overwrite them with a weapon_expl.tbl it will break all the other media vp features. any chance you can bump that limit to 25?

[taylor]

I'll just go ahead and make it dynamic for 3.6.9 (it will only take a few minutes to convert it from a static limit). 

And you know that you could just use a tbm for adding the new explosions, right?  No need to break compatibility with anything.  It still needs to be dynamic in your case, but that will be taken care of shortly.

[Nuke]

thats the way i do it as it is, but sence the last version of the media vps came out, i get an error in debug builds and any over the limit dont show up in game. i guess they added a few new explosions to the media vps and with mine added on top, it broke the limit.

im trying to get everything into tbms but theres still a few things that just arent working. like i still have to put a stripped ships.tbl in the mod to prevent breaking that limit. not sure if that was made dynamic yet or not. i use asteroid.tbl, icons.tbl, mflash.tbl, ships.tbl (the stripped retail one i mentioned with my tbms stacked on top), sounds.tbl, and species_defs.tbl. id like to use tbms for those if its possible. some may have been added in already.

i also have a problem getting my weapon precedence list (which is at the end of the xwi-wep.tbm, which aslo contains the countermeasures section), while the media vps are loaded. running nukemod by itself always seems to work best, dut id still like to have the option for their use.

[taylor]

asteroid.tbl is dynamic, but doesn't have a modular version yet.  I'll go ahead and do that too, using *-ast.tbm, since it's been on my todo list for a while and is a simple change.  I had meant to make it modular when I made it dyanmic, but it wasn't my primary concern at the moment (I was actually making species_defs dynamic, but had to do asteroids too for compatiblity reasons).

icons.tbl has a fixed number of possible icons, but technically it's dynamic since it is proportional to the number of species.  It's a little more difficult to make modular, since we'll have to change the format a little so that you must specify which species those icons are for, but it's on the todo list.  Not going to happen until post-3.6.9 though.  But I'll try and remember to make that change for 3.6.10.

mflash.tbl is dynamic, and does have a modular version: *.mfl.tbm.

sounds.tbl is dynamic, but not yet modular.  Also on the todo list, also not going to happen until post-3.6.9.

species_defs.tbl is dynamic, and does have a modular version: *.sdf.tbm.

ships.tbl and weapons.tbl will be made dynamic when the new pilot file code gets here.  But until then they are intrinsically fixed at their current limits because of network and pilot/campaign file compatibility.

[Nuke]

thanks for the heads up. been too buisy modeling and playing ragnarok ro to keep tabs on this stuff
just converted em to modular, and they seem to be working fine

[taylor]

Well I'm pretty famous for not announcing my changes anyway.  Especially when I make a change by request from a mod, or particular people (like DaBrain wanting envmapping in OpenGL, and getting it).

[Scooby_Doo]

ships.tbl and weapons.tbl will be made dynamic when the new pilot file code gets here.  But until then they are intrinsically fixed at their current limits because of network and pilot/campaign file compatibility.

Does this mean no more 128 (or so) limit?!!

[karajorma]

It's 130 and the limit is somewhat damaged in the HEAD branch anyway (Where Inferno builds can work in multiplayer).

[Scooby_Doo]

I mean will the ship limit go dynamic too?

[Nuke]

post 3.6.9 i think, when pilot code is done.

[Scooby_Doo]

Thank You thats another limitation thats going bye bye   

[taylor]

Does this mean no more 128 (or so) limit?!!

Yup, no more limit.  And actually, through the pilot file upgrade (given the size and number of the changes) there will be very few limits remaining.  Most everything will end up going dynamic through that one upgrade.  The biggest limit remaining will be for bitmaps, though that is also slated to go dynamic with new graphics/bmpman code that I'm working on for after the new pilot file code is done.

But, as already stated, the limit will be gone only after the pilot file upgrade.  In order to make the limit dynamic the pilot file code has to be modified to accept dynamic limits for everything, and the networking code has to be changed to allow for a seamless change from within-the-limit to over-the-limit handling for compatibility reasons.  The networking will automatically change it's compatibility settings so that if you are within the retail ship and weapon limits then your multiplayer games will be retail compatible, and if it's outside of the retail limits then the code will change itself to only be compatible with multiplayer games which can handle a dynamic limit.

[Scooby_Doo]

Sounds like a good implementation.

You'll be using linked lists rather than static arrays?

[taylor]

You'll be using linked lists rather than static arrays?

STL vector, like most everything else uses when we make it dynamic.

[Getter Robo G]

This is awesome news, please continue the good work!!!  I am eager to get my hand on the new build (limit s may be what is crashing my mods).

[Trivial Psychic]

icons.tbl has a fixed number of possible icons, but technically it's dynamic since it is proportional to the number of species.  It's a little more difficult to make modular, since we'll have to change the format a little so that you must specify which species those icons are for, but it's on the todo list.  Not going to happen until post-3.6.9 though.  But I'll try and remember to make that change for 3.6.10.

Taylor, what's the possibility of this icons.tbl overhaul incorporating custom icons classes?  That way, total conversion mods could eliminate those classes they don't need, or introduce others that they do.  Granted, to retain backwards compatibility, there'd need to be a "$use default classes: yes/no" line at the top, so that if no class names are present, then it will go with the existing series.  Any mod needing more classes, would need either a modular table to add in the new ones, but retain the "yes" so the defaults are still there, or simply add the new classes into the existing icons table, and retain the "yes".  Selecting "no" would completely eliminate all icon classes, requiring the proper "$class name:  cruiser" entry before each set.

[taylor]

Taylor, what's the possibility of this icons.tbl overhaul incorporating custom icons classes?

I'd say that it's pretty damn likely.

That is one thing that I don't like about icons.tbl, and if it does go modular then at the very least it would require a way to specify the class for the icons in question, since it would be almost unmanageable otherwise.  At a minimum it would mean that you would only have to include icons for the classes that you use, and the code would just have to handle the cases where a set doesn't exist for a class that is trying to be used.  Adding classes this way would be a little more tricky to get everything to work properly, but I have a feeling that once it goes fully modular the work involved to have dynamic classes too would be relatively minor.

Just remember to bring this up again when the time comes, I jump back and forth on so much different code (and a LOT of it) that this is easily something I'll forget about pretty quickly.