Talon sent me a tbm and I sent him a test build back.
To be honest I think this entire hud_gauges parding was totally broken from the start. It does everything wrong.
I hope I fixed that stuff now.
Several important things when using this tbl:
if you specify gauge data fro a Default: resolution, then you must be careful when using a tbm. If the tbm tries to override stuff with a different resolution that will work, however all non-overriden stuff from the original table will be set back to default values since the engine cannot scale them correctly anymore since you reset the default resolution.
The same is true if you use a different resolution for ship gauges. That doesn't reset the default gauge, but the ship gauge won't be able to use any default data you declared earlier since you defined a different default resolution for that ship so it wouldn't know how to scale the default ones anymore. It can only handle one scale-resolution.
if you specifdy $Resolution: gauge data, that data will be used if the game res matches that resolution. Be aware that NONE of the Default resolution stuff will be used in this case. The engine cannot scale half of the data and use the other data unchanged. So if you defined stuff in the $Default: section and want to specify stuff for a specific resolution you need to define it ALL again. Stuff you won't define here again will use the standard values.
Same goes for tbms or ship data. You cannot mix $Default: and $Resolution: stuff. if $Resolution: matches, it and only it will be used. If you specify stuff in the tbm or for a ship using $Resoltution, nothing of the earlier defined $Default: stuff will be used anymore.
I hope this was clear somehow.
Before these changes the code was totally broken. Parent lookup didn't work under certain circumstances and $Resolution: worked totally wrong, in parts it tried to copy some memory onto itself even. As I said.. totally broken.
If Talon reports back that the new build works I'll post the patch on the Mantis ticket. Hopefull this will make the hud_gauges.tbl fully functional. From what I could see it didn't work at all as intended before...
Edit: One more thing I must mention since Talon used it wrong and it obviously isn't documented well in the Wiki:
If you declare a parent for a custom gauge, then you need to declare that gauge in the #Gauges section, not the #Main Gauges section.
Also you can only use gauges as parent that can be manipulated in hud_gauges.tbl. "center of reticle" is not one of those.
Any coordinates you define for a gauge that has a parent will be interpreted as coordinates RELATIVE TO THE PARENT. That means the parent's coordinates will be ADDED to the coordinates you specify. Be aware of this.