Xenonauts: Community Edition 0.34.2 PREVIEW

[Draku]

The 0 cd bug still occurring. This is how I tested:
1. I have changed in gameconfig.xml: radar range to 12000, starting alien ticker to 1000, terror mission delay to 30, base attack mission to 40.
2. start a new game and fast forward until a terror mission spawns and flies away.
3. save to a new file.
4. fast forward 1 or 2 waves.
5. load save file.
If after first save loading the 0 cd bug doesn't occurs, after second time loading it will happen.

[Solver]

I have pretty much no knowledge when it comes to animation and the graphical side of things. If there are any animation bugs remaining in the main X:CE line, there's nothing I can do about those.

[Solver]

27 minutes ago, Draku said:

The 0 cd bug still occurring. This is how I tested:
1. I have changed in gameconfig.xml: radar range to 12000, starting alien ticker to 1000, terror mission delay to 30, base attack mission to 40.
2. start a new game and fast forward until a terror mission spawns and flies away.
3. save to a new file.
4. fast forward 1 or 2 waves.
5. load save file.
If after first save loading the 0 cd bug doesn't occurs, after second time loading it will happen.

Do you check the missions with a quantum radar to see what they are?

[Charon]

29 minutes ago, Draku said:

The 0 cd bug still occurring. This is how I tested:
1. I have changed in gameconfig.xml: radar range to 12000, starting alien ticker to 1000, terror mission delay to 30, base attack mission to 40.
2. start a new game and fast forward until a terror mission spawns and flies away.
3. save to a new file.
4. fast forward 1 or 2 waves.
5. load save file.
If after first save loading the 0 cd bug doesn't occurs, after second time loading it will happen.

Thats an intrigous way of testing, propaby means that the game counts the cd globally and not save game specific.

Edited September 25, 2016 by Charon

[Draku]

26 minutes ago, Solver said:

Do you check the missions with a quantum radar to see what they are?

No but I'm sure that they are terror ground attack and not aerial terror attack, if is that what you asking.

[Solver]

Okay, thanks. I'll probably use your method to test, and add quantum detection to the default radar just to be completely sure.

[Charon]

11 minutes ago, Draku said:

No but I'm sure that they are terror ground attack and not aerial terror attack, if is that what you asking.

Sfarrelly reported about a mission as #### which was obvioulsy a terror site mission so there could be something faulty as well.

10 minutes ago, Solver said:

Okay, thanks. I'll probably use your method to test, and add quantum detection to the default radar just to be completely sure.

Always test with a quantum radar, it just tells you so much more.

[Solver]

Yeah the #### mission surprised me. Maybe there were too many UFOs and the game even ran out of proper missions to assign... I think proper strings do exist for all mission types.

[sfarrelly]

Hi Solver,

I've been playing around with the new manufacture categories and have a few notes for you to look at. Some of this is in context with previous talks among our team

1. It would appear that the original Extraterrestrials category was deleted or renamed (accidentally?) somewhere along the way. This explains why nothing ever unlocks it and also why it was the only original category that didn't duplicate when i put in all 9 of them in the manufacture_categories.xml. That's obviously just a guess, but i think its a reasonable theory and explains all the other issues with that category.

2. The other 8 categories have had their "name" or ID changed, they are no longer referred to as Manu.******* and instead are simply ******* (this is why strings couldn't change them before). Just something other modders should know about if they want to change original category names in strings.xml

3. Now that I've managed to change names, I can also confirm that the strings entries are required unless you want everything called #####. Still doesn't explain how it knew the names for the remaining original 8 categories?? The X:CE strings still refers to them as Manu.********?

4. Removing the FillsSlot part worked fine. UFO DSB's don't require a hangar bay.

5. Adding new categories works just fine. I added 4 phase 1 categories in my game and it looks like this : 

We've also successfully added 24 new categories subsequently

6. I can't find any way to sort the categories. I thought it was in the range contained at the bottom of manufactures.xml, but that didn't work. I used the following : 

 <DataValidation xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel">
   <Range>R1C2,R27C2:R1048576C2</Range>
   <Type>List</Type>
   <CellRangeList/>
   <Value>&quot;Phase1DSB,Phase1UFO,Lasers,Division,SoldierWeapons,Ammunition,Equipment,Armour,Vehicles,VehicleWeapons,Aircraft,AircraftWeapons&quot;</Value>
   <ErrorMessage>Use the list to select a category.</ErrorMessage>
   <ErrorTitle>Invalid value!</ErrorTitle>
  </DataValidation>

Maybe i'm just looking in the wrong place and this is easy to fix . We can work around this, just letting you know.

7. Again, something for modders to note. The manufacture_categories.xml will only work in the xce folder UNLESS you change the header to read as follows.

<ManufactureCategories MODMERGE="replace">

If you don't you will be limited to 1 new category (whichever one is the bottom/last one of the new list).

 

Thanks again for adding this feature. It will make quite a difference to our mod  

[Solver]

Thanks for the comments! Answers to specific points:

1. Seems to be a mismatch between Extraterrestrial and Extraterrestrials (singular vs. plural). If you write the category in the plural in manufactures.xml, does it work? If yes, then that's the error. I'll fix it so that the singular works as originally intended.

2. Yup, I copy-pasted those names.

3. There are both Manu and normal strings in the X:CE strings.xml. So there's Manu.Aircraft and Aircraft now. The Manu.* ones are not used but are left in case some mod refers to them specifically.

6. There is no sorting. That DataValidation stuff is probably used to prevent people from entering categories other than the original 8. Can't be sure since I don't use Excel. The sorting is semi-random. I'll make them sort alphabetically if that's not too difficult.

7. Wouldn't 'insert' also be fine though?

[sfarrelly]

12 minutes ago, Solver said:

1. Seems to be a mismatch between Extraterrestrial and Extraterrestrials (singular vs. plural). If you write the category in the plural in manufactures.xml, does it work? If yes, then that's the error. I'll fix it so that the singular works as originally intended.

Yes, that was the problem. Extraterrestrials works if used in manufactures. 

13 minutes ago, Solver said:

7. Wouldn't 'insert' also be fine though?

I just tested it and nope, "insert" didn't work. I think Draku tried them all out and found only "replace" to work.

[Solver]

1 minute ago, sfarrelly said:

Yes, that was the problem. Extraterrestrials works if used in manufactures. 

Great. Stick with the singular though, I'll fix the naming in the code.

[Charon]

40 minutes ago, Charon said:

Your best bet is simply

    <ManufactureCategory MODMERGE="insert">
        <ID>Lasers</ID>
    </ManufactureCategory>

    <ManufactureCategory MODMERGE="replace"> (or update)
        <ID>Aircraft</ID>
    </ManufactureCategory>

    <ManufactureCategory MODMERGE="insert">
        <ID>ExtraCatgeory</ID>
    </ManufactureCategory>

Draku may test this setup soon.

[Solver]

Specifying the Aircraft category should not be necessary - the original categories should still always appear. Correct me if I'm wrong of course.

[Charon]

Heres the whole conversation:

49 minutes ago, Charon said:

  Quote

 

10 hours ago, sfarrelly said:

hmm, out of curiosity, would using one of the modmerge commands make any difference. I'm not sure how they work exactly, so just asking.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ManufactureCategories MODMERGE="update">
	<!--
	Add custom manufacture categories here. Only ones not present in the vanilla game.
	Tags look like:
	<ManufactureCategory>
		<ID>SomeCategoryId</ID>
	</ManufactureCategory>
	
	The ID should then be used for the Category column in manufactures.xml, and have a
	corresponding entry in strings.xml
	-->
	<ManufactureCategory>
		<ID>Lasers</ID>
	</ManufactureCategory>
	<ManufactureCategory>
		<ID>Division</ID>
	</ManufactureCategory>
	<ManufactureCategory>
		<ID>Phase1DSB</ID>
	</ManufactureCategory>
	<ManufactureCategory>
		<ID>Phase1UFO</ID>
	</ManufactureCategory>
</ManufactureCategories>

or something like that?

EDIT : sorry, wrong thread.

"insert" needs the line to be an non existing entry

"update" needs an existing line and only updates the MODMERGEATTRIBUTES, so everything you specify

"replace" needs an existing line and completely replaces the entry with the line you defined, so left out code wont be there.

 

XCE is not a mod and therefore doesnt obey the same rules.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

Btw does anyone know what the standalone line does ?

 

Well anyway,

<ManufactureCategories MODMERGE="update">

fails because you add non existing entries

<ManufactureCategories MODMERGE="insert">

fails because as i can see the original entries are still somehow connected to this, as far as i can see and feel the problem.

<ManufactureCategories MODMERGE="replace">

Works because it evades the problem of the non existing entries and the problem with the existing ones at the same time.

 

Your best bet is simply

    <ManufactureCategory MODMERGE="insert">
        <ID>Lasers</ID>
    </ManufactureCategory>

    <ManufactureCategory MODMERGE="replace"> (or update)
        <ID>Aircraft</ID>
    </ManufactureCategory>

    <ManufactureCategory MODMERGE="insert">
        <ID>ExtraCatgeory</ID>
    </ManufactureCategory>

 

etc ...

Great job in finding that out all on your own.

[sfarrelly]

2 hours ago, Solver said:

Specifying the Aircraft category should not be necessary - the original categories should still always appear. Correct me if I'm wrong of course.

Yup, the same is true for all the original categories. Once a manufacture is assigned to them, they'll appear in the list upon unlocking it.

[Solver]

Yeah, good to know it's as intended, then.

I briefly considered moving even the default categories out to a XML file, but that runs the risk of someone renaming or removing a category there and breaking their mod or the base game. Whereas one of my goals with X:CE is always to keep non-optional changes to the official game to a minimum, and to maintain compatibility with everything (X:CE can still load saved games from the first release of Xenonauts).

[sfarrelly]

Just now, Solver said:

Yeah, good to know it's as intended, then.

I briefly considered moving even the default categories out to a XML file, but that runs the risk of someone renaming or removing a category there and breaking their mod or the base game. Whereas one of my goals with X:CE is always to keep non-optional changes to the official game to a minimum, and to maintain compatibility with everything (X:CE can still load saved games from the first release of Xenonauts).

That would be quite useful if you did. Especially in relation to sorting the manufacture options in the left-hand panel.

At present they will sort themselves in the following order

Original 8 (to be 9) categories in the order Extraterrestrial,SoldierWeapons,Ammunition,Equipment,Armour,Vehicles,VehicleWeapons,Aircraft,AircraftWeapons and then followed sequentially by any new entries in the manufacture_categories.xml regardless of order unlocked in.

This already gives us quite a bit of flexibility with deciding on the order we would like the categories to be displayed when the list is fully populated with perhaps only the original Aircraft and Vehicles categories being mandatory to retain from the originals, whereas if they were added to the new file, (and if it followed the rules above) then we would have complete control on how a final listing would appear in-game.

[drages]

7 minutes ago, Solver said:

Yeah, good to know it's as intended, then.

I briefly considered moving even the default categories out to a XML file, but that runs the risk of someone renaming or removing a category there and breaking their mod or the base game. Whereas one of my goals with X:CE is always to keep non-optional changes to the official game to a minimum, and to maintain compatibility with everything (X:CE can still load saved games from the first release of Xenonauts).

After this versions additions, i think if someone plan to play Xenonauts after those years, they will come for a new thing, a big new thing to give him a reason to replay or begin with.. As there is nothing from the developer side like a DLC or expansion, the only point will be mods.. and he looked to a mod. He will see there is one, bigger then the game total size.. he will think that, there is something serious out there.. we know what will happen next, doesn't we?..

Aside for half joking, this is the fact at games now.. 

[Charon]

7 minutes ago, sfarrelly said:

This already gives us quite a bit of flexibility with deciding on the order we would like the categories to be displayed when the list is fully populated with perhaps only the original Aircraft and Vehicles categories being mandatory to retain from the originals, whereas if they were added to the new file, (and if it followed the rules above) then we would have complete control on how a final listing would appear in-game.

So what Sfarrelly and I want to say is:

1. Please no alphabetical order, the current system works perfectly

2. Can you make a sorting system for the actual manufactrures inside the tabs ?

Edited September 27, 2016 by Charon

[Solver]

It's silly not have them sorted at all. There's this random order from the original categories, which is just stupid. Also people normally expect things to be sorted by alphabet. Vehicles are between Armour and Aircraft. This shouldn't be the case.

[drages]

1 minute ago, Solver said:

It's silly not have them sorted at all. There's this random order from the original categories, which is just stupid. Also people normally expect things to be sorted by alphabet. Vehicles are between Armour and Aircraft. This shouldn't be the case.

To be honest, the storage UI needs a real sorting. People check what they got annnnddd they just lost it in 1000s of things. 

[Solver]

Don't make a mod where people have hundreds of manufactures and thousands of items?

[Charon]

1 minute ago, Solver said:

Don't make a mod where people have hundreds of manufactures and thousands of items?

We got 1229 items and counting.

You are welcome .

[Charon]

3 minutes ago, drages said:

To be honest, the storage UI needs a real sorting. People check what they got annnnddd they just lost it in 1000s of things. 

+1

A totally revamped interface where people have lots of categories would be a game saver, almost.