Option to hide installed virtual items

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george moromisato
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I'm not entirely sure how to resolve this and I'd like some more input (probably from PM): https://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=58415

By default, virtual items are never shown in dock screens (unless you set the criteria to include them). But due to bad code, virtual items ARE shown in the device install/upgrade screen if they are one of the special devices: shields, launchers, reactors, drives, and cargo hold.

I'd like to close this loophole and have all virtual items hidden.

But if I do this, then virtual items would NEVER show up in the default device dockscreens. I think that's OK: the whole point of a virtual item is that it is not visible (that's why you can omit stats). If you want the device to be visible, then it should be a real (non-virtual) item.

If there are reasons why an item must be virtual AND visible, I'd like to understand them. It would probably be easier to give more abilities to non-virtual items.

I'm not going to make any changes for the next release, but I'm sure there will be a (patch) release soon afterwards.
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Xephyr
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Virtual devices that take up special slots (like cargo holds, shields, or drive slots) can cause conflicts, because ships only support one of each. In this case it might be important to have these visible.

You might have such devices installed through other devices or powers (or something that isn't a dock services screen) so it might make more sense to have virtual devices rather than physical devices that need to be installed.

This could be made redundant with slotless devices, because those can show up in dock service screens, but I'm not sure if there's any serious conflicts with using those over virtuals.
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Ok late to the party but IMO there should just be a tag that virtual items inherit that makes them not show on all dockscreen item lists. Then if you want the item to be shown you can just override the tag in the item XML so you can keep current virtual item functionality + show them when you want to.
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shanejfilomena
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Well, like RPC said, except I would tab the Dock Screen with a "Virtual" tab : have all the virtuals pushed there and either hide or have the option to show that Tab...

Personally I would not show it to regular players: just on a DeBug because it's TMI for a player trying to play & anticipate a Hostile encounter & fuel resources used while docked
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All virtual items hidden seems fine. It could be a problem if the item draws power, because you cannot see the hidden items' power use. Although it can be argued that if the item uses power, it should not be virtual in the first place. There are few good reasons I can think of to make items virtual, which are 1) avoid the one launcher limit on playerships, and enable player to install and use multiple linked-fire launchers, because launcher installation does not check virtual items; and 2) immunity to status effects like device disrupt, which do not include virtual items when those effects proc. If the weapon is a builtin unique, I probably want a way to prevent (or undo) device damage (perhaps from unlucky double ionization from a bad fight with Ventari). The easiest way to not deal with that headache is to make the built-in device virtual to prevent ion effects instead of writing several lines of code in an OnUpdate event to repair damage.
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