Planning for the 7th Transcendence succession game

[TVR]

-Added "Star Castle"
-Mixed "Interstellar Communication" with "Communications Array"
-Mixed "Upgraded Wingmen" with "New Wingmen - Arco Vaughn"
-Fixed bitmask of "Orbital Space Station"
-Updated "Upgradeable Wingmen" to 1.3

Keeping the vote tallied in the first post.

In a proper phpbb poll, adding more mods now would automatically reset the vote. However, given that there have only been two votes cast so far, we can add Star Castle, if it's okay with the two of you, FourFire, RPC.

@Pixelfck

Can confirm the Useful Items Dockscreens bug, using a barrel twice in a row on the same segment crashes Transcendence to desktop.

@digdug

What happens when the overlay error appears? Does weapon randomization function as expected?

[FourFire]

Go ahead and Add Starcastle, then reopen the edited poll.

[AssumedPseudonym]

 I’m going to be skipping the succession run — too much on my plate, already — so I’m not going to put in a vote on any of the above. I do feel obligated to point out that I did not have any help from (^o^) while I was designing the 531-CW, though. ^.~

 Seriously, no offense intended or taken or whatever. I’m just amused that one of my ships got misattributed. …I should not be allowed near a keyboard at five-in-the-morning. There’s no telling what I’ll wind up typing… ¬.¬;

[PM]

I should have the PSD update uploaded to Xelerus sometime today. So far, I added support for the updated AE ships, updated Lindworm, Sapphire/X, Vulture, and Star Castle ships. Agauptera and Stalwart have 120 facings. (I did not rotate sprites - they wobbled; instead I merely tripled the sprites so that player can move and aim as a 120 facings ship.)

[RPC]

Apparently I can't vote for some reason, and the polls says that it "ended at Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:06 pm", so fix end date maybe?

[PM]

Just uploaded updates of 120 Facings Ships part 1, Playership Drones, and Wizard Auton to Xelerus.

EDIT - Reuploaded Xelerus ship pack. I had to hurry to finish it before the end of the day, so there may be bugs or omissions.

[PM]

I will make one more update to the Xelerus pack. I plan to adjust Lindworm weapon mounts (thanks to advice from (^o^)), try to add New Factions, and maybe other stuff like add an interior to the Vulture and make the Wyvera and other ships 120 facings (by padding sprites).

I will try to upload the update today or (more likely) tomorrow.

EDIT - Decided not to add New Factions now - too much work for the time I have. Will work on converting few more 40 facings ships (that do not have firing arcs) to 120 facings instead.
EDIT #2 - Done fixing Lindworm and Vulture. All that is left is converting Wyvera warrior to 120 facings. Next upload will probably be a few hours.
EDIT #3 - Update finished and uploaded to Xelerus.

[PM]

What are the rules regarding ships in this Succession? What I like to pilot and my vote for what the starter ship should be may be two different things.

[TVR]

-Mixed in "Upgradable Wingmen"
-Completely fixed "Companion Framework"
-Updated "AE - New Ships"
-Updated "Wizard Auton", PSD, "120 Facing Library"
-Added "Vulture Light Cruiser"
-Fixed crashing on PSD linked weapons screen

There is still a major game crashing bug which makes it risky to include the special effect of the GCWeapons Elite Hell Blaster, designation "The Beast"

Currently, using barrels and analyzers in certain ways crashes Transcendence. Hopefully we can debug this, otherwise, we could revert to an older version.

Everything else is ready to go. The release candidate for the modpack will be posted on Friday, the final build and the first turn on the weekend. If the votes for the starting ship are still tied by then, (random '("Agauptera" "Wyvera warrior" "Starbridge")).

On a final note, please read the first post and vote, even if you feel unsure about taking a turn now.

@PM

It seems odd to convert 40-facing ships to 120-rotations without adding more facings, nonetheless it's worth further testing.

There was a critical bug affecting the linked weapon configuration screen: Calling (scrShowScreen gScreen &dsShipConfig;) to exit the screen instead of (scrExitScreen gScreen), which causes problems when combined with DetailedShipConfig. This appears to be the same bug that is affecting BME and ViewByCategory, and involves some combination of (scrShowScreen), <OnGlobalPaneInit> and nestedScreen=false.

There currently aren't any restrictions on the types of ship we can use.

[PM]

It seems odd to convert 40-facing ships to 120-rotations without adding more facings

It seems that way for Transcendence, but other (older) games like Diablo II used the idea just fine. Try it if you have doubts. I like being able to aim weapons without blind spots getting in the way.

I tried rotating existing sprites, but the animation of such a reconstituted spritesheet jitters or wobbles. For ships like Agauptera, it was not apparent until the player flew near the sun and into a bright background. Others like the Angelus wobbled painfully. The idea of replicating sprites to pad extra facings came when I recalled Diablo II. It was the solution to add more facings to aim while not breaking animation. When ship is sufficiently small, forty facings may be enough to animate the ship, but not enough for precision aiming. Of course, having access to the original model and rerendering the whole thing to 120 facings (along with 8-bit mask) would be ideal, but that is not an option.

I doubt I will pad anymore ships for a while because the Xelerus pack is nearing the 5 MB limit. I want to leave some room for expansion.

[PM]

(^o^) just uploaded an updated Vesta. I will examine it then maybe add it to the PSD Xelerus pack.

Update: Reuploaded Xelerus pack with the Vesta and fixed Star Castle ships.

[TVR]

-Fixed crashes from using barrels and analyzers in "Useful Items Dockscreens"
-Fixed overlay error messages
-Removed vetoed mods

Newest version of modpack (Release Candidate): https://www.fileconvoy.com/dfl.php?id=g ... e8fcac7a81
MD5 checksum: 78e0786079114d7f89d43e61f5e4efc4
SHA1 checksum: 736e45d06e82f5ac8203dedb5a43fdd600982e92

This build should be free of all errors that could result in a crash. Please use this release to test and vote for gameplay settings, and a reminder to report any remaining bugs. Succession #7 will likely begin on Sunday, check on that day for a new thread which will contain the final version of the modpack and the first turn.

To install modpack: 1) Replace your Extensions/ directory with the one provided in the download. 2) Load the game, select the adventure "Beyond The Mainline" and select ALL mods. 3) Select your choice of ship and start.

Was considering updating to the increased facing versions of the Starbridge and Wyvera in the final release of the modpack, would this interested anyone else?

@Pixelfck
Will post updated versions of ModRPGAnalyzers.xml and ModUsefulItems.xml tomorrow, and we may have found the root cause of the bug affecting illegal items in ViewByCategory and Black Market Expansion.

[FourFire]

Would like to see more facings on the Starbridge and Wyvera Mothership.

Can we impliment Dynamic Systems retaliation events with centauri systems?

[PM]

Since Starbridge or Wyvera warrior will be the starting ship, I like more facings on them so I can aim at stuff without blind spots. Remember, Starbridge and Wyvera warrior still appear to have only 36 or 40 facings, but they can move and aim at 180 and 120 facings respectively; much like how characters in Diablo II have 16 or so apparent facings but can move and aim at 60+.

[TVR]

-Fixed weapon randomizer bug that prevented Foomerians and other factions with custom weapons from having any weapons
-Fixed freeze on selling fruit in "Beyond The Mainline"
-Updated Wyvera, Starbridge, Stalwart and Agauptera to 120 rotations.
-General polish and playtesting of several major systems

Upload of modpack and first turn is in progress. Check soon for a new thread.

I would like to take a moment to thank all the mod authors as well as everyone else who contributed to this modpack, it would not have been possible without all those long hours you spent crafting mods for the Transcendence community. Hopefully, the Succession can be a proud display of your efforts. Thank you.

Final modpack: https://www.fileconvoy.com/dfl.php?id=g ... af25c4d80c

Final settings:

Weapons Extended
Weapon randomizer: ON
Dark weapon skip shields: NO
Weapon identification: YES

Playership Drones
PSD ship purchase limit: 2
Friendly fire: ON
Start with programs: NO

Beyond The Mainline
System count (max): 100

Stargate model: HDStargates, 256 px

Starting ship: <Will randomly determine this in IRC>

@FourFire

No problems encountered so far with retaliation events and Centauri Systems.

@digdug

Finally discovered cause of overlay error: If no suitable random weapon can be found, then the randomizer tries to reinstall the old weapon, except it passes it as a deviceItem instead of an itemStruct.