Cosmoteer Release Candidate 0.15.12b RC1 - Bug Fixes

Walt

Cosmoteer "unstable" release candidate 0.15.12b RC1 is now available for testing! This update is essentially just bug fixes and translation updates (plus a modding feature that I needed to implement for one of the bug fixes). Since there are no new features, I'm calling this patch "0.15.12b" instead of "0.15.13". Ordinarily I wouldn't even bother with an RC for an a/b/c patch, but the code changes are more significant than a typical patch, so I feel safer releasing it as an RC first. I'd greatly appreciate it if you could help test to make sure everything is in working order. Thanks much!!

Download Cosmoteer 0.15.12b_rc1 or auto-update via the "unstable" branch.

Changelog:

User Interface:
- Miscellaneous translation updates.
- Updated icon for the Point Defense to show the turret and barrel in its "powered" state.
Bug Fixes:
- Crash in certain screen resolutions when dragging the crop box in the screenshot/gif export dialog.
- Crash in some circumstances when clicking cancel on the "Closing the build interface before the ship is actually constructed" dialog after the ship has been deleted.
- Crash/error when starting the app that was effecting a small number of players.
- Huge numbers of particle effects could cause the game to slow down and remain slow even after all of the particles disappear.
- A.I. ships, when calculating the potential firepower of each enemy for the purposes of deciding which one to attack, were not including Ion Beam Prisms set to specific directions.
- Auto-fired tractor beams did not appear to have any length if they didn't hit anything.
- When a tractor beam hit a ship and then stopped hitting it, it would forever stay at that visual length until it hit something else. It will now return to its maximum length after 1 second.
- It wasn't possible to type line breaks or other whitespace control characters into multi-line text boxes such as the ship description.
- Certain combinations of wedge and triangle armor could leave "gaps" in the ship's perimeter walls.
- A ship whose suggested crew, power, or ammo amount is 0 would display that value as "-0".
Modding:
- Parts can now specify a list of 'VirtualInternalCells' which the game will use when figuring out how to render a ship's perimeter walls. Each entry in the list is a pair of cells called 'ExternalCell' and 'InternalCell'. When the game is figuring out what external walls sprite to use for 'ExternalCell', it will assume that 'InternalCell' is filled in, even if it's not actually. See the wedge and triangle armor for examples.

clojelo

Walt Parts can now specify a list of 'VirtualInternalCells' which the game will use when figuring out how to render a ship's perimeter walls. Each entry in the list is a pair of cells called 'ExternalCell' and 'InternalCell'. When the game is figuring out what external walls sprite to use for 'ExternalCell', it will assume that 'InternalCell' is filled in, even if it's not actually. See the wedge and triangle armor for examples.

Good ol' faithful walls are getting some love 🍪

A few feedback testing VirtualInternalCells at modded armor wedge/tri parts...

a) Consistency with wall params of a ship part

It seem VirtualInternalCells would cause wedge tips to show even though...

IsWalled = false: Expecting both internal ~~& external~~ walls hidden
ExternalWalls = [None]: Expecting external walls hidden
IsExternal = true: Expecting roofs hidden

b) (Optional) Replacing default `tri_armor.png` and `tri_roof.png` sprites at modded wedge(s)

VirtualInternalCells is a much cleaner & elegant alternative to numerous BlendSprite and BlueprintBlendSprite components. Would there be a new syntax to replacing default tri_armor.png and tri_roof.png sprites at modded wedge(s) without reverting to BlendSprite method?

c) (Optional) RequireExternalWallsToBlend param

The parameter is found in BlendSprite and BlueprintBlendSprite components. When RequireExternalWallsToBlend = false, would blend sprites consider neighboring internal walls or virtual internal walls?

For example, screenshot below shows missing wall between top & bottom wedges (left side) that have no external walls. The visual bug could be fixed if the game detected no internal wall contact between top & bottom wedges.

P/S: i could share the WIP mod if the Dev preferred quick checks against modded wedges.

Walt

clojelo IsWalled = false: Expecting both internal & external walls hidden

IsWalled only affects internal walls.

clojelo ExternalWalls = [None]: Expecting external walls hidden
clojelo IsExternal = true: Expecting roofs hidden

Is this actually a problem? The whole point of VirtualInternalCells is to override ExternalWalls and IsExternal of specific tiles.

clojelo Would there be a new syntax to replacing default tri_armor.png and tri_roof.png sprites at modded wedge(s) without reverting to BlendSprite method?

I don't understand what you're asking. Are you saying you want to use different external wall sprites than the standard sprites? No, this isn't possible without reverting to the blend sprite approach.

clojelo would blend sprites consider neighboring internal walls or virtual internal walls?

Can you elaborate on how this would fix your problem?

clojelo

Appreciate you, Walt, for taking time responding to smaller modders.

Modding wedge/tri parts with VirtualInternalCells

Walt 1IsWalled only affects internal walls. ...The whole point of VirtualInternalCells is to override ExternalWalls and IsExternal of specific tiles. ...Are you saying you want to use different external wall sprites than the standard sprites? No, this isn't possible without reverting to the blend sprite approach.

Got it. VirtualInternalCells is designed for wedges/tri with vanilla walls,

BlendSprite & BlueprintBlendsprite are still the way to go for modded wall sprites.
VirtualInternalCells overrides IsExternal and ExternalWalls parameters

Lafiel

Frankly, because of the nature how the game handles it IsExternal is pretty important. As discussed before there are problems with blending and ``IsExternal` solves one of them, In this case it's separation from vanilla corridors while still merging with each other.