Currently working on...

[MasterBLB]

Greeting Mechwarriors

In this thread I'll post what I'm working on currently for next releases of Mech Designer. Currently (22.06.2019) it is:
1) Redesign of "Free Tonnage" dialog. Functionality will be kept the same, however it'll have completely new look.

 

[stjobe]

Pinned.

 

[Xeryx]

Outstanding!!

 

[MasterBLB]

02.07.2019
- button to setup mech part cost as a given percentage of total mech cost
- some kind of auto-updater

 

[nosleeves]

Thank you for the work!

 

[MasterBLB]

03.07.2019
- some kind of "recently used designs" in "Main" menu which will contain links to loaded files, both *.mechDesign and *.json

 

[mjbroekman]

Thank you for all the hard work you're putting into this.

If I might make a suggestion:
- Would it be possible to read in the UnitTags (StreamingAssets/data/tags/UnitTags.json) and turn the tag list into a multi-select or checkbox table rather than having to remember what all the tags are?
- Would it be possible to add a checkbox that adds the 'BLACKLISTED' tag?

 

[MasterBLB]

Thank you for all the hard work you're putting into this.

If I might make a suggestion:
- Would it be possible to read in the UnitTags (StreamingAssets/data/tags/UnitTags.json) and turn the tag list into a multi-select or checkbox table rather than having to remember what all the tags are?
- Would it be possible to add a checkbox that adds the 'BLACKLISTED' tag?

Generally it's possible, though presentation rather will stay as it is now. However, I will ponder about some kind of editor for adding/removing tags - a quick idea is:
after triggering editing the tags such dialog will popup

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| <some info text, as usual in my dialogs>                                                      |
|  <an internal table/list whose rows will contain tag names                           |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+                        |
| |tag name in row                                                                  |   [ADD]            |
| |row will be edited by combox with tags read from .json, or|   [REMOVE]    |
| |empty line to write own tag                                                 |                         |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+                        |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Of course, this might change during development, if I'll see that idea does not work well.

There are additional things to consider, like:

• may the tags duplicate?
• are there any mutually exclusive tags?

Only after getting an answer to these I can start some serious development.

 

[mjbroekman]

I don't believe the tags need to be able to duplicate, though some tags in existing files are duplicated. For example, some mechs have two unit_jumpOK tags or two unit_indirectFire tags. Those are the only two that I've seen duplicated so I think that's just a mistake and doesn't actually impact anything.

The other thing I forgot about was the fact that there are faction entries in the UnitTags and those are occasionally negated. So, for example, there are units with "Kurita" in the unit tags, but there are other units with "NotKurita" in the unit tags. In the first case, I think that increases the chance of the unit appearing Kurita lances, while the second version prevents the unit from appearing in Kurita lances. (I think there is still a chance of the unit appearing in Kurita lances if it doesn't have either of those, but just at a lower chance than if it had the "Kurita" tag). "Kurita" and "NotKurita" would be mutually exclusive, though I would think of that more as "Kurita with a negation modifier" rather than two separate tags. And I think the faction tags are the only ones that can be negated.

There are also several tags that simply don't make sense on mech:

• unit_wheels
• unit_tracks
• unit_vehicle, unit_vehicle_carrier, unit_vehicle_mobileHQ, unit_vehicle_apc
• unit_turret

And there are two unit specific tags (unit_urbie and unit_hatchetman) whose purpose I'm not sure of, but wouldn't make sense outside of units built on those chassis

 

[MasterBLB]

Hmmm so in short - I can give a tool for easier setting up unit tags, but it'll be up to modder to set something valid and meaningful. Ok, fine by me.

 

[mjbroekman]

Yeah. The idea was more to make it easier for the modder to know the stock unit tags and be able to select the ones the want. I'm not so far into modding that I have them all memorized so I thought it would be useful

 

[MasterBLB]

25.07.2019
- some editor for easier management of unit's tags.

 

[MasterBLB]

@Amechwarrior @mjbroekman
This is how it will look like, more or less:

The combobox is editable so you'll be able to write custom tags as well.

 

[Amechwarrior]

@Amechwarrior @mjbroekman
This is how it will look like, more or less:
View attachment 506372
The combobox is editable so you'll be able to write custom tags as well.

That looks great!

 

[MasterBLB]

12.11.2019
- preparation for Heavy Metal expansion - GUI tweaks, mechanics to handle quirks.
- minor QoL improvements - add heatsinks effectiveness to the list in the combobox, change CBills icon to something prettier.

 

[MasterBLB]

21.02.2020
Support for patch 1.9, in particular:
- support for mechs whose got internal engine DHS
- update FP, UW and HW packs to include recently introduced mechs
- bugfixes for newly messed up by HBS .json data

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Thank you Good @MasterBLB. Our Modding Community is all the better and more immersive for your time, talents and efforts. :bow:

 

[MasterBLB]

01.04.2020
QoL improvements:
- add new equipment dialog in floating mode will get buttons to switch to other locations of the mech, without need to move cursor over the mech and click them.
- all buttons from the main toolbar will be duplicated in context menu of the main draw area, so it'll be possible to invoke it anywhere just by right mouse button.
- ABANDONED direct support of Battletech Extended mod due to extremely unfriendly community; couldn't get necessary information from them.

 

[MasterBLB]

An illustration of the change - before floating mode looked like:

I've added buttons to switch part the dialog is bound to, and it looks like:

 

[MasterBLB]

- exploring a way to obtain list of available equipment from save file, and restrict accordingly what is shown in add new equipment dialog.
- making groups (these buttons HEATSINKS, JUMP JETS etc) in new equipment dialog fully customizable in probably .ini file - its name, icon, tab (weapon or equipment), sort order and content.