Mostly to consolidate Mod Talks here.
Starting off, and I'd edit this as I go along, I'm looking at the VersionManifest. It already has >2x the items that the Beta VersionManifest has, so... that's a lot of things to go through.
=====
Here, I insert something that I wrote further down the thread that you guys should be aware of:
Be very careful about deploying mods.
The issue I've found while working on my mods is.. best describe with the following:
1. Say you worked out the necessary to introduce a new mech or a new weapon into the game. It works and you can see it in the Skirmish game, and can use it to equip other mechs in the Mechlab. You make up a whole bunch of new mech builds and saves them in the game.
2. A few days later, you decide to rework some aspect of the mod, and for some reason, needed to remove the mech/ weapon. You code up your new work perfectly and loads up the game, and try to go into Skirmish or MechLab.
3. The game goes into stunlock. Checking the logs, you see things like this:
4. Try as you might, you can't get the game to go into Skirmish/ Mechlab. You are now faced with the option of a reinstall, which will wipe your campaign progress.
The reason for this (IMO) potentially dangerous behaviour is that when you modify a mech build and save it, the game save it into the internal DB or some save file that we don't currently have any idea where it is. That isn't bad, it's a good thing. It lets us save our favorite broke builds to repeatedly bring up to beat people over the head with.
The bad thing, and unknown to most of you, is that whenever Skirmish or Mechlab starts up, it does a basic verification check against ALL saved builds, and start generating warnings such as the above when they find mech builds that doesn't work. The worse part is that it doesn't ignore these, but goes into stunlock.
Since these builds are not in JSON and is actually likely in a DB somewhere, we can't manually remove these entries. The solution I went with (since it's my mods and I know what the heck I did), was to reinstate the missing entries that the system is complaining about, and try the Skirmish and Mechlab. Once those are working, I go through the entries and delete any that contains the bad material. And then I can remove the unwanted Manifest entries. If that sound like a lot of work, yes it is.. well actually not that bad since I have certain habits. But that's because I know the crap that I'm working on.
But imagine if you are a basic user who heard of this great mod and you download but found it not as great as you felt it to be. You remove the mod and then the whole game locks up on you. You reinstall and lose all progress in the main game. How'd that make you feel about the mod creator?
Also, bear in mind MP Skirmish needs both clients to be on the same basis. That usually implies players would add/ remove mods regularly.
I know putting this up can have a chilling effect on mods, but you guys do need to know this before too many mods are released and people start having games that freeze up on them. So think carefully how you want to handle a case when your mod has to be removed from an installed game.
=====
Back to the original OP:
Let's get going then.
Mech Assets:
Going through the VersionManifest, it looks like they cleaned up their models somewhat. Naming convention are maintained so some odd cases like Cataphract head missiles, Commando missiles had their name changed. In some cases mods will have problems because they are referring to previous names.
Otherwise, the old names look to match, so I'd guess 70%, 80% of old mods should work? Trying to chase down the last few is going to be a pain though.
Looks like all AMS assets are removed.
Some new weapons assets, like the Atlas Gauss, are added.
Catapult LRMs in the first and second slots in Beta are now SRM. If you are using those assets specifically, might need to update.
Oddly, Jager still missing arm energy mount 1s. Strange, that one.
Quickdraw CT assets had been reworked, some new oddity there. Be careful when reusing BETA code for Quickdraw.
All BETA Raven assets are removed. Makes sense.
Also, it looks like Beta AP weapons are still keyed to Energy and Ballistic types. That used to cause problems. Have to test to see whether that still cause problems.
Other assets:
A lot of turret assets are added, a lot of weapons options. I'd have to look at them separately.
More vehicular assets. From the assets: APC, Bulldog, Demolisher, Galleon, Leopard (obviously), Manticore, Mobile HQ, Schreck, Scorpion (treads not legs), Striker, Swiftwind, Union.
.... why is there an asset for "SLDF drone"?
Weapons Effect:
OH HO! Gauss weapon effect.
OH HO!! ER and pulse laser effects.
AC10 and AC20 also get single shot versions.
Mood Settings:
Basically all the BETA mood settings have been ditched. Maybe we can still salvage the old files for use.
UI stuff: A lot. Some interesting. But.. a LOT. Skipping over to mod stuff...
Skills underwent a revamp so quite different from Beta. Basics are the same though.
Ammo: Yay they left in AMS ammo. Thanks HBS! Unfortunately, they renamed the ammo boxes so likely existing mods would break.
Heat Sinks and Jump Jet names changed, so basically BETA mods should break. Gotta recode them all. So are weapon names.
Taking a break to get some chores done. Back later.
Starting off, and I'd edit this as I go along, I'm looking at the VersionManifest. It already has >2x the items that the Beta VersionManifest has, so... that's a lot of things to go through.
=====
Here, I insert something that I wrote further down the thread that you guys should be aware of:
Be very careful about deploying mods.
The issue I've found while working on my mods is.. best describe with the following:
1. Say you worked out the necessary to introduce a new mech or a new weapon into the game. It works and you can see it in the Skirmish game, and can use it to equip other mechs in the Mechlab. You make up a whole bunch of new mech builds and saves them in the game.
2. A few days later, you decide to rework some aspect of the mod, and for some reason, needed to remove the mech/ weapon. You code up your new work perfectly and loads up the game, and try to go into Skirmish or MechLab.
3. The game goes into stunlock. Checking the logs, you see things like this:
Data.DataManager [ERROR] LoadRequest for THI_WD_Weapon_LaserPulse_Medium of type WeaponDef has an invalid manifest entry. Any requests for this object will fail. (Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/DebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 51)
Data.DataManager [ERROR] LoadRequest for THI_WD_AmmunitionBox_LBX10C of type AmmunitionBoxDef has an invalid manifest entry. Any requests for this object will fail. (Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/DebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 51)
Data.DataManager [ERROR] LoadRequest for THI_WD_AmmunitionBox_LBX10C of type AmmunitionBoxDef has an invalid manifest entry. Any requests for this object will fail. (Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/DebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 51)
4. Try as you might, you can't get the game to go into Skirmish/ Mechlab. You are now faced with the option of a reinstall, which will wipe your campaign progress.
The reason for this (IMO) potentially dangerous behaviour is that when you modify a mech build and save it, the game save it into the internal DB or some save file that we don't currently have any idea where it is. That isn't bad, it's a good thing. It lets us save our favorite broke builds to repeatedly bring up to beat people over the head with.
The bad thing, and unknown to most of you, is that whenever Skirmish or Mechlab starts up, it does a basic verification check against ALL saved builds, and start generating warnings such as the above when they find mech builds that doesn't work. The worse part is that it doesn't ignore these, but goes into stunlock.
Since these builds are not in JSON and is actually likely in a DB somewhere, we can't manually remove these entries. The solution I went with (since it's my mods and I know what the heck I did), was to reinstate the missing entries that the system is complaining about, and try the Skirmish and Mechlab. Once those are working, I go through the entries and delete any that contains the bad material. And then I can remove the unwanted Manifest entries. If that sound like a lot of work, yes it is.. well actually not that bad since I have certain habits. But that's because I know the crap that I'm working on.
But imagine if you are a basic user who heard of this great mod and you download but found it not as great as you felt it to be. You remove the mod and then the whole game locks up on you. You reinstall and lose all progress in the main game. How'd that make you feel about the mod creator?
Also, bear in mind MP Skirmish needs both clients to be on the same basis. That usually implies players would add/ remove mods regularly.
I know putting this up can have a chilling effect on mods, but you guys do need to know this before too many mods are released and people start having games that freeze up on them. So think carefully how you want to handle a case when your mod has to be removed from an installed game.
=====
Back to the original OP:
Let's get going then.
Mech Assets:
Going through the VersionManifest, it looks like they cleaned up their models somewhat. Naming convention are maintained so some odd cases like Cataphract head missiles, Commando missiles had their name changed. In some cases mods will have problems because they are referring to previous names.
Otherwise, the old names look to match, so I'd guess 70%, 80% of old mods should work? Trying to chase down the last few is going to be a pain though.
Looks like all AMS assets are removed.
Some new weapons assets, like the Atlas Gauss, are added.
Catapult LRMs in the first and second slots in Beta are now SRM. If you are using those assets specifically, might need to update.
Oddly, Jager still missing arm energy mount 1s. Strange, that one.
Quickdraw CT assets had been reworked, some new oddity there. Be careful when reusing BETA code for Quickdraw.
All BETA Raven assets are removed. Makes sense.
Also, it looks like Beta AP weapons are still keyed to Energy and Ballistic types. That used to cause problems. Have to test to see whether that still cause problems.
Other assets:
A lot of turret assets are added, a lot of weapons options. I'd have to look at them separately.
More vehicular assets. From the assets: APC, Bulldog, Demolisher, Galleon, Leopard (obviously), Manticore, Mobile HQ, Schreck, Scorpion (treads not legs), Striker, Swiftwind, Union.
.... why is there an asset for "SLDF drone"?
Weapons Effect:
OH HO! Gauss weapon effect.
OH HO!! ER and pulse laser effects.
AC10 and AC20 also get single shot versions.
Mood Settings:
Basically all the BETA mood settings have been ditched. Maybe we can still salvage the old files for use.
UI stuff: A lot. Some interesting. But.. a LOT. Skipping over to mod stuff...
Skills underwent a revamp so quite different from Beta. Basics are the same though.
Ammo: Yay they left in AMS ammo. Thanks HBS! Unfortunately, they renamed the ammo boxes so likely existing mods would break.
Heat Sinks and Jump Jet names changed, so basically BETA mods should break. Gotta recode them all. So are weapon names.
Taking a break to get some chores done. Back later.
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