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11 August - Documentation again
Remember the late time I mentioned documentation I said I’d eventually make it automated?
I did that today. It’s now tied to the steam upload so it should update every time Steam does (ie, nightly).
You can find the documentation here: http://doc.playstarbound.com/
You can navigate around by classes or by namespace, but the front page is mostly blank (because it’s the default doxygen setup).
The bits that you lua modders are most interested in are located here:
http://doc.playstarbound.com/namespaceStar_1_1LuaBindings.html under the namespaces section ( for instance:
http://doc.playstarbound.com/namespaceStar_1_1LuaBindings_1_1WorldEnvironmentCallbacks.html )
Hope this helps!
Also did a few things with the Sky today. I’m currently separating the Sky from the Celestial Coordinate system so that we can give fully featured Skies to Outputs and Instances and the like. Nothing too exciting though.
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12 August - Yep definitely 12
Sorry, I was supposed to do the daily update yesterday and I missed it :(
I’ve been working on a ton of things lately, instancing and unique world support, world <-> world warping, new world generation types and general world generation fixes, material light sources.
But right now I’m fixing a loooong standing series of bugs in starbound regarding projectile disconnects between the client and server. I’m basically done, and with any luck you will see it in tonight’s update.
If I finish and merge today, I’ll do another post later today that goes into how the fix actually works.
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13 August - It's Aug 13 Now
Projectile disconnect fix is complete and pushed to master. It’s less of a fix and more of a.. near total rework.
I promised I would go into more detail but.. it’s late so here’s the very VERY quick version:
Projectiles are now proper synced entities with entity update deltas and everything, and damage is sometimes applied where an entity is not necessarily the master entity. Our old concept of a disconnected entity is gone, and there has been a lot of simplification with other damage and status related parts of the code. Self damage no longer routes through the damage manager, and instead entities can produce arbitrary damage notifications themselves. Damage requests and now also a new thing called *hit requests* can travel over the network before being applied, and there is no longer a need for direct status effect requests over the network. Total change in lines of code: -120
PvP needs lots more work still, but PvE locally and over network should be MILES better.
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14 August - Steady as she goes!
Hey guys!
Over the past few days I’ve continued my work on the lunar base mission with a nice steady rate of progress with some feedback from Tiy and George along the way. As I’ve stated previously, I don’t wish to spoil any plot details, but I’m okay with teasing a small piece of the environment. You may also notice a subtle new feature that crept its way into the game. Blocks are now capable of casting light.
It can be challenging at times; sculpting out a cave environment in such a way that it looks natural while also keeping the player’s ability to traverse it firmly in mind. That said, I think it’s coming along nicely.
On a side note, yesterday’s upload of the nightly build failed, so if you’re interested in trying out Kyren’s new projectile code, the update only went live a couple of hours ago. Personally, I’ve already noticed a huge improvement!
Area-of-effect projectiles like grenades are hitting and damaging multiple enemies far more reliably. The issue of projectiles outright disappearing when shot point blank into an enemy’s face is gone. If you have a bunch of monsters clustered together and you land a melee attack it now damages all of them as it should, rather than just a fraction. The PvE combat is feeling really good right now. Nice work, Kyren!
Anyway, that’s it from me. Stay classy and good night!
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15 August - Dev Blog Nova
Here’s a little something I’ve been working on… The Novakid will be needing their own armor sets.
Time to go back to my Devcave. K Bye!
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18 August - More Manipulation
As we’ve been working on the progression of the early game, one awkward point that kept coming up is the Matter Manipulator. You’re given this all-purpose future tool, but then immediately replace it with stone age pickaxes because of their superior digging ability. So, for the past few days, I’ve been prototyping a system of upgrades for the Matter Manipulator that should keep it useful throughout the course of the game and give players something more futuristic than hand tools. This is all WIP, obviously, but so far it seems to make more sense both aesthetically and mechanically. Here’s a quick look at the current range of upgrades we’re testing:
Players will be able to upgrade the area, digging power, and other numerical aspects of the Matter Manipulator as well as enabling new harvesting options such as liquid collection. Hopefully, this should make it a satisfying tool in your character’s arsenal and even offer a bit of customization to suit your play style.
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19 August - Let's throw a rave!
It’s pretty much been business as usual for me the last few days. The lunar base mission is getting to a really nice place, and I’ll be able to start populating it with enemies and loot very soon.
Kyren kindly implemented a quick update to our lighting engine that provides far greater control of how a light flickers. Previously the controls were a little vague and it was often difficult to get the precise results desired. It was difficult to get lights doing anything other than dimming and brightening in an largely unpredictable fashion.
Now we have the capacity to make lights pulse, strobe, or flicker erratically as we wish. As a side effect of this update, you may notice in the nightly that any lights that previously flickered currently are not doing so, but I’ll be quickly zipping through them to make them work as intended again in my downtime.
I put a quick video test together with a variation of the spotlights that flickers erratically. I do not advise watching this video if you are sensitive to strobing light effects as I have purposefully used a lot of them in one space simply to demonstrate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXvOLZEdeQY
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No space left for Omni's post from yesterday on the JSON patching system, so I'll just leave a link here.
http://playstarbound.com/august-19-the-day-when-all-your-mods-died/
'Til next time!
