Unstable Space Status Feb 02, 2007

Later status updates are down at the bottom.


Nov 5, 2006

Hey Everyone,

We are making very good progress on the Unstable Space release. After returning from our summer off we found that the mod needed a few more features to round it off. Almost all of those features are now complete.

Soon we will be down to the bug hunt. The mod is large and we are going to need a few alpha testers. The disadvantage of alpha testing is there will be a bunch of scenarios to work through. The advantage is that the mod is still under development and your feedback can still change things this release. I will post details in about two weeks.

Nov 13, 2006

It was a very busy coding week. I opened a can of worms by starting a rewrite of the player wingman code.

It would normally be crazy to start such a change this late, but a few factors prompted me to do it.

As JT surmized in the wingman commands thread, the wingmen were coded as mindless minions. The code was not structured to allow them any unique behavior. And that made it difficult to have them respond to the player correctly. I had one case where the wingman response said one thing while the wingman the total opposite. At that point I knew the code had to change.

The mindlessness had many other side effects. During combat testing we ran into trouble where the wingmen would just chase targets forever. Or they would flee forever if damaged. The problem is that the PS AI routines are just very low level. And we had nothing at a higher level.

To close those bugs and resolve the combat handling, a rewrite was needed. And to code those changes required a fair amount of restructuring. What needed to change was some of the oldest code in the mod. Way back to iFleet days.

A bunch of cool features will come out of it. Wingmen are more talkative. Each ship in a group responds. They can have unique messages. They support more orders. They can refuse player orders. Transports refuse to attack, they tend to flee combat faster.

Overall wingmen are a little bit smarter. The code structure supports them getting lots smarter.

This all comes at a cost however. Another delay. I expect wrapping up the wingman code and first pass testing will take us another few weeks.

I should have more information on the alpha testers we need next Sunday.

GrandpaTrout: Is it your intention to update the forum on the progress of the mod on a weekly, bi-weekly basis? This update was very interesting. Thanks.

I like to do updates as the mod does the last run up to testing. In the time between mods, there is not much to say, so I don't comment much. Once testing starts the flurry of bug reporting and discussion is often comment enough. So I expect to update every week or so until beta gets going. Then I will be busy stomping bugs.

Progress on the wingman code rewrite, but not done yet.

The wingmen are getting smarter. One example is ordering your wingmen to attack a target. In Torn Stars they would have killed the target and then sat there without orders (typically getting shot up).
Now after the target is destroyed or flees combat they zoom into escort mode fighting with other nearby hostile ships until you give them a different order.

All the old commands have now been rewritten. The wingman text is next on the list to update. Once that is done we should be very close to feature complete. There are some outstanding bugs, but not more than a weeks worth.

It is Thanksgiving Holidays this week in the US, so little progress and no update planned for next Sunday. The week after I should have some good news.

Dan sweet! GrandpaTrout. Holidays to you, your family and the group here.