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| Bi-Weekly Updates Bi-Weekly Updates are SWGEmu's cornerstone updates, posted every two weeks. |
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01-14-2009, 11:33 AM
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Bi-Weekly Update for 1/14/09
 1) Update Overview (TOC):
2) Body: DevChat January 09 Thanks to everyone who participated in the developer chat! We were almost overwhelmed with questions from 7-8PM EST! Unfortunately the Dev Chat Bot was not functional for this session, but we managed with Thrin and Saromus serving as fill in Question Masters. Thanks again to cRush for putting together yet another successful monthly session. We will continue working on ways to improve efficiency and vet out some good solid questions and answers we think people will find most interesting. If you'd like to read the log of the chat, it can be found here. We will be holding developer chats on the second Saturday of each month, so if you have a question that you would like answered, feel free to join in next month. If you do not know how to be a part of the developer's chat, read the instructions found here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heightmaps Progress Hightmaps, one of the elements of Core3 which has consumed Ramsey, TheAnswer, Oru and Link for months has finally taken a major turn towards implementation. With the groundwork laid for non-optimised hightmaps in the preceding months, work is coming to fruition in January as Link and TheAnswer have begun capturing hightmap data from all of the SWG planets, and converting them into usable formats. Once this process is complete, hightmaps will be implemented into Core3 for preliminary testing. Link, TheAnswer and Oru have put in astounding work to allow such a large magnitude of data (in the realm of multiple gigabytes) to be loaded and handled by Core3 and Engine3 in an intelligent and efficient manner. With hightmaps nearing a usable stage, so many other anticipated features will begin to make large steps. Housing, NPC AI, Spawns, Camping, and many more major systems all require usable hightmaps to function as intended. One of the most anticipated of which is Creature/NPC/Mob movement, which now functions as it should! Exciting news from this early stage of hightmap implementation already. Watch for more news on the progress of hightmaps very very soon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Item Storage, Dropping and Containers Farmer_John has stunned the SWGEmu Team and Community alike yet again with his massive implementation of Item Storage, item dropping, and storage containers. This gargantuan breakthrough has solved one of the major question marks involved in the development of Structures: How to allow items to be properly dropped inside of them. Countless hours and cups of coffee later, and with the assistance of TheAnswer, Farmer_John unveiled his Item Storage system. Currently implemented on TC:Nova is the ability to drop items, pick up items, use containers (such as backpacks) and basic versions of many of the necessary GM commands concerned with these. Currently in the works is Stage 2 of Farmer_John's Item Storage system, which includes item permissions, player structure item dropping, and the permissions necessary to bridge the gap between player item storage and player structures. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Structures McMahon has been hard at work again, and has progressed Harvester development to an almost fully functional stage! Correct lot use, energy use, structure re-deeding and structure naming have all been fixed or implemented since New Years. With both hightmaps and crafting proceeding nicely, other branches of structures such as Deed Crafting and clean structure placement and cells will fall into line. Architect is high on the list of crafting professions to work on. Stay tuned for more info on harvesters and housing. (Factories will get love too) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Badges and Active Areas Many would have noticed the little quirk of your character shrinking to "Critter in a Can" size when moving in front of a special area in Theed. Luckily Bobius' development skills are on par with his sense of humour, and he successfully wrote and implemented the code for Active Areas (the areas around POIs, Cities and other special places) and Badges. All badges should now be working around the galaxy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ranger and Scout Traps MrTopas, one of the Open Source Contributors from the community, has been working recently on Scout and Ranger traps, as well as the Mask Scent ability. This all came together on Christmas Eve, when MrTopas' work reached SVN and has since been tested and patched accordingly. Kyle and Tek are working on making traps craftable as we speak, so that they can finally be tested on TC:Nova from start to finish; crafting to use. Work on camps has also begun, with preliminary framework being pushed onto TC yesterday. Thanks to MrTopas for his hard work, and we look forward to seeing more work from him in the new year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Combat Revamp Updates The Combat Revamp, one of the branches of Core3 which has been a major source of both excitement and headache for the SWGEmu Team over the past three months, is starting to come together into an operational version. Since October, Panchjr and Dannuic have been working tirelessly, but not alone, to rebuild combat from the ground up to be as accurate to Pre-CU as possible. The original combat code for Core3 had certain flaws in its design which did not allow for the changes and expansions that needed to be made. Panchjr set out to change this with a brand new code base. Since day one, every change made to the Combat Revamp code was tested and documented by the Quality Assurance and Profession Representative teams. This has allowed Panchjr to squash bugs before they are able to entangle themselves deep within revision upon revision of code. We're happy to say that using this process, the results could not be more pleasing. After merging the most recent Combat Revamp branch with the most recent Core3 trunk (and dealing with all the tribulations involved) Panchjr is ready to push the Combat Revamp onto TC:Nova, effective immediately. From now on, all changes to the Combat Revamp and its code will be made onto the Trunk directly, so bug fixes and new features will see their way onto TC:Nova very quickly. All of the QA guys, Reps and developers involved need a fine round of applause, a loud toast and a firm massage. None more than Panchjr, who has committed himself week in week out to this quest. We've learned that if our email inbox doesn't have a Panchjr update in it by the end of the week, there's something wrong with our computer. Well done. Happy testing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crafting Progress After making numerous breakthroughs for crafting in December 2008, Kyle has been working tirelessly to update the crafting system and allow schematic creation to continue once again. Kyle this weekend completed his new and improved Schematic Editor, which allows the SWGEmu Team to create, tweak and fix crafting schematics for easy implementation. Data entry has already begun. Watch for more news as schematic data is compiled and new schematics are tested and implemented into Core3! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cloning Facilities and Item Insurance Cited as one of the major aspects that needed implementation before the launch of SunCrusher beta, Cloning Facilities have been added in full working fashion. You may now go to your cloning center of choice and store your data there to forego the cloning wound penalties incurred upon replication. Simply walk up to a Cloning Terminal at the facility of your choosing, pay the clone data storage fee, and you will be all set. Though this elimintates the wounds you would receive upon cloning, it does not reduce item decay. In order to not receive wounds, you are required to clone at the facility which you stored your data at. If you clone at a different facility, then wounds will occur. Closest facilities now function as intended as well, and all static cities have one, as well as a few other locations. Don't forget, in order to use your clone data storage facility, you must be on the same planet! For item decay, however, their is insurance available! Item Insurance can be bought for individual items, or all at once at an Insurance Terminal, conveniently located within your cloning facilities. Currently, items are insurable for 100cr each. Upon insuring an item, it will receive an (i) icon overlaying the icon in your inventory. Upon cloning, the (i) will disappear, and your item will only receive 1% item decay, compared with the normal 5%. Item Insurance is good at any cloning facility! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slicing Rejoice smugglers! The true slicing system has been implemented! Now, using special slicing tools, you can upgrade your weapons and armor in true retro fashion. Be sure not to cut the wrong wire, though, and shunt the power node with a molecular clamp! Locked containers and terminal slicing coming soon! Thanks to cRush for these two exciting updates, which brings Smuggler, the Clone system and the whole game experience closer back to true Pre-CU days. He will be continuing his work on extending old systems to make them true to Pre-CU over the next two weeks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Minor Changes
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