I plan to send a quite large patch to icculus for a 1.1.4 community version, just need to make sure its ok with Alec and everyone. And split that patch into smaller parts, lol.
Right now it depends on a little
virtual file system library that i wrote, and could not be easily done without it; and i doubt anyone wants libraries that have not been proven to be absolutely stable.
The patch (just game changes, not including my libraries) is now about 200KB large and has 7000 lines. Still nothing compared to achurch's changes, though
(I kind of feel like a cheater preparing a 1.1.4 release without explicitly asking first, but oh well... if noone picks this up, all will stick with 1.1.1 forever. Don't expect Alec to ever really touch his code again, tbh, so... forgive me).
achurch said on the mailing list he was currently rewriting the engine too (for the ipad port), and would eventualy release that as open source when he is done.
Now, problematic is that both changes will be totally incompatible.
I am willing to redo my patches once the "better" engine code is available, but that could be 1.1.5 then.
I think a new version is really needed, and fast, especially with the many script breaking changes that prevent compatible mods in the long term.
If everyone is going to make mods for 1.1.0-1.1.3 only, a newer version can never take off.
The advantage with my system is that mods have full control over the game, and can ship their own datafiles and everything, including recipes and stuff that was never doable, or must have been done by hand (see new recipes in Feral Beast mod, which as of now need to be copied by hand, and affect the main game as well). Also less code and directory / mod path fixing, but this isn't 100% done yet.
I do also plan to add more LUA interfaces and callbacks over time that give even better control over the game (how much damage naija takes, upgradeable energy shots, new forms with scripts, and so on.) Dont have any solid plan for this yet, just ideas. I'd thought something like modders asking for things and getting them as bleeding edge build instead of endless, complicated, and half-working LUA workarounds.
I'd like to make a really sick mod (hmm, a sequel?) someday, but i don't have time at all and too many other projects going on (besides university, that adds to it!), so my humble community contribution is C++ plumbing. There are not too many coders around here anyways, from what i have seen.
Btw, have you tried soft-patching with my exe? Imho this can't be made any easier than it is now.
(Side note: Also going for new demo versions... win32, Linux, and Mac ones. But that's in the other topic already.
Someone just needs to update the website when time has come.)
EDIT:Have read that topic a few times, actually. Really cool this was done witout touching the code, but its time to move on. With a long requested feature becoming available it is not necessary to stay with the old LUA-based workarounds unless absolute compatibility with the commercial engine is desired. Could always utilize both versions, depending on the version of the game the mod is loaded in.
