A new Trespasser patch/update (Trespasser CE)

[Lee Arbuco]

To quickly address a few subjects that have come up.

Regarding INVUL and TELE console commands. Those were enabled in some older builds, however I opted to only enable them in "developer mode". Developer mode is enabled by setting the "LogDevInfo" ini option to something other than 0 (see doc/trespasser.ini).

ATX ActionType 105 (SMK video) should be working, even in the older 130 build. I had tested it on JPDS Streams and it was working for me, and still does.

If the game is crashing on start on Windows 10, especially with nVidia, then make sure that "Enable10bitDisplay" in trespasser.ini is disabled (commented out with ; or set to False). It doesn't have to cause problems, but it can on some systems.

Stereoscopic rendering not working, or more specifically not looking stereo, is probably because the game doesn't use the GPU for geometry transform. I haven't looked into it but I suspect automatic stereoscopic solutions require HW transform.

[machf]

The long promised new build is now available. I updated the first post.

I bumped the package version number as well because the main addition is a rather big one. I wanted to enable the addition of things like HUD and maps but without actually specifically implementing it in the game itself, because then the would game impose a certain way of looking and working even when there are INI options to control some aspects.

The solution was to add scripting support. It was initially intended to start as a small and limited system to basically only solve the HUD and map problem, while keeping a door open to maybe extend it in the future. But having done that work, and having the know-how fresh, it felt like I waste to not extend beyond that. The final result is quite a bit larger than what was planned. Because of that I didn't have time test every single thing thoroughly or extensively document all functions. However, I will be monitoring the thread for bug reports and try to answer questions that the documentation doesn't.

Code: Select all

Changes:

- Fixed bug that would always cause full level (GRF) load (in case that introduces some old level reset bugs
  that were thought to be fixed, it's always possible to force full loading through "trespasser.ini")
- Couple of stability fixes
- Added mouse sensitivity options to "trespasser.ini"
- Added extensive scripting support, using the Squirrel scripting language. Among other things it gives the
  ability to:
     * add HUD and maps in a fully customizable fashion, the implementation is entirely up to script code
     * unlimited custom ActionTypes implemented with script
     * game scripts with a persistent logic state across levels (this doesn't mean that world entities can
       travel across levels, but that a game script can remember variables between levels, so it can perform
       actions based on events that occurred in a previous level)
     * add custom console commands implemented by script code
     * up to 8 additional general purpose key binds which can be exposed with a customized "controls.ddf",
       whose functionality is entirely defined/implemented by game scripts

Hi, Lee! It's been quite a while. Hope you're doing fine.
Turns out this has been a great week!

[Slugger]

Welcome back Lee -- and wow, that's a massive update! That's amazing, a scripting language!

I hope this thread catches everyone's eye, as it's been a crazy past couple weeks with obtaining E3 levels. And now this!

*And persistent logic states between levels!

[tatu]

Cool! Will be interesting too see what people will create with the scripts

[Vesiapina]

.Added extensive scripting support, using the Squirrel scripting language. Among other things it gives the
ability to:
* game scripts with a persistent logic state across levels (this doesn't mean that world entities can
travel across levels, but that a game script can remember variables between levels, so it can perform
actions based on events that occurred in a previous level)
[/code]

So can we for example make it remember what weapons we carried in the previous level so that we still have them in the next level?

[Lee Arbuco]

You could do that in a roundabout way. As it says you can't have objects cross levels, so you can't have a weapon actually be carried across. You could however have a stash of weapons in a inaccessible area of the level and then based on the remembered weapon type (and ammo count) from the previous level you teleport weapons from that stash in front of the player at level start. In theory it might be possible to even attach the weapons on the player, but I don't know for sure and that would be more complicated.

So it's nothing automatic, it would take some work, but you could kind of achieve it.

[tatu]

So with a lot of work (a lot I mean), you could more or less script the levels to remember stuff like location of an object or killed dinosaur so you could travel back and fourth across several levels without them "resetting"? In theory I mean.

[machf]

I'd say that's more like it, using that to store the status of various stuff (triggers, weapons ammo load, dinosaur health, player's health) in different levels where you can travel back and forth between them. And I guess the time of day, too (meaning, the lighting values from a previous level would be carried to the next one).

[Lee Arbuco]

That would be a little bit too complex to solve reliably. The internal state of various entity types contains more than what a script can access, and there are also other sub-systems that have data to reflect the current state of a level. Persistent back-and-and-forth travel, where all level objects retain their state, would be something better dealt with on an engine level than scripting. It would involve keeping several savegame files, one for each visited level, making it possible to load a save of the last state of a level when revisiting, plus a little bit of script code to handle the player.

[tatu]

That is true. I would guess it would be easier to recode the engine to allow bigger levels (with more objects in them) rather than doing that. It was just a thought, I doubt anyone would actually spend time doing it, as it wouldn't add too much. Mainly people just want to be able to bring the guns to the next level.

[Wajas]

Great to see you back, Lee. Thanks for this.

[scallenger]

OMG WAJAS! Blast from the past! How are you?

I love seeing everyone return. I have been relatively quiet despite being amazed by all the new stuff lately, but all of you will surely hear from me once we figure out how to open these versions of the TPAs.

We have top men working on it.

Top men...

[Wajas]

I'm well thanks. I look in here pretty often actually - been following this and the recent discoveries from Mr Blackley with great interest.

[Rebel]

Good to hear you're doing well, Will. Lee's doing some pretty amazing work here,
I actually feel bad that I haven't been keeping up on this all along.

[TheIdiot]

Welcome back, Lee. This new update sounds absolutely fantastic - is there a document included in the new version for reference when using the Squirrel language? And those new keybinds will be so incredibly useful in the future...perhaps my dream of an Inventory is finally possible, alongside a HUD, spitting dilophosaurus, and a couple of other things. Thank you very much for this!
Ah, and also - the sound distance bug is still present in the older build, where a dinosaur that is far away will have the same sound volume as up close. Was that fixed for this version?