Dev Blog 18 October - 1.3.3 Hotfix

Discussion in 'Dev Blog' started by mollygos, Oct 18, 2017.

  1. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    I've seen translation mods around, perhaps look into that? It's not official and they are probably incomplete but it'd surely be better than nothing?

    Also, the Pixel Printer... well it is parsing through hundreds of recipes. It's the reason I've always thought that the PP should have modules like the weapon/armor stations do, like a Floran Pixel Printer Databank ... stick that on your PP and you only see Non-Racial Stuff + Floran. Take it off, and put the Apex Pixel Printer Databank on it to see Non-Racial Stuff + Apex. etc.

    That would reduce the lag quite a bit.
     
    Speed Lightning likes this.
  2. davoker

    davoker Cosmic Narwhal

    Well, yes, it is a good idea to modulate the pixel printer, surely avoid the lag that causes open it with so many objects, to see if they have it in mind.

    I also try not to make "big cities with a lot of people", because it also slows down a lot, they are rather small cities, by themes and races, well, that's the idea xD

    About the translation, the current tool is outdated, the group that was translating the game into Spanish (and other groups of other languages) are stopped because they can not translate without that application, it's a pity, but the creator of the tool does not signal of life and there are several groups waiting, things that happen hehe

    Currently I am "I alone" translating the game into Spanish, it is easy to unpack the .pak file, and to edit the texts, with notepad ++ you have all the texts in plain view, what is not so simple is the huge work that has translate so much text one single xD

    You also have to understand how some things work that little by little I am seeing, modify some parameters and edit some images to make things fit with the translation, little by little it is understood, that is why "those translation groups" are unemployed, the online tool gave it everything done, they only had to translate, without it, they are lost xD

    I'm doing it directly in the original files, updated by steam, when I finish, I'll pass the modified files to ".patch", so that there are no problems, but hey, there's still a lot left for that hehe
     
  3. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    There are some things that are hard-coded into the game, but MOST of the game's dialogue can be .patch'd, but the mod would be fairly large I would think and would cause a lot of loading time.

    I know that just a simple item description mod for custom races (when you scan an item, what your character says is defined in the item's JSON file which can be modified with a .patch file) will add to my initial loading time by nearly 30 seconds.

    I can only imagine what a full-on translation patch that modifies every single bit of dialogue in the game would do. I wouldn't be surprised if it were 10 minutes or longer to load the game.

    Hopefully at some point CF decides to hire translators and release translated versions of the game, but perhaps they are not sure how to actually make this work well. They (understandably!) do not want to have to maintain 5+ versions of the game, but yet making them mods would make it so that, for example, Spanish users would take 10 minutes longer to load the game because of the extreme amount of .patch files that are being loaded.

    Maybe they are scratching their heads trying to figure out just how to do it cleanly without making a mess or adding tons of work on their end.

    If they decide to release 5 separate versions of the game, then that means every time they update the game, they will essentially need to update and test 5 versions of the game which is at least 2x-3x the amount of work involved.

    There's just no easy solution to this, with the way the game's engine currently works. This is probably why we do not have other languages.
     
    The Squid, davoker and Kawa like this.
  4. davoker

    davoker Cosmic Narwhal

    Currently with the translations that there are of the people, made with the online tool, they work without that problem, for example, the translation into Spanish has translated all the content up to the patch 1.1 and "something" of the 1.2.

    People are using that translation because it practically does not influence the versions, the .patch files "replace" the English dialogue for Spanish, the loading time is not increased, it is the same as the original game in English.

    The translation remained at 70%, missing all the thickness of items (descriptions, names, etc), "missing", since 1.2 new dialogues are seen without translation because they are not translated.

    The case is, from own experience and that of the people who use the translation, is that the game is not damaged in loading times, not too much, if you notice a small increase in load times, but for example, if to load an area after 5 seconds, we talk about equal increases to 7 or 8, something that is not too appreciable and that is ignored considering that they will play in their language, at least for the most part hehe

    Equal to 100% of translation if it takes a little longer to load, but seeing the trend that has to increase, it will not be much.

    The problem I see is the one you mention, that having it in several languages involves testing the game in several languages and fixing problems for several versions, just as some day they are encouraged when they "finish" the game, who knows hehe
     
  5. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Anytime you make a .patch file to .patch a JSON, basically what the game is doing is this:

    1). Load the original assets into RAM.
    2). Open the .patch file.
    3). Read the .patch file, go to the original asset it is patching, make the switch in the copy that's in RAM.
    4). Run the game.

    Note that the patches that are applied are temporary only to make the game moddable and to make it so that if you make a mistake, you can just delete the .patch and return everything to normal. It has to do this for every single .patch file you have. This doesn't sound like much, but as you patch 1000, 5000, 10,000 files it will add up.

    Now, what you COULD do, is use overrides (sometimes called 'dirty mods') instead of .patch......but..... if you download a mod that tries to .patch any of the files you overrided you may run into errors.

    Also, if you download a mod that also uses a dirty mod, you will lose your translated content, or the mod will not function (depending on which mod was loaded first).
     
    davoker likes this.
  6. Kawa

    Kawa Tiy's Beard

    To clarify: there are so goddamn many items, and relatively few dialogues, when you count individual files. It's the amount of files being patched that adds up. If you use raw, non-patch files, like what Xylia calls dirty mods, you might as well distribute replacement packed.pak files. Then it'd be guaranteed to load Spanishbound exactly as fast as the original.
     
    The Squid and davoker like this.
  7. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    So I checked packed.pak and it's only 850MB.

    Dat moment when you realize that the base assets are smaller than Frackin' Universe.

    lol.

    So yes, re-doing the whole packed.pak would probably be the best way to go about it. Now obviously when updates happen, the packed.pak would need to be re-done and re-packaged. However, the upside to it, is that 99% of the whole thing would not be changed much, but yet it'd still be a bit of work.
     
    davoker and Kawa like this.
  8. davoker

    davoker Cosmic Narwhal

    Actually, right now I work in original files (the dirty modification as you call it), but when I finish with all the files that I have to translate, I will pass them to .patch, we do not talk about a quantity of 1000 files, much less, they are a few tens, 1 hundred or 2? I'm still not sure how many they are but they are much less than 1000, less files to load for the process you mention.

    I try the changes that I make directly in the folder mods, like mod in folder, to not complicate me, but I tried to repackage it in .pak file and it goes well also, as expected.

    The problem of leaving it, would be what you said, if they update, I will play work, the files that have not been modified so they stay, but if any of the files is modified, I have to copy the texts of a file to another, if there are many files and these contain a lot of text, it can be done quite long, that's why I like the .patch option.

    I am new with this topic, my way of proceeding to convert to .patch I do not know if it is the correct one, what I do is this:

    I copy everything in a modified file and paste it here: http://trinithis.awardspace.com/commentStripper/stripper.html

    With the result, I go here: http://chbrown.github.io/rfc6902/

    - Copy the entire original file of the game in the first yellow window above.
    - Copy all the modified file (translated) in the green window above.
    - I do the same as the 2 steps above, with the 2 windows below, that is, left window below, original text in English of the game, right window below, modified and translated.
    - Then I give the button and it generates the already patched result in the right window below.
    - I copy the result in a file (copy of the original for example) and rename it at the end as .patch, for example: cockpit.config.patch

    I try it and it works perfectly, this is my way of proceeding, I do not know if there is an easier way, the ideal would be an application to select the original file and the modified one and that this one creates the already patched file with the correct name, but it's still a lot to want xD
     
  9. _AlphaPhoenix

    _AlphaPhoenix Space Hobo

    I Love Starbound! And THe Bounty Hunting Seems Like A Really Fun Idea!!! But I Also Have An Idea For It hehehe

    You Go To Find The Code But THe Person Says ``I Dont Know What Your Talking About`` Then Leaves

    You FInd Them Again Somewere Else And They Says ``Oh You Again`` Then Leaves

    Find Them Freaking AGAIN ``STOP FOLLOWING ME``

    What Is This Anymore... ``You Really Are Determind Arnt You...`` YES!!! ``You Will Die!!!``

    After THe Beat Down ``Okay! Okay! I Get The Message! The Code Is <Insert Code Here>``

    This Could Be THe Rare Annoying Wild Goose Chase And I Think It Could Be Funny!!! :>
     
  10. Harrisem40

    Harrisem40 Void-Bound Voyager

    So... Ummmm... Anything happening with Starbound ever? I mean... Seems to be a bit neglected... You guys at chuckle just giving up or what?
    I've been waiting for this update for ages. A hotfix is hardly an update so when you guys mentioned this I was like "Yeeeew"
    But it's been how many months now? If this was well underway then i'd assume you would have pushed the update already. Either it's one big ass update or you guys have just stopped updating the game. If that's the case then it's a sad day for me. ;-;
     
  11. davoker

    davoker Cosmic Narwhal

    Patience is a virtue that few have :lickitung:

    Toca wait, the important thing is to get something well done, the wait is the least if it is worth it then :nuruwink:
     
    Tsuruda likes this.
  12. KingPoor

    KingPoor Intergalactic Tourist

    Bounty Quest---find the Golden Penguin Doll that has a special message on it, a riddle that you need to figure out to craft a key for a super BountY. You have 5 or so steps to the bounty all being figured out through a riddle that makes you either craft another item that has a riddle or get an item drop from a bounty boss. Most of the materials to make the key for the super bounty comes from ancient enemies or bosses or other bounties. And the finally super bounty is end boss the rogue leader of the protectorates enemy the space cartel
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2018
  13. KingPoor

    KingPoor Intergalactic Tourist

    I really like this idea, hunting rogue BH or having super hard bounties and have a BH that heals helps you.

    you could even make it PvPish with timed leaderboards
     
  14. ArconWarl

    ArconWarl Orbital Explorer

    Are they still alive?
     
  15. The Squid

    The Squid Oxygen Tank

    Idk but from what I've heard they got eaten by a giant, orange pufferfish
     
    Kawa likes this.
  16. Ickura

    Ickura Big Damn Hero

    Probably making a new game, I don't know but it's definitely not the first time they gone quite for this long right?
     
  17. Kawa

    Kawa Tiy's Beard

    Can confirm.
     
  18. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    @ArconWarl and others:

    So this past tuesday, World of Warcraft pushed out Update 7.3.5 and guess what?

    It went to Live servers with plenty of bugs that were reported on the PTR (Public Test Realm) back during Mid-December. They made themselves look like incompetent fools by pushing out an update containing game-breaking bugs that were reported on the PTR more than a month prior. And guess what? One of them, having to do with level scaling, had this special forum in the PTR section of the official forums that was devoted to exactly that singular topic.

    Do you seriously want Starbound to do this too?

    The update will come when it is ready and not a day before.

    I'd rather have that then some buggy incomplete mess shoved out the door to shut the whiny/impatient portion of the playerbase up or to meet some arbitrary deadline.
     
  19. Yavor

    Yavor Big Damn Hero

    Personally I am not anxious to get my hands on the new update! I can wait for a long time, long enough for the devs to polish everything and get it going the way they want it to. However, I must point out that a single blog post should not necessarily be related to the status of the update development, it may still be a casual greeting and a casual message for the fans of this game. I am Not complaining! I cannot stress that enough - I am very, very happy with the current state of the game and I play it regularly. I am just pointing out that a message on the dev blog is not that big of a deal, and may contain any sort of message at all - like "We wish you good luck and lots of exploration in 2018", or something simple and sweet as that. I also do Not think that the devs should be pushed in their work in the update or any of their other games. I hope that Kawa and Xylia will understand me. I am not trying to argue with them, on the contrary - I am trying to help them in calming people down.

    Kind Regards to everyone!
     
  20. DarthTrethon

    DarthTrethon Spaceman Spiff

    It's been three months without update....can Chucklefish bother to at least drop like a whole two words about what's going on with 1.4? Stuff like "we quit" or "still coming".
     

Share This Page