Better Weapon Info test

[673f88d67483dZylonBane]

Another note: It's impossible for scripts to tell whether a certain stat change was brought about by Modify 1 or Modify 2 or even Modify at all. All it can do is compare the concrete stats with the archetype stats and see "Yup, these are different."

[673f88d674d90JDoran]

The viral proliferator can break at 25% condition. All others break in the 10% - 20% range. It's such a minor distinction it hardly seems worth exposing. Players should basically assume that any weapon in the red is about to break.

Speaking as someone who is very unobservant, I didn't know that - I think I always assumed that the weapons broke at 1%, certainly not anywhere in the teens. I've never used the viral proliferator, though, but I think I would have assumed that it too broke when it reached the 1% point. Or is there an in-game recorded or written message that points out the vulnerable design of the viral proliferator that means it can fail at 25%?

Also, in vanilla all weapons degrade at the same rate regardless of fire mode.

I didn't know that, either. It does seem more logical that more 'violent' ('violent' as in say weapons involving an explosion to shoot bullets or pellets) weapons would degrade quicker than a weapon that shoots electrical EMP energy.  Well, I think so anyway.

[673f88d674f04ZylonBane]

(SIGH)

I didn't mean that all weapons degrade at the same rate as each other. If that were the case why would I display a degradation rate stat at all? I meant that changing fire mode does not change the degradation rate of that weapon.

[673f88d675a09sarge945]

The viral proliferator can break at 25% condition. All others break in the 10% - 20% range. It's such a minor distinction it hardly seems worth exposing. Players should basically assume that any weapon in the red is about to break.

Since this isn't documented anywhere, and since the entire point of this mod is to make weapon stats available and accessible, I would highly recommend adding this.

That's already in there, as the "Reliability" stat. A gun showing 99% reliability means it loses 1% condition per shot. Also, in vanilla all weapons degrade at the same rate regardless of fire mode. Mode-dependent degradation actually requires script fuckery; it's not natively supported by the engine.

I read Reliability as "chance of breaking when at low condition" rather than "condition reduction per shot". At the bare minimum this should be renamed.

As for "all weapons degrading at the same rate", it's up to you whether you think that it's worthwhile making this as compatible with other mods as possible. You already stated in this thread you want to make it compatible with RSD, which does change condition per shot (at least for the laser pistol), so the stat should be there.

Maintenance tools improve a gun's condition by a flat +10 * Maintenance skill. It's not a per-gun stat.

True, but it's still useful information to have anyway. We already have certain mods (like RSD) where condition improvement is based on the difference between the maintenance requirements and your current skill level, which will make it differ per gun.

[673f88d675c29ZylonBane]

Okay, so say there's a theoretical "verbose" mode that displays exactly what goes into each bonus. The most troublesome would be the damage readout. Damage is calculated (on the delivery side), as:

base damage (sum of all damage stims on weapon projectile or corpse)
   x damage multiplier for current weapon mode (can be increased by modification)
   x 1.0 + ((player weapon skill - required weapon skill) * 0.15
   x 1.15 (if Sharpshooter installed)

So this would have to display:
- base damage (completely unmodded damage)
- amount multiplier has been increased by modding
- label the increase as from modding
- multiplier if weapon skill is beyond minimum level
- label the multiplier as from weapon skill
- multiplier if Sharpshooter installed
- label the multiplier as from Sharpshooter
- actual damage value
- total percent increase
- all necessary punctuation to tie this together in a comprehensible way

Maybe something like this?
  Damage: 10.1 (+152%) (4 +25% modded, +75% skill, +15% Sharpshooter)

(Yes the percentages are actually being multiplied, not literally added. But they're "additional" multipliers so it's, uhh... colloquial math.)

[673f88d675d41sarge945]

Can you use multiple lines?

Something like

Code: [Select]

  Damage: 10.1 (+152%)
    Base: 8
    Fire Mode Bonus: +0%
    Modification Lvl 2: +25%, +25%
    Skill Bonus: +75%
    Sharpshooter: +15%


[673f88d675e8bZylonBane]

I remind you that it's impossible to determine exactly what changes Modify 1 and 2 made, because those changes are made by code.

[673f88d6760ceZylonBane]

Download updated.

Now displays the currently equipped ammo and ammo count.

Implements an optional display mode that displays the details of every stat bonus. Note that if the current weapon has no stat bonuses, toggling this mode on will have no visible effect. Potentially confusing but it is what it is.

Implements a generic protocol for other mods to take over the weapon modify and/or repair functions. On MFD open, posts a message to its weapon object declaring "Hey, anybody here want to handle the Modify button?" (and another one for the Repair button). If it receives a reply, clicking the Modify (or Repair) button will post a notification message to itself instead of calling the API function to open the appropriate MFD. It's then up to the receiving code to determine if the player has sufficient stats to perform that action, and if so, posts a message informing this MFD that it can close itself.

[673f88d676291voodoo47]

I think I would prefer "Modification: 0/1/2" as opposed to "Modifications: none/1/2" .

also yes, the inability to use the mousewheel to scroll around the text field is annoying.


//modification level requirement is not changed when a weapon is modified to level 1 (meaning AR has a requirement of 2 for the first level, and 4 for the second, currently it will always display 2 no matter what. if this cannot be fixed then it should display both levels, so 2/4 in this case).

[673f88d6763c5ZylonBane]

Well this is embarrassing, I had no idea the Modify skill requirement goes up after you've modified a weapon. I don't think this is mentioned anywhere in-game or even in the manual. I guess I've always over-leveled Modify because at the minimum required level the success rate is annoyingly low, so I've never seen the skill-too-low message on the second mod attempt.

We should probably include a mention of this somewhere in the next SCP.

[673f88d6764f4voodoo47]

are you trying to tell me you took quarter a century to realize modification level 2 has a higher minimum skill requirement than level 1?

woah.


I was almost about to say it's in the detailed weapon info, but it's actually not. not sure whether we want to add it to the strings, it's a bit gamey. other requirements can be found there though, so it's probably fine.

[673f88d67661cZylonBane]

It's not even "mentioned" in the gamesys. It appears to be something that's automagically applied by the engine code.

Yup, there it is...

Code: (SHKHRM.CPP) [Select]

     if (gHRMMode == kTechModify)
     {
         int modlevel = GunGetModification(o);
         // second modification is harder
         if (modlevel == 1)
            reqval = reqval + 2;
      }


[673f88d676777voodoo47]

so it's just a +2 whatever for all weapons? now I have to admit I didn't realize that until now.

[673f88d676863ZylonBane]

+2 to Modify requirement only, as per the if clause.

[673f88d67698cZylonBane]

Confirmed that if a copy of this mod's string file is packaged as a separate mod and loaded at higher priority, it will override the original string file. That's good, it means players can localize this mod without having to manually edit any files.

I think all the data displayed has stabilized at this point. Anyone want to take a crack at translating it? It would be nice to have some localizations ready to go when this is pushed to the mods forum.

[673f88d676a90voodoo47]

well, it's a string file, so was there any doubt? already done and working, no issues so far (CZ). just waiting for the modify stat to be fixed before I update the translation.
[czinfo.jpg expired]

[673f88d676b95ZylonBane]

What does the display of a stat have to do with any translation?

Also obligatory oh god that font. I really should make AA versions of 8859-1 and 8859-2 one of these days.

[673f88d676d5dvoodoo47]

not much, but I'm holding off the update until this is proclaimed good to go, just in case there are some last minute changes.

yeah, that font was put together manually before the font guide was available, might not be pretty, but we needed something that would do the job. what did I say to the guy shoveling all the redundant dml data into his mod? every shortcut you take will come back sooner or later to bite you in the rear end? yeah, that checks out.

[673f88d676eb4ZylonBane]

I'm just reminded of all the terrible decisions I made in those early versions of the SHTUP font. I don't know what the hell I was thinking with those squared-off serifs.

Hold up... you changed "Modifications" to "Modification level".

[673f88d67701fvoodoo47]

yeah, I'm not sure what to do there, just modification/modifikace sounds a bit weird (would be ok if it were a yes/no deal, but feels slightly off with 0/1/2). //aha, and the translation already is using that (modification level) for the vanilla description. so yeah, I'll probably leave it like this, to remain consistent. to fully explain, in EN this is pretty simple - modify is the skill, and modification the actual change made to the weapon. CZ uses the same word for both (modifikace) - so if we use it to describe the changes made to the weapon, it will sound like we are actually referring the skill, unless we add some additional word to clarify. hence, modification level (uroven modifikace).

same with 3-shot burst, this just doesn't compute in CZ, so currently is just burst.

[673f88d677174ZylonBane]

Hold up, you removed information from weapons with a burst fire mode? That's bad.

[673f88d677286voodoo47]

the description at the top will still tell you it's a burst of three shots, so the info is just not duplicated.

[673f88d677362ZylonBane]

Then how do you translate "Five Finger Death Punch"?

[673f88d67749dvoodoo47]

with much cringe.

CZ is known to delight itself in creating unusual word combinations, completely made up names and new forms of words when trying to translate media, up to the point I pretty much can't read Tolkien in CZ because it just grinds my gears.

the rumbler is a good example, the translation invents a new name for it "rachorach", roughly meaning "noise 'o noiser", or maybe "crash 'o crasher", in a sense of "one who makes crashing noises".

languages are weird.