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OpenRA Release 20190314
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Reaperrr
Commander


Joined: 26 Apr 2003
Location: Somewhere in Germany

PostPosted: Thu Mar 14, 2019 9:29 pm    Post subject:  OpenRA Release 20190314 Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

We are pleased to announce OpenRA Release 20190314, which brings changes developed between August 2018 and January 2019 and polished with the help of player feedback across three playtests during the last 10 weeks.

The most exciting change in this release comes from a complete overhaul of the unit targeting logic, which fixes many long-standing bugs and introduces some important improvements to gameplay fluidity:

- Tanks and other turreted units automatically target nearby units while moving
- Automatic targeting now properly accounts for the Fog of War
- Force-firing with long-range artillery style units targets the ground, allowing attacks to continue when vision is lost under the Fog of War


Tanks now automatically target enemy forces while moving.

The specialised infantry in Red Alert have had a shake-down and a fix-up:

- Engineers are now consumed when capturing buildings, after a short external wait
- The Hijacker has been promoted to thief, who can steal cash from refineries as well as vehicles
- Allied Mechanics now repair destroyed team-mate vehicles instead of capturing them
- New Attack Dog behaviour resolves many issues and behaves more like the original game


Improvements to the Attack Dog and Thief should make them more viable on the battlefield.

Thanks to the hard work of several new contributors, Red Alert now features an additional seven single-player missions, and Tiberian Dawn another two. Behind the scenes, the underlying AI framework has been rewritten to support the development of some long-planned improvements in future releases.

Some other notable gameplay changes include:

- Units in the Return Fire stance will no longer chase their attackers
- Infantry in Pillboxes in Red Alert no longer gain experience
- Red Alert Balance changes include adjustments to the long-controversial Allied Artillery
- A new Ctrl modifier queues items at the front of the production queue
- The spectator UI now includes information on player army values


Nine more single-player missions have been adapted from the original games.

This release brings several improvements to the map editor, including a map actor editor, a new Copy/Paste filter, and the ability to select multiple terrain categories in the sidebar.


The map editor now supports editing actor properties such as owner, health, facing, and stance.

There are a lot more minor changes and bugfixes, so take a look at the full changelog if you want to unwrap all of the details. Grab the installer now for your operating system from OpenRA's download page!

We hope you’ll enjoy this newest installment of OpenRA! Have fun!


Key Words: #News #OpenRA #Release 

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Volgin
Commander


Joined: 07 Mar 2009

PostPosted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 4:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

hey, question. MacOS User here on Mojave. ORA/OTD (Never tried Dune/dont care for Dune) do not boot, they just go to black when clicked on, and never actually load.

Any idea what the deal is here? I can't play ancient ass RA1 anymore.

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pchote
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 06 Feb 2015

PostPosted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 9:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That is explained on the OpenRA download page:
Quote:
OpenRA may appear to freeze the first time you launch it after updating macOS or Mono. This is caused by Mono indexing your system fonts, and OpenRA will launch normally once this has completed.
This may take several minutes depending on how many fonts you have installed, and because it is an issue in the mono runtime itself there is no easy fix that can be done in OpenRA to avoid it. Just wait.

This has been a pet hate of mine for years now, and I have recently been working on the not-easy fix, implementing our own version of several core types directly inside OpenRA so that we don't rely on the broken mono versions.  This should completely solve the issue from the next release on.

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NimoStar
Commander


Joined: 07 Nov 2012
Location: Buenos Aires

PostPosted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Can't get excited for openra until they decide to release the TS mod (and not in a "compile it yourself" way)... all other mods were far more undeveloped when released. Dune2000 didn't even have worms or carryalls...

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Mechacaseal
AA Infantry


Joined: 29 Aug 2015

PostPosted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 4:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

NimoStar wrote:
Can't get excited for openra until they decide to release the TS mod (and not in a "compile it yourself" way)... all other mods were far more undeveloped when released. Dune2000 didn't even have worms or carryalls...


I played a few versions of it and it was pretty terrible. I like their Tiberian Dawn mod it plays like Tiberium Wars in a lot of ways with the multiple factory production and attack move. Sadly no one plays it and i have to open ports which im too lazy to do. So yeah you might as well play Tiberian Sun on cncnet. OpenRA has bad network code, no players, and a inferior game engine.

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NimoStar
Commander


Joined: 07 Nov 2012
Location: Buenos Aires

PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 12:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Of course the development is slow. Development of anything is slow without massive testing. Even AAA companies use "early access" for development now and open betas...

OpenRA engine can be perfected. Tiberian Sun engine can't, since it isn't open source.

It may take a lot of time and have some short-sighted developers decisions (the port opening being one of them), but it is the best we have for the future.

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pchote
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 06 Feb 2015

PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 7:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

NimoStar wrote:
some short-sighted developers decisions (the port opening being one of them)
This is FUD that Mechacaseal keeps pushing (alongside the "nobody plays OpenRA" meme) because he has nothing better to do than to act like a condescending troll in every OpenRA news post. Its a sad reflection on this forum that some of his BS has taken hold as "truth" here.

The OpenRA community hosts many dedicated servers in various locations around the world.  The first person to join server becomes the admin, who can then do host-like things - change the map and options, kick players from the lobby etc. Essentially all online games are played on dedicated servers, so normal players are never exposed to ports. The OpenRA devs continue to ignore the port forwarding problem because this problem only exists in Mechacaseal's head.

There is also a "create server" option, but in practice this is never used for online MP games - most players consider self-hosted servers to be kind of sketchy and will only play on the dedicated server network. The local server creation includes an option to use UPnP (if enabled in OpenRA and on your router), so, even if you did insist on doing it the hard way, you still don't necessarily need to open ports manually.

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NimoStar
Commander


Joined: 07 Nov 2012
Location: Buenos Aires

PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 11:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Perhaps you are correct.

However, he is right in one thing, and it is that I have never actually found anyone to play openra online on the default servers for any of the three game mods...

Compare that to ra2 cncnet where there are multiple games open and with people at any given time.

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pchote
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 06 Feb 2015

PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Comparing RA2 player counts to the first generation games doesn't make sense.  They are different games with different audiences - of course RA2 is going to be more popular than RA1/TD/D2k (on any platform).

OpenRA's player graphs show simultaneous player counts of around 60-100 every EU evening.  This is only about 1/3 of what CnCNet RA/TD/D2k reaches, but i'm okay with that considering the massive difference in manpower-to-scope ratios between the two platforms. You may live in a timezone such that your preferred play time falls in the daily quiet time, which would be unfortunate, but generalizing from that to state that nobody plays or that the MP community is dead is just wrong.

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Mechacaseal
AA Infantry


Joined: 29 Aug 2015

PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 9:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

pchote wrote:
Comparing RA2 player counts to the first generation games doesn't make sense.  They are different games with different audiences - of course RA2 is going to be more popular than RA1/TD/D2k (on any platform).

OpenRA's player graphs show simultaneous player counts of around 60-100 every EU evening.  This is only about 1/3 of what CnCNet RA/TD/D2k reaches, but i'm okay with that considering the massive difference in manpower-to-scope ratios between the two platforms. You may live in a timezone such that your preferred play time falls in the daily quiet time, which would be unfortunate, but generalizing from that to state that nobody plays or that the MP community is dead is just wrong.



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^Rampastein
Rampastring


Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Location: Gensokyo

PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Regardless of popularity, good job with the changes. Automatic targeting while moving is especially interesting as it's a big gameplay change that should make the game more accessible to new players. It also reduces the need of micromanagement for more experienced players which I know some more hardcore RA1 fans wouldn't appreciate, but I'd guess the OpenRA playerbase is more liberal when it comes to that.

pchote wrote:
Its a sad reflection on this forum that some of his BS has taken hold as "truth" here.

From my part, I feel like clariying that while I used to think that OpenRA needed opening ports for hosting games, the community servers seem to have fixed that. Which is nice.

How does it work with mods btw? Do the community-run servers only support official mods or can you also host other mods' games on them?

pchote wrote:
Comparing RA2 player counts to the first generation games doesn't make sense.  They are different games with different audiences - of course RA2 is going to be more popular than RA1/TD/D2k (on any platform).

Red Alert 1 and Yuri's Revenge are actually about equally popular on CnCNet. RA1 used to be more popular for years, but YR has eventually caught up. Mental Omega is about as big as both combined, but whether that's considered as part of RA2/YR is another topic.

pchote wrote:
...considering the massive difference in manpower-to-scope ratios between the two platforms.

CnCNet mostly has ~4 active developers.

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Graion Dilach
Defense Minister


Joined: 22 Nov 2010
Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary

PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

^Rampastein wrote:
How does it work with mods btw? Do the community-run servers only support official mods or can you also host other mods' games on them?


Servers are dedicated to the game/mod version they are opened to. So no. You can ask for servers within the community though - jazz_kCs and jrb0001 are able to offer third-party mod servers. jrb's servers require some explicit requirements though, since his server implementation (the ASI third-party mod ones) is written from scratch (showcasing the bad practices within ORA network code) and store no mod/map data themselves (they just propagate map metadata from the ORA Resource Center) which makes them cheap.

Regarding fire-on-the-move, prior to this version, OpenRA had a stuck-turrets bug, where unit turrets couldn't drop the target on the first non-attack order and kept attacking said target while doing that other stuff. They required two explicit stop command to stop attacking altogether. However ORA RA1 meta evolved around this particular bug with the "stop micro" - players issuing stop commands during unit movement to autotarget kicking in if the blob had no active target -, so introducing proper fire-on-the-move was necessary to fix stuck-turrets without breaking the game all over the place.

_________________
"If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more...

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NimoStar
Commander


Joined: 07 Nov 2012
Location: Buenos Aires

PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 6:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:
of course RA2 is going to be more popular than RA1/TD/D2k (on any platform).


I bet non-OpenRA RA1 has more people still :V

But anyways... my point was precisely that openra team refuses *because of internel policy, not playability,
which was vastly inferior on OpenRA release date of "first generation" games* to current state of Tiberian Sun.

The other Shortsighted" decision was, as detailed before, to NOT support integrated mods, only "big independent mods"
which need their own rooms and servers.

Even WW old games support "modding" trough custom maps using the same assets (in RA2 you can change the whole rules.ini this way, essentially using the game assets as you please),
which openra doesnt.

This essentially forces you to only play the developer's version of the game,
instead of making your own.

(even the default CNCNET version of tibsun and RA2 has altered rules and balance conpared to vainilla, but you can choose your own custom maps at any time,
which are near 50% of the games played if not more;
these include defense maps, rekool maps, special unit maps and others)

So yeah, "Only suyppoorting big independent mods with their own launcher "
WAS and IS pretty shortsighted decision, as time shown.
You don't divide an already small community.

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Banshee
Supreme Banshee


Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam)
Joined: 15 Aug 2002
Location: Brazil

PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

pchote wrote:
Its a sad reflection on this forum that some of his BS has taken hold as "truth" here.


Misguided, equivocated people and ignorance exists everywhere, including in PPM and OpenRA community. This is a natural feature of humanity. If this annoys you, please, enlighten this people instead of complaining at something that will never disappear from our lives.

NimoStar wrote:
my point was precisely that openra team refuses *because of internel policy, not playability,
which was vastly inferior on OpenRA release date of "first generation" games* to current state of Tiberian Sun.


With all due respect, but... what are you talking about? Re-read your words above and you will understand the confusion. I believe you have accidentally skipped part of what you were saying.

Nimo Star wrote:
The other Shortsighted" decision was, as detailed before, to NOT support integrated mods, only "big independent mods"
which need their own rooms and servers.


What do you mean by integrated mods? Are you talking about those mods where you change one or other data in a yaml file from a bigger independent mod?

If this is the case, you need to understand that each of these "big independent mods" that you mention are equivalent to a full game and what they are doing there is not much different from what EA does with their games and expansion games. And it is a natural thing to do, since most mods are incompatible between themselves.

If you expect the game to unite players from different mods (games) in a huge chat room, then I must introduce to you the OpenRA discord channel:

https://discord.me/openra

And you can use that together with the game/mod itself.

Seriously, there is no need to renivent the wheel. Sometimes, spreading the word about a good existing solution is more than enough to serve the same purpose.

NimoStar wrote:
Even WW old games support "modding" trough custom maps using the same assets (in RA2 you can change the whole rules.ini this way, essentially using the game assets as you please),
which openra doesnt.


Now you've wrote a very fair point, which I agree with you. It would be a great feature to OpenRA to allow people to modify unit properties on maps or create new exclusive units for a specific map (singleplayer or multiplayer).

NimoStar wrote:
This essentially forces you to only play the developer's version of the game,
instead of making your own.


You can run a dedicated server for your mod, as explained in:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Dedicated

Of course that it requires a computer connected to the internet to do that, which might be expensive to some people. For now, I am not turning the computer that runs PPM into an OpenRA server because it already serves many other sites and it may eventually be overloaded if done so. But there might be other people who may help with that.


NimoStar wrote:
You don't divide an already small community.


To be honest with you, I don't think their decisions are dividing a small community. But some things could be better executed. However,  bear in mind that we are dealing with a non-professional team of volunteers that are using their free time on it and providing the whole thing for free for the community. And there is more: if you are unhappy with the direction of that project, the license the use allows you to fork it.

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NimoStar
Commander


Joined: 07 Nov 2012
Location: Buenos Aires

PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:

With all due respect, but... what are you talking about? Re-read your words above and you will understand the confusion. I believe you have accidentally skipped part of what you were saying.


No, I said what I wanted to say:

TS is functional on openra. Not all features are implemented, but it is far more complete than when RA, Tiberian Dawn or Dune 2000 were released to the public.

Just the developer's policy is against releasing it because they fear "backlash" from missing features. But they don'0t fear backlash from missing game?

Unlike some of the other games, all TibSun assets are legal to download, since EA made it a free game in its entirety.

Quote:
What do you mean by integrated mods? Are you talking about those mods where you change one or other data in a yaml file from a bigger independent mod?

If this is the case, you need to understand that each of these "big independent mods" that you mention are equivalent to a full game and what they are doing there is not much different from what EA does with their games and expansion games. And it is a natural thing to do, since most mods are incompatible between themselves.

If you expect the game to unite players from different mods (games) in a huge chat room, then I must introduce to you the OpenRA discord channel:

https://discord.me/openra

And you can use that together with the game/mod itself.


Quote:
You can run a dedicated server for your mod, as explained in:
https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Dedicated

Of course that it requires a computer connected to the internet to do that, which might be expensive to some people. For now, I am not turning the computer that runs PPM into an OpenRA server because it already serves many other sites and it may eventually be overloaded if done so. But there might be other people who may help with that.


Sorry, but nonsense.

All mods could use the same launcher, such as CNCnet that can integrate many games in a "just click a button" lobby.

A discord offers zero game functionality, and, as you said, mounting a dedicated server is not an option to most people. Not only that but it needs to be configured.

RA developers position is essentially "dont even bother with game variety or mod integration", which weakens community. This was an internal debate I saw myself and they leaned to the wrong side.

Essentially if you want to make your own it is a "fork" of OpenRA and utterly incompatible with all their online features, servers and rooms.

That's bullshit, to say it plainly, specially since the open source aspect would allow full modularity and the game room-making process has nothing to do with internal modifications to gameplay!

Ideally, just as you can choose to play and make a room for d2k/TD/RA1, you should be able to download and play user-made mods within the same integrated GUI. That woudn't even be hard since if it works for the "official mods" it means the mechanism is already coded and implemented; its just that developers take the "if you don't like it get out and make your own" approach, instead of integrating it as it should be.

It could be so very simple; see all available mods (including "non-official" ones), download whatever and create the games you want on the server. if someone without the mod wants to enter, they get asked to download it with one click. They all use the same base engine, extra files and dependencies can be added modularly on their own separate folders.

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pchote
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 06 Feb 2015

PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

NimoStar wrote:
(even the default CNCNET version of tibsun and RA2 has altered rules and balance conpared to vainilla, but you can choose your own custom maps at any time,
which are near 50% of the games played if not more;
these include defense maps, rekool maps, special unit maps and others)

So yeah, "Only suyppoorting big independent mods with their own launcher "
WAS and IS pretty shortsighted decision, as time shown.
You don't divide an already small community.


NimoStar wrote:
Even WW old games support "modding" trough custom maps using the same assets (in RA2 you can change the whole rules.ini this way, essentially using the game assets as you please),
which openra doesnt.


I'm sorry, but I don't know how to respond to this because custom rule overrides in maps have always been supported, and remain the most popular way to test out balance changes and other ideas. This isn't even an obscure feature - look at any of the (many) maps labelled "Advanced" on https://resource.openra.net/maps/ - these contain altered rules and balance compared to vanilla.  Either I've completely failed to understand your point, or you have missed one of the most fundamental aspects of OpenRA that has not changed in the last 10 years. Map overrides can do pretty much anything except change the UI or add new factions (which requires UI changes).


NimoStar wrote:
That's bullshit, to say it plainly, specially since the open source aspect would allow full modularity and the game room-making process has nothing to do with internal modifications to gameplay!

Ideally, just as you can choose to play and make a room for d2k/TD/RA1, you should be able to download and play user-made mods within the same integrated GUI.

Another core philosophy of OpenRA modding is that mods can add their own custom gameplay logic written in c#. You seem to be asserting that the only acceptable solution is for the OpenRA client to automatically download and run arbitrary executable code when joining an online server.  Software that does this is more commonly called "malware" or a "virus" and is generally speaking a really really really bad idea.


NimoStar wrote:
Essentially if you want to make your own it is a "fork" of OpenRA and utterly incompatible with all their online features

Yet another core philosophy of OpenRA is that engine forks are fine, and are able to use the online features with exactly the same status as the vanilla engine. Ensuring this fact was one one the main motivations for the current mod SDK strategy.

I don't understand how you can so confidently assert so many points that are so completely false...

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NimoStar
Commander


Joined: 07 Nov 2012
Location: Buenos Aires

PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

They aren't false, you havce asserted them yourself

On the contrary what YOU say is false.

1
Quote:
own custom gameplay logic written in c#.

Quote:
You seem to be asserting that the only acceptable solution is for the OpenRA client to automatically download and run arbitrary executable code when joining an online server.  Software that does this is more commonly called "malware" or a "virus" and is generally speaking a really really really bad idea.


I never asserted anything of the sort.

I think the core engine should have the c# and the rest be handled by LUA or whatever scripts you have.

This would be completely possible but it was discarded.

+ Most games nowadays automatically update their own .exe, so are you telling me all auto-updating software is "malware"? Pls.

Ares is an injectable code into an already running .exe and its memory operations so technically it is a "virus". I see nobody complaining about it.

Quote:
Yet another core philosophy of OpenRA is that engine forks are fine, and are able to use the online features with exactly the same status as the vanilla engine.


With their own dedicated server?= Há

That isn't using the online features that serv ice openRA games nor do they appear on shared lobbies.


So, other than custom maps being supported (really? not even changing the structure current hitpoints was part of the editor until this release... but if you say so), all I said was true.

All you said was some wrangling to make it sound as though it doesn't matter, but the core is this:

- Can custom mods use the OpenRA online lobbies? Y/N
- Can custom mods use the same OpenRA installation? Y/N

The quantity of "programmers" that write and compile their own code vs modders that simply import their assets and change stats is absolutely abysmal.

Another case of the "open source" bias that obsessive control freak programmers only do things for obsessive control freak programmers and not the general public.

BTW I do .exe hexadecimal hacking and can script LUA, and was trained in basic programmic (turbo pascal...) so I don't speak of this as an ignoramus. But there is a reason linux platforms only have a  1.48 percent of the share of all Desktop PCs, despite being free with tons of free software (both "libre" and "gratis"): And its precisely because of control freak programmers only making their programs for control freak programmers (including the dreaded "command line", you even need it for something as simple like change resolution in the last distro I had...)

So, again.

Sharing netcode =/= sharing online implementation of resources.

Custom mods should have access to the same servers and lobbies than default mods do.

c# coding is insignificant compared to the advantages of an unified modding community. There are hundreds of RA2 mods that keep the game alive. How many of them have custom game programming as oppossed to simple coding and graphics? 1? 2? 3, at most?

By privileging this over everything else you destroy any chances of OpenRA as a truly OPEN online gaming platform, and not just an "engine" for programmer's "experiments".

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Graion Dilach
Defense Minister


Joined: 22 Nov 2010
Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary

PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 9:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Just because you take more time with Heroes 4 internals than anyone else within that community does not make you smart. Oh yes, I'm fully aware what you're doing there but keep your inflated ego there. Half of your posts on Heroes Community are full of this same ignorance.

OpenRA has no official servers. Custom mods are de facto standalone game installations. Which work with forked builds too. Do I need to bring up that SP and RV runs upon customized forks?

The OpenRA server browser can jump between official and thirdparty mods, if you have the mod played on a server installed locally already. No matter if you try to enter into it's game via the internal server list, or through a website link - the game will be able to handle both and is able to switch entire installations on the fly. Haven't tried what does it do if you try to switch to a mod you don't have though.

Custom mods can use the ORA Resource Center to host their own (mod)maps. That's the main reason why jrb0001's servers are even viable to  the half of the modding community which came from the legacy engine.

Self-updater installations are off the table, mostly because of the architecture deployed on Linux. On the other hand, all the self-updater games use a launcher architecture which ORA had at a point, but has no need for such anymore. And you can have parallel installations easily, so while it is a bit of an annoyance, it's not that much of a dealbreaker.

Does ORA have issues with mod support? Plenty. But all of those are related to the ignorant mindset which demands modders to "wire their own specialized features" instead of offering generic features which can be chained to do anything you want and have nothing to do with infrastructure support. When it comes to the infrastructure, ORA is actually ways ahead of CnCNet already - at CnCNet, you need to set up your own launcher, find an IRC channel to dedicate it to and beg to the CnCNet people to get your mod registered (which will mean that your WIP IRC channel will need to be rerouted to the one they give you as part of the registration). At ORA, you might need to host a dedicated on your own at worst (if you can't find a community server hoster to host yours), but you have the support of the entire infrastructure from the get-go (ModSDK + Travis for generating installers to all platforms, Resource Center to host maps, the server browser to make your mod available online) without you required to speak with the developers at all.

_________________
"If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
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pchote
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 06 Feb 2015

PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 1:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Graion Dilach wrote:
Self-updater installations are off the table, mostly because of the architecture deployed on Linux.

Believe it or not, this isn't just on the table - it's already implemented. The AppImage spec and backend appimaged support updating, and the default mod AppImages are configured to be able to use it.  Players who know what they are doing, and are using the right desktop environment, can right click on the mod icon when a new release comes out and select "Update" to update it to the latest version.

We don't advertise this, aside from the note on the AppImages info page, because the current system is not polished or well integrated:
  • The AppImageUpdate tool provided by the AppImage developers does not integrate with Gnome or KDE, so we probably need to build our own update prompt to trigger this from inside OpenRA.
  • We need to work out how to integrate this into the Mod SDK in a reasonable way (it relies on server infrastructure that we can't provide for mods).
  • Allowing players to have multiple versions at the same time is an important feature that we don't want to break, so cannot be 100% automatic.
These can be solved, but are far down the priority list compared to everything else.


Graion Dilach wrote:
Does ORA have issues with mod support? Plenty. But all of those are related to the ignorant mindset which demands modders to "wire their own specialized features" instead of offering generic features which can be chained to do anything you want and have nothing to do with infrastructure support.

Graion seems to have made a personal hobby out of calling me ignorant, hostile to modders, and other unpleasant things whenever he finds an opportunity.

OpenRA is a big project, and we only have ~3 active core maintainers keeping it ticking over. We need to balance our time between fixing bugs, reviewing PRs, managing and acting on often mutually exclusive suggestions for the default mods, working on performance and other technology improvements, and developing the gen2 features for TS and other mods. I have a life outside of OpenRA, a career that has me traveling overseas many weeks each year, a family and a social life.  The others are in a similar position.  I can't spend all of my time working on OpenRA, and the time that I do spend can't be focused 100% on supporting modders. Graion has made it clear in the past that he thinks this mismanagement is ruining the project for everyone.

All my efforts to make mods first-class citizens via the Mod SDK, remove hardcoded default-mod assumptions from the engine, installers, master server, games lists, and resource center are supposedly negated by the fact that sometimes I suggest that certain mod logics, like RA2 ore purifiers, should be implemented at the mod level instead of the core engine code.  I spend more than half of my OpenRA time reviewing PRs, getting my head inside other people's code to understand what it does, why, and the implications it has on maintainability, bugs, and performance and suggesting improvements to make them work better - apparently this doesn't matter either, because sometimes it takes a couple of weeks or in extreme cases a couple of months before I can start.  I'm an awful person because I sometimes I like to "pander to the playerbase" instead of the subset of the modding community who go out of their way to personally insult and disparage others while being proud of the fact that it is beneath them to help maintain the project themselves.

OpenRA isn't perfect and we are still actively trying to improve things, but this takes time and patience. Graion isn't stupid, so I don't understand what he hopes to achieve by going around the community and pushing an agenda that we are hostile to modders.  I've run out of patience for being called ignorant and incompetent for having to prioritise the limited time that I give to make something for everybody else for free. People are welcome to disagree with my choices, but using that to justify aggression and insults is simply not acceptable.

The Mod SDK was developed as a solution that allows modders to get on with their project without being blocked by upstream progress (or lack thereof).  This adds complexity, but is much better than having all community mods break 2-3 times a year when a new release comes out, with no tools and poor documentation on how to update them.  A whole generation of OpenRA mods from 2014-2016 were lost thanks to that.

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