v0.3: QOL development migration

[Hyperseeker]

This release reworks the underlying infrastructure of the mod to use our own .devtools modding toolkit. As such, this release is light on content; most of the changes are quality-of-life updates to the development process that aim to reduce cross-version drift and make the mod even easier to maintain.

This release supports the the 0.I stable release. Make sure to also use the latest version of Core.

Significant effort went into supporting backwards compatibility between v0.2 and this version. Still, exercise reasonable caution when upgrading: backup your save first, then try loading with v0.3. Please report any issues with migrations between v0.2 and this version.

Highlights:

• Mod migrated to .devtools. .devtools is a custom-built TypeScript toolkit that allows us to make developing mods for DDA much easier. In particular, its Autodoc plugin and transformers allow us to significantly reduce manual data entry, and calculate many values (like weights, volumes, and pocket stats) from an existing object's data or a formula. This release is a proof-of-concept for both the toolkit and the viability of making modding for this data-heavy game easier.
  • One part of the reason this is exciting is: we get to play with real values without hardcoding or re-calculating them on every release or item change. Since .devtools builds mods off of the current version of the game (whichever version that is), the built mod will always remain accurate to the values of base-game items it references. This eliminates as much of per-release drift as possible (assuming you build your mod for each release you want to support).
  • Another exciting part is the sheer trim we're able to apply to the amount of JSON we write. Source files for .devtools mods can be JSON or JSON5; we choose authoring in JSON5 because it's much more convenient. (Output, i.e. what the game sees, is always JSON.) This, plus the various transformers we're able to apply to mods, means a lot less manual data entry, and therefore more time to work on the contents of the mod, rather than its formatting or file structure. For example: patch-based changes to objects mean we can surgically apply only the changes we need, instead of hardcoding lists, names, or quantities; while writing a patch under .devtools may seem more complex than writing the desired output by hand, in the long term patches mean less headache for any cadence of releases.
• Tactical gloves, now in your wasteland. Though this release is light on content, we've managed to sneak in one positive change: tactical gloves. They're novel, possibly broken, and might not even spawn properly yet.

Notes:

• While content changes were intentionally-minimal, some changes to professions and their spawns may or may not have occurred. If they did, it happened due to challenges in cross-referencing old, hardcoded overrides of professions' items with the new, patch-based approach. Please report any significant drift between v0.2 and v0.3 in this respect. Providing grounded and reasonable outfits to professions remains a goal of Armory.

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If you like Armory and/or any other Frontier mods, you could donate to support their development. I don't ask this idly: I've been out of work over the last year, and while I'm able to scrounge up the resources each month, this comes at a cost of a lot of time and energy due to stress and ADHD.

As such, I would appreciate any donation you can make. I need to make €679 for the rent, and I'd also like to make another €200 for food until the next rent payment. You can donate one-time via popular services (Ko-Fi, Buy Me a Coffee) or cryptocurrency (BTC, ETH). The links are all in DONATE.md in the Core repo.

To make it a little more exciting for you, I've introducer the Ladder of Benefits™: a set of donation tiers, where you can add something to any of the mods under the Frontier Mods umbrella if you donate a certain amount. This, too, is well-described in the donation document.

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I hope you enjoy this release of Armory! Feel free to contact me, leave an issue, or post to the release's discussion page if you have bug reports, suggestions, or notes about the contents of v0.3.

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This discussion was created from the release v0.3: .