And yet there is never any mention of what these changes are, what build version they go with or where I can read up on them. You and I discussed this back in January. Did you ever update and centralize your ducumentation?
Our documentation is somewhat centralized in the same documents brought here. The philosophy hasn't changed, only changes in numbers.
As for the numbers, we have a script to show off interesting numbers out of the configs. Not all because that's not the point of this script to pretty print everything in the configs. And, well, it's up to the one pushing the changes to update the bot on the discord, i do not know if it has been done. But we do have a git hook to the git repository on the discord, so whenever there is a change the #git-updates channel on discord is notified.
And, well, i think that's it. I know, it's not something as documented as it could or should but we do not have much control over other stuff. We do not know if the next update to come will have our latest configs, the previous one or even tsonak's config for example. I'm sorry but that is the way it is. Quickfire and schine are both doing their stuff in their basements and sometime one needs the other.
And to be honest i think it suits both too. Quickfire can do their stuff without worrying about the game's development and possibly upcoming updates and the other way around is correct too. But as a downside there is no documentation about what version of the configs is going to what version of the game.
Suggestions? Did someone say "System HP"? Where have I heard
that suggestion before?
Oof.
It might be boasting but i asked for the revival of system hp way before qf became a more official thing. So way before the sentence you quoted were even thought about. And i've heard it a lot too, don't worry. But again we're not schine, we cannot bring back system hp.
One of our first config change was to bring back system hp by adding reactor hp to every block. Of course it didn't worked. Then we were stuck with waiting for schema to do something about it. I do hope he'll do something to bring it back but i can't tell for sure if he'll do so or not.
What now ? Give up and wait for a hypothetical and upcoming update ? Or do something about it now and try to have a playable game ? We did the latter. And we did quite okay from what i've heard. Yes, it's far from perfect and even today there is plenty i'd like to change if i could get my hands on the code and modify it just slightly. Like for example another set of config to separate acceleration and max speed for ships.
Yes, reactor are big, system draw a lot of power per block (which is how you get a big reactor, it's just looking at the other way around). But that was how you could get something "alike" system hp. That on top of a lot of people whining about system taking too much place in their precious ship. Smaller systems + the need for a bigger reactor ended up what we had. With manhattan's commit, the oversized reactor should be smaller.
But, well, as i said, nothing can be balanced as easily as it sounds. The only thing to balance out correctly ships is cost. And that's not going to happen before the universe update and since schema needs to do some side work, well that's going to take a while. Since we couldn't use cost, we used power generation to balance compare one ship to another. I'd be happy to reduce reactor's size to something less comical if we had system hp back myself. But, oh well. We're stuck waiting. At least modding is starting to come along nicely so maybe we'll have something interesting to play with sooner.
But, yeah. In general feedback are either pointing toward inherent problem of the current game we cannot fix in any ways with only config edits or are simply suggestions. Which is how the feedback turns out usually. In fact, all of your quotes here are things we cannot do anything about it.
I mean, i can answer just to prove a bit my point.
First three comments don't bring up any point.
Fourth comment is about power and more generaly complexity (and rewards for understanding this complexity) when building a ship. Which we cannot do much about it.
The three next ones are just asking for system hp. Which we cannot do anything about it.
And the three last ones are complaining about the lack of content... Which we cannot do anything about it.
So, in the end there is nothing we (quickfire team) can do at all on our part right now.
I'll say it again... I am NOT a coder. My ability to develop any semblance of aptitude for coding has been gone for roughly 15 years. I DID try it repeatedly out of curiosity and stubbornness but the game always crashes and ruins the universe forcing me to reinstall the game. In fact, I've spent more time reinstalling the game than actually tweaking it; time that could be used to build and actually play the game. Kudos to you and Tarsonak for possessing this skill set but it is not as "simple/easy" for everyone as you and Thadius would have us believe. I will gladly accept any help I am offered but this will not be the "one and done" process you are alluding to.
Well, welcome to starmade's config world. Ith and myself did the same. We changed numbers, looked if it did stuff, crashed or not and so on until we understood what we were doing. Then onto the next line of config. And from that we both built enough experience to work with the configs ourselves.
What i am trying to say is that you can learn and we can help you if you wish to. But yes, that's something that is going to include a lot of trials and errors. Which means time too. Hence why backing up stuff is important. Or using a 2nd install of starmade that isn't on steam for that sort of stuff.