With the New Inventory being released with 2085 and JA2 1.13 hitting some kind of a milestone, one might ask what else is down the road to keep us excited when playing v1.13.
While the 2085 release primarily focused on bug fixing and incorporating the New Inventory system, this time there is quite a lot of new stuff going on lately. If you check Bear’s Pit you’ll notice a couple of things that are worked on in public. So let’s have a look at these.
The most impressive feature in the pipeline surely is the multiplayer modification. Don’t quote me on this, but IIRC the multiplayer extension will be the key enhancement for the next big release. This project is in beta currently, so chances are pretty good that we are going to see something final in the not-too-distant future. Development builds are randomly available which means you already have the chance to try it out. This is promising a whole lot of fun.
Then there is something for the modders out there: prof.dat externalization. Not only is this the task to XMLify yet another binary data but to break all the hard-coded structures in behind. From what you can read in the hot discussed thread the project seems well on track and first results in the shape of a couple of screenshots are already available. This one will be highly appreciated among modders since it has been demanded for a long time already and really adds value to the game when it comes to moddability.
Another big hit for the modders might be the development going by the name “Laptop files section” which describes pretty well what it is all about. There is not a whole lot said about it yet, but externalizing the file items in the laptop will come in handy for the modders. Let’s see how this continues and what creative people will use it for.
The next one aimed at modders is the airport externalization. This one would remove several restrictions for airport maps. Often requested and to some extend finished the undertaking seems quite dead now judged by the forum thread. The code however continues to live in a SVN branch which is kept up-to-date with the trunk continuously. Hopefully, it makes it into the next major update.
The last one in the queue is the Big Maps project, which allows one to create tactical maps of virtually unlimited size. I’m not sure about its progress, though. As far as I understand they have an editor supporting larger maps but only some alphas of the actual game. Definitely an interesting project nonetheless.
What I can see is that finally there are some serious attempts to address at least a few of countless issues modders struggle with. This change in development – if it is one – will increase v1.13’s attractiveness for mods and make it more of the platform it always wanted to be. Carry on, v1.13, we are watching you!
May 9, 2008 at 11:56 |
First of all, great site and informations for the 1.13 mod. Keep up the good work
- The next thing we would like to merge in the offical source code will be the mulitplayer project. These should be done in the next days (weeks).
- After that I think we merge in the Airport Externalization.
- The prof.dat Externalization seems to be a big project so it will take time. After it is stable we also merge that in.
- The development of the Big Maps Project has stopped, because of lack of time of the coder. If we have some time we can finish these project and also include it.
- For the laptop project I don’t have much informations. I think it will take much more time until finished