MissionComputer: The Saga Continues

Try this link. 🙂

Excellent.

As long as it fixes the "mission ships linked to a system of ID over a certain number don't show up" bug, I will be a happy, happy man. And subsequently able to finish Anathema. 🙂

Currently at work, but can't wait to try it out!

QUOTE (king_of_manticores @ Jul 29 2009, 05:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I didn't know MC 4.0.4 came with an update notifier, first off.

I was trying to download 4.0.5 after reading the message, but your site said the link was broken, DA. Did you say something about this update before?

Yeah, I have the 4.0.4 but clicking the link gave me the 404 of a different kind LOL.

QUOTE (Geek @ Jul 29 2009, 06:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Try this link. 🙂

Thanks, Geek. Wonder what n00 stuff we get to play with now.

A range finding bar for weapons, but it's practically useless for missile weapons because it extends off the screen (well, in the confines of a window, not a bug!) and will only show a graphic for a given weapon if the sprite and associated spïn are in the same file as the wëap resource, or if MC knows where to find the file(s) they are in.

The download link for 4.05 on the MC website is missing the .dmg extension.

QUOTE (Sp3cies @ Jul 29 2009, 07:28 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have been doing a bunch of system editing recently and I was wondering how easy it would be to make MC remember whether the "planet" or the "system attributes" window was open previously and open it to that one when you click on the next system?

Done.

QUOTE (king_of_manticores @ Jul 29 2009, 06:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I didn't know MC 4.0.4 came with an update notifier, first off.

In fact, the update notifier is in every version of MissionComputer except for 3.3.3 through 4.0.1. The new one is completely re-written, and substantially better in various ways, but is 100% compatible with the old one. So, if anyone out there is still using 1.0, they should be getting notified about new versions anyway. 🙂

QUOTE (JacaByte @ Jul 30 2009, 11:27 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A range finding bar for weapons, but it's practically useless for missile weapons because it extends off the screen...

Would a scroll bar be better? I added this because Qaanol asked for it back in May<{POST_SNAPBACK}> and it didn't seem like much work, and I'm quite open to suggestions that would improve its usefulness.

QUOTE (JacaByte @ Jul 30 2009, 11:27 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...(it) will only show a graphic for a given weapon if the sprite and associated spïn are in the same file as the wëap resource, or if MC knows where to find the file(s) they are in.

Actually, the preview doesn't even attempt to show the weapon sprite. It's a range preview, and nothing more.

QUOTE (Lindley @ Aug 3 2009, 12:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The download link for 4.05 on the MC website is missing the .dmg extension.

Fixed, thanks.

QUOTE (Archon @ Jul 30 2009, 04:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As long as it fixes the "mission ships linked to a system of ID over a certain number don't show up" bug, I will be a happy, happy man.

Can you elaborate on this bug? Do affected resources look the same when you close and re-open them, or is the information lost?

It's been a while since I looked into that one, but I'm pretty sure that it resets to initial system. The original bug report on that is in this thread somewhere; I'll take a look later.

(edit)Well, going backwards through the posts sure was a bad idea; the original post was on the first page. Here's a repost (originally posted January 21st, 2009):

I think I've encountered a serious problem with the mïsn resource in 4.0.4. When the sÿst ID for mission ships or auxiliary ships get up into the low thousands (can't pinpoint a number, but it seems to be somewhere between 1100 and 1150), MC seems to freak out and revert the ship system first to "initial sÿst" with a value of -1, then upon re-entering the system, it goes to "initial sÿst" with no input box. Since the system in question for these particular missions is 1175, and since the max systems in Nova is 2048, it seems more like a MC problem than an engine limitation.

I fiddled around with this some today, and it seems to be working fine withthe newest version of MC. I'll let you know if I experience any more problems.

This post has been edited by Archon : 07 August 2009 - 03:32 PM

QUOTE (Archon @ Aug 7 2009, 01:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I fiddled around with this some today, and it seems to be working fine withthe newest version of MC.

Sorry I made you go back through the thread – I'm a bit tired out, having divided yesterday among four different countries, and couldn't immediately bring to mind the bug to which you were referring. I've looked back through the progress log, and this seems to be the relevant fix:

_22 January 2009

  • The mïsn editor for EV Nova no longer imposes outdated maximum values on the ShipSyst and AuxShipSyst fields (thanks, Archon)._

I would have to say the range bar is fine as it is, think about it just type in a value on screen that makes the bar long enough for you to see the whole thing and then multiply it by the distance you want your weapon to go.

Or maybe just add multiple bars underneath one another, same place as the one is now just more of them that add up to the total.

Don't worry about it; my avatar is pretty distinctive so it only took a few minutes of scanning through to find. 🙂

My hard drive just hit 0k available while I had MissionComputer open editing a file. I tried to save it; an error occurred, of course. However, the file disappeared from my hard drive and didn't reappear. I didn't realize this until closing the program.

Now, I was able to pull the backup from the Library/Preferences folder, so it's not a huge deal, but it was a bad moment. Could the saving mechanism be designed to check for available space before erasing the old version?

This post has been edited by Lindley : 15 August 2009 - 10:41 PM

Master David, I have come across a bug: MissionComputer seems to have a problem with DITL & DLOG resources, in that the text for fields appears completely wonky ("Like so" = "iLeko ss", methinks):

I checked in Rezilla, and no problem there.

There's another problem I encountered: the "Nova-DF.rsrc" file (located in …/EV Nova.app/Contents/Resources/), which contains DITL & DLOG resources, can't be opened by MC ("the 'dsïg' resource ID = 128 could not be saved because the resource could not be opened", and "try again" doesn't help).

This post has been edited by Pace : 16 August 2009 - 03:49 AM

QUOTE (Lindley @ Aug 15 2009, 11:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Could the saving mechanism be designed to check for available space before erasing the old version?

In most cases MissionComputer doesn't erase the old version even after it succeeds in saving the new one; the old file is simply moved to the trash.

QUOTE (Pace @ Aug 16 2009, 04:48 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

MissionComputer seems to have a problem with DITL & DLOG resources, in that the text for fields appears completely wonky ("Like so" = "iLeko ss", methinks)

Is this on PowerPC Macintosh? It looks like MissionComputer might be swapping the endianness of the string as if it were a number.

QUOTE (Pace @ Aug 16 2009, 04:48 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There's another problem I encountered: the "Nova-DF.rsrc" file (located in …/EV Nova.app/Contents/Resources/), which contains DITL & DLOG resources, can't be opened by MC ("the 'dsïg' resource ID = 128 could not be saved because the resource could not be opened", and "try again" doesn't help).

Another 1.1 issue. The problem is that there's nothing about the file by which MissionComputer can identify it as one with resources in its data fork. This is why I asked them to give the data files the '.ndat' extension; at first, they had no extension or type code.

I'll see if I can find a reliable way of determining based on file sizes (or even program a special case for that individual file). In the mean time, it seems to work if you make a copy of the file and change its extension to '.ndat'.

QUOTE (David Arthur @ Aug 16 2009, 08:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is this on PowerPC Macintosh? It looks like MissionComputer might be swapping the endianness of the string as if it were a number.

Nope, Intel Mac. Do you want full specs, or any tests?
(if you have it, this was based on SFA, the "SFA Interface" file)

QUOTE (David Arthur @ Aug 16 2009, 08:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Another 1.1 issue. The problem is that there's nothing about the file by which MissionComputer can identify it as one with resources in its data fork. This is why I asked them to give the data files the '.ndat' extension; at first, they had no extension or type code.

I'll see if I can find a reliable way of determining based on file sizes (or even program a special case for that individual file). In the mean time, it seems to work if you make a copy of the file and change its extension to '.ndat'.

I thought as much. Thanks for the hint on .ndat, I'll definitely make a copy with that extension!

QUOTE (Pace @ Aug 16 2009, 03:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Nope, Intel Mac. Do you want full specs, or any tests?

This is curious – I was able to reproduce the issue, and have some idea of what might be causing it, but only with the PowerPC version of MissionComputer. Are you by any chance running it through Rosetta rather than natively?

😄
Well done on noticing that. I did indeed have "Run with Rosetta" checked, probably because of some earlier version (I recall having had to check that because of a bug some time ago).

Oh, well, back to native.

QUOTE (Pace @ Aug 17 2009, 11:31 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well done on noticing that. I did indeed have "Run with Rosetta" checked, probably because of some earlier version (I recall having had to check that because of a bug some time ago).

Yes, I have suggested that at various times, especially for 10.4 users. This is still a bug though, which I'll see if I can track down for the benefit of those who are still on PowerPC.

Potential problem, though I'm not sure if it's with MC or RezConv:

If I take a standard Mac plug-in file containing snd or DITL resources and run it through RezConv, MC 4.0.5 throws errors when trying to open the resulting rez like

QUOTE

,ÄòDITL,Äô resource ID 1013 ,ÄòBar,Äô could not be properly saved. Do you want to continue converting the rest of the file?

At the very least this error message has text formatting problems. The inability to open the RezConv'd resource may be an issue too.

If I open the original file in MC and say "Save as Windows" instead, then the resulting file has no problem being opened.