Fireworks Mania News

Hey there!

Another month has past and its time for a tiny update.
As mentioned in the end of the last Developer News I would slowly start on multiplayer.

I did actually do that and had two great live streams where I started on multiplayer.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
I did end up having two "beans" running around - so it was a great success and a great start.

So does that mean multiplayer is done next week - no of cause not.

The disclaimer I use to put here still applies - Multiplayer is a HUGE task and I therefore cannot promise it will ever be a thing.

When that said, I just got started so I'm not even close to giving up - so I'll just continue :)

In terms of February, there hasn't been too much more happening since the live streams as I have been on 1 week vacation and then got home to being sick for 1 entire week too!
I'm slowly coming back to a vertical state and is around 87,93% well now, so still a little way to go.

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- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/

v2023.1.6 bring some big improvement to handling of mods in general. Not a lot of eye-candy, but a lot of stuff under the hood that makes handling of mods much better.

[h2]Much faster map listing[/h2]

I have improved the way custom maps are listed in the main menu so much that it's not even comparable to the old version. The more map mods you have installed the bigger the difference will be.
So what took like 5 min. to list before, now takes like 5-10 sec. So it's really a game changer!

[h2]Auto update of mods[/h2]

You would think that mods you subscribed to was automatically updated, right? Well, so did I, but it turned out that wasn't the case due to various technical reasons.
However, as a "side effects" of the optimized map listing, we now also have much more reliable mod updates.
This is also a big clean and a game changer, as a lot of help requests on the Discord, often comes down players not having the latest version of a mod - and I can't blame them - as the game should update the mods automatically. It does now and it is a really nice feature.
As shown in the gif above, once you click the "Start" button in the MainMenu, the game quickly checks updates for all subscribed mods that are enabled.


That's all for now - hope you will have fun.

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- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/

### Added
- Added a new console command 'fm-open-data-folder'. It opens the root data folder that contains player.log, blueprints folder, mods folder etc. So players can use this to get to the player.log easier when they need help

### Changed
- Updated localization. Still missing Spanish, Polish and Czech, so the two new texts shows up as English in game


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- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/

### Added
- Added localization of new mod updating texts. Still missing Spanish, Polish and Czech

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- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/

Hey there!

As I mentioned in the last Developer News post, I wasn't happy with the initial version of the custom map listing and loading.
It used unnecessary amounts of memory and it listed the maps way to slow.

[h2]Improved map listing[/h2]
Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on this issue, I even livestreamed twice.
As always, really cozy and chill livestreams, so thanks to the ones that had time to join :)



I got the map listing working much better now by using the meta about the custom mod maps from mod.io instead of the mod file. I'll spare you the technical details, you will have to watch the livestreams if you wanna know more.
The short version is - it lists maps a lot faster now!

[h2]Automatic mod updating[/h2]
Automatic updates of mods should really have been a thing from when I added the workshop initially - or so I thought. Turned out it only worked when you were logged into mod.io in the workshop.
However, while fixing the above listing of maps, I was dancing around in the mod.io v1 SDK and found some methods I could use to actually look for and update mods that the player have installed.



This means mods are now checked for updates and they are downloaded if any is found.
This should be the end of having to "resub" to mods to get the latest version - really nice!

[h2]When can I get this?[/h2]
As of writing (2023-01-22) v2023.1.4 that contain these changes are pushed to the Experimental beta of the game for players to test out.
The testing is going really great, so I hope to be able to push this version to everyone over the coming days - unless some unforeseen issues shows up.


[h2]Optimizing the workshop UI[/h2]
I also mentioned in the last Developer News, that I wanted to optimize and update the workshop UI, however I will have to put that part on pause.
The reason is, that before I found the before mentioned methods to update mods automatically, I was under the impression that I needed to upgrade to the mod.io v2 SDK to get that fixed, which would also update the workshop UI and a lot of other things under the hood.
However, as automatic update now works, I have decided we can live with the workshop UI for a while anyway, as that free time for me to look at other and more important things - like multiplayer!

[h2]Status on multiplayer[/h2]
As always when talking about multiplayer and Fireworks Mania - lets start with a disclaimer.

Adding multiplayer to Fireworks Mania is a very requested feature and something I really want to add to the game. However, multiplayer is a very complex task all by itself. On top of that, I have to add it to an existing single player game that support mods. If its even possible it can easily be a 1-2 years project!
Therefore, I'm always making it clear that multiplayer is something I want to add, but I cannot promise it will ever be a thing.

With the disclaimer out of the way - I plan to start on it very soon and do some initial tests etc.
I hope to be able to give a bit more insight in next Developer News post sometimes late February 2023.

Fingers crossed :)

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- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/