0.16.3.2 Workshop Tags
[h2]Changelog[/h2]
- When mods are uploaded/updated, they also automatically set tags on the Workshop page
Tiny Combat Arena News
[h2]Changelog[/h2]
0.16.3.1 Workshop Bugfixing and Optimization
Hello! This patch is all bugfixes and improvements to the way Steam Workshop was integrated into the game. I wasn't happy with how slow the game had become to start up, and there were both bugs and complications in how the mod load order worked that was getting in the way of development, and also people who might have more unusual uses cases which involve multiple installs.
For the majority of people, these changes should be transparent. If you play TCA through Steam, and that's the only place you ever play it or have it installed, you shouldn't notice any differences aside from having to reconfigure your mod load order.
The important takeaways are:
[h2]Info for modders[/h2]
The game is a lot more strict now about asset name collisions (the paths which appear in a mod's assetlist.txt), because collisions between these paths can cause some pretty annoying and difficult to track down bugs. I've checked all the mods currently released on Workshop, and there's zero collisions between all of them so as of writing there shouldn't be any issues.
This is an issue that can basically be 100% avoided by just having your mod's root asset folder be something like "why485_a10" or some other unique name. The mod tools already made a big deal out of this, but it's not enforced by the game.
[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]
The full changelog has more technical details, and can be found here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1347550/view/545605572912743253
For the majority of people, these changes should be transparent. If you play TCA through Steam, and that's the only place you ever play it or have it installed, you shouldn't notice any differences aside from having to reconfigure your mod load order.
The important takeaways are:
- The mod load order is now stored per install
- Workshop mods are no longer accessible or loaded if you run the game without Steam
- Steam download/deletes Workshop mods only when the game is not running
- If a mod has asset paths that collide with another mods, the mod will disable itself to prevent bugs
[h2]Info for modders[/h2]
The game is a lot more strict now about asset name collisions (the paths which appear in a mod's assetlist.txt), because collisions between these paths can cause some pretty annoying and difficult to track down bugs. I've checked all the mods currently released on Workshop, and there's zero collisions between all of them so as of writing there shouldn't be any issues.
This is an issue that can basically be 100% avoided by just having your mod's root asset folder be something like "why485_a10" or some other unique name. The mod tools already made a big deal out of this, but it's not enforced by the game.
[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]
- Pages should no longer be skipped in the Dogfight and Strike menus on repeat openings of the menu
+ Might fix other strange and obscure bugs related to the instant action UI
- Pages should no longer be skipped on any of the Map, Wing, and generic "Multi-Selector" dialogs if closed on a page greater than 1
- Double loading of mods on startup should no longer happen
- Mods should no longer be downloaded if they are already installed
- Mod load order no longer shared between different installs of the game, causing confusing conflicts
- Mods should no longer be missing from the load order if you don't go into the Modding menu and click Save
- The game no longer redownloads every Workshop mod on startup and every time the game tries to reload data
- Game no longer pauses when going back to the main menu with the Cancel button from the Modding menu
The full changelog has more technical details, and can be found here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1347550/view/545605572912743253
0.16.3.1 Changelog
Improvements
- Major revisions to how mods are loaded and the mod load order
- Mod load order file is now local to an install directory of TCA and put in the game's root directory
- Mod load orders are unique to every installed instance of the game on a computer
- The game will always try to load Steam mods when available (and load order says they should be loaded)
- Mod load order now stored based on mod names instead of absolute paths to a mod
- Load order automatically updated and saved when a new mod is updated
- All mods "soft-loaded" first, and only fully load their data if enabled by the load order
- By default, local mods are loaded, then Workshop mods
- If two mods of the same name are loaded, the second mod will be discarded from the load order and a log error thrown
- Newly detected mods will be automatically added to the end of the load order
- More error logging when a mod fails to load
- All mod downloading/deletion handled automatically by Steam when the game isn't running
- Steampath.json, which stored a hardcoded path to the Steam directory in persistent settings made obsolete
- Better logging notification when the game runs in Standalone mode
- Changed "Loading" to "Initializing" on game boot
- Generic Button disabled state is now red and filled
- When a mod fails to load, the Enable button is more clearly disabled
- Asset path conflicts between mods will cause a mod to be automatically disabled and an error logged
- Asset path conflicts are visible in the mod's content window
- Error messages when a mod fails to load are more uniform
- "Databases added" text hidden for disabled mods
- Updated credits
- Added 30, 40, and 50 mile settings for dogfight and strike
Bugfixes:
- Pages should no longer be skipped in the Dogfight and Strike menus on repeat openings of the menu
+ Might fix other strange and obscure bugs related to the instant action UI
- Pages should no longer be skipped on any of the Map, Wing, and generic "Multi-Selector" dialogs if closed on a page greater than 1
- Double loading of mods on startup should no longer happen
- Mods should no longer be downloaded if they are already installed
- Mod load order no longer shared between different installs of the game, causing confusing conflicts
- Mods should no longer be missing from the load order if you don't go into the Modding menu and click Save
- The game no longer redownloads every Workshop mod on startup and every time the game tries to reload data
- Game no longer pauses when going back to the main menu with the Cancel button from the Modding menu
Steam Workshop has been added to Tiny Combat Arena!
Hello! As a former modder, Tiny Combat Arena was always built with modding in mind. The layout of the game's files are plainly accessible, and tools were released a little over year to allow for importing of new 3D models into the game, which dramatically expanded what could be done.
[h2]The Modding Community[/h2]
It's been awesome and heartwarming to see a modding community build over time for Tiny Combat. However, mods had little in the way of discoverability, with no central location to download and share them, until now.
Workshop support was something I was putting off as a post-1.0 update, but at the insistence of, and with some programming support provided by, MicroProse, it was able to get done much sooner. In the long run I think that was the right decision.
[h2]Accessing Workshop[/h2]
The easiest way to access the Workshop is through the Workshop tab that now appears on the game's page in your Library. It can also be accessed directly through the Community tab.
[h2]The Mod Manager[/h2]
New in this patch is the Mod Manager. It's pretty self-explanatory, but it can be used to check the mods you have installed both locally and from Workshop. The mod load order can be adjusted, in case you need one mod to have its data loaded first so it be overwritten correctly by another mod. The Mod Manager will also tell you if you there is an asset conflict between mods.
Local mods can still be installed into the Mods folder the same as they used to, and this is something you will need to do if you want to create your own mods. Uploading mods to Steam Workshop is also done through this menu, as is updating your mods to Workshop.
[h2]Preview: Northern Germany Work Continues[/h2]
This patch was almost entirely concerned with Workshop support, so none of the convoy, helicopter, and terrain work that is being developed in parallel is making it in. I'm very excited about the variety of missions the new terrain will allow, but it's facing some challenges right now with regards to handling the scale of the map, with some pretty amazing optimizations as well.
In the meantime though, here's a few more WIP screenshots of the upcoming Northern Germany terrain!
[h2]Changelog[/h2]
This is an abbreviated version of the changelog. The full changelog can be found in its own post here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1347550/view/605276452911318161
[h2]The Modding Community[/h2]
It's been awesome and heartwarming to see a modding community build over time for Tiny Combat. However, mods had little in the way of discoverability, with no central location to download and share them, until now.
Workshop support was something I was putting off as a post-1.0 update, but at the insistence of, and with some programming support provided by, MicroProse, it was able to get done much sooner. In the long run I think that was the right decision.
[h2]Accessing Workshop[/h2]
The easiest way to access the Workshop is through the Workshop tab that now appears on the game's page in your Library. It can also be accessed directly through the Community tab.
[h2]The Mod Manager[/h2]
New in this patch is the Mod Manager. It's pretty self-explanatory, but it can be used to check the mods you have installed both locally and from Workshop. The mod load order can be adjusted, in case you need one mod to have its data loaded first so it be overwritten correctly by another mod. The Mod Manager will also tell you if you there is an asset conflict between mods.
Local mods can still be installed into the Mods folder the same as they used to, and this is something you will need to do if you want to create your own mods. Uploading mods to Steam Workshop is also done through this menu, as is updating your mods to Workshop.
[h2]Preview: Northern Germany Work Continues[/h2]
This patch was almost entirely concerned with Workshop support, so none of the convoy, helicopter, and terrain work that is being developed in parallel is making it in. I'm very excited about the variety of missions the new terrain will allow, but it's facing some challenges right now with regards to handling the scale of the map, with some pretty amazing optimizations as well.
In the meantime though, here's a few more WIP screenshots of the upcoming Northern Germany terrain!
[h2]Changelog[/h2]
New Features:
- New modding window to manage mods ingame
+ Set load order
+ See description with thumbnails
+ Enable/disable mods
- New Mod tools which export whole mods instead of just asset bundles
This is an abbreviated version of the changelog. The full changelog can be found in its own post here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1347550/view/605276452911318161
0.16.2.1 Workshop Changelog
[h2]Changelog[/h2]
New Features:
- Added Ural 375D supply truck
- Added arena map cursor, used for navigation with gamepad
- Arena map cursor points towards Arena objectives
- New modding window to manage mods ingame
+ Set load order
+ See description with thumbnails
+ Enable/disable mods
- New Mod tools which export whole mods instead of just asset bundles
- Added "Loading..." bootstrapper scene to make the transition from the Unity logo to the splash screen logos smoother
+ Unity changed their licensing so the Unity logo is unfortunately back ;_;
Improvements:
- Gamepad now has default controls for for moving map screen camera
- Added new controls specific to photo mode for better controller support
+ Photo Mode: Zoom In/Out (D-Pad up/down)
+ Photo Mode: Hide UI (A button)
+ Photo Mode: Take Photo (X button)
- Updated Steamworks SDK to 1.57
- Photo mode controls box changes depending on last touched input
- World position display on top right of Photo Mode
- A new control scheme has been created for the Steam Deck as the new official default scheme
+ Back buttons are used as camera shortcuts
+ A trackpad based menu allows for expanded camera controls
+ The right trackpad is already configured to function as a mouse for menu navigation
- Added move to top/bottom buttons for mod manager sorting
- The mod specific panels (View, Upload, Update) have more consistent styling
- Better logging for various Workshop mod related things
- If updating a mod fails, the error message show's the mod's Steam ID
- Added toggles to set what gets updated when updating the Workshop mod (defaults to only content)
Bugfixes:
- When a mod is unsubscribed from, it is deleted when the game is reset on its first try
- Fixed mods not downloading after a certain number of subscribed mods reached
- Mod loading status is shown whenever mods are being downloaded, and not only once on startup
- Mods are downloaded ONLY on game start, not every time data is reloaded
JSON:
- Fixed typo on the mod description JSON from "Description:" to "Description"