Combat Log 1.5 (Patreon)

So, just a little late on this... okay a good bit later than I both expected and wanted due to repeated injuries xD. First a slight head injury that ended up forcing me to stop streaming 7drls after that seventh video because each of the final two streams was noticeably messing me up and causing setbacks in treatment progress.

Then a broken bone. Okay sure whatever I can deal with that, especially since that broken bone saved me from much more serious injuries by breaking a fall--I should be grateful! ;)

THEN on literally the day I felt recovered enough to tell the doc I'd be stopping treatment and try getting back to normal life, I walked out of the hospital only to one minute later be attacked by a large magpie that decided to go after my head!!! Like dude, anything but that xD

Anyway, that significantly messed me up, so I had to once again stop doing work on a computer for a while. Felt like 2017 all over again, but at least I know exactly how to treat the issue so recovery is much smoother this time.

One could say it's been an eventful few weeks :insertXomHere:

I won't be doing more 7drls, coverage was pretty much complete at that point anyway, though I'll get back to streaming when my head is ready for it. In the meantime, I'm well enough to start more serious programming work, beginning with the final touches on the revamped combat log, which I'm calling 1.5.

Combat Log 1.5

The combat log update is a decent one, but I wouldn't call it a 2.0 because this isn't a major overhaul, per se. The format is essentially the same as before, just lots more info is being added, alongside an important new functionality. I admit the results are growing on me, despite not being a "combat log user" myself, but no, this will not get me to start taking it seriously as part of my own play :P. The main goal is still to not require use of the combat log, just maintain it purely as a tool for those who want to more deeply analyze some specific encounter or setup, or just really like poring over ever more log data.

For quite a while I wavered back and forth between expanding the existing combat log content or completely rewriting the architecture from scratch to possibly support new features, even starting some work on the latter idea which showed promise since it would theoretically result in something easier to debug and modify, not to mention allow some even more special functionality, but I noticed it would encounter some of its own unique roadblocks so gave up on that approach and decided to just deck out the existing combat log with most of the relevant data people would like to see there. It's looking nice.

The combat log still supports the original five different detail levels, though this update is mostly for players who prefer the "Full" detail setting, so I'll be focusing on that here.

Of course, with all that extra potential information to display, we're ideally going to have a new way to view it, more than the mere 6 lines of log space we normally have (a limitation that made me less eager to greatly expand it in the first place). What I did to facilitate searching back through longer sections of intense combat is have the main/normal combat log itself serves as a scrollbar for an expanded view that appears when and only when the combat log is manually scrolled back.

You'll still have access to the expanded and configurable automatic on-map version of the combat log, as the action is playing out, though this new feature is more for further exploration of details after the fact, which is clearly what you're after if you're scrolling back through the log anyway. Scrolling to the bottom of the combat log, or performing any other action, automatically hides that view again so you can get back to playing.

(By the way, I also renamed that top-center multiconsole mode from "CALC" to "COMBAT," to reflect the fact that it really is a combat log these days--it's original purpose, when added by request, was simply to allow players to see all the factors included in hit calculations!)

As for the contents of the combat log, when set to Full it should be a good bit easier to follow the entire flow of a battle as you know it, details and all. I won't claim that it's perfect, an unrealistic goal in part because you don't always have perfect information anyway, and how to display such situations in an understandable manner gets incredibly complex.

Here's a sample expanded combat log pointing out some of the new data:

First of all you'll probably notice that separate turns are easier to differentiate due to how only new turns are marked with a number (though I did not extend this feature to other logs or standard combat log presentation, just this one).

Drilling down into the details, the rest should be pretty self-explanatory. All critical effects are now indicated where applicable, as are disruption, penetration, heat-triggered meltdowns, and more.

Melee combat is also more detailed, explicitly indicating sneak attacks and follow-ups.

Also terrain destruction!

As you can see, for combat purposes there is much less need to mentally merge the regular log and combat log to get a clear picture of what happened during an encounter. The combat log was originally designed purely as a supplement, providing additional information not present in the main message log to avoid doubling up between the two and thereby keeping the combat log short, but now that there are ways to see more of it at once, pretty much the entire process can be followed in the combat log when desired. In the interest of keeping the main log self-sufficient for those who don't want to bother with a combat log, there is indeed now duplicate messaging in some cases (although sometimes appearing in a different form).

The updated combat log also actually does multiprojectile weapons properly, and in a nice format, giving you a tally of the portion of shots that hit followed by what is hit:

In the past multiprojectile weapons were not even compatible with the combat log at all, with additional projectiles past the first just appearing scattered in between later messages, since it wasn't originally built to support them.

Another new addition to the combat log: programmer hacking.

That one was by request, although I'm not sure it entirely belongs over there.

X1?

I haven't yet decided when to release a new build here. Interestingly the combat log stuff together with QoL, tweaks, and fixes so far adds up to a sizeable changelog, and yet it's even still compatible with Beta 12 saves. That said I don't really want to release it as a Beta 12 update, since this stuff is supposed to go along with Beta 13... I was thinking maybe release all this together with one of the new maps for you folks to play around with?

Also: I buffed EM launchers (probably not a good idea, I know).