[Mod] Show Skills

w.evans · Post by **w.evans** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 00:39

Hi StormMagi, any news?

StormMagi · Post by **StormMagi** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 01:21

Sorry forgot to post a reply post even though I updated the first post.

Same problem all around. It interrupts the engineer's repair commands somehow. While I have a small understanding of programming, I have no idea where to even begin looking and Mad_Joker hasn't responded to my message yet. Also X:R isn't my primary game focus right now so I have no major desire to start delving into code to even attempt to fix. If no one steps up to takeover or help by mid January I will be abandoning the mod and removing it from Nexus and Steam. Or I might leave it as a pre 3.0 mod on those sites, not sure yet.

w.evans · Post by **w.evans** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 02:19

A shame, although I can understand that.

I can take a look tomorrow, but I wish someone more competent than I could take a look at this code. Would be a shame to lose the mod. It's useful!

Can't test it properly though, because I haven't observed the problem described. I did observe some freaking out Interceptor drones while playing one of the v3.0 betas. They'd just launch and sit there, and the mother ship would just keep moving like nothing happened. No hostiles to trigger. Never did find the cause for that, but it sounds sort of similar if the problem might be drone-related rather than engineer related.

Having said that I'm not really very good at this (just picked up XML what, last week?), I'm not familiar with how this works:

Code: Select all

xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../../../modding/md.xsd

It looks like a path referencing md.xsd, but as far as I know, md.xsd is in the "libraries" folder. Maybe something legacy from when it was a part of NESA? (Never used NESA, so don't know what its folder structure looks like.) It looks like this file was nested several folders in from root, in which there is a folder called modding, in which there is a copy (modified?) of md.xsd.

StormMagi · Post by **StormMagi** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 03:27

NESA was "Never Enter Stations Again" and was pre 2.5 (iirc, which was when Egosoft added similar functionality).

ty_cho · Post by **ty_cho** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 05:23

I can't tell if this mod is affecting anything or not. Is it the cause of construction drones showing as always in use, even if there are no repairs needed? If not, i've not seen any negative effects that I know of...?

StormMagi · Post by **StormMagi** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 05:47

That is one of the effects. It either prevents launching to start repairs or if they are in space, prevents them from repairing and returning to dock.

wwdragon · Post by **wwdragon** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 09:19

StormMagi wrote:That is one of the effects. It either prevents launching to start repairs or if they are in space, prevents them from repairing and returning to dock.

Are you saying that Show Skills is screwing up repairs????

StormMagi · Post by **StormMagi** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 09:49

Yes, it somehow is. I confirmed it with a clean install, merchant start and just damaged the freighter you get. It prevents engineers from starting repairs and cancels repair operations in progress (which if you then remove the mod the urvs are perma stuck in a loop and won't listen to any commands).

w.evans · Post by **w.evans** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 10:49

I posted the code a page back if anyone wants to take a look.

@StormMagi Should I take that down, by the way?

w.evans · Post by **w.evans** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 11:25

StormMagi wrote:NESA was "Never Enter Stations Again" and was pre 2.5 (iirc, which was when Egosoft added similar functionality).

I know. I meant, could this:

Code: Select all

xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../../../modding/md.xsd"

have been carried over from NESA, and could it now be causing problems?

Like I said, I don't really understand how XML works (yet?), but that looks like a path, and as far as I know, the file "md.xsd" is in the "libraries" folder.

Downloaded NESA, and it is so stated there. Also noted that the line could automatically be generated by an xml editor when associating a script with an xsd.

However, checked a couple of other mods, and this line is stated as:

Code: Select all

xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="md.xsd"

in other mods, as well as in Egosoft's own scripts.

Don't know if that'll fix anything because I don't know what it does, but I thought it looked odd.

wysiwyg · Post by **wysiwyg** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 13:15

My gut feeling (not able to test right now) is that this line shouldn't make a difference to how the mod runs. If the xml parser can't find that path it should have a default XML schema to fall back on which is likely to be the current .xsd and .dtd files found in the /libraries folder.

If you're up for some testing then just change that line to what is currently shown in another of Ego's stock md scripts and see if it works.

Also turn on the debug log and check for any errors relating to unknown data variable or data types as this is essentially what the XML schema does.

w.evans · Post by **w.evans** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 14:39

Hi wysiwyg,

Can't properly test it though, because I have never observed the problems described here. That is, engineers failing to initiate repairs.

In any case, I set it so in my personal copy of the mod; but as far as I can tell, it's working as it always has.

edit: just realized, you were talking to StormMagi, weren't you. I'm an idiot.

dez505 · Post by **dez505** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 14:40

I have always used this and never had such an issue.

wysiwyg · Post by **wysiwyg** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 14:47

w.evans wrote:Hi wysiwyg,

Can't properly test it though, because I have never observed the problems described here. That is, engineers failing to initiate repairs.

In any case, I set it so in my personal copy of the mod; but as far as I can tell, it's working as it always has.

edit: just realized, you were talking to StormMagi, weren't you. I'm an idiot.

Hey no problem - I was just making a general comment to all you guys. It's so good to see so many new faces interested in modding. I'm learning too but have been doing this for a bit longer than some of you so just passing on my thoughts

w.evans · Post by **w.evans** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 14:51

Hey wysiwyg,

could you pretty pretty please take a look at the code of this mod that I posted on page 3 of this thread? Really can't find anything in there that would cause the problem described, but StormMagi said that he verified it as being caused by this mod.

It's a really useful mod. Would be a shame to lose it.

w.evans · Post by **w.evans** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 15:49

Just thought I'd report: I'm not getting the "Show me your skills" option in conversation at all anymore. I then tried it with the clean version from the Steam Workshop, and I'm still not getting the option in conversation.

edit: Sorry, must have been my mistake. I exited the station, and the option comes up in conversation again. Works in both Steam workshop version and my personal copy.

wwdragon · Post by **wwdragon** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 17:24

StormMagi wrote:Yes, it somehow is. I confirmed it with a clean install, merchant start and just damaged the freighter you get. It prevents engineers from starting repairs and cancels repair operations in progress (which if you then remove the mod the urvs are perma stuck in a loop and won't listen to any commands).

ARGH!
That sucks so bad.
This has always been one of my two Must-Have mods.
I don't wanna have to remove it.

StormMagi · Post by **StormMagi** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 18:11

Neither do I!

wysiwyg · Post by **wysiwyg** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 23:12

Sorry folks I've had a good look at this and I can't see any reason why it should cause the behaviour it does. My thoughts are that it may have something to do with the new stat that records how many staff the player hires having already unlocked the skills through smalltalk.

Perhaps the mod could/should intercept the event that is fired to open the skills screen, set the skills visible, displays the skills and finally set them to hidden again after the menu closes. This way you can see the skills of any NPC, but they ultimately remain hidden so that you can effectively still unlock them using smalltalk. Also you would be certain to be only running the set_skills_visible command on viable NPC actors.

I'll try and have a play with that as soon as I get chance.

It might also be useful if several people could test with the existing mod to see if this mod is the culprit for the strange engineer behaviour - there have been other reports of this but not related as to weather show skills was running or not.

w.evans · Post by **w.evans** » Thu, 18. Dec 14, 23:25

Just to start out the reports, so they follow your call for reports making them (hopefully) easier to track, I have NOT observed engineers stopping repairs, or failing to initiate repairs with or without this mod active.

Having said that, I just started a new game start with a clean debuglog and Show Skills active. Will let you know if/when I get a ship other than the Skunk, and it gets damaged with an Engineer onboard.

@StormMagi Is the issue always related to repair jobs with drones? Are there any issues with Engineers failing to initiate or stopping repairs on the Balor and the Sucellus?

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egosoft.com

[Mod] Show Skills