0.G Final Push

[I-am-Erk]

We're almost there.

0.G release is taking a long time due in large part to the senior devs all being quite busy IRL. However, we are at the last few stages of the project and the remaining PRs are quite easy to fix. This issue exists just to pin those PRs and bring attention to them.

Testing/Review needed:

• Improve dialogue navigation including mouse support & history scrolling #61447 needs testing, if it works it looks like it can be merged.

Quick Fixes:

• BUG/Suggestion: Either make trader NPCs NOT investigate sounds or lock them behind reinforced glass. #56990 is a difficult fix to do properly, but I have proposed a fix for stable only that can remove it from blockers and should be quite easy: basically we can set some static NPCs to have a movement speed of zero. That fixes the immediate issue.
• Repeatedly acquiring Reflex Photophore mutation #53324 should be resolvable with a few lines of JSON.
• Unless someone wants to put a strong push of effort into portal storms to resolve issues like Important Faction NPCs not immune to portal storms #58023 and Portal Storm Enemies Pushing character to Extreme Exhaustion #54463, we should probably disable portal storms by default in 0.G-stable, with a mod to re-enable them if desired. Note that the outstanding issues are not all that hard to resolve if someone wants to push on them, but there are enough of them that I don't think they can go into stable as is.
• Replace add_spawn() calls in mapgen with place_spawn() #3951 is really easy to do, and ancient, and I'm leaving it on blockers because there's no good reason we haven't done it yet. All it needs is someone, even a new contributor, to do it and become a hero who fixed an ancient issue.
• Rigid skin mutations such as protective bark and chitin make splints impossible to wear #57480 seems like it should be a pretty simple check in the code.
• Vacuum sealing recipes do not indicate that sealed bags will be used #57708 also seems like it should be a pretty simple code safety check.

More complex but still accessible:

• NPCs suicidally try to heal you #57254 is an NPC AI addition so it's not simple, per se, but I've written up an algorithm that should be the solution to the release blocker portion and AFAIK it shouldn't require a master coder.
• Prototype cyborgs and power storage cbm scarcity #61423 needs someone to look at the math and propose a fix, which could be me or it could be you! Chances are the fix is not too tough.

Need some more information:

• When entering Trans-Coast Logistics, game breaks #55322 / TCL drones can scan otherworldly enemies, causing massive lag #57521 need someone who can do some performance profiling to get to the bottom of it.
• Exosuit features no longer work #59657 may not be an issue, needs checking. If still an issue, we may need some janky fixes to get to release.
• Avoid possible epilepsy hazard by keeping Adv Inventory open during brief tasks #57585 may be manageably easy to fix. If it is not, we can probably remove it from release blockers.

Not on this list

If there is something you think really needs solving before stable, bring it up in the comments.
There are also some issues we may try to add to the list depending on progress. In particular:

• Monster exclusion zones: In order to help protect quest NPCs, it would be nice to be able to cover faction bases in a monster exclusion zone, a zone where monsters can't path in. This would solve a lot of "quest is now impossible" issues. For now we're not considering it a release blocker but it's quite highly requested.
• NPC go home: NPCs who path out of there safe zones die, and this is a big problem. While turning off portal storms will solve a lot of this, it's still something that should be resolved. Since we do have NPC activity zones, it should be fairly easy to use similar code where static NPCs will return to their start point when they aren't in combat. Again, this is probably not going to be made into a release blocker, but we'd really love to have it for stable.

[Hirmuolio]

#62155 to get usable units::power.
Then quick swap in json from writing power in energy to power in power.
It would be very quite annoying if the swap happened after stable (writing power in energy in json was recently introduced to experimentals so it would be forgotten temporary thing that never entered stable).

[oosyrag]

Any hope of solving or improving outstanding Android issues for stable? The game plays pretty great on mobile when set up properly. The number of hoops that need to be jumped through is rather absurd though.

Specific list of issues that could be addressed:

The font selection bug, aggravated by the fact that some file managers cannot access and modify the files needed for the workaround. e:Didn't realize the default font issue had been resolved at some point, I don't even see the option to pick fonts anymore.

Somewhat related, auto font size, height, and width being determined by the number of desired rows could be a nice touch.

Finding out native resolution and making use of it. Because disabling fullscreen scaling doesn't work (the game is always scaled to fit, regardless of the setting), the user can never know how much actual screen real estate is available just by looking.

It would be great if the game could get and report the available resolution available to it somehow. Even if the user knows the screen specs on their device, the account of pixels taken up by the notification bar, notch, and soft keys is often not published or easily accessible. Automatically setting a terminal height and width would be even better.

Opinion: Adding some more commonly used and useful default keys to the quickbar for new players. My recommendation would be 0@imxas"$ and maybe d&* (Currently 0mi). I think ? and } show up automatically right away as a context buttons as well.

There are quite a few places missing useful automatic contextual quickbar shortcuts. I wish I knew how to add these so I could do so whenever I run into them while playing.

Opinion: Changing the default memory tile overlay to bluedark from sepia. It was insanely disorientating for memory tiles outside of lit vision range to be brighter than currently visible tiles, when in the dark.

Opinion: Swap the esc/back functionality to the back button (natural tenancy to try to use the back button to go back), and the soft keyboard to double tap, or add an option to be able to do so. At the very least, mention that double tap is back somewhere, anywhere. This was the first thing that immediately stumped me when using the Android version that required searching and looking up how to navigate the menus, as hitting back bright up the soft keyboard, yet there is no escape button on soft keyboards.

The auto manage virtual keyboard option is wonky. It doesn't open when it could be useful, and sometimes even closes the keyboard when it should be open.

[I-am-Erk]

@oosyrag are you able to link a few issues for those? Some are definitely blocker candidates (unfortunately)

[Zireael07]

Auto-manage Android keyboard is #62247
Android access to folders is #60740
Android graphics (row/columns) settings is partially covered in #59850 (note that automatic dpi detection is possible but can be wonky, Godot Engine editor for Android has issues with it). Note that someone has UI cut off in #54329 which is reminiscent of Godot problems, too
Some other Android port defaults are mentioned in #58280
Android port quickbar/canceling things is also mentioned in #52630

I can't find issues for the memory tile overlay nor the esc/back change to back button anywhere, but they're both reasonable asks.

[oosyrag]

My apologies! Wasn't quite fully awake yet when I wrote that, I obviously should have linked the issues. I even had some of them open while writing. Thanks for the assist Zireael.

Regarding graphics settings, I understand it may be technically unfeasible to get perfect optimization of resolution automatically for each device, but there are approaches to alleviate the issue if screen resolution data is available. I'm unfortunately not very familiar with Android and what device information is available to a program. I'll elaborate more in the respective issue.

The memory tile overlay and ability to bind soft keyboard and escape are my own ideas that I never made issues for. I'll do that shortly, but I also wouldn't consider them release blockers, more feature request. But I do think the double tap to escape needs to be mentioned somewhere at least, it's pretty important as far as usability goes! Especially for a new user coming in to a stable build.

[Moth-Tolias]

• BUG/Suggestion: Either make trader NPCs NOT investigate sounds or lock them behind reinforced glass. #56990 is a difficult fix to do properly, but I have proposed a fix for stable only that can remove it from blockers and should be quite easy: basically we can set some static NPCs to have a movement speed of zero. That fixes the immediate issue.

[...]

• NPC go home: NPCs who path out of there safe zones die, and this is a big problem. While turning off portal storms will solve a lot of this, it's still something that should be resolved. Since we do have NPC activity zones, it should be fairly easy to use similar code where static NPCs will return to their start point when they aren't in combat. Again, this is probably not going to be made into a release blocker, but we'd really love to have it for stable.

if the latter was implemented, would that work as a fix for the former?

[oosyrag]

#62387 is an issue I opened for requesting esc/back swapped for Android. I'm not confident enough to make this change myself.
#62385 is a pull request to change the default memory tile overlay, which affects desktop users as well.

I understand changing defaults can be a touchy subject and I won't be particularly devastated if they don't make it in.

[jfferson]

one thing auxiliar to "NPC go home", maybe could be danger heat maps, that could be based on the monster locations, threat level, speed and their detection area. Then the same logic used for heat could be used to make the map. For it to work properly the NPC should also project the random movement of the monsters, which would be added to the limits of the map. Then they could try to avoid those when out of safety zone, because it could have some chance to have monsters just about the safety zone, then setting time could still not resolve the deaths, also another option could be to not let them leave altogether. it could also make the NPCs from the player smarter on combats, by allowing to contextualize combat rules according to threat levels

[I-am-Erk]

if the latter was implemented, would that work as a fix for the former?

Not really. NPC go home won't stop them from smashing out windows and wandering into danger zones, it just sends them back after they do. We still need to have several types of safety test that prevent NPCs from wandering insanely into danger

[jfferson]

if the latter was implemented, would that work as a fix for the former?

Not really. NPC go home won't stop them from smashing out windows and wandering into danger zones, it just sends them back after they do. We still need to have several types of safety test that prevent NPCs from wandering insanely into danger

you do have a loop on which the NPC verifies the environment, or something similar? I just want to know where it is, in order to try implementing that "danger heat map" that I talked about, or at least adapting NPC behavior if it already exists. You know, I don't want to have spoilers on my gameplay. It could support some addition to behavior

[I-am-Erk]

I'm not yet the right person to ask, though I'm strongly considering learning the code for this better. Feel free to bring it up in discord, it's not really on topic for this issue

[Night-Pryanik]

Hooray, it seems that all of issues were either fixed or deferred to some later time.

[I-am-Erk]

Yup! Still a few left but we're doing great