Weapons defined in text files / de-harding weapons [feature debate]

FYI this requires entire weapon system re-write... it's basically totally not feasible.

I know about the rewrite. Like I said it will take quite some effort, but I think the results will be very worth it, and it's an idea I believe a lot in. I believe this is overall less hard than the panel hud probably was, as one example.

You know, the idea is awesome in itself, but there is at least one consequence outside your scope right now.

I mentioned this on IRC to a select few people, but basically right now on Xonotic there are a bunch of different servers running their own physics, their own weapon balances, and all sorts of crazy customization. In all honestly, one person may look at having each server play differently as "variety" and a good thing, but to me it just makes things inconsistent and discourages me from trying any servers outside of the ones I've already approved.

You introduce a weapon/item system that allows everyone and their mother to create their own weapons with enough work and this is just going to get worse. Everyone will want to create their own weapons and put up their own server to showcase them. I can see the forums being attacked week by week (long time in the future, of course) with people wanting their weapons certified for competition games... because they're better and more balanced. The whole idea gives me a headache.

I don't think the fear of different mods should make us want to limit the abilities of the code rather than expand them. What I support for this purpose is adding better server list indicators as to which server is running a mod and which is running a default. There already are icons, but some filters would be nice as well, so that people who don't want to run into mods don't.

That said, there already are several known servers which are permanently decided as to what they are running. The DCC servers for instance will likely never use mods. Also, a modded server is usually marked accordingly, and I don't think Xonotic will ever be in a crisis of finding an unmodded server. So I don't think this could ever become a problem.

Perhaps, but its true.

Its also very likely that such system would limit weapon options and incur a large processing overhead. Since Xonotic is a game, not a game engine, features like this are not, imo, to useful in the bigger picture. Its not like its difficult or time consuming to add/change a weapon as it is.

That said, IF this was done with little to no functionality and performance loss it would certainly be a nice thing - but until i see code doing that, i doubt it will happen.

It's not just about it being difficult to edit weapons in the code. Like I said, one reason is to make modding easier overall, as well as allowing the usage of multiple weapon sets throughout the same installation of Xonotic. For example, "special maps" could even come with their own invented weapons by using a settemp_for_gametype_all on a separate weapon list. In my view this will only remove a big limit in terms of modding.

Otherwise, my architecture aims at not causing either of those problems (decreasing performance or the abilities of weapons). The existing abilities of weapons will all be ported to the text architecture, and not in any way reduced. Once someone wants to create new weapon abilities, then they edit the weapon code and make a new hook. Performance drop is likely not a possibility, because the text file will only be read once at map startup (I'll think of some way to persist them in the code so the files aren't read with each shot, but memory isn't increased a lot either). At worst it could increase loading times with 0.1 seconds on old machines, but I doubt even that much will happen.