Combing code from .6 and .71 to make my own branch

[youtoo]

I think archery was nerfed too much and I’m not sure about all the attribute changes (some were unrelated to range, see my post in the general forum).
how tightly coupled is the code? I want to check out the new content.

How much work would it be for me to:

1. where is the attribute code? I want to edit some of the stuff you did and make it closer to .6. I don’t want it fully rebuffed. just want to play with my own balancing. I can post results and code changes. I can read C (been a long time since I used it in school. Im a DBA).
2. Are the skills implemented with jsons or is it in C code? Where is it in the code base?
3. how tightly coupled is the code? If I change a few things like this, how likely am I to make the game unusable? Yeah I know I can download it again, I just want to know what Im getting into.
4. What should I use to compile this on windows 7? Not a C guy. I generally just use textpad for editing. I can add a compiler call to it. I dont know any simple C IDEs. Id rather not learn anything fancy.
5. How hard is the code to follow? Especially for a pseudo-non-C programmer who mainly works with databases? Will I want to cut myself if I look at it for too long?

[kevin.granade]

[quote=“youtoo, post:1, topic:2461”]I think archery was nerfed too much and I’m not sure about all the attribute changes (some were unrelated to range, see my post in the general forum).
how tightly coupled is the code? I want to check out the new content.

How much work would it be for me to:

1. where is the attribute code? I want to edit some of the stuff you did and make it closer to .6. I don’t want it fully rebuffed. just want to play with my own balancing. I can post results and code changes. I can read C (been a long time since I used it in school. Im a DBA).

@youtoo

If you’re talking about the ranged stat stuff, that’s in player.cpp in the methods ranged_dex_mod() and ranged_per_mod() You’ll want to take a look at calculate_missed_by() in ranged.cpp for some additional context.

2. Are the skills implemented with jsons or is it in C code? Where is it in the code base?

@youtoo

The skills are defined in json, but their checks are scattered all over the code, so you’ll just have to search for their label names to find the places where they’re referenced.

3. how tightly coupled is the code? If I change a few things like this, how likely am I to make the game unusable? Yeah I know I can download it again, I just want to know what Im getting into.[/quote]
   If you just tweak some numbers it’s not all that likely to cause instability, the game logic is pretty well decoupled from the engine, it’s engine interdependencies we have issues with.

@youtoo

4. What should I use to compile this on windows 7? Not a C guy. I generally just use textpad for editing. I can add a compiler call to it. I dont know any simple C IDEs. Id rather not learn anything fancy.

I hear Code::Blocks is good, you can also use mingw, I’m not the best to answer this because I dev only on linux.

@youtoo

5. How hard is the code to follow? Especially for a pseudo-non-C programmer who mainly works with databases? Will I want to cut myself if I look at it for too long?

It depends on what you’re trying to do, but I think working on skill balancing is going to be much easier than a lot of other things you could dive into. There you just have to deal with the inherent difficulty of balancing.

[youtoo]

what compiler and utilities do you use in linux? I could install a redhat vm. vmware has a free version.

I saw a youtube video that referenced that the game has some features that only work in unix.

[kevin.granade]

Text editing in emacs, heavy use of etags.
g++ for compilation, make for build management.
git for version management.
Some amount of random sed/grep/etc for large-scale changes.