Phobos v0.3 - Pre-release and PSA

[Metadorius]

Hello! Kerbiter and Phobos contributors here with some info about the upcoming Phobos stuff.

Sneak Peak and Status of v0.3

At the present moment v0.3 is in release candidate state, and the recent devbuilds were composed almost entirely of fixes, performance improvements etc. to ensure the release will be smooth. You can already play with the latest stuff and see if you could find some more bugs or rough edges in the latest devbuild before we finally release.

The changelist for v0.3 is now 2.5 times bigger than for v0.2. Here are some higlights from the update:

Picture from Robot Storm X

• Laser Trails! Named so because they reuse the drawing code, these trails a are highly configurable and more visually appealing alternative to standard line trails. You can make stuff like engine exhausts, tracer rounds and other projectile trails etc.
• Did you also notice that the flying units now properly turn to their target? ;)

Picture from Project Phantom

• Shield logic has seen a ton of bugfixes and improvements. Stuff like shield generators (shown above), dynamic shield casting, shield penetrating warhead, different damage level images (also shown above) etc. are now possible.

Picture from a private mod by @brsajo#9745

• We implemented a way to easily code in custom projectile trajectories, debuting with (but not only) straight trajectory type. Now visible tracer rounds, like for blasters in this case, can now finally make their appearance in the mods.

Picture from Project Phantom (for testing purposes only, not actual ingame behavior)

• Interceptor logic have seen quite a bit of improvement. There are no more artificial limits to the weapons that can intercept projectiles (so you are no more limited to point defence lasers, as you can see on the gif), and the projectiles can now be modified, augmented, weakened, disabled, or require multiple hits to be destroyed, while the logic itself is now much more customizable.

Picture from Rise of the East

• Animations can now spawn units, which enables modders to do all sort of things, like on this picture you can see husks being left after vehicle was killed.

Picture from Red Alert 20XX

• Building placement preview, a feature that is commonly found in modern RTS games, now arrives to YR mods near you.

Picture from Assault Amerika

• UI/UX improvements, like the power surplus indicator shown above, or build time shown in a tooltip, are also in and coming.
• We also implemented quicksave/quickload features, which will surely be appreciated by the campaign players.

Picture from Project Phantom

• Lots of smaller but significant things, like weapon firing feedback effects (they affect the firer, like the healing aura shown above), advanced weapon selectors, shield breaking effects, shrapnel customization, launching superweapons with regular weapons etc. were also implemented.

Picture from Red Alert 2: Reboot

• Modders now can utilize the functionality if superweapon launching using regular unit weapons, enabling them to create more interesting units, like the one shown above (also utilizes feedback weapon functionality mentioned above).

Picture from Ion Shock

• Of course, visual stuff wasn't forgotten either, for example - now any terrain object might be animated, like the trees on the picture above, which wasn't previously possible.

Picture from Red Alert 2: Reboot

• A new option for laser weapons was added that allows to have visually smooth, any thickness single-color lasers which were not previously possible.

• While it's not possible to showcase, there is a lot of stuff that is not as visual, but still important, like the whopping amount of script actions (the building blocks for a smarter AI), or tons, and I really mean tons of bugfixes and new customization possibilities introduced in this update.

As I said, this is just a part of the stuff that is available in the upcoming v0.3. For the rest, please read the changelog. But now let me address the elefant in the room.

What's taking so long?

It's been ages ago since we published a stable update for Phobos, with v0.2.2.2 being the latest publicly released version. While we still release development builds (not as frequently as before) - it is still a gap that we would want to avoid (less frequent releases = more bugs accumulated).

The main reason for those delays and mismanagement on my/our part is a lack of motivation and the limited time that developers who are skilled enough to be a maintainer can spend on the project. As of the reasons for the lack of motivation, aside from things like getting a job again - they mainly lie in people often not seeming to understand that Phobos needs community involvement to thrive.

Phobos is not a commercial project and will never be, you don't pay anything to use it. It is an open-source community project, and relies on community being involved. When you help Phobos gain more traction you basically help your own mod indirectly by helping the project which allows to have more cool stuff in your mod. Without community involvement it will simply die and YR mods won't receive new toys to play with.

So how can you help?

• If you're a public mod developer: promote Phobos along with your mods, showcase how Phobos allowed you to make some cool features in your mod, and most importantly - get your fanbase to know that they can get involved in making Phobos even better.
• If you're a media content creator: same applies! Make Phobos related content, like videos (for example, showcasing different stuff made with Phobos in different mods), posts, maybe even tutorials on "how to Phobos" (don't worry, we can help if you're not too technical). This is even more important, as you have way more public coverage than others.
• If you can tinker with modding: help test the features in pull requests and in latest devbuilds.
• If you're a programmer: come join us, get to know how to program for YR and get involved with Phobos! Maintainership and code reviewing is especially appreciated 😄
• If you're anyone interested in Phobos thriving: send this post to others, if they are one of the persons above - even better!

And to end this post on a good note - here's a spoiler from some stuff that is being worked on for post-0.3:

Spoiler

Picture from Project Vega

• Yes, that's right. What you're seeing here is working prototype of the long-awaited multi-part unit. It still has a lot of rough edges which are being polished (and which you can help), some of them you can already see on the gif, but it's still very much real, working and can be tested.

• Visit the Phobos home
• Read the full changelog
• Join us on Mod Haven!
• Read about everyone involved and say "thank you" with a coin