Alpha 5 has been released. Adds a major feature; projectiles and Beam WPN definitions can contain color and scalar information, which effects the scale / color of Missile engine trails and weapon muzzle-flashes.
In PROJ files, the following JSON keywords are now supported:
#FX MOD SUPPORT
"fxShotGlowCore":[255,200,0,255],
"fxShotGlowFringe":[255,32,0,64],
"fxShotMult":0.75,
"fxEngineGlowCore":[255,128,0,255],
"fxEngineGlowFringe":[128,32,0,64],
"fxEngineMult":1.0,
in Beam WPN files, the following keywords are also supported (because they don't have a PROJ):
In PROJ files, the following JSON keywords are now supported:
#FX MOD SUPPORT
"fxShotGlowCore":[255,200,0,255],
"fxShotGlowFringe":[255,32,0,64],
"fxShotMult":0.75,
fxShotMult and fxEngineMult act as scalar multipliers of the muzzle flashes and engines accordingly; the GlowCore / GlowFringe variables set the colors the trails / muzzle-flashes will blend from --> to before fading out. This allows for a lot more customization of the core system. I've already updated the Missile / Thruster project, so we have missiles that have cool-looking engines, rather the generic defaults we had before; Beams have been given customization and I'll get to the projectile weapons in Vanilla later today, I hope.
To see examples of these variables in use, see
taclaser.wpn in AAA_Starsector_FX_mod_B and
annihilator_rocket2.proj in AAA_Starsector_Thruster_FX_mod.
Now tweaking the look of the weapons when they fire is as easy as changing a couple of variables; I think that should make people pretty happy. I'm probably going to do the same thing with explosions tonight, so people can customize even more.