Oolite Bulletins

As the topic says. FPS display takes up a lot of the screen and obscures parts of the information on-screen, like when I finish contracts. Additionally, FPS is not as necessary as TAF... maybe make the TAF displayed all time?

I never use TAF, why would I want it displayed?

What Smivs said.

Zireael wrote:

Additionally, FPS is not as necessary as TAF...

I never use TAF, but I find the FPS far more useful if my system is throwing a wobbly - reassures me that Oolite's still running, albeit slowly, and not crashing. Also for determining if my system can handle certain oxps...

Smivs wrote:

I never use TAF, why would I want it displayed?

Nice, and very sensible of you! TAF in itself is intended as a debugging tool, not really as part of the game itself, so there are no plans to show TAF as an integral part of the HUD, and/or tweak it to make it more 'playable', afaik.

IIRC, a few people enabled TAF by mistake already & couldn't figure out what was happening - having it displayed somewhere does provide a quick way for people to find out whether they're on TAF or not.
Since the display FPS debug option is there to provide feedback on stuff affecting the redraw rate, putting the TAF display there seemed like a smart thing at the time!


And finally, I wouldn't recommend showing FPS all the time, it's designed to be rather distracting & slightly in the way, as all debug tools inevitably tend to be!

But the Stardreamer in FFE is used all the time, quite normally... TAF for me works the similar way, why not have it easily available and readily seen?

Be advised that TAF was implemented as a testing feature and the current plan is to remove it completely from the upcoming end-user stable version. It will remain in the "developer's/OXPer's/tester's" version that we plan to distribute as an upgrade download, but making it visible all the time or tweaking it in any way is pointless at this stage, when we know that the final version for end-users will not contain it (or, more accurately, will contain it with value fixed to 1.0). OXP creators intending to make parts of their OXPs dependent on TAF should be aware of this.

another_commander wrote:

Be advised that TAF was implemented as a testing feature and the current plan is to remove it completely from the upcoming end-user stable version. It will remain in the "developer's/OXPer's/tester's" version that we plan to distribute as an upgrade download, but making it visible all the time or tweaking it in any way is pointless at this stage, when we know that the final version for end-users will not contain it (or, more accurately, will contain it with value fixed to 1.0). OXP creators intending to make parts of their OXPs dependent on TAF should be aware of this.

Hm. If a scripter would want to make parts of OXP dependent on TAF, he certainly would set it via script. Now, if the player had no option to switch it off again, that would offer some..., errmmm..., interesting possibilities to put him on a ride.

Oh right, regarding script TAF changes, these are already disabled in the end-user builds. This is why scripters need to be aware of the situation, as the timeAccelerationFactor setter property will be ignored, unless run on a dev/tester upgraded version.

Why....? Why not make it more Stardreamer-like and accessible?

Oh well, then I'd try to get my hands on the tester's versions...

Zireael wrote:

Why....? Why not make it more Stardreamer-like and accessible?

Because the TAF completely changes the game balance in an un-Elitelike way.

That's why a lot of us don't 'like' it and don't use it.

Well, on my low-spec MacMini with an overdose of OXPs, I use it when the frame-rate drops below playable levels (<25 fps). This way I can enjoy more OXPs, even with the low specs.

re: TAF removal - that's a shame - not from a going faster and getting past stuff because the AIs don't work point of view, but from a going slower than real-time to get nice screenshots point of view...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

re: TAF removal - that's a shame - not from a going faster and getting past stuff because the AIs don't work point of view, but from a going slower than real-time to get nice screenshots point of view...

The TAF will remain in the test-release configurations intended for devs, testers and OXP creators. You will need to run an updater to the released end-user binary to "promote" it to test-release, similarly to what is done now with the updater from the previous version. I am pretty sure that most forum members will upgrade to test-release anyway, so don't worry DH, I don't think you will miss the feature.