Developers Iteration IV of 2023

@jip said in Developers Iteration IV of 2023:

Other note worthy changes

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Context based templates

• #5543 Add the ability to use the context of the build preview

It is best shown visually. See the pull request for a video. With this feature you can create templates that use the build preview as its context. As an example;

• • imagine you have a radar as a build preview. If you hit tab (the hotkey to trigger the context based templates) then it turns into a radar that capped with power generators
• • imagine you have a tech 3 air factory as a build preview. If you hit tab then it turns into a chunk of air grid

Can someone please explain how I get this to work?

First off, I have "FAF Develop" selected as Game Type in the Create Game dialog.

Second, the feature as mentioned in "Developers Iteration III" does work - if I have, say, a radar already built or being built (not just queued) and I hover my mouse over it and press TAB (which is set to "Orders - Mouse Context > Cycle Templates"), a ring of 4 pgens will appear as a build preview.

I cannot however, get the behavior as described above. If I select an engineer, click on T1 Radar, and hit TAB, it only says "No templates available". At first I thought that I needed to create a template myself of the radar ringed by pgens, but even after creating that template, it still doesn't work.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

@zappazapper I missed your reply

Make sure you have the FAF Develop game type. Then make sure you have this hotkey assigned:

Then select an engineer and start the build preview of an applicable structure. In this example we use a tech 2 radar. Hit the hotkey and your build preview extends, similar to a template:

Updated the section about tactical missiles.

Updated the changelog

(#5543) Context-based templates can now trigger on your build preview:

Context-based templates no longer rely solely on the context of the mouse. With this change, they can also use the build preview as context to cycle through templates. For instance, if you have a Tech 2 Radar in the build preview, you can cycle to a build template that surrounds the radar with power generators. Similarly, if a Tech 3 Power Generator is in the build preview, you can switch to a build template that surrounds the power generator with air factories. These new templates can be edited, extended, or replaced just like the old ones.

What does "build preview" mean? Does that mean if I select a structure to build and have it on my cursor but have not place a build order yet?

@redx Yep

Many have asked us why we don't allow changes to ASI

can we assume that changes are not allowed in the images themselves, and not in restoring the work of the mod.
I think the ban was initially established to unify strategic icons so that there would be identical icons, and not so that there would be no icons at all. It turns out that only those who are smart enough to fix it can use it, but ordinary users cannot.

@robotcat said in Developers Iteration IV of 2023:

just don't tell anyone, shh

You're free to tell people. Here's the Discord link where people discuss a fix:

• https://discord.com/channels/197033481883222026/1164661950970613841

The author specifically mentions that nobody is allowed to make any changes without his consent. That would include changing the setup of the mod. The only thing we can do with the vault is respect that. What you do on your local system is up to you. As I wrote in the same post:

Personally, I take this as a reminder to appreciate software and assets with open source and/or Creative Commons licenses that permit people to create derivatives of the work.

It would be possible to distribute a tool that takes an original ASI setup file provided locally by the user and converts it into a local FAF mod or directly installs it into FAF. Since the tool would do this locally, the tool itself would not fall under licensing restrictions and would itself not distribute any ASI content.

So i would encourage to do it that way. It is probably not to hard to write a script that extracts ASI and converts/installs it into FAF, then just release the script. Of course users would still have to download both the script and the original ASI, but oh well.

This is what most applications do when they want to use unlicensed things. Its pretty much what FAF does with Supcom.

@katharsas Is a software designed to remove the copyright restriction on for example a windows OS illegal?
It doesn't contain any copyrighted material either, but is still designed to go against it.
So a script with the only purpose of circumventing the copyright restrictions on ASI would violate the copyright on ASI.
FAF is also in a grey area with this, so it's not always easy on what's allowed and what not.

But aside from the legal uncertainty people have already done this and it's available in the discord thread Jip linked.

@robotcat said in Developers Iteration IV of 2023:

can we assume that changes are not allowed in the images themselves, and not in restoring the work of the mod.
I think the ban was initially established to unify strategic icons so that there would be identical icons, and not so that there would be no icons at all. It turns out that only those who are smart enough to fix it can use it, but ordinary users cannot.

the current policy is that you can't change the mod in any way and then upload it to the vault.
You can for your own copy change anything you want about it.
Icons also aren't unified since there are already a few other icon mods available in the mod vault, some even have vastly different icons than the original.

@Nex
If you do not distribute anything, you are essentially not "copying" stuff. Local copies of content do not fall under copyright law.

Now, in some jurisdications, distributing software that goes out of its way to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms is illegal. This however requires, that the original software, that is to be modified, has security mechanisms that are in place on a technical level to prevent somebody from modifying ("tampering") with the original software.

However, the ASI installer has no such security mechanisms. It has no technical barriers preventing anybody from accessing its files in its original setup. An .MSI is basically just a .ZIP file. In addition to that the author of the the original software must be able to proof, that there are/were concrete damages that the modification causes/caused.

This means that a script that only modifies local files does neither infringe copyright itself nor does it circumvent any barriers that were erected to prevent software from tampering with ASI setup file. And since ASI does not cost money, there are no damages to the original author.

So even in the most restrictive jurisdication thinkable would a local script that installs the ASI files locally be legal.

I am not a layer, but that is my understanding of that matter. By the way, if it it wasn't like this, distributing FAF would be illegal because FAF is modifying FA files, which are of course copyright protected.

@katharsas said in Developers Iteration IV of 2023:

Now, in some jurisdications, distributing software that goes out of its way to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms is illegal. This however requires, that the original software, that is to be modified, has security mechanisms that are in place on a technical level to prevent somebody from modifying ("tampering") with the original software.

For a program that circumvents technical restrictions, there would first need to be technical restrictions in place. This has however no bearing on cases where such measures aren't in place.
just because there is no technical measure against it, doesn't mean it's legal. It's just that even trying to circumvent technical measures is already illegal.

@katharsas said in Developers Iteration IV of 2023:

And since ASI does not cost money, there are no damages to the original author.

That is also not true. Just because you take no money for your work, that doesn't "basically void" any copyright you have on it, just because you don't loose any money from that.

Also FAF is definitely not in a white legal area. There have been numerous companies that go against projects similar to FAF. (Nintendo for example in their quest against the melee and brawl competitive scene)

Most of the time when people get a complain from the copyright owner they stop their project, since they don't have the resources to test the copyright claim in court.
So while no neccesarily illegal, it is still a grey area of it maybe being illegal, the copyright owner having a possibly valid claim, but no enough interest in most cases to pursue it.

@nex said in Developers Iteration IV of 2023:

Also FAF is definitely not in a white legal area.

GPG told everyone that it was shutting down GPGnet but that people should keep buying copies of SC:FA because they could play on FAF.

People acted in reliance on this promise (by buying copies of SC:FA after GPGnet was gone, which I did, but also by working on the FAF project and contributing to it in ways like donating money, casting games for community awareness, making mods, making tutorials/guides to how to play, etc.)

There is a concept called "promissory estoppel," you can look it up. FAF is totally in the clear to provide matchmaking services.

@arma473 That is beyond my knowledge and while it may be true it has no impact on my example.
If FAF had no explicit permission from the owner then it would be a "grey" area and since ASI doesn't have such a permission it isn't strictly legal to hand out software with the intention of modifying it, when doing so is prohibited.

@Nex

What matters for me is exactly one question:

If you write a script that "repacks" ASI locally, is there a chance in hell that it will bite you in the ass eventually? And the answer is a simple no.

Regardless of to which degree technical circumvention has something to do with copyright or not. And a big part of why is because ASI is a free of charge mod. A lawsuit for this will simply not happen. In Germany, lawsuits can be cancelled due to "Geringfügigkeit" ("insignificance"). You cannot drag somebody in front of a jury because you want to assert being "technically correct" in some theoretical matter. Other countries probably have similar rules.

And what i find funny is this (though not really part of my argument): If the repacking program was considered illegal because it modifies ASI, then ASI itself would ALSO be considered illegal by the same jurisdication, because it modifes FA.

To me the discussion about what is and is not legal is a little bit off topic

The first hotfix is out. You can read more about it in this topic or on Github