Getting intros out of the way, I started playing Cortex Command late 2010 (thanks to Humble Bundle). I modded it mildly myself, and have only recently come near the community. I'm an idea man with an eye for detail, and my indie game dev experience started about the same time CC's development did. I've chosen this out of all the games and mods I enjoy mostly because Data Realms is doing something right, and I'd like to learn by observation while getting my creative fix on.


So... to paraphrase one of the community's major members, a Mr. Azukki:

1. No one uses the wiki because it sucks.
2. The wiki sucks because no one uses it.

Ergo, the wiki will suck until someone does something about it. That's where I've come in.

I've done a ton of wiki edits, focusing on what's visible to the player-- Tech write-ups, weapon lists, etc. I'm proudest of my work describing Cortex Command's story. I know CC takes itself about as seriously as an 80s action movie (love them), but I got in the zone taking the grit up a notch and just never looked back. If it's not to community tastes or DRL doesn't like it, tell me.

What I need is to be double-checked. I'm new; I could easily get facts wrong. Also the whole "being human" thing where even the best proofreader misses their own typos...


Also, I understand that no one uses the wiki for anything but Lua reference. And looking at things like the (plural??) Offset Tutorials page versus Azukki's Guides to Offset Determination and Commenting (which is where my opening paraphrase came from-- see how I bring it all full circle?), I can see why. The wiki has crucial facts wrong.

All the Techs and even the upcoming Techion are updated to B27. Next up is the modding section.
I don't know CC modding.
What I'd like is to partner up with people who do to co-write articles. Discussing by Skype, IRC, or something while one person commits edits has worked well for me in other projects. Then you all can tell people to Read The [Frisian] Wiki and get lost browsing rather than linking to subject-specific threads or even this lovely list of helpful tutorials. More creative mods filled with less technical fail by volume should result.

Why do I want to do all this?? Because shut up and don't look an insane gift horse in the mouth -- that's why!

So, if you want to lend a hand at lending a hand to modders, please post.

Thank you.


P.S.
This picture...

I hate it. It's wrong, and I can't replace it. Is correct. Ugly, but correct. All hail its orthodoxy.
Wiki spam is a scourge, but there's a lot of good I can't do with uploading disabled. Fixed. Thanks, Daman!

Is uploading disabled? I'll get that fixed ASAP. (this wasn't done to combat wiki spam)

E: Fixed!

Also, yeah, that image is correct (sadly). Offset coordinate systems are very wacky in CC.

Also, I'll be making it hide abuse log bans/account creations by default soon, so human contributions are what shows up in the Recent Changes.

Also, regarding lua modding sections, well, I'm currently in the process of writing a bot that beautifies the official LuaDocs Data generates. It combines it with a section for code example at the bottom that users can edit and the bot will keep, and there will be a human-overridable section for defining a good description/argument list(as the retrieved arguments/definition are not always the best).

Actually that picture is correct.

We're not going to change it either ingame, because that'd entail breaking every modded gun, vanilla gun and creating confusion amongst modders for a good while to follow.


Btw, link to Azukki's guide instead of replacing the one already there, considering it's a bit cluttered with text atm.

A slightly tuned down version of his would be perfect for the wiki.

Damn, son. Welcome to the forums. Hope your wiki project goes well, and I hope people start using it.

Thanks all, especially Daman. Your work on bots saves a lot of time and grunt work for everyone else. Programming is strategic laziness.

I've scheduled 1500 - 1700 (aka 3pm to 5pm) US Central Time on Fridays and Saturdays for wiki work.

With Daman's Lua Auto-Pretty Project in development, I'll focus on non-Lua subjects. I may as well transcribe Azukki's offset guide first. Fact checking will be needed-- while I expect most of it is correct, his guide does say Up and Left are (usually) negative. But it's otherwise a great, well-illustrated guide.

I predict my task list will be...

• Confirm that SpriteOffset effects center-of-gravity || 5 min.
• Waste the next hour trying to weaponize item discarding using impossible center-of-gravity assignments and negative mass
• Test ridiculous values with a vanilla weapon to confirm behavior of offsets || 10 min.
• Draw a custom test weapon to deliniate everything || 20 min.
• Test offset defining methods on custom weapon || 10 min.
• Add link to Azukki's for interrim || less time than it takes to write this
• New heading layout for described HDFirearm offsets || 2 min.
• New general intro to offsets, what they do, and how to find pixel coordinates in some popular image editors || 15 min.
• New SpriteOffset section, describe image pixels vs. offset pixels and coordinate issues || 10 min.
• Section for MuzzleOffset, EjectionOffset, and Magazine's ParentOffset || 10 min.
• Section for JointOffset and SupportOffset || 15 min.
• Section for StanceOffset and SharpStanceOffset || 10 min.
• Try to make sense of the Actors offset section, probably just leave it for later and finish the part I can grep
• Make, upload, and add illustrations to article || 45 min.

I'll be maintaining future task lists on my CC wiki user page.

Please stress that offsets indeed are float vectors.
A sprite with the dimensions of 3x3 will only mirror correctly with a SpriteOffset of (-1.5,-1.5)

Also, I am preeettyyy sure that the Y axis is flipped in that image.

No it's correct.

A link to an article describing "float vector" or a quick explanation would help. I vaguely grasp that at least decimal values of .5 are allowed and obviously applicable to odd-numbered pixel dimensions. Perhaps standard advice should be to keep images in even-numbered dimensions. But these are the sorts of details I definitely need your input on.

As for axes, I fully expect to find things just as Lizardheim says they are. Clearly this confusion needs clearing up.

Float means the number can have a decimal (1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc), compared to an int which is just a whole number (1, 2, 3, etc).

Float Vector meaning that it's a vector with an x and a y component (x,y) that is defined with floats (number with decimal components).

I always thought it odd that every faction has a logo but these appear nowhere on said faction's page

They've only had their good new logos recently, the last ones weren't something to speak of.

I welcome an effort to get the Wiki straightened out. It's missing a lot of important Lua reference material (i.e., it's all very bit-rotten) and the Lua section desperately needs example code for all of the functions as well as explanations about use cases. If you run into any stumpers, feel free to PM me.

While I haven't done quite as much work as CCWiki's #1 Contributor (hands down), I've done a few useful things.

First, if you want to know what's in development for the Techion or the Imperatus without reading all Data's tweets ...the links are right there! And check out their weapon and bomb sections-- I spent entirely too much time going over a recent dev video on youtube getting the descriptions and pictures.

The Weapons, Bombs, and Tools pages are now complete, though needing a bit more standardization (Weapons is oldest). And I've uploaded a fresh set of Device images from B27, all with a consistent naming scheme. You can find and use anything in "vanilla" just by knowing its PresetName (special exceptions for the Coalition's Pistol and Shotgun due to Base.rte items with the same name) replacing any spaces with underscores, and if you want the 1X original size or 4X enlarged.
Actors are in the works.
Older duplicates have been deleted, with sprites for Devices that DRL didn't keep in B27 left alone.

metal chao, your suggestion and much more have been realized. All the Techs have been Templatized to include icons and info from not only B27 data files but the official Cortex Command Fluff on Mr. Arne's AndroidArts site (his pictures will not be stolen to the wiki, though).
I've also added Tactics sections to collect gameplay tips that will help new players get up to speed on using the various Techs effectively (this is also what half of the expanded Crafts descriptions cover...)


Finally, text for Offsets is done, unless my facts are wrong. For the illustrations, I need to settle something about how coordinates apply to pixels. Either the corners of pixels are whole integer values, or dead-center of pixels are. I think it's the former, but I'd like to confirm it better before drawing the illustrations.

Also, I'm going to have to commit the cardinal sin of saying a dev was wrong on something...
Embarrassing as it is, my first mod turned out to be experimental research proofs, which is attached. But a few of the results I'll provide here in compiled pictures:





You may notice that I ended up giving my testbot (copied Combat Robot) Doppler-shift colored hands later on, so I'm redoing the pictures for the wiki.
Regardless, my findings are that even for the SpriteOffset, from the perspective of the .ini files +X is right, and +Y is down; i.e. only the Y-axis is inverted. Perhaps this is a natural "math mirror" of how things are set up inside the CC engine code, but for all us non-employees, I can't arrive at any conclusion other than that the picture I hated in my first post was indeed wrong. It is the exact opposite on both axes.


Last but not least, I have spent waaaaaaaay too much time on this!!!

It's "inverted" because what the coordinates move isn't the sprite, but the center of mass of the object.
Another way to think of it when they're connected to other objects is that it moves the point where the joint connects on the sprite. (Like if it's a limb on an actor)


It really just depends on how you think about it.