SpacePope asked for definitions of all the variables in Cortex and gave me a list of the ones he wanted defined, so here it is for all to enjoy.

@Other modders: Please add and/or correct variable definitions, perhaps we can chuck this on the Wiki. looking at you, first party developers
EDIT: This is on the wiki now. finally got off my ass long enough to do it

KEY:
0+ = Integer value from 0 to a number (limit not explored)
1+ = Integer value from 1 to a number (limit not explored)
0.0+ = Decimal value from 0 to a number (limit not explored)
->+ = Integer value from a negative number to a positive number (limit not explored)
-.>+ = Decimal value from a negative number to a positive number (limit not explored)
0/1 = Boolean, true = 1, false = 0 (trying other values nonsensical)
0.0-1.0 = Decimal value from 0.0 to 1.0 (trying other values not recommended)
TXT = Text, alphanumeric and ! " # $ % ' ( ) + , - . / : ; < = > ? [ \ ] ^ _ { | } Check Base.rte/GUIs/Skins/MainMenu/smallfont.bmp for more strange characters.



AddAmmo
___-This is used for things you want to fire out of Rounds. It is also customarily used for any MOPixels, MOSParticles, and MOSRotatings that you may define, though I think AddEffect might also work for them. Works for MOPixels, MOSParticles, MOSRotatings, and AEmitters.

PresetName
___-The name of the thing, used for both in-script references as well as in-game names for buyable objects. TXT

ParticleCount
___-Used in Rounds to say how many of the defined particle you want to spawn per shot. 0+

Mass
___-How heavy the particle in question is. -.>+

RestThreshold
___-I believe this is the inertia threshold at which a particle settles, and I believe inertia is probably Mass X Velocity(instantaneous) ->+

LifeTime
___-How long in MS this particle will last after spawned. The particle simply disappears at the end, no gibbing or anything. 0+, (Grif) -1 for theoretical infinity

Sharpness
___-How sharp this particle is. This is really only useful for MOSParticles and MOPixels.

HitsMOs
___-Does this object affect other MO's? 0/1

GetsHitByMOs
___-Is this object affected by other MO's with HitsMOs = 1? 0/1

Color
___-Color of the MOPixel, see Base.rte/Ammo.ini for exact syntax

Atom
___-Defines the collision point and material of an MOPixel or MOSParticle.

Material
___-Determines such things as bounce, density, etc. See Base.rte/Materials.ini for exact things affected and see Base.rte/Ammo.ini for examples.

Trailcolor
___-Color of the trail of an MOPixel, same as Color.

TrailLength
___-Length of the trail of an MOPixel in pixels. 0+

Shell
___-Object thrown out of the EjectionOffset on a HDFirearm.

FireVelocity
___-Velocity ((Grif) ingame meters per second, 20px = 1 ingame meter) the Particle of a Round is spawned at. (Grif)Ingame seconds fluctuate rapidly depending on how well the game is running. ->+

ShellVelocity
___-Velocity ((Grif) ingame meters per second, 20px = 1 ingame meter) the Shell of a Round is spawned at. (Grif)Ingame seconds fluctuate rapidly depending on how well the game is running. ->+

Separation
___-Variance in pixels the Particle of a Round will be spawned at in a line from the MuzzleOffset. Both in front and in back of the MuzzleOffset. ->+

SpriteFile
___-Sprite the MO will take. Uses FilePath = to point to the file. Remember to use / in your path instead of any \.

FilePath
___-The path, starting in the top directory of Cortex Command. Referring to a file without any .rtes or folders will simply look for it where CortexCommand.exe is.

FrameCount
___-The number of frames in your object. Setting it to 1 will cause Cortex to look for the exact name you specified in the FilePath. Setting to greater than 1 will cause Cortex to look for sprites ending in 000.bmp, 001.bmp, and xxx.bmp where xxx is the number of frames - 1, so that a FrameCount of 20 will look for 000.bmp through 019.bmp. 1+

SpriteOffset
___-Accepts Vector. Offset in pixels away from the BOTTOM RIGHT corner of your sprite. Remember that computers use the fourth quadrant for graphics, so the upper left corner is 0,0, going right is positive, going left is negative, going down is positive, going up is positive. Also the center of gravity of your MO (will rotate around this point). Each component (X or Y) is ->+

EntryWound
___-Accepts an emitter, or Null (Grif). The wound emitter that should be attached at the impact location when an MOPixel or MOSParticle hits with enough force to pierce the MO. (Grif) Setting to null will cause Cortex to not attach a wound at all.

ExitWound
___-Same as EntryWound, but the wound that should be attached at the exit locaiton of an MOPixel or MOSParticle continues through the MO. (Grif) Setting to null will cause Cortex to not attach a wound at all.

AtomGroup
___-Defines a group of collision Atoms for the MO. Much the same as Atom, but you have to define the density of the detecting atoms with Resolution and the depth from the edge of the sprite with Depth. Those two values are 0+ in pixels

DeepGroup
___-Same as AtomGroup, but for a different purpose. When a DeepGroup Atom touches terrain, it causes Cortex to clear the terrain the MO currently occupies. See rockets burrowing into the ground.

DeepCheck
___-Whether to check the DeepGroup or not.

JointStrength
___-The impulse strength of a joint to breakage. Most likely is measured in Mass X Velocity of the object colliding. 0+

JointStiffness
___-(Geti) A multiplier for how much impulse is transferred through the joint to the parent object. If 0.5 and an attachment recieves 100 impulse, the parent would experience 50 impulse in the same direction. 0.0-1.0

JointOffset
___-Offset (Vector) of a Joint on the MO from the SpriteOffset. If your SpriteOffset X is -3 and your JointOffset X is -2, the full offset of your Joint is -5 from the bottom right corner.

DrawAfterParent
___-Whether to draw after the parent (on top of visually) or before (under visually) the attaching object. Doesn't quite work yet, but when it does, Attachments with DrawAfterParent = 0 will be drawn under the object it is attached to. 0/1

RoundCount
___-Number of rounds and tracers in this Magazine. 1+

RTTRatio
___-Number of RegularRounds to fire before firing a TracerRound. 0+

RegularRound
___-The round to use as the RegularRound

TracerRound
___-The round to use as the TracerRound

AddDevice
___-Begins the definition of a HeldDevice.

InstanceName
___-Depreciated. Use PresetName instead.

AddToGroup
___-Add to a group in the build menu. Also for the buy menu, but only Actors, Brains (special group, any actor placed here will be a brain), Bombs, Weapons, Tools, and Crafts.

RateOfFire
___-Rate of fire of Rounds, in rounds per minute. 0+

StanceOffset
___-Offset of the primary hand when not in sharp mode, from the body's SpriteOffset.

JointOffset
___-For HDFirearms, where the primary hand should be placed on the gun.

SupportOffset
___-Where the secondary hand should be placed on the gun.

AddGib
___-Begins the definition of a Gib. Must be AddGib = Gib.

GibWoundLimit
___-Number of wounds this MO can take before gibbing. 0+

GibImpulseLimit
___-Impulse this MO can take before gibbing. 0+

GlobalAccScalar
___-Gravity's affect on this MO. 0.5 is half gravity. -0.5 is half negative gravity. -.>+

AirResistance
___-Amount of this MO's velocity to subtract every tick. 0.1 would be 10% current lost per tick. -.>+

OrientToVel
___-Amount to orient this MO to it's velocity. 0 is no orientation, 0.5 is somewhat slowly, 1 is instantly. 0.0-1.0

EmissionAngle
___-Angle from emitter's current angle to emit. In degrees, 0 is right, -90 is down, 90 is up, 180 or -180 is left. You can use any angle, but those are most common.

ScreenEffect
___-Defines a glow should be attached to this MO. Glows are attached at their center to the MO's SpriteOffset, or in the case of MOPixels and MOSParticles, their atom. Most useful on MOPixels and MOSParticles because sometimes they'll be hidden behind MOSRotatings and the like.

BurstTriggered
___-Is this emitter off until the first burst? 0/1

EmittedParticle
___-The particle emitted in this definition.

BurstSize
___-The number of particles to emit at the burst. 0+

Spread
___-Spread in radians to throw emissions or gibs. 3.14 is a full circle around the original point.

PushesEmitter
___-Does this emission affect the velocity of the emitter (and therefore anything this emitter is attached to)? 0/1

EmissionEnabled
___-Are regular emissions (not burst) enabled? 0/1

EmissionsIgnoreThis
___-(Grif)Causes emissions to ignore collisions with the parent and all of its parents. 0/1

ParticlesPerMinute
___-How many of the EmittedParticle to spawn per minute. Under 60, this becomes a random chance, as in 30 would cause a particle to spawn on average every other second but in reality means that every second there is a 50% chance of a particle being spawned. 0+

BurstScale
___-What to multiply the BurstSize, Spread, and Min/MaxVelocity of all emissions by when bursting. (Geti)Might only affect velocities. 1+

BurstDamage
___-How much damage should this emitter do to attached Actors when bursting? (only affects actors) 0+

FlashOnlyOnBurst
___-Should the Flash only appear during a burst (as opposed to the entire time it is emitting)? 0/1

FireIgnoresThis
___-(Grif)Causes gun fire to ignore collisions with the parent and all of its parents. Thus on most weapons, having the firing offset inside the gun isn't going to cause any problems. 0/1

LifeVariation
___-(Geti)A multiplier for how much variance the LifeTime of an Emission of Gib can vary. Setting to 0.5 will allow the Emission or Gib to be 150% lived or 50% lived. 0.0-1.0

FireIgnoresThis means that the gun fire ignores the parent and all of its parents. Thus on most weapons, having the firing offset inside the gun isn't going to cause any problems.

EmissionsIgnoreThis is the same thing applied to emitters and their emissions.

LifeTime can be set to -1 for theoretical infinity.

FireVelocity and ShellVelocity are in-game meters/second.

1 meter is 20 pixels, and one second fluctuates wildly depending on how well the game is running. It's not reliable to base variables on real life values. Typically 100 is a high speed, and anything above 250 is not likely to even appear in game.

EntryWound and ExitWound should mention the possibility of creating null wounds.

ParticlesPerMinute is unreliable for the same reason as firevelocity.

Err... I have explored the Limit to Numerical Values. It is a 1 with 9 zeros.
Or, 1000000000. I was bored. This is the maximum number a variable can be,
before Cortex Command crashes upon reading that line. I wouldn't recommend
using it too often though.

I think that depends on the variable, Zalo, I'm pretty sure I've seen something higher without crashing.

Probably Numgun, he's a fan of stupid variables. And bad coding, but hey, it (mostly) works.

Yeah, sharpness and mass can both be inane numbers. the mass of the current extremeblock is 9999999999999999999999999999999999999.

In my experience, JointStiffness is the amount of impulse force exerted on the parent object on collision or emission.
LifeVariation is a float, the amount of lifetime an object can deviate around. works best for MOSP effects, because as of now it doesnt scale the SpriteAnimRate. Useful for smoke effects, so you dont have a wall of the same sprite (Darlos <_<) and can be applied in the Gib or Emission definitions.
I'm not sure BurstScale works in the same way you defined it.. i think its only the velocities.
You might also want to make that tower more readable..

And I've had variables which crash at lower values...

Updated with Grif and Geti's corrections and additions.


Any better? I changed the tabs in front of the dashes to three spaces and changed the tabs in front of the dashes to three underscores added a blank line between each variable and it's definition.
EDIT: Apparently spaces aren't any good either. Maybe underscores will work...
EDIT2: Those worked, maybe I'll make it prettier later.

Ultimate suggestion: throw it on the wiki. Don't even have to get them all set up to different pages, let the wikimonkeys do that. Just make a great big page with ALL variables in cortex command, then define them as a group of modders.

Thank you ALOT,duh.

Stuck on the wiki. Have at it, wikipeople.

What. I could have sworn it was that everything below 500 worked fine, and that was when things started disappearing.
Or is that phenomenon affected by lag, and worse when things are running poorly?

I've been using 450 velocity stuff for explosion effects, and those particles consistently appear.

That hasn't been my experience, though I remember the 500 figure.

It does seem to be affected to an extent by CPU lag; my 1.7 ghz laptop certainly isn't the best machine to run CC.

it must vary for lag, its 500 on this laptop.
maybe at 500 the MO is removed, and before then it just starts phasing according to lag?
super high speeds do work well for splash though

I'm remembering my Kinetic testing, though on doing the math I think I'm mistaken.

I seem to recall that a Velocity for ACRockets about 200 would break them, but having them start slow and accelerate rapidly would reach about 500.

So, hmm.

Theres gonna be a limit to maximum velocities in the next build. It was 500 I think. Anything that attempts to go faster than that is slowed down to the 500 limit.