Alley AMA

[Hidamari]

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1DDAB6tK...=send_form

post your questions in this form and they will be answered tonight. One question per form submission, if yo have multiple questions then please submit multiple form answers.

AMA Part 1

There is a lot of questions and answering them is pretty time consuming, so I will be posting the answers in several parts as I can't reply to all questions today.
If you don't find your question once all parts are posted, it's because I answered it in a similar question or I didn't have the possibility/knowledge to answer.
Additionally stupid submissions were skipped.


Exodus: Is there a way to make the zoner bases in Baffin show up under TAZ flag?
Yes, it's possible and it was discussed. The conclusion was that we were not going to do it because this would equal to assigning bases to a faction that purely exist as a server faction. Considering what happened with the Reapers of Sirius, we are not keen on repeating this mistake. The TAZ received their own IFF through the dynamic server IFF project so that's already pretty cool I think.

[b]Quetz: Please tell me the approximate date/month of the update/release which contains one/more stuff from the October Survey.[/b]
We are confident we will be able to deploy a module in late november. I think everybody knows how the Gallia update went and I don't want this to happen again.

Rodent: What is your current role in disco?
I basically handle the entire infrastructure aspect of Disco. Additionally I'm pretty much the only FLHook developer left willing to work on Discovery. It's no big secret that I'm also in the admin team, but it was initially mostly to provide some processing support when the admin team was really low in numbers (we were 3 at some point this summer). Eventually events led to me stay in the admin team, but mostly to deal with technical stuff when the need arise. But it does happen that sometimes I intervene as administrator.

Skorak: Will you continue doing these great things? Even though your time is reduced? I thoroughly enjoyed the new things when I returned and saw a new name for me. When will the Carrier update come out?
I'm trying to continue doing things, but as I notified the community last month I have way less time for Discovery as RL events landed me for free in a pretty good programming school. So despite it's totally not the course I graduated from at uni (I studied language and civilization) it turns out I'm getting a degree in software programming for free so I'm okay with that. The program I landed in is basically the two years shrinked and somehow fit into 6 months so I can assure you it's a lot to process. Fortunately the experience I have thanks to Discovery fiddlings allowed me to have it pretty easy thus far and I think it's going to be the case for most of the course (until node.js happens).

The Carrier update will come, it's just that I'm trying to prioritize my tasks as I don't have the possibility to storm through the todo list anymore.

Laz: - Will the reps Civis and Hellfire and Hellfire and Civis be changed?
- Will there be any chance of Delta being reversed yet keeping some new changes, I.E. New nomad base stays, the power node does, TotD comes back. Core BS stays yet everything else gets put back. Planets, fields and what not, NPC patrol goes way down gain. and the amount of wreaks get 'redused'.
- Is there a place people can post small ideas and things for disco where we get responses?
This is the kind of case that is pretty annoying to process. You're going to have to get the admins to think about it and whether or not it's a positive change for the server, THEN they have to bring it up to the dev team for consideration and implementation and hope nobody will screw up along the way.

For Delta, I believe the new layout is good as most of the feedback about it was positive, but on the other hand a lot of people appear to be upset at the graphical revision of the system. You're going to have to bring it up to the person that revised this system, @LordVipex.

The 'Discovery Mod General Discussion' is the best subforum possible for your questions about the mod and receiving responses.

Clavius: Can SCRA get Jinx ship models?
If Jinx finally make it so the bomber doesn't have the polycount of a heavy battleship, sure.

Clavius: Can our action ingame have any effect on the story?
Of course. While it has not been the case for years due to how the previous dev team used to function, significant efforts have been made by the current development team, especially by @Teerin to gather input and discuss with factions what could be their potential progression and make it fit with everyone else's progression.

You, as an individual will probably be unable to have any effect on the global storyline of the mod. It would really be too complicated. Participating to the storyline becomes possible when you join an official faction as the faction is responsible for its own progression, but of course they have to discuss with the dev team in order to ensure they're not going to cause problems with the storyline. We do usually have a roadmap for changes that eventually becomes final but even then if something happens and it's not a major change, we are usually able to modify the storyline to integrate that change.

Hidamari: Do you frequently encounter opposition from inactive basically nonexistant dev or admin members about things you are doing, or want to do to benefit the server and by proxy them?
I rarely have opposition as I always have the shotgun ready to fire if someone stands in my way for invalid reasons. I can work with that because I'm always able to gather input about what I'm doing. If I don't get enough input in the dev chat, I ask for input in the moderator chat as it has both mods and admins. If it's something critical you will see a community input thread posted where I can gather a very wide array of opinions. Additionally, I create the surveys in order to get a better idea of what people have issues with and get a good pool of suggestions (there's actually good suggestions sometimes). I think it does the job.

Omicron Zeta is an example of a case where I overrided the system developers. The system was way too big and nobody seemed to be really in the mood to shrink it, so I went ahead and did it myself. There has been other cases such as the implementation of the Hellfire Battlecruiser (which contrary to mememaster rumors has not been implemented by Durandal, but by me) or the revision of Connecticut to solve the mine field problem.

The Jackal LF was also implemented by me and hitboxed by Treewyrm because for several months we were unable to get hold of Haste despite he was online. Turns out he was playing Dota2 and ignoring us.

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