MOOSE pre 2.5 release notification

Hello Moosers!

Further to the status update regarding closure of tickets this is an update to the development progress by the MOOSE team. Since the 2.4 release in July 2018 https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3574734&postcount=1193 we have one last pre 2.5 build to compile then we will push to Master branch. Frank is working on that now.

Why over 20 months delay?!

Good question. We mentioned Sven’s absence in this post https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=262898 it didn’t happen all at once, he was working on ESCORT and AI_A2G_Dispatcher last in early 2019 and just attended less and less. It took some time before we understood that we had to do anything about it. Since the last release of 2.4 to the MAIN branch in late 2018, we used the DEV branch almost exclusively and this caused a supportability problem we have to act on.

Why you (or anyone else)?

It’s been hard to get anyone to want any responsibility for the entirety of MOOSE. It’s been hard to come out of the shadow of Sven’s massive achievement. No one will ever understand all his code, there are over 145 thousand lines of code. Most of us haven’t used over 50% of the code since it was written.

Here are some MOOSE-related statistics:

• Over time, 23 unique, caring, people have added code commits to MOOSE. To these people, especially Frank and Sven, we are eternally grateful. Queue Toy Story meme voice.
  
• There are over 3800 separate code commits on these 145,000 lines.
  
• There are 33 branches and 45 releases.
  
• There are 676439 words and 5.4 million characters in Moose.lua. The King James authorised Bible has only 3,116,480 characters. If you are in any doubt, it’s not a great read.
  
• Despite this, an empty mission with MOOSE takes 0.004 seconds to read on my machine. However, it may take up to 0.4 seconds on a mission with 1100 units in, whilst it takes each of those and copies all the data into it’s database.
  
• Last month generated 362 unique views of the MOOSE repository. That is 362 unique active developers, small and large, using Moose to do things with DCS. 362 people that love flying, love DCS and love the fact that they can script some basic things. That’s just January of course.
  
• At some point in early 2019 we surpassed 500 Discord members. This year we show over 1000 Discord accounts of interested people.
  
  

The Discord is busy.. I mean, really busy, with people asking questions on scripting. And these folks are not developers, they are enabled players making basic things for their groups and dabbling in scripting because they can get some cool things done easily. Some folks spend a lot longer and start contributing back what they learned. This is the TOP of the pyramid. All that goodness floats down to the individuals flying and experiencing DCS in more interesting ways.

What are we (the unwitting caretakers) currently doing in MOOSE?

Firstly FunkyFranky, Wingthor and others are actively preparing the great Merge of the DEV branch into the MAIN branch. This will create MOOSE version 2.5. Since it’s our first time doing it without Sven, with systems like Appveyor that autogenerate demo missions and such, it’s quite nerve wracking! And the account owner isn’t here either…

Why, what is this 'merge' business?

Well, because a look at the URL’s hit https://github.com/FlightControl-Master/MOOSE/graphs/traffic shows 424 views last month hitting the main branch which stopped being updated in the middle of 2018! Only 98 views were direct to DEV. This is 75% of views hitting the wrong MOOSE version and answers the most common supportability question on Discord after, “Have you loaded moose.lua”?

So we have brutally shredded the open ticket list with a view to supporting only the most fundamental of issues that DCS could at any minute spring on us. That’s 184 tickets down to just ten, just in time for DCS 2.5.6. Not that I’m expecting anything to break, right? With a Damage modelling build from ED? That would be … poetic!

The MOOSE world, post FlightControl, is in a good place. The CORE, still chunters along fine and that’s where we want to concentrate the maintenance. SPAWN has birthed over 17 trillion AA7 amphibious assault vehicles (I made that up). TASK is well, very menuey and menus aren’t the best code to write about… Shakey incomplete API, complex code, built on an unsupported scripting engine with bugs by a developer who left… it’s never great. DCS AI remains DCS AI. It’s not our fault!

But in the midst of that Frank released AIRBOSS, the single most awesome tool that was never announced because there was never an official release. We hope to announce it properly in 2.5 with:

By FunkyFranky:

- AIRBOSS https://flightcontrol-master.github.io/MOOSE_DOCS_DEVELOP/Documentation/Ops.Airboss.html

- ATIS https://flightcontrol-master.github.io/MOOSE_DOCS_DEVELOP/Documentation/Ops.Atis.html

- Recovery tanker https://flightcontrol-master.github.io/MOOSE_DOCS_DEVELOP/Documentation/Ops.RecoveryTanker.html

- Rescue Helo https://flightcontrol-master.github.io/MOOSE_DOCS_DEVELOP/Documentation/Ops.RescueHelo.html

- WareHouse https://flightcontrol-master.github.io/MOOSE_DOCS_DEVELOP/Documentation/Functional.Warehouse.html

- FOX Missile Trainer https://flightcontrol-master.github.io/MOOSE_DOCS_DEVELOP/Documentation/Functional.FOX.html

- RATMANAGER

By FlightControl

- A2G_Dispatcher https://flightcontrol-master.github.io/MOOSE_DOCS_DEVELOP/Documentation/AI.AI_A2G_Dispatcher.html

- ESCORT – note that this was somewhat incomplete and should be considered unfinished

Fixes:

All of the fixes. See attached. (not the picture of the moose)

The change log is impossible to write for this. Someone gave me a printout 1460 lines long. I read it all and decided it was vastly incomplete and inaccurate.

Now a request from us to you.????

Please, when asking for help:

1. Supply the full mission, with script, with no mods. Remove irrelevant scripting

2. Supply the dcs.log or if you are 100% sure, the snippet with the relevant error.

3. State clearly how to reproduce the problem and what the problem actually is (we get people not actually say what the problem is, and these problems are the hardest to solve)

4. State the expectations you have on what you wanted the script to do

5. If any extra steps are required to create the error, supply the steps to reproduce.

Forum support

• Use Discord. Oh the pain watching folks get help on a forum! https://discord.gg/rjgYdfP
  

Discord support

• Don’t post code and ask if it will work. Ask DCS. We aren’t computers.
  
• Don’t ask, “Is X is broken?” and leave it hanging. This is an opening for, “Can you help with my script (which I screwed up)”. Cut to the chase.
  
• Read your dcs.log first, then ask for help. This avoids the follow up question, “What did the logs say?” and the lengthy pause as you tell us you are at work.
  
  
• Use the inbuilt Discord markup for pasting code ```lua <code> ``` will make it colourful and easier to solve, because it’s easier to read …you want us to read it right?
  
• If you aren’t verbose and detailed, neither will we be. Unless you want to give us money. Then I’ll talk with you all day. Until then…I’m cherry picking my conversation partner and I like them chatty!
  
• Stop by again and return the favour to someone else! We did! Now we are trapped, but life can be cruel.
  

Links

MOOSE Docs The thing you know you should read but between you and I, you didn't right? ;)

MOOSE download Notice this is DEV branch and its the one to pick until we push a 2.5 live release!!!

Join MOOSE Discord Increases your IQ by a full 10 points. And you get an Achievement.

MOOSE Demo missions This is where you get samples to play with and copy to understand what to do.

CHANGELOG.txt

Absolutly awesome what you guys do!

Thanks for all your efforts!

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G930F met Tapatalk

• There are over 3800 separate code commits on these 145,000 lines.
  

That's a staggering achievement. Many thanks to Sven, and to you guys for picking up the baton.

Hi,

I don't write scripts for my Missions, but I do use some fantastic components of Moose, like RAT and the recovery tanker and helo, plus Scripts created by Moose users, like @Hardcard Swapper script, and the vertical velocity tracker he wrote for my practice missions.

So, I just wanted to express my gratitude to all the developers that have created this marvelous tool ... a heartfelt thank you, your work has touched many people and made DCS a better Sim.

Cheers.

Eduardo.

That's a staggering achievement. Many thanks to Sven, and to you guys for picking up the baton.

I know right, it's larger than the bible. That's just difficult to comprehend, it was only on a whim I checked to see. The energy Sven had was... staggering.

Oh I forgot ARTY class (I thought maybe that was a 2.4 item.)

If you haven't seen ARTY, AIRBOSS or ATIS, prepare to have your minds blown. Not being funny, but I do not think ED will get as feature rich for ATC and carrier ops in many years to come.

MOOSE 4 LIFE!

Thanks Sven and all other contributors for the massive and amazing framework!

Great work Pikes and the rest of the MOOSE team!

The DCS community is forever grateful for the hard work you guys are putting down in this!

Fantastic Work! I'm still slowly making my way understanding how to get started and i'm impressed with how powerful it is so far. Working DCS scripting without MOOSE is such a pain!

Thanks a lot guys!

I also think it was time to take the torch from Sven, a lot of progress has been made over the last 2 years, the master branch stagnation was reaching epic proportions.

Hope Sven is happy and doing well now... since he no longer has to deal with our never-ending questions, requests, suggestions and cluelessness :lol:

I hope one day I'll be knowledgeable enough to contribute to MOOSE in a serious way, like you guys do... but I'm short on time, capacity and motivation these days :surrender:

Guess what? Minor delay :) 2.5.6 means we need to concentrate on that and bridging the two incompatible builds. Bit annoying as the current design doesnt cope well with the two different versions and their different event handlers.

@Hardcard - You already contribute so much, it's not just purely writing moose, takes a lot to support it as you well know! And I also wish I could make head or tail of MOOSE, i tried with the event handlers and I thought it might be simpler!

@Neck thanks for lending us Entropy, it's a pretty hard time, don't update 132nd for a while yet it's all messed up!