Annual/regular code releases

[cyberTripping]

As time moves on an more patches roll in, Gooncode continues to shift and change. Entire features may be reworked, niche tools may fall apart with few people dedicated enough to fix them, and every new patch is a new addition to the game which is, after being added, often an abstraction to future patch makers.

I feel like the flow of patches after the leak has been incredibly beneficial to the liveliness of Goon, and I've seen a lot of important bugfixes and neat features added by dedicated players with a bit of coding knowhow and elbow grease. 

To this end, I feel like Gooncode could benefit from annual (or, more generally, regular) releases of code, albeit with sensitive code expunged. Removed code could consist of secrets, telescience Zs, valuable proprietary code, etc. This would leave the playerbase with recent, sterilised code that would allow them to safely build on previous patches, fix recent bugs, and work with tweaks that may be important for balance or stability.

Not only would this take a load of the dedicated programmers by shifting the weight of bugfixing, it would also allow the codebase to continue to steadily gain from the patching scene that has, in my opinion, enriched the goon experience.

[atomic1fire]

I'd be okay with an annual code release if they did it on a yearly or semiyearly basis.

Pick one arbitrary code day, release that code a year later, and that will be the most current branch that anyone can copy or modify.

By the time it's released, all the stuff that should be confidential is a year old, and anything that is confidential can be changed or excluded.

Don't give an exact date for release because then they can release it "sometime next year or the year after".

[Berrik]

chem recipes in particular are in one single file that would be trivial to omit

[NateTheSquid]

chem recipes in particular are in one single file that would be trivial to omit

the problem is, maybe not with chems, but with a lot of secret stuff, is that everything is connected, it becomes crazy hard to be like: 'the bee key? delete how thats gotten cause secrets' but then somewhere else in the code it goes 'only accept the bee key if it was gotten like this, the right way'

[BBEG]

chem recipes in particular are in one single file that would be trivial to omit

the problem is, maybe not with chems, but with a lot of secret stuff, is that everything is connected, it becomes crazy hard to be like: 'the bee key? delete how thats gotten cause secrets' but then somewhere else in the code it goes 'only accept the bee key if it was gotten like this, the right way'

Well the sol wiki already catalogues a lot of the secrets and alot of super secrets involve alot of alternate reality game stuff which the code cant help ya with not to mention alot of the secret stuff isn't even finished

also i support annual code releases so that i can finally make ghetto station

[OMJ]

this can only help goon

[Arborinus]

Granted they aren't very code intensive, but I have never had a problem with the creation of my many patches involving a difference between public/private release. I'm sure someone can list a bunch of major things but the game isn't that dramatically different.
Byond updates can break things but that's been fixed when its happened so far?

[Vitatroll]

It'd be nice. Though I haven't heard of any problems from people asking for chunks of code related to their projects. I'm pretty sure it's primarily the effort (formatting, cleaning, legality, etc.) that's the hold-back. That tends to be a lot of grinding, monotonous, unrewarding work.

[Ed Venture]

this can only help goon

[Mageziya]

If there's concerns about releasing everything at once, then maybe people could submit requests for sections of relevant code? For example, the chemicompiler apparently broke after goon went public, so no one's been able to patch it, but someone could try requesting for the relevant code to be made public.

This isn't flawless, and also doesn't account for when code completely unrelated to expected code breaks stuff.

[Ines]

afaik the issue with this is a good majority of the coders don't want their code being used on places like vorestation.

[cyberTripping]

afaik the issue with this is a good majority of the coders don't want their code being used on places like vorestation.

I feel like if something like that were to happen we'd have heard about it by now. They've had a year to grab whatever they want and I haven't heard a single instance of this sort of thing. Not saying it hasn't happened, if any coders were maligned by furries and want to mention it I'm all ears.

[Ed Venture]

I mean they don't even need a reason. Despite all the good I think it can do by sharing the code, if a coder does not want his or her efforts open for all then that's their right and I respect their choice.

[cyberTripping]

I mean they don't even need a reason. Despite all the good I think it can do by sharing the code, if a coder does not want his or her efforts open for all then that's their right and I respect their choice.

Yeah, and that's a pretty valid argument. It was mostly the "like vorestation" that got me, since it sorta insinuates things getting wholesale stolen by NML would be ok because it's not those icky furry erpers.

[Superlagg]

I support this mainly because I am a min-maxing munchkin. I like to dive into the code to see how things work and adjust my strategies accordingly. It also helps give me an appreciation of the code and features by knowing the mechanics behind the mechanics.