This record describes API changes in 1.8 Beta 1.

Buying Ships

In API 40 the dsRPGShipBroker screen now requires ships to have the shipBroker attribute to offer them for sale.

Ship Classes

<DeviceSlots>

In previous versions you could define device slots in the <Devices> subelement of a <ShipClass>. In API 40 you can specify device slots in a separate subelement. This allows subclasses to inherit device slots without inheriting device definitions.

<ShipClass ...
      />
   ...
   <DeviceSlots>
      <DeviceSlot criteria="w" posAngle="0" posRadius="3" posZ="14"/>
   </DeviceSlots>
   ...
</ShipClass>

<Drive>

In previous versions you could define the properties of the ship's drive as attributes of the main element. In API 40 you can define them in a sub-element called <Drive>. This allows subclasses to inherit drive properties. For example:

<ShipClass ...
      />
   ...
   <Drive
      maxSpeed= "20"
      thrust=   "250"
      powerUse= "20"
      />
   ...
</ShipClass>

NOTE: When inheriting a <Drive> element you should specify absolute thrust (with thrust=) instead of thrustRatio=. This is because we cannot calculate thrust ratio without knowing the total mass of the ship and we can't tell the mass until after we've figure out the subclass.

<Hull>

The <Hull> subelement allows you to specify properties of the hull, such as size, mass, and armor limits in a way that can be inherited by subclasses. For example:

<ShipClass ...
      />
   ...
   <Hull
      size=            "40"
      mass=            "100"
      cargoSpace=      "250"

      maxReactorPower= "10000"
      maxCargoSpace=   "250"
      maxDevices=      "8"
      maxWeapons=      "1"

      stdArmor=        "4000"
      maxArmor=        "20000"
      maxArmorSpeed=   "10"
      minArmorSpeed=   "13"
      />
   ...
</ShipClass>

Named Device Slots

You may name a <DeviceSlot>:

<ShipClass...>
   ...
   <DeviceSlots>
      <DeviceSlot id="topTurret" criteria="..." .../>
   </DeviceSlots>
</ShipClass>

A named device slot can only be occupied by a single device. Once a device is placed in that slot, other device installations skip that slot.

You may specify that more than one device can fit in the slot with maxCount=.

Miscellaneous

You may now specify eventHandler= in a ship class.
Ship classes automatically compute a default hullValue.

ProtectWingman Equipment

By default, the player ship cannot harm its own wingmen. This protection is implemented as a default piece of <Equipment>.

You may disable the protection using the <Equipment> subelement in a ship class. Or you may call objChangeEquipmentStatus to uninstall or damage it.

levelCheck

For devices that enhance other devices, you can use the levelCheck parameter to specify that the enhancement only happens if the target device is of equal or lesser level that the device doing the enhancing.

In API 40, levelCheck= may have the following values:

levelCheck="true": The target armor/device must be of equal or lesser level.
levelCheck="level": Same as above.
levelCheck="repairLevel": The target armor's repair level must be of equal or lesser level.

TLisp

Added thrustRatio property for ships.
Added hasVariants property for ship classes, which return True if the class has randomized equipment.
Added objGetCharacterData and objSetCharacterData: These functions allow you to get and retrieve data from the character associated with a ship object.
(objGetShipBuyPrice obj shipObj) returns the price that obj will pay to buy shipObj. Normally, shipObj is a ship object, but you may also pass a structure of the form { shipClass:xxxx } to specify a ship class instead of a ship. The same thing applies to objGetShipSellPrice.
When an event handler is removed, we now invoke <OnEventHandlerTerm> to give the event handler a chance to clean up.
Objects now have the namePattern property which returns a struct with two fields. pattern is the raw name pattern (including pluralization rules, etc.). flags is the flags for the pattern.
Calling (objSetName shipObj Nil) now clears out the ship's name and resets it to the class name.
Characters are now stored on ship objects, not in the class. We've added the character property for a ship, which can be both get and set.
Added +character:unid as a special attribute in sysFindObject.
The +systemLevel:nn special attribute allows searching for types relative to the current system level. For example, +systemLevel:0 selects only types that are equal to the system level. +systemLevel:0-2 selects types that are between the system level and 2 levels above the system level (inclusive).
Added objHasTradeService, which returns whether a given object offers the given service.
Added hullValue property for ship classes.
Added currency property for ship classes.
Added currencyName property.
The multiShot property for weapons returns True if the weapon fires multiple shots (as in dual or triple shots).
The repeating property for weapons returns the repeating count.
The msnFind function now takes c as a criteria to include missions that have been completed (successfully or not) but that may or may not have been debriefed.
Added A criteria to unvFindObject to return only active objects. Also added K criteria to return only abandoned stations.
Added dbgSet and dbgGet to enable various debugging options.

Resolve