Sorcerer's Elemental System Recode

[Rytech 392]

Starting on r888 I begun work on getting the elementals working more like official after dodging it for a few years to work on other priority things. r887 is what set me off to work on this after I had to fix one of the effects they can place on the players. During r888 I added many needed checks and missing code to better help the handling for them and in r889 I added support for their sub-stats and fixed the Elemental Cure skill and a few other things that make it much easier to keep them alive and also make them more useful.

During all of this I learned that the coding for the core parts of the system is very flawed and because of the amount of code that would need to be fixed I decided its best to just recode the entire system itself instead of going through every piece of code and try to fix it all. But doing so will be a massive task that I would have to spread out over a number of revisions due to the massive amount of changes that will happen and keeping track of it al for 1 revision isnt possible. Sadly this means that a few revisions will have to happen with the system not working. Not my norm when it comes to development but I have to do whats best in the long run.

Because of this I focused on stable fixes first for the past 3 revisions and r890 is the last stable release ive released in preparing for the future. r891 and the next 5 to around 10 revisions will focus on the elementals recode which will mean unstable releases. So if your running a server powered by 3CeAM, its best to stay on and go no higher then r890 until I give the green light. You can get the update now by SVN update or downloading the "3CeAM r890 2018-06-21" pre-compile from the project page.

So whats the plan during the recode? Below is what my plan is for doing this. Keep in mind that this is as is right now and could change during the recoding process....

r891 - Gut out all of the code for the elemental system and all of their status/skills. Its not just the system itself that needs recoding but all of the skills they can cast. So pretty much nearly everything except the type checks for BL_ELEM or elementals since those are fine.

r892 - Recode everything for elemental.c and elemental.h. Summoning, its AI, database handling, timers and safety checks, etc..

r893 - Char server's saving for elementals. I will start with SQL support and then do TXT support as well since this is a major job related thing for Sorcerer's just like how homunculus are a major part for Alchemist. Both must be supported. Also the formatting for the elemental save data is getting entirely redone. There is a chance the SQL part for this update may have to be done in r892 as well with the core recode.

r894 - Code in a few simple skills and work on the AI to prepare the system for checking which skill the elemental is supposed to be using depending on its type, summon LV, and mode. Other things that are needed will be code here as well. Hope to get things stabilized here.

r895 - If all goes well then this update and those following will focus on adding in their skills. With 42 skills in total its going to take some time to get them all in.

I estimate that this may take around 2 or 3 months to complete. If you want to see the progress thats been made you can click the link below to view a post I made not long ago showing the difference in the elementals sub-stats. You can also read a document I made from my research showing what all the elementals skills are able to do.