some hawtness for all you scripters out there.
the GameMode interface allows for pluggable game modes (Capture the Flag, Racing, special deathmatch rules, etc) without having to edit core files makes installing and removing mods easier than ever.
To further convenient modding, your whole mod (or content pack) can be packed up into a single zip file and dropped into the mods directory. Torquescript's package functionality allows you to override core functionality without risking the user's core scripts. Even better, the users can select from a single gui inside Torque which mods they want enabled, and which they want disabled.
Datablocks are designed to be reusable, a feature of the engine which most scripters ignore, largely because there is no convenient way to share particles, projectiles and other useful data between each other's mods when you have no way of knowing which mods are used. TBG changes that. Each type of reusable datablock has a special directory, and named with a scheme based on their basic properties. Any datablocks which your content pack or mod is dependent on, should be packaged with your mod. Your scripts which need reusable datablocks register themselves with the engine and request the datablocks they require. If that datablock has already been loaded, the request is ignored, otherwise it searches the entire modpath for the appropriate datablock and exec()s its file.
Finally, porting terrain based maps to a new mod directory (as required by TBG) is always a pain, but we've created a tool to streamline the process and make it as painless as possible. We've also taken the opportunity to reorganize the directory structure to make it a little more logical and less cluttered. Mission previews now belong in core/data/missions/previews. Terrain files, oddly enough, now belong in the core/data/terrain directory, just like their textures.
the GameMode interface allows for pluggable game modes (Capture the Flag, Racing, special deathmatch rules, etc) without having to edit core files makes installing and removing mods easier than ever.
To further convenient modding, your whole mod (or content pack) can be packed up into a single zip file and dropped into the mods directory. Torquescript's package functionality allows you to override core functionality without risking the user's core scripts. Even better, the users can select from a single gui inside Torque which mods they want enabled, and which they want disabled.
Datablocks are designed to be reusable, a feature of the engine which most scripters ignore, largely because there is no convenient way to share particles, projectiles and other useful data between each other's mods when you have no way of knowing which mods are used. TBG changes that. Each type of reusable datablock has a special directory, and named with a scheme based on their basic properties. Any datablocks which your content pack or mod is dependent on, should be packaged with your mod. Your scripts which need reusable datablocks register themselves with the engine and request the datablocks they require. If that datablock has already been loaded, the request is ignored, otherwise it searches the entire modpath for the appropriate datablock and exec()s its file.
Finally, porting terrain based maps to a new mod directory (as required by TBG) is always a pain, but we've created a tool to streamline the process and make it as painless as possible. We've also taken the opportunity to reorganize the directory structure to make it a little more logical and less cluttered. Mission previews now belong in core/data/missions/previews. Terrain files, oddly enough, now belong in the core/data/terrain directory, just like their textures.