CHANGELOG.md

1.7.6 (build 20679, api 7, 2022-07-26)

• Cleaned up da MetaSubsystem code.
• It is now possible to tell the meta system about arbitrary classes (ba_meta export foo.bar.Class) instead of just the preset types 'plugin', 'game', etc.
• Newly discovered plugins are now activated immediately instead of requiring a restart.

1.7.5 (build 20672, api 7, 2022-07-25)

• Android build now uses the ReLinker library to load the native main.so, which will (hopefully) avoid some random load failures on older Android versions.
• Android Google Play build now prints a message at launch if the billing library isn't available or needs to be updated (explaining why purchases won't work in that case).
• Various minor bug fixes (mostly cleaning up unnecessary error logging)
• Updated Android builds to use the new NDK 25 release
• Added a warning when trying to play a tournament with a workspace active
• Added api-version to changelog headers and pcommand version command.

1.7.4 (20646, 2022-07-12)

• Fixed the trophies list showing an incorrect total (Thanks itsre3!)
• ba.app.meta.metascan is now ba.app.meta.scanresults
• Cleaned up co-op ui code a bit
• Added a utility function to add custom co-op games in the practice section: ba.app.add_coop_practice_level. Also added new workspace template script which uses it to define a new co-op game type.
• Removed some spammy debug timing logging I added for tracking down a recent bug (can be reenabled by setting env var BA_DEBUG_TIMING=1)
• Updated the 'Show Mods Folder' to properly show the path to the mods folder. Before it would unhelpfully show something like <External Storage>/BombSquad but now it should be something more useful like Android/data/net.froemling.bombsquad/files/mods.
• Android user scripts dir is now called 'mods' instead of 'BombSquad'. The name 'BombSquad' made sense when it was located in a truly shared area of storage but now that it is in the app-specific area (something like Android/data/net.froemling.bombsquad/files) it makes sense to just use 'mods' like other platforms.
• Updated the Modding Guide button in advanced settings to point to the new ballistica wiki stuff instead of the old out-of-date 1.4 modding docs.
• Added ba.app.net.sslcontext which is a shared SSLContext we can recycle for our https requests. It turns out it can take upwards of 1 second on older Android devices to create a default SSLContext, so this can provide a nice speedup compared to the default behavior of creating a new default one for each request.
• Rewrote Google Play version purchasing code using Google's newest libraries (Google Play Billing 5.0). This should make everything more reliable, but please holler if you try to purchase anything in the game and run into problems.
• It is now possible on the Google Play version to purchase things like Pro more than once for different accounts.

1.7.3 (20634, 2022-07-06)

• Fixed an issue with King of the Hill flag regions not working when players entered them (Thanks itsre3!)
• Fixed an issue in Chosen One where the flag resetting on top of a player would not cause them to become the chosen one (Thanks Dliwk!)
• Fixed an issue where triple-bomb powerup would not flash before wearing off (Thanks Juleskie!).
• Fixed an issue where syncing workspaces containing large files could error.
• Net-testing window now requires you to be signed in instead of giving an error result in that case.
• The app now issues a gentle notice if plugins are removed instead of erroring and continuing to look for them on subsequent launches. This makes things much smoother when switching between workspaces or users.
• Added new translation entries for Workspace/Plugin stuff.
• tools/bacloud workspace get/put commands are now functional (wiki page with instructions coming soon).
• _ba.android_get_external_storage_path is now _ba.android_get_external_files_dir which maps to the actual call it makes under the hood these days.
• Android logging now breaks up long entries such as stack-traces into multiple log entries so they should not get truncated.
• The app now issues a warning if device time varies significantly from actual world time. This can lead to things like the app incorrectly treating SSL certificates as not yet valid and network functionality failing.
• The app now issues a warning if unable to establish secure connections to cloud servers (which can be due to aforementioned issue, but could also stem from other network problems).
• The Network Testing utility (Settings->Advanced->Network Testing) now tests for more potential issues including ones mentioned above.
• The Android version now stores files such as extracted assets and audio caches in the non-backed-up files dir (Android's Context.getNoBackupFilesDir()). These files can always be recreated by the app so they don't need backups, and this makes it more likely that Android will back up what's left in the regular files dir (the app config, etc).
• Fixed an issue causing hitches during background SSL network operations (manifesting on the Android version but theoretically possibly anywhere).

1.7.2 (20620, 2022-06-25)

• Minor fixes in some minigames (Thanks Droopy!)
• Fixed a bug preventing 'clients' arg from working in _ba.chatmessage (Thanks imayushsaini!)
• Fixed a bug where ba.Player.getdelegate(doraise=True) could return None instead of raising a ba.DelegateNotFoundError (thanks Dliwk!)
• Lots of Romanian language improvements (Thanks Meryu!)
• Workspaces are now functional. They require signing in with a V2 account, which currently is limited to explicitly created email/password logins. See ballistica.net to create such an account or create/edit a workspace. This is bleeding edge stuff so please holler with any bugs you come across or if anything seems unintuitive.
• Newly detected Plugins are now enabled by default in all cases; not just headless builds. (Though a restart is still required before they run). Some builds (headless, iiRcade) can't easily access gui settings so this makes Plugins more usable there and keeps things consistent. The user still has the opportunity to deactivate newly detected plugins before restarting if they don't want to use them.
• Reworked app states for the new workspace system, with a new loading stage that comes after launching and before running. The loading stage consists of an initial account log-in (or lack thereof) and any workspace/asset downloading related to that. This allows the app to ensure that the latest workspace state is synced for the active account before running plugin loads and meta scans, allowing those bits to work as seamlessly in workspaces as they do for traditional local manual installs.
• Plugins now have an on_app_running call instead of on_app_launch, allowing them to work seamlessly with workspaces (see previous entry).
• Errors running/loading plugins now show up as screen-messages. This can be ugly but hopefully provides a bit of debugging capability for anyone testing code on a phone or somewhere with no access to full log output. Once we can add logging features to the workspaces web ui we can perhaps scale back on this.
• Api version increased from 6 to 7 due to the aforementioned plugin changes (on_app_launch becoming on_app_running, etc.)

1.7.1 (20597, 2022-06-04)

• V2 account logic fixes
• Polishing V2 web-based login flow

1.7.0 (20591, 2022-06-02)

• V2 accounts are now available (woohoo!). These are called 'BombSquad Accounts' in the account section. V2 accounts communicate with a completely new server and will be the foundation for lots of new functionality in the future. However they also function as a V1 account so existing functionality should still work. Note that the new 'workspaces' feature for V2-accounts is not yet enabled in this build, but it will be in the next few builds. Also note that account types such as GameCenter and Google-Play will be 'upgraded' to V2 accounts in the future so there is no need to try this out if you use one of those. But if you use device-accounts you might want to create yourself a V2 account, since device-accounts will remain V1-only (though you can link an old device-account to a v2-enabled account if you want to keep your progress). Getting a V2 account now also gives you a chance to reserve a nice account-tag before all the good ones are taken.
• Legacy account subsystem has been renamed from ba.app.accounts to ba.app.accounts_v1
• Added ba.app.accounts_v2 subsystem for working with V2 accounts.
• ba.SessionPlayer.get_account_id() is now ba.SessionPlayer.get_v1_account_id()
• ba.InputDevice.get_account_id() is now ba.InputDevice.get_v1_account_id()
• _ba.sign_in() is now _ba.sign_in_v1()
• _ba.sign_out() is now _ba.sign_out_v1()
• _ba.get_account_name() is now _ba.get_v1_account_name()
• _ba.get_account_type() is now _ba.get_v1_account_type()
• _ba.get_account_state() is now _ba.get_v1_account_state()
• _ba.get_account_state_num() is now _ba.get_v1_account_state_num()
• _ba.get_account_display_string() is now _ba.get_v1_account_display_string()
• _ba.get_account_misc_val() is now _ba.get_v1_account_misc_val()
• _ba.get_account_misc_read_val() is now _ba.get_v1_account_misc_read_val()
• _ba.get_account_misc_read_val_2() is now _ba.get_v1_account_misc_read_val_2()
• _ba.get_account_ticket_count() is now _ba.get_v1_account_ticket_count()
• Exposing more sources in the public repo; namely networking stuff. I realize this probably opens up some attack vectors for hackers but also opens up options for server-owners to add their own defenses without having to wait on me. Hopefully this won't prove to be a bad idea.
• V2 master server addr is now simply https://ballistica.net. If you had saved links to the previous address, https://tools.ballistica.net, please update them, as the old address may stop working at some point.
• Upgraded everything to Python 3.10. The upgrade process is pretty smooth at this point so we should be able to upgrade yearly now once each new Python version has had some time to mature.

1.6.12 (20567, 2022-05-04)

• More internal work on V2 master-server communication

1.6.11 (20539, 2022-03-23)

• Documentation is now generated using pdoc https://pdoc.dev. Thanks Dliwk!! (I'll get it wired up to auto-update to a webpage soon).
• Players who connect to authenticated servers impersonating someone else are now simply kicked; not banned. The old behavior was being intentionally exploited to ban people from their own servers/etc. I may revert to bans once I can do it in a way that is not exploitable.
• The game now establishes a V2 master-server connection (which will soon be used for lots of cool functionality). For this version it is mainly enabled for testing purposes; please holler if you see any odd warning messages or behavior.

1.6.10 (20511, 2022-03-20)

• Added _ba.get_client_public_device_uuid function which returns a semi-permanent device id for a connected client running 1.6.10 or newer. Can be useful to combat spam attacks or other mischief.
• Fixed an issue with make update not properly rewriting Visual Studio project files to account for new/deleted source files.
• Removed various bits of code associated with the (no-longer-functional) Google Play Games multiplayer connections.
• Added lots of foundation code for v2 master-server connections (not yet enabled).

1.6.9 (20486, 2022-02-22)

• Upgraded Android Python to 3.9.10
• Fixed an issue with SSL in Android builds that was preventing communication with the master-server in 1.6.8
• Added a new network-diagnostics tool at 'Settings->Advanced->Network Testing'. Can be used to diagnose issues talking to master-servers/etc. (especially useful now that SSL can factor in)
• Added clipboard support to Mac test build (thought pasting currently requires ctrl-v instead of cmd-v).
• Fixed an issue where non-ascii characters in device names could break network communication.

1.6.8 (20458, 2022-02-16)

• Added Filipino language (Thanks David!)
• Restored pre-v1.5 jump behaviour.
• All communication with the master-server should now be secure (https) using root certificates from the certifi project. Please holler if you run into any connection issues with this version.

1.6.7 (20436)

• Fixed a vulnerability which could expose device-account uuids.
• Now generating Linux Arm64 server and test builds (currently built against Ubuntu 20).
• Mac test builds are now Universal binaries (Arm64 & x86-64 versions bundled together).
• Mac test builds are now notarized and distributed via a snazzy .dmg instead of a zip file, so the OS should no longer try to prevent you from running them.
• Test builds can now be found at https://ballistica.net/builds - this page shows more info about the builds, including file checksums (stored on a separate server from the actual files for increased security).

1.6.6 (20394)

• Beginning work on moving to new asset system.
• Added Tamil language (Thanks Ryan!)
• Added methods for changing camera attributes to the _ba module.

1.6.5 (20394)

• Added co-op support to server builds (thanks Dliwk!)
• Updated everything from Python 3.8 to Python 3.9. The biggest immediate impact to our code is that basic types such as list, dict, and tuple can be used in annotations, eliminating the need to import typing.Dict, typing.List, etc. See python.org for more changes.
• Note: accessing mods on external storage on Android will not work in this release. This functionality has not been working in recent versions of Android due to increased security features anyway and I am in the process of replacing it with a cloud based system for installing mods. More on this soon.
• Python 3.9 no longer supports Windows 7 or earlier (according to https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/) so if you are running such a version of Windows you will need to stick to older builds.

1.6.4 (20382)

• Some cleanups in the Favorites tab of the gather window.
• Reorganized prefab target names; some targets such as prefab-debug are now prefab-gui-debug (more consistent with the existing prefab-server-debug targets).
• Windows builds now go to build/windows instead of ballisticacore_windows/build.
• Lots of project reorganization to allow things such as documentation or the dummy _ba.py module to be rebuilt from the public repo.
• Added network flood attack mitigation.

1.6.3 (20366)

• Telnet access works again for gui builds without requiring a password (access must still be granted via the gui).

1.6.2 (20365)

• Declare opponent team as the winner if a player with their final turn leaves an elimination game.
• Fix for certain cases when trying to host a private game where no available nearby servers could be found.
• Enabling per-architecture apk splitting for smaller download sizes on Android.

1.6.1 (20362)

• Some clean-up on Android builds, including simplifying ad-networks. No longer should ever show rewarded ads in between game rounds (only when actual rewards are involved).

1.6.0 (20357)

• Revamped netcode significantly. We still don't have client-prediction, but things should (hopefully) feel much lower latency now.
• Added network debug graphs accessible by hitting F8.
• Added private parties functionality (cloud hosted parties with associated codes making it easier to play with friends)
• The meta subsystem now enables new plugins by default in headless builds.
• Added option to save party in Manual tab
• Slight tidying on the tourney entry popup
• Env var to override UI scale is now BA_UI_SCALE instead of BA_FORCE_UI_SCALE.
• Fixed an issue where ba.storagename() could prevent objects on the stack from getting released cleanly
• Improvements to documentation generation such as link to some external base types.
• Added ba.clipboard_* functions for copying and pasting text on supported platforms.
• Implemented clipboard functionality on SDL based builds (such as prefab).
• Fixed an issue where click locations on scaled text fields could be incorrectly calculated.
• Server-wrapper improvements allowing config path and ba_root path to be passed explicitly.
• Binary -cfgdir option now properly allows any path, not just ./ba_root.
• Additional server-wrapper options such as disabling auto-restart and automatic restarts on config file changes.
• Running a _ba.connect_to_party command via the -exec arg should now do the right thing.
• Fixed possible crash due to buffer under/overruns in Utils::precalc_rands_*.
• Fixed a potential crash-on-exit due to statically allocated colliders/caches in ode_collision_trimesh.cpp getting torn down while in use
• Better randomization for player free-for-all starting locations
• Plugins can now register to be called for pause, resume, and shutdown events in addition to launch
• Added ba.app.state holding the overall state of the app (running, paused, etc.)
• renamed the efro.dataclasses module to efro.dataclassio and added significant functionality
• command-line input no longer errors on commands longer than 4k bytes.
• added show-tutorial option to the server wrapper config
• added custom-team-names option to the server wrapper config
• added custom-team-colors option to the server wrapper config
• added inline-playlist option to the server wrapper config

1.5.29 (20246)

• Exposed ba method/class initing in public C++ layer.
• The 'restart' and 'shutdown' commands in the server script now default to immediate=True
• Wired up clean_exit_minutes, unclean_exit_minutes, and idle_exit_minutes options in the server config
• Removed remains of the google-real-time-multiplayer stuff from the android/java layer.

1.5.28 (20239)

• Simplified ba.enum_by_value()
• Updated Google Play version to hopefully show friend high scores again on score screens (at least for levels that have an associated Google Play leaderboard).
• Public-party-list now properly shows an error instead of 'loading...' when not signed in.
• Heavily reworked public party list display code to be more efficient and avoid hitches even with large numbers of servers.

1.5.27 (20238)

• Language functionality has been consolidated into a LanguageSubsystem object at ba.app.lang
• ba.get_valid_languages() is now an attr: ba.app.lang.available_languages
• Achievement functionality has been consolidated into an AchievementSubsystem object at ba.app.ach
• Plugin functionality has been consolidated into a PluginSubsystem obj at ba.app.plugins
• Ditto with AccountV1Subsystem and ba.app.accounts
• Ditto with MetadataSubsystem and ba.app.meta
• Ditto with AdsSubsystem and ba.app.ads
• Revamped tab-button functionality into a cleaner type-safe class (bastd.ui.tabs.TabRow)
• Split Gather-Window tabs out into individual classes for future improvements (bastd.ui.gather.*)
• Added the ability to disable ticket-purchasing UIs for builds (ba.app.allow_ticket_purchases)
• Reworked the public party gather section to perform better; it should no longer have to rebuild the list from scratch each time the UI is visited.
• Added a filter option to the public party list (sorry it has taken so long).

1.5.26 (20217)

• Simplified licensing header on python scripts.
• General project refactoring in order to open source most of the C++ layer.

1.5.25 (20176)

• Added Venetian language (thanks Federico!)
• Fixed an issue where chosen-one flashes would remain if the player leaves the game
• Added android input-device detection log messages for debugging
• Android asset-sync phase (completing install...) now emits log output for debugging.

1.5.24 (20163)

• Upgraded Python from version 3.7 to 3.8. This is a substantial change (though nothing like the previous update from 2.7 to 3.7) so please holler if anything is broken. These updates will happen once every year or two now...
• Windows debug builds now use Python debug libraries. This should hopefully catch more errors that would otherwise go undetected and potentially cause crashes.
• Switched windows builds to use 'fast' mode math instead of 'strict'. This should make the game run more efficiently (similar modes are already in use on other platforms) but holler if any odd breakage happens such as things falling through floors (more often than the occasional random fluke-y case that happens now).
• Added _ba.can_display_full_unicode() for any code that wants to avoid printing things that won't show up locally.
• Now pulling some classes such as Literal and Protocol from typing instead of typing_extensions (they were officially added to Python in 3.8)
• Double taps/clicks now work properly on widgets nested under a scroll-widget on mobile (so, for example, replays can now be double-clicked to view them)

1.5.23 (20146)

• Fixed the shebang line in bombsquad_server file by using -S flag for /usr/bin/env.
• Fixed a bug with hardware keyboards emitting extra characters in the in-game console (~ or F2)
• Added support for 'plugin' mods and user controls to configure them in settings->advanced->plugins.
• Renamed selection_loop_to_parent to selection_loops_to_parent in widget calls.
• Added selection_loops_to_parent, border, margin, claims_left_right, and claims_tab args to ba.columnwidget().
• Column-widget now has a default border of 0 (explicitly pass 2 to get the old look).
• Column-widget now has a default margin of 10 (explicitly pass 0 to get the old look).
• Added selection_loops_to_parent, claims_left_right, and claims_tab args to ba.scrollwidget.
• Added selection_loops_to_parent, claims_left_right, and claims_tab args to ba.rowwidget.
• Added claims_left_right and claims_tab to ba.hscrollwidget().
• Default widget show_buffer is now 20 instead of 0 (causes scrolling to stay slightly ahead of widget selection). This can be overridden with the ba.widget() call if anything breaks.
• Relocated ba.app.uiscale to ba.app.ui.uiscale.
• Top level settings window now properly saves/restores its state again.
• Added Emojis to the Internal Game Keyboard.
• Added continuous CAPITAL letters typing feature in the Internal Game Keyboard.

1.5.22 (20139)

• Button and key names now display correctly again on Android (and are cleaned up on other platforms too).

1.5.21 (20138)

• Added a UI subsystem at ba.app.ui (containing globals/functionality that was previously directly under ba.app). And hopefully added a fix for rare state of two main menus appearing on-screen at once.
• Added options in the 'Advanced' section to disable camera shake and camera gyroscope motion.

1.5.20 (20126)

• The ba.Session.teams and ba.Session.players lists are now ba.Session.sessionteams and ba.Session.sessionplayers. This is to help keep it clear that a Team/Player and a SessionTeam/SessionPlayer are different things now.
• Disconnecting an input-device now immediately removes the player instead of doing so in the next cycle; this prevents possible issues where code would try to access player.inputdevice before the removal happens which would lead to errors.
• Updated mac prefab builds to point at homebrew's python@3.7 package now that 3.8 has been made the default.
• Fixed an issue where adding/deleting UI widgets within certain callbacks could cause a crash.
• Fixed a case where an early fatal error could lead to a hung app and no error dialog.
• Added environment variables which can override UI scale for testing. Set BA_FORCE_UI_SCALE to small, medium or large.
• Added a ba.UIScale enum. The value at ba.app.uiscale replaces the old ba.app.interface_type, ba.app.small_ui, and ba.app.med_ui values.
• Emoji no longer display in-game with a washed-out appearance. If there are any places in-game where bright-colored emoji become distracting, please holler.
• _ba.get_game_roster() now includes account_id which is the validated account id of all clients (will be None until completes). Also, a few keys are renamed: specString->spec_string and displayString->display_string.

1.5.19 (20123)

• Cleaned up some bomb logic to avoid weird corner-cases such as land-mine explosions behaving like punches when set off by punches or bombs potentially resulting in multiple explosions when triggered by multiple other bombs simultaneously. Holler if anything explosion-related seems off now.
• Reactivated and cleaned up fatal-error message dialogs; they should now show up more consistently and on more platforms when something catastrophic happens instead of getting a silent crash.
• Certain hardware buttons on Android which stopped working in 1.5 should now be working again...

1.5.18 (20108)

• A bit of project cleanup; tools/snippets is now tools/pcommand, etc.
• More minor bug fixes and crash/bug-logging improvements.

1.5.17 (20102)

• More cleanup to logging and crash reporting system.
• Various other minor bug fixes...

1.5.16 (20099)

• Hopefully finally fixed that pesky crash bug on score submissions.

1.5.14 (20096)

• Fixed Android VR version failing to launch.
• More bug fixing and crash reporting improvements.

1.5.13 (20095)

• Hopefully fixed an elusive random crash on android that popped up recently.
• Misc bug fixes.

1.5.12 (20087)

• Improved exception handling and crash reporting.
• Misc bug fixes.

1.5.11 (20083)

• Fixed a freeze in the local network browser.

1.5.10 (20083)

• Streamlined C++ layer bootstrapping process a bit.
• Creating sys scripts via ba.modutils now works properly.
• Custom soundtracks should now work again under Android 10.
• Misc other bug fixes.

1.5.9 (20082)

• Reduced some hitches when clicking on certain buttons in the UI
• Fixed an issue where very early keyboard/controller connects/disconnects could get lost on android.
• ba._modutils is now ba.modutils since it is intended to be publicly accessible.
• drop-down console is now properly accessible again via android hardware keyboards (` key)
• Other minor bug fixes..

1.5.8 (20079)

• Fixed an issue where touch controls or sound settings values could look like 0.8999999999. Please holler if you see this anywhere else.
• Fixed a potential crash when tapping the screen before the game is fully inited.
• Restored the correct error message in the 'Google Play' connection tab from 1.4 (I am actively working on a replacement)
• Other minor bug fixes.

1.5.7 (20077)

• Fixed an issue where co-op score screen rating could look like '3.9999999999999'
• Other minor bug fixes.

1.5.6 (20075)

• Lots of internal event-handling cleanup/reorganization in preparation for Android 1.5 update.
• Lots of low level input handling cleanup, also related to Android 1.5 version. Please holler if keyboard/game-controllers/etc. are behaving odd on any platforms.
• Now including Android test builds for the first time since 1.5. These have not been thoroughly tested yet so please holler with anything that is obviously broken.
• Mouse wheel now works in manual camera mode on more platforms.
• Server scripts now run in opt mode in release builds, so they can use bundled .opt-1.pyc files.
• Fixes a potential crash in the local network browser.
• Fixes an issue where Hockey Pucks would not show up in network games.
• More misc bug fixes and tidying.

1.5.5 (20069)

• Cleaned up Windows version packaging.
• More misc bug fixes.

1.5.4 (20067)

• Should now work properly with non-ascii paths on Windows (for real this time).
• Note that Windows game data is now stored under 'Local' appdata instead of 'Roaming'; if you have an old installation with data you want to preserve, you may want to move it over manually.
• Misc cleanup and minor bug fixes.

1.5.3 (20065)

• Improved handling of non-ascii characters in file paths on Windows.

1.5.2 (20063)

• Fixes an issue with controls not working correctly in net-play between 1.4.x and 1.5.x.
• Tidied up onslaught code a bit.
• Fixes various other minor bugs.

1.5.1 (20062)

• Windows server now properly displays color when run by double-clicking the .bat file.
• Misc bug fixes.

1.5.0 (20001)

• This build contains about 2 years worth of MAJOR internal refactoring to prepare for the future of BombSquad. As a player this should not (yet) look different from 1.4, but for modders there is a lot new. See the rest of these change entries or visit ballistica.net for more info.
• Ported the entire scripting layer from Python 2 to Python 3 (currently at 3.7, and I intend to keep this updated to the latest widely-available release). There's some significant changes going from python 2 to 3 (new print statement, string behavior, etc.), but these are well documented online, so please read up as needed. This should provide us some nice benefits and future-proofs everything. (my janky 2.7 custom Python builds were getting a little long in the tooth).
• Refactored all script code to be PEP8 compliant (Python coding standards). Basically, this means that stuff that was camel-case (fooBar) is now a single word or underscores (foobar / foo_bar). There are a few minor exceptions such as existing resource and media filenames, but in general old code can be ported by taking a pass through and killing the camel-case. I know this is a bit of a pain in the ass, but it'll let us use things like Pylint and just be more consistent with the rest of the Python world.
• On a related note, I'm now using 'yapf' to keep my Python code formatted nicely (using pep8 style); I'd recommend checking it out if you're doing a lot of scripting as it's a great time-saver.
• On another related note, I'm trying to confirm to Google's recommendations for Python code (search 'Google Python Style Guide'). There are some good bits of wisdom in there, so I recommend at least skimming through it.
• And as one last related note, I'm now running Pylint on all my own Python code. Highly recommended if you are doing serious scripting, as it can make Python almost feel as type-safe as C++.
• The minimum required android version will now be 5.0 (a requirement of the Python 3 builds I'm using)
• Minimum required macOS version is now 10.13 (for similar reasons)
• 'bsInternal' module is now _ba (better lines up with standard Python practices)
• bs.writeConfig() and bs.applySettings() are no more. There is now ba.app.config which is basically a fancy dict class with some methods added such as commit() and apply()
• bs.getEnvironment() is no more; the values there are now available through ba.app (see notes down further)
• Fixed the mac build so command line input works again when launched from a terminal
• Renamed 'exceptionOnNone' arg to 'doraise' in various calls.
• bs.emitBGDynamics() is now ba.emitfx()
• bs.shakeCamera() is now ba.camerashake()
• Various other minor name changes (bs.getUIBounds() -> ba.app.ui_bounds, etc.). I'm keeping old and new Python API docs around for now, so you can compare as needed.
• Renamed bot classes based on their actions instead of their appearances (ie: PirateBot -> ExplodeyBot)
• bs.getSharedObject() is now ba.stdobj()
• Removed bs.uni(), bs.utf8(), bs.uni_to_ints(), and bs.uni_from_ints() which are no longer needed due to Python 3's better string handling.
• Removed bs.SecureInt since it didn't do much to slow down hackers and hurts code readability.
• Renamed 'finalize' to 'expire' for actors and activities. 'Finalize' sounds too much like a destructor, which is not really what that is.
• bs.getMapsSupportingPlayType() is now simply ba.getmaps(). I might want to add more filter options to it besides just play-type, hence the renaming.
• Changed the concept of 'game', 'net', and 'real' times to 'sim', 'base', and 'real'. See time function docs for specifics. Also cleared up a few ambiguities over what can be used where.
• I'm converting all scripting functions to operate on floating-point seconds by default instead of integer milliseconds. This will let us support more accurate simulations later and is just cleaner I feel. To keep existing calls working you should be able to add timeformat='ms' and you'll get the old behavior (or multiply your time values by 0.001). Specific notes listed below.
• ba.Timer now takes its 'time' arg as seconds instead of milliseconds. To port old calls, add: timeformat='ms' to each call (or multiply your input by 0.001)
• ba.animate() now takes times in seconds and its 'driver' arg is now 'timetype' for consistency with other time functions. To port existing code you can pass timeformat='ms' to keep the old milliseconds based behavior.
• ditto for ba.animate_array()
• ba.Activity.end() now takes seconds instead of milliseconds as its delay arg.
• TNTSpawner now also takes seconds instead of milliseconds for respawn_time.
• There is a new ba.timer() function which is used for all one-off timer creation. It has the same args as the ba.Timer() class constructor.
• bs.gameTimer() is no more. Pass timeformat='ms' to ba.timer() if you need to recreate its behavior.
• bs.netTimer() is no more. Pass timetype='base' and timeformat='ms' to ba.timer() if you need to recreate its behavior.
• bs.realTimer() is no more. Pass timetype='real' and timeformat='ms' to ba.timer() if you need to recreate its behavior.
• There is a new ba.time() function for getting time values; it has consistent args with the new ba.timer() and ba.Timer() calls.
• bs.getGameTime() is no more. Pass timeformat='ms' to ba.time() if you need to recreate its behavior.
• bs.getNetTime() is no more. Pass timetype='base' and timeformat='ms' to ba.time() if you need to recreate its behavior.
• bs.getRealTime() is no more. Pass timetype='real' and timeformat='ms' to ba.time() if you need to recreate its behavior.
• bs.getTimeString() is now just ba.timestring(), and accepts seconds by default (pass timeformat='ms' to keep old calls working).
• bs.callInGameThread() has been replaced by an optional from_other_thread arg for ba.pushcall()
• There is now a special ba.UNHANDLED value that handlemessage() calls should return any time they don't handle a passed message. This will allow fallback message types and other nice things in the future.
• Wired the boolean operator up to ba.Actor's exists() method, so now a simple "if mynode" will do the right thing for both Actors and None values instead of having to explicitly check for both.
• Ditto for ba.Node; you can now just do 'if mynode' which will do the right thing for both a dead Node or None.
• Ditto for ba.InputDevice, ba.Widget, ba.Player
• Added a bs.App class accessible via ba.app; will be migrating global app values there instead of littering python modules with globals. The only remaining module globals should be all-caps public 'constants'
• 'Internal' methods and classes living in _ba and elsewhere no longer start with underscores. They are now simply marked with '(internal)' in their docstrings. 'Internal' bits are likely to have janky interfaces and can change without warning, so be wary of using them. If you find yourself depending on some internal thing often, please let me know, and I can try to clean it up and make it 'public'.
• bs.getLanguage() is no more; that value is now accessible via ba.app.language
• bs.Actor now accepts an optional 'node' arg which it will store as self.node if passed. Its default DieMessage() and exists() handlers will use self.node if it exists. This removes the need for a separate NodeActor() for simple cases.
• bs.NodeActor is no more (it can simply be replaced with ba.Actor())
• bs.playMusic() is now ba.setmusic() which better fits its functionality (it sometimes just continues playing or stops playing).
• The bs.Vector class is no more; in its place is a shiny new ba.Vec3 which is implemented internally in C++ so its nice and speedy. Will probably update certain things like vector node attrs to support this class in the future since it makes vector math nice and convenient.
• Ok you get the point... see ballistica.net for more info on these changes.

1.4.155 (14377)

• Added protection against a repeated-input attack in lobbies.

1.4.151 (14371)

• Added Chinese-Traditional language and improved translations for others.

1.4.150 (14369)

• Telnet port can now be specified in the config
• Telnet socket no longer opens on headless build when telnet access is off (reduces DoS attack potential)
• Added a filter_chat_message() call which can be used by servers to intercept/modify/block all chat messages.
• bsInternal._disconnectClient() now takes an optional banTime arg (in seconds, defaults to old value of 300).

1.4.148 (14365)

• Added a password option for telnet access on server builds

1.4.147 (14364)

• Fixes an issue where a client rejoining a server after being kicked could get stuck in limbo
• Language updates
• Increased security on games that list themselves as public. All joining players must now be validated by the master server, or they will be kicked. This will let me globally ban accounts or ip addresses from joining games to avoid things like ad spam-bots (which has been a problem this week).
• Added a max chat message length of 100
• Clients sending abnormal amounts of data to the server will now be auto-kicked

1.4.145 (14351)

• Mostly a maintenance release (real work is happening in the 1.5/2.0 branch) - minor bug fixes and a few language updates.
• Google deprecated some older SDKs, so the minimum Android supported by this build is now 4.4

1.4.144 (14350)

• Added Greek translation

1.4.143 (14347)

• Fixed an issue where server names starting and ending with curly brackets would display incorrectly
• Fixed an issue where an android back-button press very soon after launch could lead to a crash
• Fixed a potential crash if a remove-player call is made for a player that has already left

1.4.142 (14346)

• Fixed an issue in my rigid body simulation code which could lead to crashes when large numbers of bodies are present

1.4.141 (14344)

• Fixed a longstanding bug in my huffman compression code that could cause an extra byte of unallocated memory to be read, leading to occasional crashes

1.4.140 (14343)

• Fixed a few minor outstanding bugs from the 1.4.139 update

1.4.139 (14340)

• Added an option to the server builds to point to a server-stats webpage that will show up as an extra link in the server browser (in client 1.4.139+)
• Removed the language column from the server browser. This was more relevant back when all clients saw the game in the server's language, and is nowadays largely just hijacked for silly purposes. Holler if you miss it.
• Server list now re-pings servers less often and averages ping results to reduce the amount of jumping around in the list. Please holler if this feels off.
• Added some slick new client-verification tech. Going forward it should be pretty much impossible to fool a server into thinking you are using a different account than you really are.
• Added a get_account_id() method to the bs.Player class. This will return a player's signed-in account-id (when it can be verified for certain)

1.4.138 (14336)

• Removed SDL library from the server builds, so that's one less dependency that needs to be installed when setting up a linux server

1.4.137 (14331)

• Lots of internal code cleanup and reorganization before I dig into networking rework (hopefully didn't break too much)
• Slowly cleaning up Python files (hoping to move closer to PEP 8 standards and eventually Python 3)
• Added Hindi language
• Cleared out some old build types (farewell OUYA; thanks for the memories)
• Added support for meshes with > 65535 verts (though turns out OpenGL ES2 doesn't support this so moot at the moment)

1.4.136 (14327)

• Updated 'kiosk mode' functionality (used for simple demo versions of the game)
• Lots of work getting VR builds up to date
• Fixed an issue where 'report this player' window would show up behind the window that spawned it

1.4.135 (14324)

• Updated various SDKs for the android build (now building against api 27, removed inmobi ads, etc.)

1.4.134 (14322)

• Fixed an issue where the internal keyboard would sometimes show up behind game windows
• Fixed an issue where UI widget selection would sometimes loop incorrectly at window edges
• Fixed an issue where overlay windows such as the quit dialog would allow clicks to pass through to regular windows under them
• Work on 2.0 UI (not yet enabled)

1.4.133 (14318)

• Pro upgrade now unlocks custom team names and colors in teams mode
• Added a 'Mute Chat' option for completely ignoring incoming chat messages
• Fixed a longstanding issue where player-selectors could get 'stuck'
• Pro upgrade now unlocks a new exact color picker option for character colors/highlights/etc.
• Added new flag icons to the store: Iran, Poland, Argentina, Philippines, and Chile
• Added an option for translators to be notified by the game whenever there are new phrases to translate (under settings->advanced)
• Increased quality on some models, textures and audio
• Assault no longer counts dead bodies hitting the flag as scores
• Replay speed can now be controlled with -/= keys (on devices with keyboards)
• Added Serbian language
• Remote app connections are now disabled by default on server builds
• Server wrapper script now supports python 3 in addition to python 2. (Python 3 support in the actual game will still be awhile)
• Added better crash reporting on Android, so I can hopefully fix bugs more quickly.
• bs.Lstr() can now take a 'fallbackResource' or 'fallbackValue' argument; the old 'fallback' argument is deprecated
• Removed the long-since-deprecated bs.translate() and bs.getResource() calls (bs.Lstr() should be used for all that stuff now)
• Removed some deprecated functions from GameActivity: getInstanceScoreBoardNameLocalized(), getInstanceNameLocalized(), getConfigDescriptionLocalized()

1.4.132 (14316)

• Fixed an issue where the game could get stuck in a black screen after resuming on Android

1.4.131 (14315)

• Replay playback speed can now be adjusted in the menu
• Fixed an issue with touch controls showing up while in party chat
• Fixed issues with the new anti-turbo logic when hosting

1.4.130 (14313)

• New character: Grumbledorf the Wizard
• Improved public party browsing performance
• Added protections against turbo exploits when hosting
• Fixed issues with some Android controllers not being recognized

1.4.126 (14307)

• Improved keyboard and mouse support on Android

1.4.125 (14306)

• Added support for keyboards on Android
• Added support for desktop-like environments such as Samsung DeX and Chromebooks on Android
• Optimized game UI for wide-screen layouts such as the Galaxy Note 8

1.4.121 (14302)

• Added support for account unlinking

1.4.118 (14298)

• Added 64-bit arm binary to Android builds

1.4.111 (14286)

• BallisticaCore Pro now unlocks 2 additional characters
• multi-line chat messages are now clamped down to 1 line; should prevent annoying multi-line fullscreen message spam

1.4.106 (14280)

• the game will now only print 'game full' player-rejection messages to the client attempting to join; should reduce annoying message spam.

1.4.101 (14268)

• the game will now attempt to load connecting players' profiles and info from my master-server instead of trusting the player; should reduce cheating

1.4.100 (14264)

• added a 'playlistCode' option in the server config which corresponds with playlist codes added in Ballisticacore 1.4.100 (used for sharing playlists with friends). Now you can create a custom playlist, grab a code for it, and easily use it in a dedicated server.

1.4.99 (14252)

• there is now a forced 10-second delay between a player leaving the game and another player from that same client joining the game. This should fix the exploit where players were leaving and re-joining to avoid spawn times.
• most in-game text is now set as bs.Lstr() values so that they show up in the client's own language instead of the server's There are currently a few exceptions such as time values which I need to address.

1.4.98 (14248)

• added kick-votes that can be started by any client. Currently, a client must type '0' or '1' in chat to vote, but I'll add buttons for them soon.
• modified text nodes so that they can display in each client's own language. (most text nodes don't do this yet but the capability is there). However, this means older clients can't connect to 1.4.98 servers, so you may want to stick with an older server for a bit until the userbase gets more updated.

1.4.97 (14247)

• back to displaying long names in more places; mainly just the in-game ones are clamped... trying to find a good balance...

1.4.97 (14246)

• public party names will now show up for clients as the title of their party windows instead of "My Party" and also during connect/disconnect (requires client 14246+)
• server now ignores 'locked' states on maps/game-types, so meteor-shower, target-practice, etc. should work now

1.4.97 (14244)

• kicked players are now unable to rejoin for a several minutes

1.4.96 (14242)

• chat messages and the party window now show player names instead of account names when possible
• server now clamps in-game names to 8 characters so there's some hope of reading them in-game. Can loosen this or add controls for how clamping happens if need be.

1.4.96 (14241)

• added an automatic chat-block to combat chat spammers. Block durations start at 10 seconds and double with each repeat offense

1.4.95 (14240)

• fixed an issue where a single account could not be used to host multiple parties at once

1.4.95 (14236)

• added a port option to the config, so it's now possible to host multiple parties on one machine (note that ballisticacore 1.4.95+ is required to connect ports aside from 43210)

1.4.95 (14234)

• fixed a bug that could cause the Windows version to freeze randomly after a while

1.4.95 (14233)

• ballisticacore (both bs_headless and regular) now reads commands from standard input, making it easier to run commands via scripts or the terminal
• server now runs using a 'server' account-type instead of the local 'device' account. (avoids daily-ticket-reward messages and other stuff that's not relevant to servers)
• the server script now passes args to the game as a json file instead of individual args; this should keep things cleaner and more expandable
• the ballisticacore_server script also now reads commands from stdin, allowing reconfiguring server settings on the fly
• added more options such as the ability to set game series lengths and to host a non-public party

1.4.94

• now have mac, windows, and both 32 and 64-bit linux server builds
• added an optional config.py file that can be used instead of modifying the server script itself
• added an autoBalanceTeams option for teams games
• people joining and leaving the party are no longer announced (too much noise)

1.4.93

• should now properly allow clients to use their unlocked characters
• added an option to enable telnet access