Coming next build, here's part 1 of the camera changes:
* Rather than simply having different zoom modes for the cameras, the game now has full-out different camera code that is possible to execute. This way we can completely recode the cameras for the galaxy map and main planetary view from scratch, as desired. And modders can make their own cameras, too, for that matter -- these can be chosen-between using dropdowns in settings, for the galaxy map and planetary screen separately.
** The original intent here was to just ditch 100% of the old code and start fresh... but then as we started thinking about that, we realized that someone was going to have some nature of complaint about that, most likely. So instead we've spent a while porting the old system into the new structure, and so the old methods of camera control are "gone" in a global sense, but "still there in their entirety" in the sense that their exact same feel and code and values is now a pair of sub-options in the new camera system.
*** That took substantially more time than expected, but we figure it's a good starting point for some variants of camera controls that someone might want to cook up someday, who knows. Our own replacement camera systems likely won't be based on this too much.
*** Please do bear in mind that presently there are three "camera types," the "default cam logic" one simply being a copy of one of the old ones until it can be properly implemented fresh.
You can find all this stuff under the Camera folder under AIWarExternalVisualizationCode/src. If you're wanting to mod based off of the existing code, then that would be the best way. If you want to create something completely new, like I plan to, then that's also more or less the way, but you have to make a new class in there and then also make a new entry in the GameData/CameraTypes/ xml section. If folks make camera control variants, I'll be happy to include them along with my own. I'm under no illusion that people should all play the game with one style of camera controls.
To be clear, this is so freeform at this point that you could code this to simply be a spaceship you fly around in the first person all the time, if you felt like it. You could make locked to an isometric viewpoint. You could make it always look up from underneath for some reason. Whatever.
I'll be having a toggle that allows you to go from something pretty traditional and tame (that should feel tight instead of floaty) into a free-flying mode. That way there's no need for the camera to bend the viewing angle as you get lower, in the new camera implementation I have in mind. I may do a quasi-iso version as well, just to see how that feels. If people don't like it, they don't have to use it.
