SpiffoCON 0.29.0

Animals on the map

Bridge v22 shows the zones designated for animals on the map, and puts new animals on it.

• Animal zones, a new box in the Map tab: the zones in orange with their names, all over the world, also where nobody is. The mouse over one says its name and size.
• Put an animal here in the map's right-click menu: group, kind, breed. The new Animals box in the toolbar says how many, from 1 to 20. It is asked first; the square must be near a player and free, or the bridge says why not. The names come in the language of the server.

The animals list sorts

A click on a column's title in the animals list of the Bridge tab sorts it, a second click the other way. Empty cells stay at the bottom either way, and the order stays when the list is read again. This needs no new bridge.

The zones and the menu were tried on a dedicated server, through two starts, and a zone is still there after a restart. That server has no player, so a new animal showing up beside one has not been seen yet.

Bridge v22 is needed for the zones and the new animals, and has everything of the earlier ones: one Workshop upload covers it all.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.29.0-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.29.0-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.

SpiffoCON 0.28.0

A black box for crashes

A server that crashes often leaves no word of why. Bridge v21 writes one line a minute in Zomboid/Lua/spiffocon_blackbox.txt: who is online and where, the zombies and vehicles loaded, the memory, the slowest update of that minute. The last 600 lines are kept, some 10 hours.

After a crash SpiffoCON shows the last ten minutes in the Console tab, next to the crash notice. Black box in the Bridge tab shows those of the run before at any time. It tells what was going on, not why the server died; compared over a few crashes it can show what they have in common.

More about the animals

The animals list in the Bridge tab now has:

• Expecting: pregnant or with fertilized eggs, and how far along;
• Milk / wool: what can be taken, in bold when it can be taken now;
• Age and Weight.

A new notification tells when an animal is close to giving birth (85% of the way). It looks every 15 minutes, among the animals near the players online, while the Bridge tab refreshes by itself; it can be switched off with the others.

The black box was tried on a dedicated server, across two starts. The animals' new columns and the notification were tried only on the tests' copy of the game: not yet on real animals.

Bridge v21 is needed for all of the above, and has everything of the earlier ones: one Workshop upload covers it all. Its black box starts with the first restart after the upload.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.28.0-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.28.0-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.

SpiffoCON 0.27.0

Broken containers and stations, fixed by the bridge itself

By itself, a new switch next to Fix containers and stations… in the Bridge tab, makes the bridge do that job on its own: every 10 minutes with players online (the first a minute after the first player is back on an empty server, as after a restart), on the server, with SpiffoCON closed too. The switch is kept with the world. What it fixes goes to the server's admin log, and SpiffoCON says it in the console and with a notification. Needs bridge v20.

A thing whose parts the game is still giving back (see below) is left alone: only one really broken is touched.

Why they break

While nobody is near, the game takes every part off a thing whose parts keep working (a drying rack, a furnace or workbench at work, a rain collector, a bucket on the ground) and keeps them in the server's memory; the area is saved without them. They reach the disk only with the server's full save: save, a clean quit, or the periodic save of SaveWorldEveryMinutes, which is 0 (never) unless set. A server killed before that, as a host panel's restart can do, loses them, and the thing comes back a picture nobody can use.

To make it rare: restart with save and quit (SpiffoCON's maintenance restart does), and set SaveWorldEveryMinutes (the Options tab) to 10 or 15.

Tried with the game's own code on a test server, and switching on and off across a restart; not yet fixing a broken thing on a server with players.

Bridge v20 has all of the above and everything of the earlier ones: one Workshop upload covers it all.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.27.0-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.27.0-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.

SpiffoCON 0.26.0

Stations that nobody can use any more

A drying rack, a workbench, a furnace: anything built from the game's entity scripts works through parts of its own (the drying, the shelf that holds what is put on it, the window it opens). After a server crash some lose them and are left a picture nobody can use, the same way a bucket loses the part that holds liquids.

Fix liquid containers… is now Fix containers and stations…, in the Bridge tab and in the player menu, and puts those right too. What each should have comes from its own script, as the game makes it (an object of several squares, a drying rack has four, carries its parts on its main square and is counted once), and only what is missing is made again in place. The part comes back empty: what it held, the grain on a rack, went with it. The look SpiffoCON does by itself when the bridge connects, and its notice, cover them too. Needs bridge v19.

Tried on a test server with the game's own drying racks, rain collectors and furnaces stripped of their parts; not yet on one broken on a server with players.

Bridge v19 has all of the above and everything of the earlier ones: one Workshop upload covers it all. Without it the containers are fixed as before.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.26.0-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.26.0-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.

SpiffoCON 0.25.1

Zombies on a chosen floor

The Map tab has a floor box next to the horde's radius: Spawn zombies here puts them on that floor, 0 the ground floor, 1 the one above, -1 a basement. The server places them on random squares within the radius without looking for a floor there, so on an upper floor keep the radius within the rooms: one that lands outside the building falls to the floor below. The confirmation says so.

Event > Horde in the player menu already put the zombies on the player's own floor, and still does. No bridge needed: it is the server's own createhorde2.

Not tried on a server with players yet.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.25.1-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.25.1-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.

SpiffoCON 0.25.0

Food put on the ground is no longer rotten

Items put on the ground from the map came out as old as the world: on a server that had run for a while every perishable food was rotten at once. The bridge asked the game for them the way the game lays out its own loot, which ages food by the days of the world plus the months before the outbreak. They are put down new now, as the food given to a player always was. Fixed in bridge v18.

An object nobody can pick up any more

Objects around them… in the player menu opens a window with what stands on the squares around a player: furniture, walls, doors, lights. Each has Remove…. It is for the thing the game no longer lets anybody pick up or dismantle, such as half of an object made of two squares. It goes out of the world as with the game's own Destroy tile; what it held is left on the ground. Needs bridge v18.

How the server is doing

Server performance, a new section of the Bridge tab: the server's updates of the last minute, second by second, with the longest wait between two as a bar. A server in good health makes about ten a second; a wait of a second is a second in which nothing moved for anybody. It also says how many zombies and vehicles are loaded and how much memory is in use. It is read again every 5 s while the section is open.

To tell a lag of the server from one of a player's PC: walk a player to the spot that lags and watch. Bars that grow there are the server's doing; if they stay low, the stutter is on the player's own PC. Needs bridge v18.

Generators

Generators near the players, another section of the Bridge tab: fuel, condition, on or off, connected to the building or not. Each can be refuelled, repaired, switched and connected; Refuel all… fills them all. Needs bridge v18.

A line of chat for one player

The box under the log in the Logs tab has a third choice, To a player, with the players online to pick from; Write to them… in the player menu gets there in one step. Only that player sees the line, marked Private. Needs bridge v18.

Zombies removed on every floor

Remove the zombies on the map cleared the ground floor only. With bridge v18 the zombies are counted first and every floor that has some is cleared; the same is now in the player menu, under Clean up around > Zombies. The removal itself is the server's own removezombies: without bridge v18 it still works, on one floor and without the count.

The Bridge tab

The players stay at the top; the sections under them (vehicles, animals, generators, performance) share the rest of the tab and scroll when more than one is open.

Bridge v18 has all of the above. Without it the app works as before: what needs it is greyed out and says so. It also has everything of the earlier ones: one Workshop upload covers it all.

Tried on a test server without players and against the game's code; not yet with a player online.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.25.0-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.25.0-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.

SpiffoCON 0.24.0

Writing in the chat

The box under the log in the Logs tab now has a choice beside it:

• Broadcast is what it did before: servermsg, large on every player's screen and in the chat. It stays the choice at first.
• Chat sends an ordinary line to the General chat, as a player's: [General][Admin]: …. A box beside it takes the name players see ("Admin" at first).

The choice and the name are kept. The line is written to the server's chat log like a player's message, so the Logs tab shows it with the rest, and no notification comes for what you wrote yourself.

Chat needs bridge v17. The server can only send alerts by itself, so the bridge passes the text to each player's game and the mod shows it there, in the chat window, with the time and size of the player's own chat settings. A player who muted that name does not see it.

Not seen on a real game yet: it was tried on a test server and against the game's own chat code. A chat mod that replaces the game's chat window may not show the line.

The bridge on players' games

Until v16 the bridge did nothing on a player's game. From v17 it does one thing there: it shows the chat lines an admin writes from SpiffoCON. Nothing is sent back and nothing else is read or changed. Its Workshop page says so.

Bridge v17 writes in the chat. Without it the app works as before: Chat says what it needs and Broadcast goes on working. Bridge v17 also has everything of the earlier ones: one Workshop upload covers it all.

The demo in the README

The animation at the top of the README shows the current version: the windows of a player and of a vehicle, the animals, the notice of broken liquid containers.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.24.0-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.24.0-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.

SpiffoCON 0.23.0

A player's needs

Restore their needs… in the player menu takes hunger, thirst, tiredness, exertion, stress, panic, boredom, unhappiness, pain, drunkenness, sickness and a cold away. Wounds stay: that is Heal completely. Needs bridge v16.

Traits and skill levels

In Character details:

• Traits: Change… on the traits gives a trait or takes one away, from the game's own list (good and bad apart), as its admin window does. Traits that exclude each other, such as Strong and Weak, are not checked.
• Set level: the + of a skill now also sets it straight to a level, 0 to 10, up or down. The experience in between is added or taken away with addxp, the way the game's own admin window sets a level. Going down is asked first.

Both need bridge v16.

The inventory names things as the game does

Each item of a player's inventory shows the name the game shows: "Empty Bucket", "Bucket of Water", "Jacket (Worn)". A container that lost its liquid part shows as a plain "Bucket", so it is told apart at a glance. Needs bridge v16.

Animals in hutches and trailers

The animals list of the Bridge tab now has the animals inside a hutch or a trailer too, where the hutch or the trailer is. They can be fed and watered like the others. Needs bridge v16.

A notice when the server crashed

When SpiffoCON connects, and when the server answers again after going away, it reads how the run before the current one ended. A server that stops as it should ends its log with its shutdown lines; one that crashed, was killed or lost power just stops writing. In that case the Console tab says so, with the last lines of that log, and a notification is shown (it goes with Connection lost and server back). Each start of the server is judged once.

It needs the Logs folder over SFTP. If a host stops the server by killing it at its scheduled restarts, each of those will look like a crash.

The bridge on the Workshop

The Workshop page of the bridge now says what the bridge is for and how to use it.

Bridge v16 takes a player's needs away, gives and takes traits, says what the levels of a skill take, names the items as the game does and lists the animals in hutches and trailers. Without it the app works as before: what needs it is greyed out and says so. Bridge v16 also has everything of the earlier ones: one Workshop upload covers it all.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.23.0-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.23.0-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.

SpiffoCON 0.22.0

Built water containers

Fix liquid containers… now also puts right what is built, not only what is carried or put down:

• a feeding trough that lost its water part. Without it no water can be poured in. A trough with feed in it has none by design, and is left alone;
• anything built that should hold liquids, such as a rain collector.

Their part is made again in place, the way the game's own code makes it; nothing is replaced. Needs bridge v15.

Broken containers are looked for by themselves

SpiffoCON counts the containers that lost their liquid part without being asked: when the bridge connects, and when the first player is back after the server was empty, as after a restart. When it finds some it says so in the Bridge tab and with a notification, which has a checkbox of its own in the notification settings. Works with bridge v14.

Animals

A new list in the Bridge tab, Animals near the players: the animals of the players (not the wild ones) within 100 squares of the players online, with kind, position, health, hunger and thirst. The hungry and thirsty ones come first, in red.

• Feed on a row, or Feed and water all…: hunger and thirst go to nothing.
• Fill the troughs…: water to the top in the feeding troughs there. One with feed in it holds no water and is left.

Animals inside a hutch or a trailer are not on the map and are not listed. The list is read when it is opened, and by its own button. Needs bridge v15.

Repair what a player carries

Repair what they carry… in the player menu: everything the player holds, wears and has attached goes back to new in one go, and the result names what needed it. Needs bridge v15.

Bridge v15 restores built water containers, lists and feeds the animals, and repairs a player's gear at once. Without it the app works as before: what needs it is greyed out and says so. Bridge v15 also has everything of the earlier ones (v14 included): one Workshop upload covers it all.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.22.0-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.22.0-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.

SpiffoCON 0.21.0

Fix liquid containers

After a server crash, a bucket, a bottle or a pot that was put down in the world can come back without the part that holds liquids. It then shows as a plain "Bucket" (a whole one is "Empty Bucket" or "Bucket of Water"), the game's Fill menu leaves it out, and it stays that way.

• Fix liquid containers… in the Bridge tab looks at what the players online carry (bags included), at what is put down on the ground or on furniture within 50 squares of each, and inside the crates, shelves and fridges there.
• It says how many it found, of what and where, and asks. Each is then replaced by a new, empty one of the same type in the same place; one that was put down keeps its spot and the way it is turned.
• The same in the player menu, for one player and their surroundings.
• Left alone: what is worn or attached to a belt (counted and said), and built things such as a rain collector or a trough. Needs bridge v14.

A menu on each item

In Character details, a right click on an item of the inventory, or on something worn or held:

• Repair: as new. The condition, the head of a tool, the edge of a blade, and no memory of earlier repairs; clothes are mended, their patches taken off, and washed.
• Clean: blood and dirt off clothes, bags and weapons.
• Fill with water / Empty…: what holds liquids. Fill shows only where water can go.
• Recharge: a battery, a lighter, a spool of thread, full again.
• Give one more, Remove one… / Remove all…, Show in the Catalog, Copy the id.

An action shows only when it applies; on a row of several equal items it is done to all of them. The first five need bridge v14.

The inventory says more

• Icons: every item of the inventory and of the equipment shows the icon the Catalog has for it (the base game's, and those of the server's mods loaded there).
• State: the condition of weapons, clothes and anything damaged (red when nearly worn out), what is left of what runs down, how full a container is, blood or dirt. Needs bridge v14.

Bridge v14 finds the containers without their liquid part, says the state of the items a player carries and does things to them. Without it the app works as before: what needs it is greyed out and says so. Bridge v14 also has everything of the earlier ones: one Workshop upload covers it all.

Downloads

• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.21.0-Full.exe: includes the .NET runtime.
• SpiffoCON-Setup-0.21.0-Light.exe: needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).

From 0.12.x or later: SpiffoCON offers this version by itself within a day, or right away with Check for updates in the status bar. From 0.11.x or earlier: install it by hand once. Your settings and caches are kept.