FTL: Multiverse Translation Project

Link to the latest nightly translation

Download from HERE. (Updated every UTC 00:00)

Running the script

The script is written in Python and managed by poetry. A standard setuptools may install it as a package, or you may use poetry to manage the virtualenv and installation process.

The mvloc command can be invoked with either one of the following setups:

1. Use regular pip (or pipx) to install the package. (virtualenv is recommended)
2. Use poetry to install the package (poetry install), then run poetry shell to activate virtualenv. (*)

(*) Note that directly invoking poetry run mvloc might NOT work for batch- commands because of this poetry bug. Running mvloc inside the spawned shell won't have this issue.

All mvloc subcommands starting with batch- generates report.txt file that contains logs and outputs of all task in a workflow.

Workflows

Translation

The repo is designed to work with Weblate. Following Weblate addon settings are recommended:

• Component discovery

  Regular expression to match translation files against:
  locale/(?P<component>.*)/(?P<language>[^/.]*)\.po
  
  File format:
  gettext PO file (monolingual)
  
  Define the monolingual base filename:
  locale/{{ component }}/en.po
  
  Define the base file for new translations:
  locale/{{ component }}/en.po
  

Updating the English strings

1. Unzip the latest FTL: Multiverse into src-en/ directory
2. Update the packaging section of mvloc.config.jsonc file
3. Run mvloc major-update --first-pass
4. Push the changes to the repo, then Update -> Force Synchronization from Weblate.
5. Run mvloc major-update --second-pass
6. Push the changes to the repo, then Update -> Force Synchronization from Weblate.

The command extracts localizable strings from src-en/ and updates en.po files in locale/. Note that the two-step is required for Weblate to automatically handle the string changes correctly.

Changing string extraction criteria

1. Edit mvloc.config.jsonc file
2. Run mvloc batch-generate --clean --update en

Unlike major-update command it tries to update the file without global translation memory, does not perform a fuzzy matching, and preserves the obsolete/fuzzy entries.

Applying the translation

Run mvloc batch-apply <langname> -- Example: mvloc batch-apply ko

This command transforms XMLs in src-en/ using translation files on locale/, then writes them out to output-<langname> directory.

Add -m option if you use machine translation from locale-machine/. Machine translation is put on untranslated texts, does not replace hand translation. -- Example: mvloc batch-apply ja -m

Packaging the translation

1. Follow the "Applying the translation" workflow first
2. Run mvloc package <langname> -- Example: mvloc package ko

If you used -m option while applying process, add -m option as well. -- Example: mvloc package ja -m

This command automatically packages the translation. It downloads the English Multiverse, overwrites it with translated XMLs, (optionally overwrites it with contents in auxfiles-<langname>/ if any), and zip it to create a package suitable for Slipstream Mod Manager.

Bootstrapping

1. Create src-<langname>/ directory and place the translated XMLs there -- Example: src-ko/.
2. Run mvloc batch-generate --diff --clean <langname>

The bootstrapping process tries to reverse the applying process: extracting the strings out of already translated XML files. This is useful when migrating from an ongoing translation project.

In case where the string extraction criteria is incomplete to cover your XMLs, the unhandled changes are shown in the report.txt (shown as "Diff report" tasks). In that case, adjust mvloc.config.jsonc appropriately, follow the "Updating the English strings" workflow to update en.po files, and repeat this workflow again.

Bootstrapping only a subset of XML files

• This is useful when importing a new translated XML file over an already existing locale in the project.
• Put XML files into src-<langname>/. Make sure to remove any other files or they will be overwritten as well!
• Remove --clean option when invoking mvloc. Other files will be untouched.

Machine translation

If you want localized MV but cant find translation for your language, you can make MT(machine translation) by yourself. Also you can join our weblate project to start hand translation, but you will soon realize how large the scale of MV is. So I recommend to make MT first, then replace it with your hand translation gradually.

mvloc machine <langname> -- Example: mvloc machine ja

It will take around 12 hours to finish translation due to mass texts in mv. You do not have to run the script continuously because there is the autosave function, and you can edit the script to change the interval(default: 100).

To implement MT in Nightly, add bash snippets/ci-nightly-machine.sh <langname> HERE

If you have deepl api free, you can replace MT with deepl translation, which would be more decent quality. mvloc deepl <langname> <deepl-api-free-key> <character-limit(optional)> Deepl api free has translation limit of 500k characters per month. MV has about 4m characters, so it may take 8 months to complete deepl translation.

If vanilla ftl does not support your language, you have to find fonts suitable for ftl, and make auxfiles-<langname>/ to override existing language fonts. Korean is a good example. You can also ask HS devs to add your language.

Disclaimer

FTL: Faster Than Light is a trademark of Subset Games. Unless otherwise stated, the authors and the contributors of this repository is not affiliated with nor endorsed by Subset Games.