stuff I've been sitting on

Author: BenLubar

2024/crafting-beta-faq.md

@@ -108,10 +108,18 @@ The first eight Contract Campaigns are planned to be (titles are placeholders):
 
 [This section is not yet true; the crafting beta has not yet begun.]
 
-In the beta branch, you can find crafting materials in missions, and completing any mission in the beta branch will grant you a one-time gift of two strange (stat-tracking) weapons of your choice.
+In the beta branch, you can find crafting materials in missions, and collecting any material in the beta branch will grant you a one-time gift of two strange (stat-tracking) weapons of your choice.
 
 You can keep the strange weapons after the beta ends, and they will also work in the non-beta branch. Once the beta ends, the gift will no longer be available to players who have not obtained it.
 
+### How do I find crafting materials?
+
+There are currently two sources of Crafting Material Locations, which are invisible tokens that can be converted into actual crafting materials by finding them in a mission. The first is playing for 30 minutes, available once per week, and the second is playing for 6 hours, repeatable indefinitely. The weekly source of Crafting Material Locations grants more tokens than the "extended" source. There is a notification on the main menu when Crafting Material Locations are found. Crafting Material Locations do not expire.
+
+Missions may be marked as containing crafting materials in the mission chooser. Generally, all missions will be marked, but some materials (Salvaged Materials) are only available in certain missions. Up to 5 materials can spawn per mission. If multiple players have materials available, the materials will appear in the same locations, but may not necessarily be the same type of materials.
+
+Materials spawn near walls, crates, other solid objects, and cliffs. They're always within reach of at least one place that bot marines are instructed to stand, so you should be able to find them without taking time away from normal mission objectives to search. In short, they'll be in a place you should go near to a place you can't go. If you don't find a material during a mission, the Crafting Material Location will remain until you do. Crafting Material Locations are not tied to specific missions or locations within missions, but they do maintain the type of material that they represent. (If you don't pick up scrap metal, you'll find scrap metal later that you can pick up.)
+
 ### What's this about cosmetics?
 
 One of the rules for the development of Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop is that we don't compete with the game's Steam Workshop. Any cosmetic mod that is currently available on the workshop will continue to work as it always has, and all missions included with the game will always be available to all players.

benlubar.md

@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+# Ben Lubar's Public TODO List
+
+This page will occasionally be updated (when I remember) and completed or cancelled tasks will eventually be cleared (arbitrarily).
+
+## Always
+
+### Crashes
+
+If you have a mdmp file, [upload it to the feedback site](https://feedback.reactivedrop.com/open.php?topicId=12) along with as much information as you can about what happened right before the crash. Bonus points if you have instructions that guarantee the crash will happen (it's much easier to debug a live copy of the game than a minidump for some of the more confusing crashes.)
+
+### Community Medals
+
+If you think you should have a medal (especially medals like Streamer, Guide, and Artist that are harder for me to keep track of), [file a ticket on the feedback site](https://feedback.reactivedrop.com/open.php?topicId=23). Seriously, if you have an argument for why you should have a medal it is quite likely valid. The reason most people don't have a medal is that I simply didn't see what they did or did see and forgot to give them the medal.
+
+### Bugs and Exploits
+
+If something in the game isn't working right, [leave a note on the issue tracker](https://github.com/ReactiveDrop/reactivedrop_public_src/issues). Make sure there's not an active report for the same thing already, of course. We tend to fix bugs that help speedrunners only if they can be performed by accident and have a negative effect, like an out of bounds exploit that makes it hard to complete the mission or a collision problem that trivializes the entire map. If there's something sensitive about your report, feel free to send it through the feedback site instead. Videos, screenshots, and demos can be helpful if what you're reporting is at all complicated.
+
+### New Features, Content, and Ideas
+
+If there's something you want to see added to the game, [the feedback forum](https://steamcommunity.com/app/563560/discussions/2/) is a great place to post about it. There are also a lot of active people in the [official Discord guild](https://discord.com/invite/c43TDaQ) including members of the Reactive Drop Team who might be able to help you make your own idea real. No promises, of course.
+
+## Specific Deadlines
+
+### MAY 9: Steam Endless Replayability Fest 2024
+
+If Valve decides Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop is eligible for [Steam Endless Replayability Fest 2024](https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/upcoming_events/themed_sales/endlessreplayability_2024), a medal will be available for playing the game during the event, from May 13 at 10:00 AM PDT (UTC-7) to May 20 at 10:00 AM PDT (UTC-7).
+
+Just as with Steam SHMUP Fest 2023, we won't be having any discounts (because discounts on donations make no sense), but we will be participating in the event with a banner on our store page and a medal granted to anyone who opens the game during the fest.
+
+## Upcoming
+
+### Crafting Material Beta
+
+

iaf-intel.md

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ In this documentation, `%LANG%` is used to refer to any [Steam language API code
 
 ## `expires` (type `uint64`)
 
-The Unix timestamp at which recipients of this file should redownload it to check for changes. The updated file will, at minimum, have a changed `expires` field. For the initial release, `expires` increases by 6 hours each time the file is updated, but this may be changed in the future. There is always exactly one of this command, and it is always the first command. The expiration timestamp is also sent as an HTTP header.
+The Unix timestamp at which recipients of this file should redownload it to check for changes. The updated file will, at minimum, have a changed `expires` field. For the initial release, `expires` increases by 1 hour each time the file is updated, and the file is updated slightly before the expiration time to avoid fetching a stale document. There is always exactly one of this command, and it is always the first command. The expiration timestamp is also sent as an HTTP header.
 
 ## `rankedIP` (type `int`)
 
@@ -59,5 +59,7 @@ Announcements that appear in game chat, similar to Warframe's Red Text.
 - `ends` (type `uint64`) - Unix timestamp of when eligibility for the bounty ends. The bounty should not be displayed to players after then.
 - `map` (type `string`) - Lower-case ASCII filename of the mission this bounty is for.
 - `points` (type `int`) - Number of bonus points that will be awarded to players who complete the bounty.
+- `addon` (type `uint64`) - Workshop addon ID that contains this mission if it is not in the base game.
+- `addon_name` (type `string`) - Workshop addon name if `addon` is present.
 
 Mission bounties award bonus points the first time a mission is completed in a participating server on any difficulty within a given time period. Multiple bounties overlap, and bounties with the same start time will have the same end time and should be grouped together.