Beacon 1.0.0 Beta 9

Sorry about this. This build has an emergency fix for extremely long file write times on Windows.

Beacon 1.0.0 Beta 8

Major update here!

First of all, Beacon now has its own website. Introducing beaconapp.cc! For detailed release notes, see https://beaconapp.cc/history.php#build16.

Here's the highlight reel:

• Document browser for browsing popular config files.
• Import custom engrams from spawn codes.
• Now uses blueprints to guarantee uniqueness between mods.
• Mod authors can register their items with Beacon.
• Public API for interacting with the Beacon database.
• Entry simulator shows example loot selection.

Beacon 1.0.0 Beta 7

This update fixes a critical issue with editing presets on Windows. Adding and editing preset entries was not working correctly in beta 6.

In order to fix this issue, presets have become documents rather than modal dialogs. Rather than "Cancel" and "Save" buttons, saving a preset is done like any other document: with keyboard shortcuts or menu items.

For Mac users, this version is now a 64-bit binary. Users should not notice any difference. Windows 64-bit support is likely a few more months away. See http://blog.xojo.com/2017/03/28/where-is-64-bit-debugging-for-windows/ for more details regarding Windows 64-bit support.

Beacon 1.0.0 Beta 6

• Fixes exceptions on Windows caused by user account paths containing non-ASCII characters.
• Fixed issue preventing update checking, engram updates, document publishing, mailing list subscription, and all other online functions from working on Windows 7 and Windows 8.0.
• Fixed issue with importing config files which had excess spacing around keys.

Beacon 1.0.0 Beta 5

• Removing the special considerations for Scorched Earth desert crates. This means exporting an entire ini file is possible. Beacon will automatically adapt the loot source accordingly. Rebuilding your ini files is recommended.
• No longer possible to paste duplicate item sets into loot sources. This would end up hiding the sets entirely, only to become visible in the export. Beacon will automatically clean up loot sources which might have been affected by this in the past.

Developer note regarding the desert loot crates I had previously concluded, based on Google search results, that SE desert crates and Island deep sea crates used the same class string. It turns out this is incorrect, so all the special workarounds I implemented needed to be removed. My thanks to Ark Community member Gumballz who pointed this out to me. The correct information was right in front of my in the dev kit, and I just didn't notice.

Beacon 1.0.0 Beta 4

• Now offers to subscribe users to the Beacon Announce mailing list. This only happens during the first launch, the dialog will never be seen a second time.
• Special considerations are now made for the desert loot crates in Scorched Earth. Most users will never notice anything peculiar about this loot source. However, in order to support this particular crate, exporting both The Island and Scorched Earth configs at the same time is no longer possible.
• Fixed loot source color and sort order of duplicated sources.
• Fixing bug with showing the engram database date incorrectly on Windows.
• About window now has a button to update engrams automatically. This should still happen automatically at startup, but the button will provide confirmation of success or failure.
• Added offline logging to help track down certain bugs. This is stored in %AppData%\The ZAZ\Beacon on Windows or ~/Library/Application Support/The ZAZ/Beacon on macOS.

Beacon 1.0.0 Beta 3

• About window now shows when the engram database was last updated.
• Now possible to import engram definitions. If for some reason your copy of Beacon cannot update definitions automatically, they can be downloaded from the Beacon website and imported using the Import menu item. See https://thezaz.com/beacon to download definitions.
• Deleting a loot source or item set now has a confirmation dialog.
• Adding custom loot icons for the boss sources.

Beacon 1.0.0 Beta 2

All user should rebuild their configs using this version. Quality values were not correct in previous builds.

• Now possible to duplicate a preset.
• Entry editor engram list will correctly sort on the checkbox column.
• Item set entries can now be double-clicked to edit.
• Added steppers to item set min and max fields.
• Item sets will correctly default to NumItemSetsPower=1 rather than 0.
• Fixed critical issue where Beacon was truncating the decimals from loot source multipliers.
• Fixed exception caused by trying to create a new preset from an item set that was previously created from a preset which no longer exists.

Beacon 1.0.0 Beta 1

The first beta is here! This means Beacon is now considered feature complete for now. Development focus going forward will be on bug fixes, polishing, and setup of support resources such as the website and tutorial.

Not only is this the first beta, it's also one of the largest updates since the initial release. Here's the release notes.

Loot Sources

• Loot source list now includes icons and can be filtered to show all sources, island sources, or scorched sources.
• New loot source wizard. Selecting a defined source is clearer, allows adding presets while adding a loot source. Custom loot sources now have a full range of settings available to ensure proper loot calculation on export.
• Loot sources are now sorted by design instead of alphabetically.
• Editing or duplicating a loot source allows the item sets added by a preset to be reconfigured. This is useful when duplicating a standard beacon into a bonus beacon, for example, as it will adjust qualities and quantities accordingly.

Item Sets

• Added right-click option to reconfigure item sets from their preset.
• Item sets now know which preset defined them. This allows an item set to be renamed, but can still be reconfigured by the loot source wizard without altering the other settings such as name and weight.

Item Set Entries

• Editing multiple entries is now much nicer, as the "edit" checkboxes will default to off, and automatically enable when changing a setting.
• No longer possible to set an entry's blueprint chance if no blueprint exists for the engram.
• Exporting no longer creates set entries for blueprints if the engram has no blueprint.
• It is now possible to change the engrams in a set entry.
• When adding multiple engrams, it is now possible to choose between creating one entry per engram (the previous behavior) or adding all engrams to a single entry. This is useful, for example, to include both a Quetzal Saddle and Quetzal Platform Saddle in the same entry so the game will pick one or the other, but not both.
• Set entries list now supports multiple item copy and paste.

Presets

• Built-in presets are now updated automatically by the server.
• Added "Preset Library" to the "Window" menu, which is used for managing presets.
• Option/Alt while selecting a preset from a menu will no longer trigger an edit action. Instead, edit presets from the preset library.
• New per-item options for presets to prevent modification of quality and or quantity based on the loot source.

Other

• Added increased resolution icons, supporting Windows scaling settings up to 300%.
• Improved engram lookup speed, which should make the loading files faster.

Beacon 1.0.0 Alpha 7

This build fixes a critical issue introduced in build 6 which causes imported entries to appear empty.