Tribes 2 // Mod Development Handbook GitHub

68 · QuantiumX

The most heavily rewritten fork in the family. Only 9 of Construction 0.69a’s .cs files survive byte-identical — 8 %. Ninety-one base files were modified, ninety-nine added. QuantiumX is a Construction fork in ancestry and effectively a separate codebase in practice.

   
Base Construction 0.69a (by fingerprint; only 8 % intact)
Scripts 199 .cs — 9 identical to base, 91 changed, 99 new, 10 removed
Size 214 files, 4.3 MB
Installs as GameData/Construction/ — replaces it entirely

Its Q&A.txt is unambiguous about that last point [mod-script]:

1. Delete all of your existing Construction folder....

The chat-command interface

QuantiumX’s defining trait is that manipulation moved from packs to chat commands. Its own release notes read like a CLI changelog [mod-script]:

Virtually any object can be /objectscale'ed

/objectscale has a 'get' scale command to get scales ie: /objectscale get

/objectscale has a single 'get' scale command, put an X in which side you would like to leave alone
  ie: /objectscale x x x

/objectrotate taken out, useless and never used

Virually any object can be named

New swinging doors, swings on power or manually swing with /swing

Base Construction manipulates pieces through deployable modes and the beacon key (Building systems) — an approach forced by having no spare input. QuantiumX sidesteps the input limit entirely by routing commands through chat, which is unlimited, self-documenting, and scriptable.

That is a genuinely good idea on this engine. Chat arrives via serverCmdMessageSent (Text and messaging), so a mod can intercept a prefix and parse arbitrary arguments without touching the input system at all. The /objectscale x x x form — x meaning “leave this axis alone” — is the kind of ergonomics you only get with a text interface.

Note also /objectrotate taken out, useless and never used. Removing a shipped feature because telemetry of a sort said nobody used it is unusual discipline for this family.

What it added

99 new files. Representative [mod-script]:

Area Files
Systems rpgFunctions.cs, LobbyGui.cs, message.cs
Vehicles vehicle_f191.cs, vehicle_airbase.cs, vehicle_qcf.cs, vehicle_ICBMlauncher.cs, vehicle_spec_fx.cs
Weapons deathray.cs, IonTargeter.cs, SSN.cs, lazerTag.cs, fireworksgun.cs, mortar.cs
Building packs/doorPack.cs, packs/doorpack2.cs
Odd putback/quanstar.cs, putback/fhData.cs

Three things stand out.

rpgFunctions.cs — the RPG drift visible across this family, here as a named subsystem. MooCon has a cash-and-jobs economy, Ultimate Build has RPMoneySettings.cs, CCM has RankStuff.cs and RPchaingun.cs. Four independent forks reached for persistent player progression on top of a building sandbox.

LobbyGui.cs — a shadowed client-side GUI file. Most forks here are purely server-side; touching the lobby means QuantiumX changes what the client sees before connecting, which raises the install burden. See Client/server split.

putback/ — a directory whose name suggests staging or restoration. Abandoned or transitional directories left in the tree are normal in this family; base Construction ships a disabled truPhysics.cs the same way (What it changed).

An environment pack

From the release notes [mod-script]:

New Envi. pack (Environment Pack): creates bushes/shrubs and various nature objects and effects
including meteor storms, lightning, rain and snow.

Base Construction has JTLmeteorStorm.cs and hazard.cs as server-controlled hazard events. QuantiumX turns weather into a placeable deployable — the builder decides it snows here. That is a coherent extension of the mod’s thesis: if building is the game, environment is building material.

Rotating pads

New rotating pads, rotates to which ever degree its set. Note: Continuous makes it keep rotating with
power on… Note #2: objects on rotating pad will rotate with pad, keep in mind many pieces

[mod-script]

Moving structures with mounted children. The truncated second note is the interesting part — carrying attached pieces through a rotation is exactly where a deployable system built on static shapes starts to strain.

The cost of 8 %

QuantiumX demonstrates what happens when a fork rewrites rather than extends:

  • Nothing merges. A fix in another Construction fork cannot be applied here without manual porting.
  • The base documentation stops applying. Section 58 describes 0.69a; with 91 of its files modified, much of that description is no longer safely true of QuantiumX.
  • Readme.txt is stale. It is still base Construction’s verbatim — “We just like to build stuff…”, the Ninja Mod and Warped paragraph, the original deployable list [mod-script] — despite the scripts being 92 % different. The living documentation is QuantiumReadMe.txt, Q&A.txt, and Version-history.txt.

Compare 59 · Power Edition: comparable new content volume, 82 % of the base left intact, and a delta you can still read.

For someone working on it

  • Read QuantiumReadMe.txt and Q&A.txt, not Readme.txt. The last is inherited and wrong.
  • Chat commands are the interface. Extend that pattern rather than adding beacon-key modes; hook serverCmdMessageSent and validate the caller (Client/server split).
  • Verify against QuantiumX’s own files, not section 58. With 8 % of the base intact, assume nothing documented for baseline Construction still holds until you have checked it here.
  • The vanilla framework pages in 02–05 do still apply — those describe the engine, which no mod can change.