tobu

Hi All,
 
Wow has it been a while...  What have I been doing?  Well, I've been hard at work making a FiveM emergency modification (can be seen used by KUFFS gaming).  That was super fun and interesting - having to sync multiplayer is a challenge, but pretty darn cool.
 
But that's not why we're here, is it?
 
I'm excited to announce that LS Noir (LSN) will be coming back.  I've been out of the scene for a while, but I regularly get messages asking for LSN to return.  And it's about time we get it working again.
 
So, I have some things to show that are still in development.  But, I am truly working on them and I expect a release soontm.
 
Case Management
First - one of the major challenges of the original LSN was the data structure.  LtFlash was the main designer of this and did an AMAZING job.  The problem is creating a new case; it is so much work and excel files to manually create.  Something not for the general public.  This was difficult to overcome as any case creator program had to support eight different file types, each with different components.
 
To combat this, when I got back into the development of LSN a couple months ago I set out to make a case creator first.  This required a rework of the case structure.  You can find a link to a case flowchart here (be warned - it's a little complex).  Now all information for each stage ("level") of a case is stored using JSON in a "Stage" class.  This allows a simple case creator program to be made.  It's important to note, I'm not a professional - so my GUI is probably not great.  It's better than manually editing a json or XML though, so...
 
 
This case creator will allow you, the community, to create cases.  They can be two stages or twenty.  It's all up to you.  And the benefit of the new format - all items required for a stage are present inside the Stage class.  That also makes implementation much easier on the backend.
 
Implementation
The implementation of this new separate CaseManager is ongoing.  The entire modification needs to be rewritten for a few reasons.
 Outdated references - the modification uses two main commons, Fiskey111Common and LtFlash common.  Both of these are no longer maintained, so these need to be implemented locally. Updated case structure - with the old LSN, there were nine different data types (CaseData, ScenesData, StagesData, ReportsData, EvidenceData, PedData, DialogData, and more).  These files were single files with all data pertaining to that data type - so stage 1 (ex: CSI) is contained in the same ScenesData file as stage 5 (ex: suspect raid).  Not horrible, but difficult to maintain as there are many different components to ensure are completed.  Now, with the Stage class everything for a stage is contained inside the one class.  This makes referencing items easier, as referencing items for evidence requests can simply reference a stage ID which parses all evidence collected rather than each individual evidence ID. Computer - the case computer is pretty cool, in my opinion.  I think that being able to access case data in a GUI format is fun, and will allow for extra features in the future.  However, being honest - GWEN (the windows forms program included in RPH) is not great.  However, I'm not interested in converting to RageNativeUI, so for now, GWEN stays.  This should be fine - the computer isn't used too much.  But we'll see where the road takes us as things progress.  
Timeline
This is the biggest question.  The case manager software is complete (enough) for use.  It's not perfect, but it works and does make creating a case easier.  There are some creature comforts I need to add, but those are on the backburner.  I'm currently working on implementing the new case structure into the existing modification.  As mentioned before, this requires a lot of work to implement and update old, depreciated features.
 
My estimation is a couple months.  But, who knows - life is crazy.  I've been trying to work on it at least 3 nights a week.  It will also depend how things end up working out - perhaps the rewrite of the case structure isn't ideal for some situations and needs to be edited.  Those are things playtesting and creators will most likely discover.
 
I appreciate the communities understanding, and I'm excited to be able to provide a positive update as I truly love the idea of a detective modification - and I think LSPDFR really needs a good one.
 
I'll post additional updates as I get additional features implemented.
 
Stay safe!
Fiskey111