It's been quite clear for quite some time now that Kalimar, who created the FFB server and client, has not been able to put energy into the project for quite some time. While I have had access to the source code for the project for a long time, I've been pushing the task of learning the code in front of me. Getting involved in an old codebase is very hard and time consuming so I've mostly been hoping that Kalimar's situation would change.

With my time off from work over this holiday season, I finally got around to do what I should have done a long time ago: Get the development environment for it up and running and actually take the time needed to get some things done.

This has resulted in a new release (v1.3.1) for the client which fixed some bugs that felt like low hanging fruit in terms of development effort.

Once these fixes were in place, I decided I wanted to tackle something tougher; something I've been dreading for a while due to the amount of effort it would take to learn how to do it: Implementing something more complex, something that requires me to get a grasp of the core game loop. So I chose the SWOOP skill, without really knowing how much time it would take.

While some parts of the skill were pretty simple (+1 modifier for the ttm landing roll, and negation of stunty for dodging purposes), the really hard part was to replace the ttm scatter with the actual swooping. But I kept at it, one step at a time and finally managed to get the core functionality in place and I could actually swoop.

After pushing a test version of the FFB Server and client to the site, ramchop was friendly enough to do some quick testing and quickly found a few bugs. I ended up fixing three of them (and at the same time possibly fixing a bug that can disappear players during setup).

So.. What now?

Well, I am in need of further testing. Short term for this Swoop skill but in the long term for other fixes I want to get done. So I am asking for help from the community to do testing for FFB updates. My hope is to be able to achieve a few things:

1. Get a process in place for FFB testing.
2. Get help with categorizing and managing the Bugs page.
3. Fix as many bugs as possible and clear some of the "technical debt" that has built up over the years.
4. Add features that allows us to get rules compliant with Death Zone and Spike magazines.

If you are interested, get in touch and I'm sure we'll be able to find a way to collaborate to make FFB and FUMBBL even better!