Talk:Strata Source

Strata Source on VDC at this time (mid 2024)

Outside VDC, among mappers (I mean places like Map Labs server), there's been concerns raised about Strata Source being described in such depth and to such degree of presence on VDC.

If I understand the situation, the engine itself isn't open source, the tools for it aren't open source, it's used in three projects none of which are out in full, and only one is in early access (Momentum Mod).

I know that you can join Momentum Mod's discord via a public link and use their tools. I was there for a short time, and it seemed that way, at least. I didn't actually try those tools.

P2CE isn't out, there's no really talking about modding or using it. Portal Revolution is the same deal. (right?)

So, all in all, it's a mostly walled off environment of community testers and licensee developers. And Strata itself isn't licenseable.

Despite that, Strata is being mention on virtually any page that talks about engine limits, entities, or shaders. Its pills icon will greet you everywhere. It does clutter up some pages and it does draw attention with its notices that are pretty much "cool, but so what". How many people use trigger_once? How many of those are on Strata? How many people compile with VRAD daily? How many of those are on Strata? More importantly, how many of those don't already know its extra features and use them?

Even if some of it is accessible to wider audience, even if the tools can be used now, you still pretty much have to rely on being closer to the devs (being in their Discord etc) to get good information and advice.

So seeing so much Strata Source/branch/hammer everywhere... well, do we need it?

Yes, P2CE can come out, but then I imagine its (expanded) limits and features would make the most sense to talk about around P2 modding articles. It's not like people make their choices of engine branches [with such widely differing options and conditions of availability] based on which supports PBR or which allows 16384 edicts instead of 2048? The choices are made differently... if someone arrives at P2CE page that's most likely because they already started modding it.

And thus that info can be more contained, not mixed on general articles. Those I would leave to strictly: 1) Valve branches 2) Garrys Mod 3) Mapbase. The main criteria: the demand for information.

I'll ping some of the most active editors and a few moderators to get opinions on the whole thing. User:Blixibon, User:Nescius, User:SirYodaJedi, User:Speedvoltage, User:N0one, User:Kr0tchet