S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Enhanced Edition support

[Xottab-DUTY]

TL;DR

We won't provide support for the Enhanced Edition, but can implement a limited set of the new features (e.g. some of the new Lua scripting functionality).

In detail

• We don't have the updated engine sources, which makes it impossible to simply port the changes from EE.
• The EULA prohibits reverse-engineering of the engine, which we won't be doing anyway (too much effort while we already have everything we need).
• Some features are implemented differently, some features are incompatible, e.g.:
  • Gamepad support is implemented differently in OpenXRay comparing to EE. Adding support for EE would require to maintain two different approaches to the gamepad system. It's not even possible probably.
  • Graphics changes vary from mod to mod and EE is no different – it has it's own renderer changes and features. We already have the support for Screen Space Shaders (SSS) mod and that means that we are supporting two approaches (Vanilla or SSS graphics). Support for EE would mean supporting a third approach and likely will result in a messy code/enlarged code base which would be harder to maintain.
• The Enhanced Edition IS currently supported, which means that the patches are being released. Keeping our code base up to date with EE updates would require additional effort.
• Some small set of functionality (e.g. new Lua functions) could be potentially useful for modders and easy to implement ourselves without reverse engineering the EE engine, so we can add support for it.

I will probably add more info as needed/available.
Feel free to comment.

[ForserX]