Difference between revisions of "Changes"

Changes since 0.9.3 (not released)

Gameplay Improvements

• Right side menu width ingame and in the map editor was increased
• New priority system which allows the player to choose which buildings and flags will receive units first
• When you click on a building, it now tells you why no one is able to come to work at it (unavailable, too far away etc)
• Game chat has been separted from game messages, so players messages (tutorial or in YOG) won't get lost.
• Many adjustments to the properties of buildings and units to better balance gameplay
• Ability to CTRL+Click and drag to place a string of the selected building (useful for walls)
• A new Other Options page in Custom Games and YOG pregame setup which includes
  • The ability for game creators to make a map prediscovered to all players
  • The ability for game creators to turn off prestige wins
  • The ability for game creators to lock teams

Overall Improvements

• Removed 'AI' from the names of the AI players (shorter)
• Added a mission description to the campaign system
• New mission objectives system (set in the map editor, with SGSL commands to show/hide them)
• New AI description screen for new players that don't know their difficulties
• New mission hints system (set in the map editor)
• Ability to highlight certain game elements in a map script (such as those used in the tutorial)
• Brand new random map generation engine, which will be used eventually to make and play random maps on the fly from Custom Game / YOG screens
• Ability to tab between certain form elements (such as YOG login screen)
• Added optional implementation of voice chat using port audio (stable and working, will fall back to the old self written voice handling if port audio is not present)

Network Improvements

• Add new -router code, so people can create a router through which game commands are 'routed' (reduce lag if two players live next door for example). Complete with remote administrative interface.
• A new map distribution system which allows
  • Upload of new maps by their creators moments after finishing the map
  • Community rating system to sort maps by rating
  • Download of maps where you can get the maps you want quickly and easily
• A new pregame alliances system where you can set alliances which cannot be changed ingame
• A new "I Am Ready" button to prevent game makers from starting before all players are ready
• A new YOG options screen for players to block insulting players
• Tab system for changing between lobby, options, download maps and pregame screens without having to quit to go to the other.
• YOG Administrators can now ban players in various ways, or mute them for a set amount of time
• Ability to set YOG moderators (limited YOG administrative permissions)
• Ability to see a players score (displayed when you click a name of an online YOG player)
• Ability to message alliances members by prefixing your messages with /a
• Ability to message a specific member by prefixing the message with /[playername]
• Adjustments to latency system for smoother online gaming

Miscellaneous Improvements

• New -test-map-gen option, to continuously make maps until the generator crashes (used for stability like -test-games[-nox])
• Lots of other behind the scenes changes for speed, stability, usability and interactivity
• Lots of bug fixes

Changes in 0.9.3 (released 20080424)

Gameplay Improvements

• Better unit movement:

• Removed hidden forbidden area, replaced with a new 'immobile units' array (same purpose (avoid unit clashing), done differently)
• Units can now move backwards to get around blockages (before they had to move forward or stall)
• Warriors no longer consider enemy walls and towers blockages when plotting their route to a war flag / defence area.
• Warriors now pathfind using an A* algorithm. This means that attacks are more effecient (they surround enemies to kill them faster for example)

• Better flag/area functionality:

• Checkboard and half-checkboard brush are now tilable (they space out on a grid rather than clump together)
• Clearing areas have been adjusted to pull free healthy units, rather than waiting for one to walk into a clearing area
• Clearing flags no longer call units that can't swim, if what they have to clear is over water
• Forbidden areas are now respected over clearing areas/flags

• Many improvments to Nicowar's stability and performance (fewer crashes, and now uses ground attack explorers if the game goes on that long)
• Script text is now added to the history box ('h') so people who play the tutorial can read the last messages if they forget
• Now more more than 4/3 units per resource needed for a building construction/upgrade are allocated to a building
• Explorer attacks are now 2/5 the power of what they once were
• Tutorial text updated to reflect features in recent version.
• Building worker count, and building future working count (the amount assigned the moment a construction is complete) is now saved in the game file and restored when loaded

Overall Improvements

• Moved fertiliy from on the fly, to being calculated with the map when saving it (less bugs, faster performance). Older maps will compute fertility before being playable
• Fixed several memory leaks
• syncRand system changed to use the well known Mersenne Twister algorithm through Boost Random
• Removed the verbose messages from Map that outputted things like "pathfind local resource failed" in the console
• Map editor now asks you if you want to save the map before quitting
• Improved keyboard shortcut system (can now assign shortcuts with CTRL, ALT, SHIFT, and meta (Mac OSX Command key for example), as well as pressed/unpressed events)
• Flag default worker settings are now editable in the Unit Settings tab

Network Improvements

• Made net connections multi-threaded
• General code improvements for maintainability
• New Administrative YOG commands (for muting and unmuting players who spam the channel, or resetting a player password)
• Ghost buildings (previous release feature) now display in your teams color
• Improved latency computation on server (games with lag should run a bit smoother now)
• Games will now be sent over network to joining players when the computed sha1 does not match (no longer uses game checksum). More reliable now
• VOIP changes:

• Experimental Win32 VOIP
• You can now adjust the sound of someone talking through the Settings panel on the main menu or in game

Graphical Improvements

• Minimum (default) resolution now 800x600
• The cursor now uses your team colour, rather than the default pink
• A new talk indicator (for Linux players) shows who is talking on VOIP
• Flag/Area in game button now differs from the building button.

Translation Improvements

• The tutorial campaign text is now in the translation files (the ingame text isn't yet though)
• Updated Italian and Russian translations

Miscellaneous Improvements

• scons script now checks for a compiler, to prevent problems with it tries to compile with nothing
• Experimental, but semi stable, Mac OS X .app bundle and dmg file creation in scons. Needs more people to test
• Added spec files for making Fedora packages
• The adition of two new command line options:

• -test-games  : Runs the game automatically, with different maps, different players, for 1 hour or until game is won, using GUI. Good for testing features or AI's
• -test-games-nox  : Same as -test-games, but without a GUI, so many times faster, but harder to knnow if features are working as they should. Good for finding bugs in the engine

For changes older than these, please check out the Older Changes page.