Changelog/2.4

Version 2.4

Git working directory: root

Things have been done

Things to do

3D engine

• Increased framerate at large maps
• Added simplified shaders to support low-end hardware
• Many minor improvements

Ports

• Windows: Fixed freeze at the end of a game if server threads were activated
• Mac OS X: Fixed package bug - ensure that the used frameworks are part of the dmg

Code

Rescue zone

• Rescue zone for dropships where soldiers will survive at mission abort
• Character statistics and Actor skin descriptions are now scriptable
• Added cgame (client side modding) support - and converted skirmish and multiplayer. It is now possible to add new new client side shared objects to add new gametypes.
• Support for game modding via fs_gamedir cvar.
• Improved and faster renderer.
• Rewritten RMA-algoritm. Now it is faster and does not hang up the game for some assemblies.
• Added a simple campaign cgame type with a fixed number of missions and in a fixed order.

Campaign

• Production requirements support
• Rescue missions: Rescue soldiers of your downed dropships!
• Support for more than 64 aircraft
• Ensure base connectivity
• Support for bigger base buildings (2x2, 3x1, etc.)
• Allow production costs independent from market prices
• Extend building event trigger support (to run events on constructing/destructing/enabling/disabling)
• Allow switching the base not only from the main base menu, but also from any of the base's submenus
  • if available and functional the same submenu of the base switched to will automatically open, otherwise the main base menu will be shown
• Sort the aircraft list for interception and mission popups by distance to the target
• Show 2 different aircraft models depending on aircraft status (en-route/landed)
• Implemented better auto-mission handling
• Select soldiers to fight in base defense
• Implemented transfers between UFO Yards
• Distance penalty for disassemblies. Disassembling a UFO stored far from the base will take longer.
• Implemented listing of actual cargo transfers
• Exit Confirmation pop-up for the campaign mode
• New alien base map
• New, higher quality basemapshots

Battlescape

• Added support for armour penalty. Heavy armour decreases available TUs now.
• New battle mode: Alien rush (endless-alien-respawn-feature).
• World entity interaction with the mouse is now possible (e.g. open doors)
• Improved camera behaviour accessible via middle mousebutton
• Highlight entities that can be used by an actor (e.g. doors)
• Implemented smoke grenades
• Implemented fire fields for incendiary grenades and rockets
• Reworked and enhanced civilian teams (nations)
• Added possibility to use "special civilian teams" on certain maps
• New civilian teams (scientists, workers, miners, soldiers)
• Randomspawn of the enemy is now enabled on many maps

Skirmish

• Allow to edit, load and save your skirmish teams

Map and map tool improvements

alienbase RMA

hills theme.

city2 map

gate map

neighbourhood map

• New (map) entities:
  • trigger_rescue
  • trigger_nextmap
  • misc_fire
  • misc_smoke
• New maps
  • alien base
  • +beach
  • bungalow
  • bungalow2
  • +city2
  • city_industrial
  • gate
  • +harbour2 RMA theme
  • +hills RMA theme
  • +mansion
  • neighbourhood
  • small_house
• Improved and added new tiles for some RMAs:
  • +forest
  • +oriental
• Other improvements on various maps
  • added a lot of new func_breakables on many maps
  • rescaled low-resolution textures on the maps
  • added many new alien spawnpoints and enabled randomspawn on various maps
• UFORadiant
  • Implemented texture overview
  • Implemented skip-common-texture feature
  • Implemented cut feature

UI

• Many key-configuration enhancements and improvements
• New keyinfo menu accessible from anywhere via F4 key
• Support for creating custom HUDs
  • New battlescape HUD: Minimal HUD aka MiniHUD
• Upgrades for all existing battlescape HUDs
• Upgrade for the Options menu
• Upgrade for the Skirmish menu
• Upgrade for the UFOPedia
• Upgrade for the Research menu
• Upgrade for the Aliencontainment menu

General

• Complete new sounds
• New particle effects and special-fx textures and particle animation frames (explosions, weapons, etc.)
• New and improved, transparent blood-textures
• New music, revised tracklist
• New cursor images for the battlescape
• Loads of new models (civilians, rocketlauncher, static models on maps)
• New diffuse textures, new glowmaps, new normalmaps, new specularmaps
• Higher resolution textures for existing models
• Upgraded alien races with additional skins, glowmaps and normalmaps
• Removed unused parts of model textures to optimize filesizes
• Increased texture resolution for existing map textures
• Replaced textures without proper license
• Replaced many .jpg textures with .png textures without artifacts
• Optimized and recompressed all png textures for optimum performance
• A lot of new UI graphics and effects
• New, high-quality renderings of rank pictures and other graphics
• Improved tech pictures
• First glowmap animations
• More flares & new light animations
• Automatic crashdump upload
• Fixed bugs