News/2008
Monthly update for December, 2008
As I was getting ready to write something along the lines of UFO:AI development slowing down because of real life interfering, the most busy month seems to have arrived. A lot has been done in December.
It\'s worth noting that fresh blood has arrived in two areas that seem particularly interesting to me - pathfinding and map editor, the Radiant. This increases coverage of mapping related contributors, where previously the map compiler received more attention.
Hope we can make them stick and help the experienced veterans we have in these and other areas :)
- Improvements to map editor, Radiant (compiling, new filters, rotated model moving fixes, surface inspector improvements).
- Fixes and improvements to geoscape (aircraft movement, radar related issues, models, XVI fixes, performance improvements, UFO visibility on geoscape, Phalanx aircraft now estimates ufo direction and tries to intercept them instead of moving to their current position).
- Updated translations.
- Various UI fixes and improvements (spinners in some screens, improved scrollbars, replaced textnode, tooltip delays, checkbox changes).
- New hiring screen.
- Improvements to message options (icons, state saved).
- Map compiler improvements (lighting changes, simplifications to surface flags/textures relations, nodraw setting).
- Texture updates and new textures.
- New music, sounds & models.
- Updates and fixes to maps, new random map assembly tiles.
- 3D geoscape is now the default (I still love the 2D one) and improved (rotating starfield).
- Fixes and performance improvements to the pathfinding (including ability to write debug csv files and important logic fixes).
- Savegame related fixes (multiple loading in a row, missions, others).
- Fixes to multiplayer.
- Aircraft updates (Herakles dropship, Starchaser interceptor).
- Aircraft equipment fixes and improvements.
- Work started on visibility impacted by darkness.
- New AI infrastructure (LUA) updates.
- Battlescape fixes and improvements (model lighting - they should be more properly lit now, instead of being full bright).
- Packaging and platform specific fixes (Debian, MaxOSX).
- Aircraft equipment fixes and improvements (including UI simplification).
- Improvements to campaign system (research, progressing, alien team definition, new weapons).
- Console behaviour improvements and fixes (completion, colouring).
- Balancing work (aircraft, aliens).
- Civilian and alien limit increase, count dependant on mission location and other factors.
- New geoscape time control system.
- More code splitup.
- Alien races have different stats now.
- Obviously, usual huge mountain of miscellaneous fixes and improvements here and there.
...aaand a few things that got missed in the last monthly update ;)
- Aliens receive initial damage in crash missions.
- Changes in campaign framework (mission placement).
Monthly update for November
Another month, another update. November brought us:
- A lot (really) of improvements to GUI, mostly various menu fixes.
- Work on maps.
- New textures, models and Ufopedia images.
- Updates and fixes to the map editor, Radiant, including making it a seperate make target.
- File:Msgoptions2.jpg Improvements to message options], introduced last month.
- Improvements and fixes to map compiler, ufo2map (including merges from q2wmap).
- Updated translations (and fixed usage of English when specific language is not available).
- Improvements for geoscape (especially 3D geoscape, installation & radar related), soldier stats and equipment handling.
- Alien morale fix and other AI improvements.
- Quite a lot of work at balancing (including interceptor ranges/speeds).
- Performance improvements.
- Start of new airfight implementation.
- New weapons.
- Model displaying fixes.
- IRC channel names were changed.
- Some improvements to the new pathfinding.
- Usual round of fixes and miscellaneous changes.
Monthly update for October
A month has passed, so here\'s what UFO:AI team has been up to in October.
Keep in mind that this is all work in progress, and publishing of these updates is no indication of nearing a release of 2.3 - actually, a release is still quite far away. If you want to help, chime in on forums or IRC ;)
- Particle lighting improvements;
- Map fixes and improvements;
- Fixes and improvements to the new pathfinding;
- Map compiler fixes and improvements, including map checking and speed improvements;
- Research, production and geoscape related fixes, including improved installation handling and speedups;
- Updated translations;
- A lot of updates to gui, including floating menus, tabs and translucency;
- Improvements to AI;
- UTF-8 fixes, including massive speedups for some languages (tested with Russian);
- Configurable notifications;
- New sounds;
- Spelling fixes;
- Changes to the map editor;
- Usual round of various fixes and improvements all around.
You might be interested in full changelog for 2.3 as well.
Some updates
- Various improvements on the renderer, including merges from q2w (GLSL shaders, specular lighting, bump mapping, deluxe mapping, ...).
- A lot of fixes and cleanup to maps.
- Significant improvements to ufo2map, UFO:AI map compiler.
- New pathfinding was merged, and it got improved later.
- Map editor used for UFO:AI, Radiant, was imported in UFO:AI repository
- Support for doors.
- Skirmish game support.
- Implemented a new campaign system.
- Support for SAM sites and installations.
- New models, artwork and sounds.
- Console command cleanup and unification.
- Equipment assignment was improved.
- Various improvements to geoscape and battlescape functionality.
- The basis for new AI implementation, written in LUA.
- Translation updates and UTF-8 rendering fixes (speed improvements for some languages).
- As usual, a lot of various fixes here and there.
- UFO:AI runs on eee PC
See the already quite impressive full changelog for version 2.3.
Thanks for nominating us...
...and again our fellow gamers voted for us in the annual Sourceforge community choice awards. We are nominated in the "Best Project for Gamers" category the second time now.
Now that we are nominated we need your vote another time - vote for us at: Sourceforge community choice awards 2008.
Let's win this award and take it home.
Nomination time again
Sourceforge community choice awards 2008 has just start running. Enough of the words, go and nominate UFO: AI in all the suitable categories.
MAC Universal Binary for 2.2.1 available
Many thanks to Tony Christney for creating a MAC universal binary. Grab it from here.
Version 2.2.1 is released
This is a bugfix release for 2.2 - but some small new features were added, too.
- Removed civilian death limit. Instead you will lose if you make too many nations unhappy.
- Improved in-game IRC client.
- Added UFO Theory to Tech Tree.
Make sure that you read the full Changelog.
There is currently no MAC dmg package available for download. We are still searching for someone who will support us with building those packages for ppc and intel (or an universal binary).
But now it's really time to get on to the download page and grab your copy.
Book Release
UFO:AI's lead writer, Ryan Span, has just had his debut novel published in print. The book is called Street: Empathy, the first in an ongoing series of cyberpunk novels, and is now available for purchase. Every book sold will help Ryan to keep writing and developing UFO:AI, so if you like science-fiction and you've got a few dollars to spare, you can't lose!
For more information and to buy the hell out of it, see: www.streetofeyes.com.
Updated MAC Universal Binary
Updated MAC Universal Binary
There is an updated mac universal binary package available for download. If you encounter any problems, please let us know.
Version 2.2 MAC Universal Binary
We can finally present you the MAC universal binary. Head over to the download section and give it a try. Please report any problems.
Version 2.2 is released
The long wait is over - we finally did it and released the next version of UFO: Alien Invasion. There are a lot of new and stunning features included in this version.
- Air interceptions
- UFO recovery
- UFO crash sites
- New technologies and new game content
- Solaris and MacOSX port (ppc and intel)
- Random map assemblies
- eMail system
- New network and renderer code (SDL only)
Make sure that you read the full Changelog.
Many thanks goes to Willem Sitters and Destructavator for creating this promo trailer for us: Promo video
There is currently no MAC dmg package available for download. We are still searching for someone who will support us with building those packages for ppc and intel (or an universal binary).
Now hop over to the download page and grab your copy.
Version 2.2
Tomorrow is the day. We will release version 2.2 on 12th January 2008. Head over to the Changelog to get more information on what has changed from 2.1.1.
Due to a lot of new features in this release the savegames from 2.1.1 can not be used for 2.2.