Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Alpha 4.11 release!

Fix the freezing bug and a couple of stuff.
The standard installer package and a simple zip package.
Changelog.- includes Alpha 4.1.
ALPHA 4.11 CHANGES
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Bug fix with AI improvements.

FIXED BUGS
- Stopped NPCs equip-unequip obsessive behavior that froze the game.
- Can change Cautious directive again.
- Beds don't block stairs exit anymore.
- Tracker targets won't show when sleeping anymore.

GAMEPLAY
- New Item: Kolt Revolver, K for Kolt.
 
AI
Slightly more CPU spent on AI, but hopefully worth it.
- Improved CivilianAI scavanging behavior : consider all items stacks rather than just the nearest one.
- Improved fortification building logic : less spam in stupid places.
- Improved eat logic : less waste, consider perishable vs non perishable.


ALPHA 4.1 CHANGES
-----------------
Overview:
- Intel fix.
- Ingame help for new players (advisor, item ui help)
- The Hospital (building, map).
- Grenades (action, item).
- Canned Food (item).
- Civilians tips (AI).
- Hardy (skill).
- Late game ally (actor).
- Order to: build fortifications, report events (follower).
- Initiate trade (action).
- Share flashlight FoV bonus (rules).
- Various AI improvements.
- Redone difficulty computation (options).
- Log file to help bugs fixing.


FIXED BUGS
- Fixed crash and missing minimap on Intel video cards! Hurray!
- Fixed crash when attempting to build fortifications on walls.
- Gangstas raid was never triggered.
- Quit quits.
- Day 28 is Day 28.
- Modified starved zombification chance option appears in post mortem.
- Resized skill table so it always fits the screen.
- Jumpables objects do not block exits for actor who can jump.
- Fixed UI glitch where you could look at your inventory when pointing the mouse out of the map.
- Police Station TPWSNB won't trigger if he/she is sleeping.
- Crossbows won't jam anymore.
- Various bugs related to loading a game within a game (achievements, ghost characters...)
- When you die, doesn't wait for the turn to end to go back to the main menu.

PERFORMANCE
- Reduced average save and load time by 20% to 30%.
  Remember that pushing the options too far, especially city and district size, has a significant impact on performance.

GAMEPLAY
Map
- New Unique Maps & building : Hospital.
- Some civilians have stored weapons in their basements (rare).
Actor
- New Unique enemy.
- New recruitable late game ally.
- 2 new factions for the new actors.
Action
- New Action : throw grenades - blow up people and objects. Watch out for chain reactions.
- New Action : initiate trade - offer an item to trade.
Items
- New Item : Grenade.
- New Item : Canned Food.
- New Item : Combat Knife.
- New Unique Item.
- Some rare items are unbreakable and never get destroyed.
- Unique items are never destroyed.
- Wooden planks stacking limit up to 4 (was 3).
Sleeping
- Increased chances to heal when on sleeping a couch (5% vs 3%).
Skill
- New Skill : Hardy - Sleep can heal anywhere (no bed needed), more chances to heal when sleeping (1% per level).
Followers
- New Order : build small/large fortification.
- New Order : report events - which is equivalent to forcing them to tell you their tips.
- New Directive : throw/don't throw grenades - AIs is very cautious when throwing grenades, but you might want another fail-safe :p
FoV
- Standing next to someone with a flashlight on gives the same bonus has having one - you "share" the light.
Difficulty
- More complex calculation, with some parameters effects depending on other parameters (eg: nb of civilians vs zombification % and starving).
  Hard to predict the % effect of changing an option, but the basic effects make sense.
  As reference, min difficulty is 0% (!) and max difficulty 519%.

..And various minor tweaks.

INTERFACE & MANUAL
- In game advisor gives hints to help new players learn the basics - it's on by default.
- Bunch of advisor hints.
- Dying by ranged weapons says "shot" instead of "hit".
- Ranged weapons short description tells how many ammo left (eg: in other people inventory and on the ground).
- Shotgun "shells" not "cartridges".
- Items description in player inventory reminds of special keys or actions (fire, give...).
- Shows a "healing" icon when an actor is healing while sleeping (helpful for new players).
- Updated manual.
- Updated readme to mention the logfile.

GRAPHICS & MUSIC
- New gfx for new stuff.
- New activity icon for NPCs fleeing from explosives (see AI section).
- 3 new musics (total 15 musics).

OPTIONS
- New : Show Minimap on/off - special old school 4.0 emulation mode for hardcore Intel people :p
- City Size min:3 max:6.
- Enabled/Disable Advisor.

AI
- Civilians give tips about enemies, items, soldiers or raids they recently saw/heard. Keep your ears open!
- Followers told to not fire weapons will switch to melee weapons (or barehands) - so you can easily set them to melee or ranged fighter role.
- NPCs raising the alarm say which enemy they sighted.
- Leaders can switch place with their Followers - followers AI won't block leaders AI anymore.
- GangAI and CivilianAI followers stay closer to their Leaders.
- Trading AI refuse deals that makes no sense (eg: "my baseball bat for your baseball bat", "my pistol for your pistol ammo").
  You'll get a "has no interesting deal to offer." message.
- AI use blue pills more often.
- AI sleep more often.
- Improved sleep behavior for GangAI and SoldierAI.
- SoldierAI use medecines.
- Improved AI inventory management logic with weapons.
- Civilians make room for food items by dropping stuff when needed.
- Improved AI gear preference (doesn't affect trade)
  - equip best armor.
  - equip ranged weapons over melee weapons.
  - melee weapons preference : most damage first, then least STA penalty.
- CivilianAI and SoldierAI run away from primed explosives (eg: grenades).
- CivilianAI and SoldierAI *cautiously* throw grenades when appropriate : hurt group of ennemies, don't hurt friends.
- "CUF" map : once you visit the map, AIs will be able to use the exit/entry stairs - carefully choose when to open the pandora box ;)

KNOWN BUGS AND GLITCHES
- If you have a bug, mail the logfile.
- FoV is asymetric along walls.
- Rare crash at map generation complains about a missing CHAR Office.
- When changing some options the difficulty will go up, then slightly down, then resume up again.
- Long messages can be hard to read, use the Message Log command to read them in fullscreen (default Shift-M).


Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!
End of post.

18 comments:

  1. Good surprise. I can't wait to test the Kolt. Thanks as always RoguedJack. I'll be thoroughly and obsessively playing this soon :3

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  2. Merci pour la 4.11 ! Par contre, il y'a un léger bug je crois, le sommeil est super lent. Genre 1 tour par seconde quoi, alors que c'était vraiment plus rapide avant. Je sais pas si ca vient de mon ordi ou si c'est un changement dans le jeu.

    For those who don't speak french, i talked about a strange bug i have with the 4.11, as the sleep is really slow now. Am i the only one with that bug ?

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  3. I has an idea!
    Unloading guns.
    It's basicly the oppisite of reloading. Say you have a pistol (full) and 10 pistol rounds. You find another full pistol. You want the ammo, but don't want the gun to take extra space when it could stack.

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  4. Awesome! Time to play loads this fine evening :D

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  5. Thank you for this fine release!

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  6. bloodner: verifie l'option "simulate while sleeping", activee elle ralentie le jeu qd tu dors; sinon vérifie que t'as pas poussé les options plus que d'habitude.
    (en) check the "simulate while sleeping" option, it slows the game down while you sleep; or you pushed the options farther than usual.

    amymsnyder: will try to add that for 5.0, added to faq.

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  7. I have 2 little suggestions:

    I would like to see a Katana somewhere, probably unique, maybe with some unique gangster, it could be +5,+5,-0 (just a little better than a shovel).

    And a White wepons skill is missing, because right now martial arts makes carrying a weapon a burden, I much prefer +9,+3 (with MA3) than any weapon in the game that will give me 1 less space in inventory and can break, and the better one will give not much more than MA.

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  8. This game looks awesome but I can't play it because my video card isn't up to par. I can play sims the movies and other pc games . I'm wondering is there a version of this released that will work on systems with top of the line graphic cards.

    keep up the great work though everything I've seen so far looks like to be the ultimate roguelike

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  9. I may not have mentioned it before, but I look forward to advances in this game more than any other out there. You are doing amazing work here and I wish more people knew of it.

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  10. I have experienced another freezup, turn 4686, in a char zone with lots of military mil drops and bikers on the map somewhere, while sleeping, no save file

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  11. Will my save from the previous version be compatible with this one?

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  12. I know that gun jams are part of gameplay, but revolvers do not normally jam. Kolt revolvers should be immune to jams like crossbows are.

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  13. one of the best roguelikes ive ever played, one quick suggestion, how bout a battery powered lantern that you can drop to provide hands free light to an area?,

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  14. Thanks for all the comments, suggestions and bug spotting!

    Chadda: Martial Arts 3 is interesting but you have to invest 3 skill points to get the full bonuses; so its a balance trade-off : do i get a melee weapon and ignore MA or do i invest skills on MA and free slots?

    Doc: weird, you should post the exception text on the bug report page. in case you used it, the "no installer" package was bugged and it is now fixed.

    TheBeefiest: FFFfuuuuuuuu tell me if it happens again, a save would be great.

    Veton: not savegame compatible.

    Jeff: don't want revolvers to be too powerful.

    adric: that would requiere proper lighting coding, which this game will not have (too much computation, prefer to keep CPU for the many NPCs).

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  15. "A fingerbone gets jammed in the hammer mechanism of your Kolt Revolver! You fumble with it."

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  16. No crashes since the update I believe. It's good to have my Rogue Survivor working right again :3

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  17. Mediafire is down.. are there any alternative download locations? My internet is going out in an hour and I'd like to have the game on my computer.

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