Game Version 0.2X

0.29

New Game Features

• Prussian Grenadiers. Clad in red, white and blue, this one is certainly quite the sight to look at. The Grenadier class available to play as part of the Army based selection of units for the Kingdom of Prussia.
• Canyon makes its way back into the game.

Quality of Life

• Player based map rotations. Smaller maps like Canyon, for instance, will only come into play when the player count is not at its peak. While the largest of maps like the Grassy, Snowy or Desert Open Plains variants only rotate when the player count is sufficiently high.

» Input the below commands as global configuration settings to define the minimum number of required players for the low, medium or high population settings.

- population_low_min_players 30

- population_medium_min_players 50

- population_high_min_players 100

» Input the below command per map rotation to define on which population setting a particular map should be played on. Setting all of the below values to false will prevent the map from rotating automatically but administrators can still access and rotate to that map using the mapRotation command.

- population_verylow_playable true or false

- population_low_playable true or false

- population_medium_playable true or false

- population_high_playable true or false

• Players that have most recently spoken through VoIP will now appear at the top of the list in the Round Players ‘P’ panel so you can more easily find the person you’re looking for.
• You now have the option to mute specific individuals from chat through the Round Players ‘P’ panel.
• When in spectate mode, you are now able to directly spectate a specific player of your own choosing as long as they are affiliated with your own faction. You can do this by clicking on the eye icon in the Round Players ‘P’ panel.

Bug Fixes

• Solved various issues with Canyon when played on Conquest.

0.28

New Linebattle Maps

• Ancient Plains
• Snowy Plains 4
• Snowy Plains 5

» Input the following parameters to play these map on your community server: map_name ancientplains, map_name snowyplainsiv or map_name snowyplainsv

Combat Changes

• Solved an issue with changing attack directions while using a musket, pike or a flag. Right or left mouse movements are no longer taken into consideration when changing between up and down stabs.

0.27

A New Map

• Camp Salamanca.

» Input the following parameter to play this map on your community server: map_name campsalamanca

• Revisited the rotation present on the Army Front official servers based on community feedback.
• Players are now able to switch classes as well as the faction they initially joined on the Melee Arena game mode without disconnecting from the server.

Combat Changes

• The mechanic which dictates the damage received by a player when struck by a melee weapon has been redesigned to favour consistency. Strikes will now deal a set amount of damage pending on if they land on the upper or lower body.
• Player to player collisions have been improved to reduce instances of players clipping inside one another while staying up close and personal.
• Introduced a preventive measure to reduce instances where players clip inside one another while aiming downwards with a strike.
• Blocking mechanics have undergone a few adjustments to improve their responsiveness.
• Slightly reduced the pace at which players can feint a strike to further aid with blocking responsiveness.
• Right and left swings from sword strikes no longer collide with the terrain.
• Increased the stun timer that disallows a player to commit to another strike after they get hit to favour blocking.

Game Balance

• Reduced the rate of fire of rocket artillery by increasing the time it takes to load a rocket by 2 seconds.
• Reduced the blast radius of the rocket.
• Solved an issue which caused the cannon ball’s hitbox to be larger than that of the model itself.
• Reduced the damage done in an area when a round shot hits the terrain or an object on the world map.

Game Core

Performed a minor game engine upgrade.

Optimisations

• Client-side optimisations to improve framerate when a lot of players are on screen.
• Server-side optimisations to reduce data throughput.
• Lobby optimisations to reduce data throughput.

Bug Fixes

• Solved an instance which caused the map to randomly switch to the first one in rotation in the middle of the match.
• Solved an issue which caused the player’s ragdoll when killed by a grape shot to animate incorrectly.
• Solved an error that was sometimes being outputted when playing on Tahir Desert.
• Solved an error that was sometimes being outputted when shooting at a rocket launcher with a firearm.
• Solved an issue on the Melee Arena game mode which caused a team to win rounds repeatedly if no players remain in the opposing team.
• Solved an issue which caused a player to always strike upwards if they rotate to the left and strike.
• Solved a server-side issue related to player movement. (Hotfix)

Quality Of Life

• Player name plates when having the ‘Show Player Names’ options enabled, will now continue to rotate with the player even if the player dies.
• The ‘Show Player Names’ option no longer switches back to its default value after closing the game.
• The ‘Escape’ menu no longer appears if you minimise the game while in freeflight or spectate mode.
• Flattened out the terrain on Palisade Arena and removed the poles present on the map.
• Removed the trees present on Watchtower Arena to improve visibility when playing.

0.26

Rocket Artillery

• Intended for long range bombardments, rockets can be relatively inaccurate. Fear not, however, you’ll be able to send rockets flying at a relatively fast pace and one of them is bound to hit your intended target.

» Input the following command in your server configuration file to adjust the rocket launcher’s respawn time: artillery_rocketlauncher_respawn_timer 130

» Launchers can be found on most of the current maps including plains maps intended for organised play.

• A New Class. Rocketeer! Staying true to their history, this class is exclusively reserved to the British Empire. They come equipped with a spyglass, a sword and a pistol. Rocketeers also have priority over the use of rocket launchers followed by cannoneers.
• Cannonball Bounce! Round shot fired from field guns will now bounce off the terrain decimating through enemy lines.
• Carriable Ladders! Carry ladders close to a fort’s wall then raise them up to create additional entry points for the assaulting allied infantryman. Carpenters have priority over the use of ladders.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue which caused players aiming a mortar to retain some of their player’s visuals obstructing the camera.
• Fixed an instance were players would join their previously selected server is they pressed the ‘Enter’ key while searching for a server or changing their name.
• Attempted fix towards an issue which resulted in the rain sounds cutting off.

Quality Of Life

• You are now able to auto move rocket launchers, ladders and cannons by pressing the ‘NumLock’ key.
• You are now able to separately control artillery related audio sounds through the ‘Artillery’ audio slider.

0.25

Game Core

• Performed a minor game engine upgrade.

Quality of Life

• You can now connect to a server by pressing the ‘Enter’ key.
• Players can now display voice phrases in chat. It will come in especially handy for all those fellows leading regiments during events.

» Enable ‘Shouts In Chat’ from the ‘Game’ settings to display phrases in chat.

Bug Fixes

• Solved an issue with a memory leak occurring on the game server after map load.
• Solved an issue with the Naval Battlefield server crashing after long periods of run time.
• Attempted fix towards an issue with weather sounds cutting off.
• Attempted fix towards an issue that caused the musician tunes to cut off during volley fire.
• Solved an issue with the game hanging on exit.
• Solved an issue with the attacking and defending factions being inverted in the scoreboard.
• Solved an issue with loading the moveable field gun while standing in front of its barrel.
• Solved an issue with the private admin chat introduced during the previous update being restricted to the team the player joins.
• Solved an issue with field guns randomly killing friendly players when friendly_fire is enabled.
• Solved an issue with cannonball kills displaying an incorrect kill distance in the kill feed.
• Solved an issue with spacing in the kill feed user interface.
• Solved various exceptions that occurred on the client during map load.
• Solved various exceptions that occurred on the server.
• Attempted fix towards a recurring error that sometimes occurs on the client when a player carries an item.
• Solved an error that was being outputted on the client related to audio.
• Solved an issue with incorrect audio files being assigned to the weather system. Static sounds no more.

» If the weather sounds are slightly too high in volume, you can adjust them through the game’s 'Audio/Weather' settings.

0.24

Game Core

• Project Cleanup. Optimised our development workflow as this contributes towards producing content at a faster pace.

» Removed all unused meshes, textures and terrains to lessen the load on our project and reduce wait times.

» Refactored multiple scripts to make them more accessible to the developers.

» Restructured the entire project for the developers to more easily locate particular items.

• Game Engine Upgrade. A necessary step forward before we could deliver on our promise to further optimise the game as this exposes the team to newer technologies that can be utilised towards this effect.

Optimisations

• Character Optimisations. One of the major bottlenecks in performance when a lot of players are on screen have received direct optimisations. Players will experience a better framerate on those massive 150 * Player servers pending that they weren’t already previously limited by an older GPU.

Graphical Additions

• Time of Day & Weather System. Players can now enjoy a much better-looking dynamic skybox and weather system due to changes we had to undergo while performing the game engine upgrade.

» The volumetric clouds introduced with this new time of day and weather system utilise more GPU resources than the one present in the version before this update.

» If you’d like to trade off looks for performance, simply go to your ‘Video’ settings and lower down the ‘Skybox Quality’ to ‘Medium’ or ‘Low’.

• Additional commands to better control the time of day and weather system have been included. You can find all the commands detailed below.

» rc nature weather preset <Weather Preset> <Transition Time>

- Weather Preset: Calm, Calm2, Calm3, Calm4, Fog, Fog2, Fog3, Snowy or Storm

- Transition Time: 5 - 60

» rc nature time timeOfDay

- Time: 0 - 24, 13.5 = 1.30 PM

» rc nature time dynamicTime <Input>

- Input: true or false

» rc nature time dynamicTimeSpeed <Speed Multiplier>

- Speed Multiplier: 0.01 - 1

Quality Of Life

• Admin Chat Channel. We’ve introduced an admin chat channel that is specifically reserved for discussion amongst those with administrative privileges on a particular server.
• Admin Shortcut Commands. You’re now also able to more easily access some of the most common administrative tools by typing shortcut commands in the admin chat.
• Administrators can broadcast a message by typing ‘/bc’ in the admin chat channel followed by their desired message: /bc <message>
• Administrators can switch to a map by typing ‘/mr’ in the admin chat channel followed by a value according to the rotation set in the server configuration file: /mr <map rotation id>
• Made muting functionality more easily accessible through the Round Players ‘P’ panel.
• Players are no longer able to hide private messages sent by server administrators by toggling the ‘Broadcasted Messages’ user interface settings.
• You can now separately control weather sounds through the ‘Weather’ slider under ‘Master Volumes’ in the Audio settings.

Bug Fixes

• We’ve pushed forward a tentative fix for the sudden latency spikes that players sometimes experience on the Naval Battlefield game mode.
• Fixed a bug where the confirmation text was being incorrectly displayed after a particular administrative action was clicked on in the Round Players ‘P’ panel.
• Fixed a spelling mistake on one of the spawn points present on Fort Imperial.
• Fixed various issues related to naval vessel destruction.
• Fixed an issue where players could go inside one of the props present on Dutch Canals.
• Fixed an issue with one of the bridges on Dutch Canals not being correctly placed.
• Fixed a bug were one of the mortars on Fort Imperial could sometimes incorrectly collide with an invisible object causing it to explode prematurely.
• Fixed a bug that was causing one of the ammo boxes on Fort Winston to become invisible.
• Fixed a bug were players couldn’t spawn as a Cannoneer on the Highlands map.
• Fixed various floating props on Ernest Ridge.
• Fixed an issue with players getting stuck underneath the watchtowers on King George.
• Fixed an issue on the Sacred Arena map which sometimes caused players to spawn behind the map’s border inside the church.
• Players are no longer able to walk on the metal flag poles present on Fort Arena.
• Fixed an issue with incorrect textures being assigned to the Prussian fife.
• Fixed an issue with players floating when interacting with cannons aboard ships or near the coast.
• Fixed an issue with players floating when interacting with the captain’s wheel on the 2-Gun Schooner.