Code:
Starsiege TRIBES Release Notes
-------------------------------
Please be sure and read the Readme file accompanying this release.
This file contains notes for all the releases up to this point, but
the Readme file will contains more information about installing
and configuring the current release.
Version 1.11
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- Added server model authentication to fix the following cheats:
* terrain haze/sky reload cheats
* additional lights cheat
* beacon cheat
* replaced model cheat (e.g. "happy flags")
Version 1.105
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- Fixed a turret-related bug/cheat issue.
Version 1.10
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- Fixed a health kit bug/cheat issue.
- Fixed armor/damage level bug.
- Fixed a server crash bug issue.
- Fixed OpenGL "black bug" with new maps.
Version 1.9
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- The health bar is now updated correctly when you change armors.
- A server crash related to destroying elevators (usually with mines)
has been fixed.
Version 1.8
-----------
- Fixed a problem with single TMU 3dFX cards that was causing
terrains and interiors to display incorrectly.
Version 1.7
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- You can no longer throw grenades & mines if you are not controlling
either your player object or a vehicle.
- Fixed a bug where mines and grenades that exploded while the player
was not in control of his body would have an invalid team number.
- Players can no longer activate any station if their primary weapon is
in it's fire or reload state.
- Player weapon is unmounted for all active stations (was left
mounted for permanent ammo stations in 1.6)
- Fixed a bug with palette management introduced in 1.6
- Typing unclosed single quotes in the console no longer crashes.
- Turret::verifyTarget now has two arguments (%this,%target)
- GameBase::getMuzzleTransform() should now work correctly with turrets.
- There is now a 2 sec. timeout after using a station in which you can
not throw mines & grenades.
- A few fixes were added to the 1.6 fix list (the first three had been
left out)
- Player now throws his weapon more often when killed with trigger down.
- Fliers can no longer hover up through cielings or the bottom of bases.
- Deployables objects now check against interior and terrain when being
displaced by a moveable objects (doors & elevators)
- Displacement code (elavators & doors) now uses a stepping collision
test when testing a displaced object for collision.
- A server side getLOSInfo method was added for bot authors.
Version 1.6
-----------
- Fixed problem with "DirectX 5 not installed" message using DirectX 6.
- IRC bitmap escape sequences are now disabled.
- The Find and Retrieve misison type now has a flag timeout. When a
player grabs an enemy flag, he/she must plant the flag on a home
pedestal within 180 seconds or it returns to its initial position.
-
- Graphics engine modification to facilitate running OpenGL.
- "Elevator crash bug" fixed.
- Player can no longer use weapons at an inventory stations.
- 3dFX cards will no longer run in OpenGL mode, only in Glide mode.
Version 1.5
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- Server security bug involving the server menu has been fixed (1.4.1)
- Loading multiple players onto a single vehicle slot is no longer possible.
- Fixed a problem with inventory stations not clearing the active user.
- NT 4.0 DDHelp crash fixed.
- A timedemo function was added to playback a demo calculate average framerate.
- Fixed a problem with a containment test which would allow players to jump
from vehicles into the solid region of an interior.
- Fixed a problem with gun retraction against vertical surface which would
allow players to shoot grenades & mortars through ceilings.
Version 1.4
-----------
Client & Server Changes:
- Server admins can no longer kick themselves, this was causing a server
crash.
- Team skinning will now test all bitmaps with the team prefix, as opposed
to only skinning bitmaps that start with "base.".
- There is now a "generic" OpenGL driver option.
- The server now verifies the client terrain every 30 secs.
- You now recieve "Your team's flag was captured" messages.
- The player is now killed on disconnect (lost connection, or kicked). This
fixes several cleanup issues.
- The server "reset on last client" now resets to the next mission instead
of always reloading the first mission.
- ELF gun cost reduced from 500 to 125.
- Players can no longer access an inventory station or drop a weapon while
they are fireing or reloading.
- A new player console function was added Player::getItemState(imageSlot);
- Client side crash bug related to players going out of scope after
dropping items.
- In 1.3, the out of memory dialog box was no longer setting TRIBES into
window mode.
- Rendering performance was inproved on the Join Server screen (could get
some bad refresh lags)
- Performance improvements for nVidia TNT cards.
- OpenGL & 32 bit desktops. If your graphics card supports 32 bit
rendering, then the TRIBES will now run 32 bit accelerated, otherwise
the software OpenGL driver is run, which is extremely slow.
- A crash bug related to having shadows turned on while using the Glide
drivers has been fixed. This was a bug introdiced in version 1.3.
- Staying connected to IRC while playing the game could cause the client
to crash.
- Banning problems introduced in version 1.3 have been fixed.
- A server side crash related to players dropping items then quitting has
been fixed.
- The remoteBuyItem() function now properly checks for team item limits.
- OpenGL is now enabled by default, you no longer have to set the
$OpenGL::Enabled variable.
- When clients are missing files loaded by the server, an error
- If a client is missing custom files (or missions) loaded by the server,
a "missing file" error message now appears during the loading process.
- Clients now get a "connecting to modified server" notice when connecting
to servers which have mods loaded. Mod or server operators may set an
optional string ($MODInfo) that is appended to the notice.
Mission Editor Changes:
- New mission wizard for creating new missions
- Ability to scene light the current mission from within the editor
- Ability to move and edit mission static lights
- Random terrain generation from within the editor
- User configurable terrain, mission and world types for use in the
mission wizard
- Script based landscape generation
- Ability to choose and place terrain textures
- Auto regeneration of command map after leaving editor
- Hotkey support for terrain editor
- Ability to add custom volumes from within the editor
- Ability to create new terrain types through scripts
- Can create a mission or enter the mission editor from the command line
Version 1.3
-----------
- No longer link directly to the Windows OpenGL library. The GLU32 DLL
is no longer required.
- You no longer lose player break keys when switching gui screens, which
includes going to the commander map, mission changes, etc. This was
a problem introduced in 1.2
- The remote deployed turret vertical interference range was increased
from 10m to 25m. Play tested the 10m change in the last patch and that
turned out to be a too short.
- Credit for kills made by remote turrets has been temporarily removed.
This was introduced in the last patch, but a number of issues came up
which will take time some to resolve.
- IRC Client no longer crashes when it receives NOTICE messages in an
unexpected format.
- A clients side badword filter has been added. Any words included in
the badword string (located in the config\badword.cs file) will be
replaced with a series of asterisk (*).
- Committing suicide while waiting for a tournament to start, then
switching in and out of map mode will no longer re-spawn an active
player.
- Commander map, selecting a command target from either the static
object or turret list, now works correctly.
- If you start tribes using +connect, when you disconnect from a server
the game will exit (for use with tools like GameSpy).
- Cursor problems when running tribes with +host have been resolved.
- A hole plugged in siege mission buildings.
- Light female and male armors were adjusted to keep them from shooting
through walls while crouched.
- Pref::PlayerFOV can now be set to change the client's first person FOV.
- OpenGL driver
- Team scores now show up correctly on score menu while in observer mode.
- The windows Power Management message is now correctly trapped. This
was causing problems with machines that had power management features.
- The server menu ban feature has been remove for voted admins, but is
still available for Super Admins.
- Banning someone from the menu now works correctly.
- Several problems with the shell's "dirty rectangle" refreshing were
fixed, which should speed up several of the shell screens.
- Memory management has changed slightly to help reduce the amount of
swap space being used by the client.
- Clients in observer mode can now use to the server menu to select the
person they wish to observe.
- Fixed a problem with the shield hit calculation which would cause
server sqrt domain errors.
- The Join Server List now stores off game type between sessions. This
allows filters based on game type to work when the client is first
started without having to refresh the servers.
Version 1.2
-----------
Client Changes
- Sending in-game private messages from the IRC no longer repeats the
first message sent.
- No longer have to scroll to the top of the Join Screen to select
a sort column.
- In the join server list, you must now double click on a server to
re-ping it.
- The Join Server screen now has a "buddy" search field. Servers that
contain players who's names match the contents of the field will have
a double eye icon in the favorites column. The buddy drop-down
keeps the last 10 search strings. Selecting a string out of the drop
down brings the selection to the top of the list.
- Join Server now has "refresh all" and "refresh vis" buttons, refresh
all refresh the server list from the master server. Refresh vis will
only query the servers currently listed in the server list.
- Pinging a server in the Join Server list by selecting it no longer
re-sorts or re-filters the list.
- The voice menu will now appear above or below the chat box depending
on whether the box is near the top or bottom of the screen.
- The voice menu is now green.
- The IRC URL launching no longer changes the URL to upper case when
starting the browser.
- An "Out of Memory" dialog box will appear and TRIBES will exit more
gracefully should this error occur.
- Issues with the Net Lag icon not appearing while lagging have been
corrected.
- Actions bound to Ctrl, Shift or Alt no longer conflict with normal keys.
- A client side resource purge bug was fixed. Resources were not always
purged correctly between missions which would cause them to accumulate
unnecessarily.
- In the commander map, you can now select players from the player
list as the target of a command.
- Weapon cycling should now work correctly.
- Flier interpolation has been improved.
- Fliers no longer appear to be skipping over the ground on the clients,
while in actuality, on the server and to the pilot, they are cruising
normally.
- Support for multiple redundant master servers.
- Master address DNS lookups are now run on a background thread. They
no longer timeout after 5 seconds and don't block the main thread.
Some clients would fail to resolve the master address because of the
short timeout.
- The initial "connection to the internet" warning has been removed as
it was mainly added because of the long pause the clients would
experience while trying to resolve DNS addresses if not connected.
The pause issues was resolved.
- Some USB devices were causing problems with our DirectInput
initialization, which could cause the game to crash at startup.
These issues have been cleared up.
- Some fixes to our Aureal3D support. Fixes problems with weird
sounding 3D effects when using an Aureal3D card. Aureal3D is now
selectable from the Options/Sound page if you have an Aureal3D card.
- Command line options were added:
+record
+password password
-host missionname
+maxplayers playerCount
- Bringing up the score/server menu or switching to commander view
no longer stops your player from moving.
- When looking directly at friendly equipment, you now get the
description, map icon and health of that equipment displayed on the
hud, similar to info on players. This does not occur for enemy
equipment.
- IPX protocol now enabled by default.
- A new control page was added to help bind keys to new functions:
+ Shortcut keys to buy your favorites.
+ You can now bind vote yes and vote no.
+ Escort will set an "escort" waypoint to the last player who sent
you a chat message.
- PostAction now correctly deals with 0 action values (no longer have
to post -0).
- Fixed problems with cursor which occured when launching the game
with +connect now
- You can now filter based on whether the server is dedicated or is
marked as a favorite.
- Objects are no longer black when sitting on buildings in non-mission
lit missions. They default to normal sun lighting.
- Objective messages (flag taken, etc.) now show up in red.
Modified Missions
Map Markers were added to all missions that currently did not have them
(except for DM missions.) The following missions were modified either to
correct minor problems or improve their play balance:
- Broadside - Moved random spawn points away from the flag and the lower
base entrance. Added spawn points outside the base and on the hill
between the bases to make it harder to defend. Should also make it
easier to get out with the flag once you are inside the enemy base.
- DangerousCrossing - Moved base buildings into team group to allow the
team textures to show up on each base. Also repositioned radar dishes
for better coverage. Expanded mission area to allow more room behind
each base.
- SeekAndDestroy - Repositioned Elf turrets on back balcony as well as
removing the indoor turret on the back balcony (was impossible to get
in that way.) Changed scoring to allow a win without having to have
control of any of the towers. Also moved the tower switches out of the
way to allow easier jetting up into the towers. Added Map markers as well
as consistent static item names.
- AntHill - Fixed spawn points where player heads would be inside the angled
walls. Fixed the elevators to allow longer trigger times. Also
repositioned a turret inside the diamondsword base (was floating in the
air.)
- Citadels - Reduced vis distance and increased haze distance to reduce
lag. You can no longer see the team bases from the middle tower.
- BloodRunsCold - Plugged hole in terrain next to base with a rock.
- CrissCross - Moved tower shapes into correct tower groups (fixing
texturing problems with center tower association.) Re-named static
shapes to correctly reflect the tower name that they belonged to.
- DeathKnell - Increased flag score to 2 points per flag, total points
needed to win to 8 points (the tower is still worth 1 point.)
Server Balance Changes
- Team mates can now always destroy deployable equipment, even when
team damage is off.
- If team damage is off, ramming team mates with a vehicle no longer
applies damage. Team mates will still take damage from exploding
friendly vehicles.
- A player now receives 5 points for destroying an objective in Defend
and Destroy missions.
- Descrepencies between the male and female armors were corrected.
+ Light female can now carry 30 plasma charges
+ Medium female can now carry 40 plasma charges
+ Light female now takes the same amount of blaster damage
- You can no longer turn the energy pack on/off. Energy pack is always on.
- Blaster range reduced from 2000m to 400m, half-life down from
1900 TO 225m.
- Blaster now does half damage against shields.
- The spread on the chaingun is reduced by half.
- Plasma damage was reduced by about half for medium and heavy armor.
- ELF damage was increased from 0.04 per/sec to 0.06, ELF turrets
remain at 0.06.
- The remote deployed turret vertical interference range was reduced
from 50m to 10m.
- You now get points for kills made by turrets you deploy.
- A timer was added to the all inventory and ammo stations so that a
player can no longer stand at one and constantly be re-supplied
and healed.
- Inventory and ammo stations now automatically supply players with
healing kits and grenades.
- Ammo stations now heal players re-supply them with healing kits,
and grenades.
Server Misc. Changes
- Vote tabulation changes. Abstentions are now counted as no votes
until the quorum is reach. All other abstentions are ignored.
Example: In a game of 20 players, the quorum is 10 players (%50).
If 6 players vote yes and all else abstain, then 4 abstentions
will be counted as no votes. The vote is 6 to 4. The default
margin is %55, so the vote passes.
- If a vote to kick a player fails to pass, the vote is re-tabulated
counting only members of that player's team. The count is all yes
votes against the total number of players on that team. The default
margin for all votes is %55, so on a 10 player team, it would
take 6 players to kick another team mate.
- Kicking now bans a player for 5 minutes (was 1 minute)
- Default vote margin reduced from %70 to %55.
- Team damage now defaults to off in FFA mode, and defaults to on in
Tournament mode.
- Options were added to the admin menu to select the duration
of the mission and to reset the server to it's initial settings.
- An option was added to the Admin menu to Ban a player. This kicks
the player and bans him for 20 minutes.
- Bans and kicks now echo the IP addresses to the console.
- When a server's player count drops to 0, the server is reset
to it's initial settings.
- New missionList.cs file was added to supply functions to manipulate
the servers' mission list.
- Being in control of a Commander Station during mission change no
longer gives you free turret access in the subsequent missions.
- Mod support changes: Modname.vol files are now loaded automatically,
and Modname.cs files are now automatically executed.
- Dedicated servers and clients now echo a message to the console
when startup initialization is done.
- Transport Addresses now default to IP, so IP addresses no longer need
the IP: prefix.
- Control panels no longer reappear after being destroyed.
- Telnet ports are now properly closed on loss of connection.
- The server now includes client message flood protection. This keeps
player from sending too many messages in a row. Playes who flood
messages are muted for 10 sec.
- Triggers are now correctly activated by vehicles.
- Bug fixed in isSelectableWeapon (thanks Savage).
- Elevator trigger time was increased from 0.5 to 2.0 secs.
- Servers now respond to a new "public" server info query.
- A number of issues (bugs) with running AI's in multiplayer games
have been resolved.
- A favorite item key was added to allow mods to have different
favorite sets.
- Type zero MessageAll messages are white (as before), type one's are
now red.
Version 1.1 12.30.98
---------------------
This first release is mainly geared towards addressing joystick support.
This release contains two files, tribes.exe, and an example file
joystick.cs. Tribes.exe contains the following changes:
- New actions were added to allow joystick binding.
- A small problem with player client side ground contact was corrected.
This problem would cause players to sometimes appear to be skating
over the ground.
- Player transition interpolation. Animations normally switch
instantaneously from one to another. A preference variable,
$pref::animateWithTransitions, was added that, if set to true,
causes the game to interpolate between transitions. This results
in smoother looking player animation.
Version 1.0 12.17.98
---------------------
Initial Version of the Starsiege TRIBES.
