New Pics

[jb]

Ok we did a quick job on an "air blast effect" for the mug:


Note we have set the opacity down a bit since this pic so it looks a bit better than it does here (its more "see through".

We have also tweaked the DMMedals screen so you get both the kills and scores:


Note the score changed from Frags to death on the right hand side so your always uptodate. Its not perfect but it works for now. Also the text overlap on people with long names has been fixed as well.

We have slighly tweaked the CGL Disrupter flash effect but I don't have a pic of that yet. We also have re-done the Turret Camera "HUD" to make it look much better IMHO. Maybe Jedi or Shuri can post those pics for us when they have a moment (hint hint)

Remember this patch was more of a Bug Fix and tweak thing. If there is something new in this (which there is) it was something that was more or less a coding change (meaing no new weapons, models, ect)....

[Kaboodles]

Hoverboard?

[Zachariah]

Hoverboard?

Not yet.

[jb]

Hoverboard?

Figured maybe I should chime in on this.

Believe it or not we have a method to our madness when it comes to patches. Here is how we have set the priority of what goes into a patch

1) Fix all of the serious bugs that are game critical (meaning the adversely effect the game play). Once we have enough of them fix then we use this to figure out when we should go public with the patch

2) Then we want to fix any other bugs that we can. Some bugs we can fix. Like a bug with large turret that you could not reload with the Minigun. Not a game critical bug but, we found it and fixed it with no real issues. Others are much harder and take lots of effort. These may not be fixed right away if they are minor. For example getting the Chaos weapon's mesh to show up in weapons lockers during on-line ONS games. When you play you do get the right Chaos weapon just the weapon lockers show the UT2k4 weapon This is more of a minor bug as its just a mesh. And Its a rather hard one to fix. I spent two days on it and just not getting it to work right. This type of bug probably won't be fixed this time around (mainly because I am out of ideas and need to step back and re-think it, and while I am re-thinking I can work on other bugs).

3) Add in tweaks as per our call or per user feedback.

4) Only add new stuff if it does not impact any of the above, is very easy to do (ie 5 minute job) and makes some sense. In the newest code base we have added a MeleeOnly option to DM. Not sure if this will make it to PR3.01 (It should). The reason we added it to the test code was it was something that the fan's wanted and was really just a 5 minute coding job. Testing this change is also a 5 minute deal. Its just that easy.
That's what we have been able to stick to most of the time and our method for patches.The hoverboard needs at least 1 week of solid work with much testing before we can be confident its ready. We just won't have time. Like wise adding in a new weapon would take even more time as we have to add in a new model, ect. We also have some goodies that will first show up in ChaosCTF but can be applied to other ChaosGames (KoTH, ChaosDM, ect). These are waiting to be coded. We don't want to start on them as we would not finish them in time for PR3.01 so we can not add this type of stuff either.


So as you can see we have some plan of attack that we feel is a nice balance...

[jb]

More pics of "new" stuff


CGL Disruptor effect:

We wanted to touch up the CGL Disruptor effect a bit more mainly since this effect now causes an EMP pulse to go out and nock out proxies, turrets and vehicles for a breif moment in time. So now we have the standard flash combined with a small EMP to give the new effect. However its hard to get a pic as you have to get close to see it...and yet not close or you get blinded

Here is what should be the final Air Blast effect:


Hard to see in this pic but if you look close around the "barrel" you can see a slight discoloring effect...its a very light shade of grey. Looks better in action.


The ChaosDM now has a Melee only setting:


What this does is remove all weapon that are not melee from a map. It does not ADD any. HOwever you can pick up any melees dropped from another player when you kill them.

Finally:


Now we have a version of Arena that is more friendly towards our weapons.

Above is a quick run down of the "new" stuff in the patch, PR3.01

We are wrapping up testing on this and should have out very soon.....

[TKATK]

Wheres chaos lms?

[jb]

Wheres chaos lms?

We did not have time to add anything as far as new game types as this patch was bug fix type of thing. However for the next patch we will have more time to do this.

[Rythmix]

Didnt see it mentioned but wondered if there was any fixes or thoughts about fixing some of the melee quote-unquote imbalances for certain weapons. I know one of your official game testers agreed that the war hammer size was a little over compensating, but Ive noticed some degree of imbalance with the single axe swinging since its swings at exactly neck level every time in heavy stance, Many complaints are argued between people on my server about that and I assume its like that on other servers too.

I also want to thank you guys for this great mod, and the timely manner of patches and immediate feedback you give us. I know we can be quite complaintive when we dont like something, but we are glad you are there to listen and help us through it. Great job! you guys deserve to win the MSU contest not only for the mod but also the team work and customer service you exercise.

[Kaboodles]

Chaos Team Deathmatch?

[TKATK]

erm,isnt chaos lms a 5 min job?

[jb]

erm,isnt chaos lms a 5 min job?

More of a 20 minutes. But we ran into issue with LMS and CUT back in UT99. Not sure if we will hit those same issues this time around. Weapons are given out differently in LMS and thats what caused the issues back in the UT days. So we have much more to check out. We really want to get this stuff out ASAP. But when we add stuff we have to run it through many test to make sure it works so the more we add the longer it takes to get anything done...

[jb]

Didnt see it mentioned but wondered if there was any fixes or thoughts about fixing some of the melee quote-unquote imbalances for certain weapons. I know one of your official game testers agreed that the war hammer size was a little over compensating, but Ive noticed some degree of imbalance with the single axe swinging since its swings at exactly neck level every time in heavy stance, Many complaints are argued between people on my server about that and I assume its like that on other servers too.

ATM no. Duel tweaking is going to be much harder to do. You take 10 people and ask them how to tweak it and your likely to get 10 different answers. So that needs more time to balance. We wanted to go for quick fixes and changes that we all felt were needed. Dont worry we can and will go back an look at this stuff for the next one...

[TKATK]

erm,isnt chaos lms a 5 min job?

More of a 20 minutes. But we ran into issue with LMS and CUT back in UT99. Not sure if we will hit those same issues this time around. Weapons are given out differently in LMS and thats what caused the issues back in the UT days. So we have much more to check out. We really want to get this stuff out ASAP. But when we add stuff we have to run it through many test to make sure it works so the more we add the longer it takes to get anything done...

cant you just donate 20 minutes and throw a very quick,seperate alpha LMS package(and tell that it hasnt been tested,use at your own risk,alahobala),atleast a private link