Spring RTS Engine

Following up on our (so far awesomely successful) 1.5 release, the S44 team is releasing an update that should make playing the game substantially smoother/generally more polished. Note: this information is also contained in the release sticky, link there has been updated.

Download it now!

Changelog from v1.5:

Bugfixes:

• Fixed error in Partisan gadget when a partisan drop point died.
• Fixed crash in healthbars gadget.
• Con vehicles now get out of the way if 'pushed' so they don't prevent their own construction from occuring.
• Fixed crash in flaghandler
• Indirect fire accuracy code will now apply to mobile guns.
• Mortars will no longer blow each other up when firing in tight groups.
• Stuka will now target boats.
• AFP weapon range fixes.
• Various fx emit flares hidden.
• Stuart muzzleflash fixed.
• Took the gravity boots away from the US scout.
• Made it easier for pontoon raft to unload.
• German HQ no longer fires MG at tanks.
• Fixed LoS of British AT gun truck.

Balance:

• Infantry no longer drain logistics while firing - anywhere.
• Planes lose sortie duration at a lower rate while under fire (from 4 per second to 3 per second).
• AA weapons 10% shorter range.

Efficiency improvements/cosmetic changes:

• Infantry supply and vehicle ammo gadgets now MUCH MUCH faster! This should improve endgame performance noticeably for everyone. Flozi ftw!
• New shader for flags! They flap in the breeze and turn with the wind! (Thanks jK!)
• Flag radii now show at icon range.
• "Morph" changed to "deploy".
• "Su" changed to "SU" for various soviet vehicles.
• Paratroopers no longer leave corpses when killed in the air.
• Soviet supply truck morphs into a cardinal direction.
• V1s don't give air raid siren warning.
• Toned down tank reflectiveness/specular.
• A series of tweaks to vehicle textures.
• Mine clearing is now a queue-able map command.
• Fixed descriptions for Glider sortie and US assault squad.
• Added widget to show line of fire for AP weapons.
• Added widget to provide a 'control panel' for aircraft when they enter the map.
• Modified customFormations2 widget to allow line commands to single units.
• Removed night, darkening, chilichat, crudemenu, old customFormations widgets.
• Enabled buildETA, 1944 Icon Distance and doubleclick fight by default.

Could you give us an update on the current status? I'm really looking forward toplaying the next versions of S44:)

The lua errors are pretty much nailed down now, but Nemo is busy with exams and such. I expect it won't take too long for 1.52 to come out.

As an aside, Godde is working on improving AA behaviour, mainly to make AA more of a suppressive weapon vs aircraft rather than insta-gibbing them, so that interceptors / air superiority plays a larger role in air combat.

No Logistic drain at all for infantry? I'm sure you have a reason and I haven't played enough but I like the general idea of requiring a supply line link for infantry.

Part of the reason is technical - this allowed us to improve one of our gadgets -substantially- in terms of speed. The other end of it is that infantry were already draining a very very small amount per shot (0.15) so this change just continues a trend we were somewhat heading in, where logistics is the key resource mostly for vehicles/guns/tanks.

However, inf still get serious advantages to being in a supply area - a 30% fire rate boost as long as the team still has logistics, while receiving a 30% fire rate decrease if the team runs out (regardless of where the inf are). This means that providing forward supply points for your infantry is a huge plus (just slightly less huge than it used to be, as it used to be that being in a supply zone would -also- remove their log drain from firing).