Next UT2004 Patch Changes

[Raffi_B]

Steve Polge sent out an email to the UT2004Servers and UT2004Mods mailing lists with information about the next upcoming UT2004 patch. This patch will contain several gameplay tweaks, including team-balancing improvements, demo-recording fixes, server CPU-usage fixes, an improved Artillery explosion effect, and much, much more. Here is only a small portion of the complete changelog:
Onslaught related:
Added a gunner indicator for the Cicada.
Onslaught low skill bot AI tweaks
Max lifespan for shot down ONSMortarCamera
Fixed regular dust showing when Manta jumps over water
Fixed Cicada staying above StallZ if driver switches to gunner
position
Fixed SPMA engine sound volume
Tweaked powercore destruction and electricity sounds
Improved artillery explosion effect

 

[Raffi_B]

Onslaught related:

• Added a gunner indicator for the Cicada.
• Onslaught low skill bot AI tweaks
• Max lifespan for shot down ONSMortarCamera
• Fixed regular dust showing when Manta jumps over water
• Fixed Cicada staying above StallZ if driver switches to gunner position
• Fixed SPMA engine sound volume
• Tweaked powercore destruction and electricity sounds
• Improved artillery explosion effect

General Gameplay:

• Fixed Berserk combo (properly turns client side weapon changes on and off)
• Fixed quadjump mutator in multiplay (was only allowing regular double jump on first jump)
• Fixed gamespeed mutator "sticking" in instant action games
• Don't let Cicada passengers carry flag (for VCTF)
• Added OnslaughtBP.UCL to patch so bonus pack mutators will show up
• Fixed problem with landing view shake sometimes not working at very low frame rates
• Fixed bug where not all actors got NotifyTeamChanged() when client team changed
• Assault objective announcements can come from packages other than AssaultAnnouncer
• IonCannonKillVolume bug fixes
• Don't allow players to change teams if team sizes are equal if bPlayersBalanceTeams is true
• Fixed team balancing code bug
• Fixed footstep sounds playing while in vehicle where driver isn't visible if enter while running
• Removed obsolete weapon debugging code

Demo recording:

• Fixed client-side demo recording of vehicles

Networking:

• Fixed WebAdmin play list to report the proper ping.
• Fixed resetting initial position of saved move when moves are combined
• Increased min idle kick time to 30 seconds
• Never idle kick player if only human in game
• Moved gamespeed option in URL parsing to after mutator spawning, so gamespeed can be set from URL
• More speedhack detection tweaks (less false positives)
• Server CPU use improvements relative to last patch
• Consider CPU saturation in determining whether to do extra work on server to reduce bandwidth use for low bandwidth clients

Menus:

• Fixed map list menu problems with bonus vehicles and custom link setups.

Mod Author Related:

• Fixed spider physics view direction setting bug
• Added (slow) full dangling reference checking (server side only) option. Logs dangling references which could cause a crash during gameplay or on GC. Use only for testing, as it is very slow, by adding bServerRefChecking=true to the [Engine.Engine] section of UT2004.ini. Run a dedicated server with bots, connect to it to start it up, and let them go at it.

 

[spineblaZe]

Is there anywhere to sumbit bugs?

The ingame mp3/ogg player has a volume bug. You can adjust the volume to your preference, but as soon as it switches songs it reverts back to the the previous volume (usually louder.) I've talked to a bunch of people that have this same problem.

 

[Raffi_B]

Sign up for one of the Mailing Lists (scroll down)

 

[KiloDelta]

i wish they'd come up with something to get around this problem

 

[iddQd]

Improved artillery explosion effect

Thank god, it was an embaressement when I first saw the yukky 2d explotion!

 

[Sparky]

Is this actually out in beta form yet? I've unsubscribed from the mailing list cause it was starting to piss me off.

 

[Taleweaver]

...And I still have the problem of spawning with an Assault Rifle, though I gave my shield gun higher priority (only happens in on-line games)
Glad they fixed the client side demo problem with vehicles, though

EDIT: just been informed on another problem with demo's: if you make an offline demo without mutators, others who want to watch it need to have all mods/mutators installed that has a 'serverpackages=' line in the UT2004.ini file

 

[*gR*]

gj they fixed the cicada flag bug and the vehicles demo recording

 

[CH8yo$1]

yay a new patch !
hmm would be nice if they would improve tdm dm or ctf gameplay...
i think epic focuses too much on ons now well probably with the next patch

 

[Rask]

The core electricity sounds fix is teh pwn.

 

[Erez]

The changes are excellent, exactly what I wanted to hear. Don't forget to tweak the Paladin engine sound volume too.

 

[HuggyBear]

gj they fixed the cicada flag bug and the vehicles demo recording

Aw, but that was a good dirty trick! It's almost as dirty as riding the manta to cap the flag.

 

[epics|El_Matzo]

Cool, I'm happy to hear about any improvement of the game.
And I'm really looking forward to less speedhack-alarms.
I'll download this one when it's out.

 

[*gR*]

It's almost as dirty as riding the manta to cap the flag.

wtf? thats not dirty! thats teamwork, m8

 

[GlassBoy]

I'd like to know if they could fix that bug in their c++ code that is causing that GPF with Mayhem weapons.

I imagine it'd be simpler than me making up a system with LordBozo to work around the bug in the code. Probably one or two extra lines, i'd think.

I signed up in the UT2004Mods mailing list so that i could contact the devs with the problem.

How does this mailing list thing work? I've never been on a mailing list(that i know of) before.

 

[juggalo_kyle]

i hope instead of that crappy 2d mushroom cloud explosion for the SPMA, they accually make there own, so it looks better. and maybe the aiming for the SPMA could go lower too.

 

[Beelzebud (Satanas)]

It's a small thing, but I wish they would add some good vechicle water splash effects.

It looks cheap when you drive a scorpion through water and it doesn't splash.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

wtf? thats not dirty! thats teamwork, m8

you can get shot off the manta. Before, you could ride IN the cicada (along with the extra health it provides and speed, aerial).

 

[Go&nd]

Demo recording:

• Fixed client-side demo recording of vehicles

[/list]

(This one's irritated me for a while now.)