|
| Improved Homepage and V0.910 Beta 1 released from DirkF |
07.07.2007, 23:11 |
(Deutsche Leser bitte mit dem Button oben rechts (Fahne unter dem Alien-Auge) auf die deutsche Version umschalten)
Hello everyone,
several months after the last alpha-release and more than one year after the first release of any V0.910 we can now present the V0.910 Beta for download.
And when you're reading this you have already seen our new and improved homepage.
Due to the temporary help of a very old team member (who will post something about that in the next days) we were able to include a lot of new features in this V0.910Beta - more than we would have been able to do on our own.
Because of this we decided to make a beta instead of the planned final - these new features will require another testing phase.
A short summary of the new features since V0.910Alpha-5 is:
1.) New screen-resolutions, which can be choosen in the config.exe
2.) improved scripting commands, which includes new commands to define special screens for gamesets.
3.) internal code-optimizing with a new small base as a test.
4.) automatic random distribution of stored weapons and armors to new soldiers
5.) many minor error corrections reported during the alpha versions
6.) many small improvements
Aaand:
7.) A new english gameset, 'the galactic war' with new aliens, new story and new research to replace the old default gameset.
We have to carefully test the new resolutions due to the massive changes done in that area, so we welcome any responses from you. If everything works as planned we will make other resolutions avaible after the testing is complete - at the moment you can choose between 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x800 (for widescreen-tfts).
Most of the english speaking people were probably not able to play any of the german gamesets released during the alpha phase. Because of this several improvements made avaible to the german community are probably unknown to you, because there wasn't an english gameset that uses them.
One of the biggest improvements to the scripting language was the ability to script the UFOs with different behaviours - when you play the galactic war you'll quickly realise that some enemies ignore you while others hunt your fighters down and many (but not all) avoid your base defences.
Other and more recent improvements to the XScript include the ability to place gameset-specific buttons on the geoscape and use them to start specific scripts or display new screens with different controls. Since those features are very new they aren't used by gamesets yet, but they will be included in time for the final V0.910.
Or you can now experiment with gamesets for yourselves - the gameset editor is almost completely translated to english (only a few german words remaining) and you can start to develop your own english gamesets now.
To help with this we will improve the non-german discussion area on our homepage within the next one or two days. You can also ask any questions about how to create gamesets there - we have english pages in our online documentation, but they do not yet contain a tutorial on gameset creation.
Most of the internal code optimizations will result in very few visible improvements until the next version V0.915, but you can help test them by playing with the new small base. This small base can be constructed in countries that do not trust the player with a full base and other than the outpost it is possible to place a hangar here. Unfortunately (for the player) the base can't contain much more than a hangar and a few small facilities - but at least you can get more bases out there for the defence of earth against the very strong enemies from the galactic war.
To speed up gameplay all new soldiers now get their equipment randomly assigned as long as there is something left in the storage rooms. In some gamesets where there are only a few weapon types avaible at start that is no problem. But if you're playing a gameset with different weapon and armour types you might check on your soldiers if they're carrying a good combination of weapons, ammunitions and armors.
The galactic war is the gameset intended for the ultimate version of XForce and it's story will continue to grow with every new version of the program. The previous default.pak was made only for testing, but it will remain avaible for those who would like to play with it. However it will not be improved as the galactic war will be.
If you want to translate the galactic war into other languages (or report some translation errors which still are in the english version), please register at our forum or the bugtracker and report them.
And now I wish you some fun with the new version of XForce.
DirkF
Author of the gameset "the galactic war"
project coordination XForce
[ Write a comment ]
|
|
