Devlog update (2012-06-03) Refactoring/Cleanup, Bugfixes, lots of runtime errors

[Shoozza]

Hi everyone!

skoskav was active this week!
He did more refactoring of weapon code and in-game menus, fixed a few bugs aswell.
He fixed the "Smoking animation isn't cancelled by movement keys" bug (#206) and the
"putting a space in front of nickname causes revert to Major/can affect sound level" bug (#208) which will also remove white space from the beginning of the nickname instead of replacing it with 'Major' nickname.
Then he made a tweak for barrett always killing on headshot.

I worked a bit on Polyworks 2 tried to make the custom title bar, started the skinning for it and cleaned up the code for it too.

Falcon told me that the Lazarus compiled soldatserver isn't working and that it may be Indy (our network library) or other (threading?) stuff that is making is break.
We enabled all runtime warnings and I started to fix them but there are a lot of them and they seem to be everywhere.
One example: Stuff like using array index 0 instead of 1 (because the array goes from 1 to 20 and not from 0 to 20).
That basically means Soldat writes and reads from invalid places. Sometimes you wonder how it even works

Once again: I'll be busy the next few weeks but as you can see skoskav is constantly working on Soldat now so we aren't standing still.

Edit: The reason for the barret change is because we want to test if it works better with kill on headshot and 80% damage on body and some other undecided stuff.

[DutchFlame]

whats the point having sniper then? its hard as it is for a single shot and having it do 80% damage makes it a shooting grenade

[Furai]

Barrett has to be 1-hit-kill. EOT.

[L[0ne]R]

Barrett has to be 1-hit-kill. EOT.

I agree, but with the way bink currently works, it may become overpowered, since you'll always have 33% chance to hit exactly where you're aiming. Bink should really be fixed first before making any tweaks to the gun itself.

[nosejj]

Barret with 80% instead of 100%? It's interesting, but it will make the weapon rather useless.

About bug-fixes, check for this one:
Let's say someone has dropped a weapon on my re-spawn point, I re-spawned on it with Spas had 1 bullet and had the weapon from the floor as secondary.
The hell.

[13th_account]

Barret with 80% instead of 100%? It's interesting, but it will make the weapon rather useless.

Shoozza made a typo in the last sentence. I think he ment to say "[...] kill on headshot and 80% damage on body and some other undecided buff." The tweak made would of course not be the only change on the Barrett as the weapon is already underused as it is. What the buff would consist of could be a combination of increased fire rate, lowered startup, bink, moveacc or something else.

[Bistoufly]

as the weapon is already underused as it is.

Check the public ctf servers like zabijaka. 3/4 of the players use almost exclusively the Barret.

[McWise]

About bug-fixes, check for this one:
Let's say someone has dropped a weapon on my re-spawn point, I re-spawned on it with Spas had 1 bullet and had the weapon from the floor as secondary.
The hell.

Hey nosejj,
use the official bugtracker to report bugs

I like refactoring huehuehue

[CheeSeMan.]

Always great to hear about updates keep up the good work!

About barrett it needs to stay as it is... we don't need another rugar/deagle. I like how barrett is at the moment... and in this version we can't say its underused.

Heres the only argument I need to make:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EkGdq5NTyk

 

[jrgp]

Barret with 80% instead of 100%? It's interesting, but it will make the weapon rather useless.

Shoozza made a typo in the last sentence. I think he ment to say "[...] kill on headshot and 80% damage on body and some other undecided buff." The tweak made would of course not be the only change on the Barrett as the weapon is already underused as it is. What the buff would consist of could be a combination of increased fire rate, lowered startup, bink, moveacc or something else.

I can see making the barret not one shot/one kill on the feet or legs, but anywhere else is just fucking retarded.

Making it only deal 80% damage on the torso defeats the purpose of the gun and is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen on this forum as it'll just become a slightly better ruger except pointless since it has a startup time.

[Kaze]

I hope it's just a sniper test and not something that might stay for the reasons explained earlier and @13th account : like Bistoufly said , barret is the most-used gun in publics and often used in gather and sometimes in cws , In fact in this version and the one before , its always been one of the popular weapon ( Do you still play soldat? )

As for the rest ,keeep it up , looking forward to that new Polyworks.

[machina]

Good job and keep with that!

[13th_account]

Check the public ctf servers like zabijaka. 3/4 of the players use almost exclusively the Barret.

@13th account : like Bistoufly said , barret is the most-used gun in publics and often used in gather and sometimes in cws , In fact in this version and the one before , its always been one of the popular weapon ( Do you still play soldat? )

I was responding to nosejj whom I recognize from the clan scene. Barrett is greatly underused in clan wars and especially leagues where reliability is of huge importance, not just the maximum potential of a weapon. I have seen and been told over and over for years that Barrett is much more popular in public CTF. The allure of 1-hit kill weapon proficiency is just much greater there, combined with many players' inability to counter as efficiently. I do think that MM's proposed Barrett tweak combined with e.g. increased fire rate and less bink would overall make it less "abusable" and seem less esoteric in public servers, but more reliable for leagues.

Anyhoo... Considering the steady stream of less-than-warm feedback over various mediums I've been considering prioritizing a fix on the way bink, selfbink and moveacc affects accuracy (you know where you shoot a Barrett user with 10 shots and he still hits you dead-on, even though his crosshair must've been as big as an orange). Not sure yet how this would affect public as opposed to league play, but it's none the less a sought-after and less controversial tweak.

tl;dr No Barrett tweak for now. Fixing broken bink mechanic instead.

[Kaze]

Well i agree witheverything you said , i guess i just misunderstood what you were trying to explain , and of course it's underrused in clanwars but it has become so popular in publics or gathers and this idea would ruin the main reason why the sniper was implemented in soldat besides in clanwar , sniper is one of the most-used way to kill the EFC and making it the way they're testing it would be a clear disaster.