quake2-action/CHANGES

CHANGES FROM ACTION 1.51 to ACTION 1.52

o Support for friendly-fire in teamplay added.  IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY
USING THE "NO FRIENDLY FIRE" FLAG IN YOUR DMFLAGS, YOU NEED TO ADD IT NOW
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO USE FRIENDLY FIRE.  The value for "no friendly fire"
is 256.  For a normal AQ teamplay game, you should set your dmflags to 256
in your server.cfg ("set dmflags 256").  I believe the only other dmflag
that would have a worthwhile effect on AQ teamplay is the "spawn farthest"
flag (512), no others should be set unless you want the spawn farthest
behavior.  So...if you want FF in teamplay, set your dmflags to 0. If you
don't, set it to 256.  No friendly fire is the "normal" style of play, so
the default/standard dmflags for AQ teamplay should be considered to be
256.  When FF is in effect, notification of it will be on the standard
MOTD.  Temporary banning for people who kill too many team members is
available.  The "maxteamkills" server cvar can be used to control the
maximum number of teamkills that a player can make on a given map before
he is kicked and temporarily banned, the default is 0 which means never
temporarily ban.  The "tkbanrounds" and "twbanrounds" variables affect ban
time, see the README file for complete info.  Players lose one frag for
killing a teammate.  Thanks go to Eek and Azerov for providing the patch
which we used as a basis for this feature.

o Shot placement on crouching players is much improved and should
basically be consistent with standing players now.  Also, the view height
of crouching players has been modified somewhat so it's more consistent
with the actual amount of height loss that occurs.  (thanks go to Mikael
Lindh from AQ:Gangsters for lots of help in this area.)

o The shotgun and handcannon now inform you who you're hitting, when you
hit someone, much like all the other weapons already did.

o New server variable "limchasecam" now available for clan match usage.
See info in the README.  When the chase cam limits are in effect, a line
will be added to the MOTD stating it.  (thanks to Black Cross for
submitting the patch for this feature.)

o Breakable glass now added.  Two new server variables for this:
"breakableglass" and "glassfragmentlimit".  This is not recommended for
Internet games (much like the ejecting shells, blood splats, and bullet
holes).  This was contributed by William van der Sterren of the CGF
project.  It requires maps that are designed with breakable glass.  For
more info on how to make breakable glass in maps, see
http://www.botepidemic.com/aid/cgf/exp_glass.shtml.  For more info on the
server variables, see the README.

o Door kicking added.  You can now jump-kick a door open when it opens in
the opposite direction.  If there is a player sitting on the other side of
the door, that player will be kicked along with the door.  This was
contributed by AQDT (written by Hal, sent to us by Homer).

o Vertical component of kicking has returned.  You can kick people upwards
or downwards by looking in that direction before kicking them.

o New commands "use throwing combat knife" and "use slashing combat knife"
allow you to pull out the knife in whichever mode you want, instead of
pulling out your knife then switching modes.

o A new item has been added to the secondary teamplay scoreboard: damage
dealt.  This number is the amount of damage the given player has inflicted
upon other players on the current map.  Note this is total damage, not
just damage required to kill someone.  For example, a point blank
handcannon blast can count for a lot more than 100 health, even though it
only takes 100 to kill someone.  This isn't in the scoreboard if you have
turned on the "noscore" option.

o New "sv nextmap" command allows a server operator to skip to the next
map in the rotation (thanks go to Black Cross for submitting the patch for
this command).

o The "spawn farthest" dmflag now works on teamplay games.  The second
team will spawn as far away from the first team as possible (unlike the
normal behavior, where the farthest 1-4 spawn candidates are considered,
depending on the total number of candidates).

o The "needpass" variable is now provided.  This allows things like
GameSpy to prompt you for a password when you try to connect to a
passworded server.

o Players can no longer use say_team when not on a team, or say_partner
when they have no partner.

o Delayed-death attribution bug fixed (you wouldn't get credit for a kill
when someone bled for a while).

o Various reloading changes: switching from a reloading weapon to a new
weapon will not cause the new weapon to be reloaded any longer.  The
reloading "queue" will immediately empty now whenever a player tries to
shoot (assuming he has any ammo left in the gun to shoot) or bandage. Your
pistol will no longer begin to reload after you get a sniper rifle or
shotgun kicked from your hands while reloading it.  The "reload" command
no longer does anything during the "lights, camera, action" countdown in a
teamplay game.  You can no longer reload the pistols, M4's, or MP5's when
you've already got a full magazine (to be consistent with the way the
other weapons work).

o Switching between slashing and throwing for knives now gives a message.

o Increased knife slashing damage.

o Repeating "Out of ammo" message bug fixed.

o Lasersight now falls in the correct place if you're using one of the
"classic" hand modes.

o Problem with sniper rifle's "weapon" command/bolt animation fixed (you
could fire faster than normal using the right aliases).

o Dropped grenades now do the same amount of damage as thrown grenades.

o Green flash when players enter the game in a teamplay game removed (for
real this time), as well as the red flash when a player exits the game in
a teamplay game.

o The through-eyes chasecam now properly tracks weapon kick (ie with the
M4), and also now gives you IR vision if the person you're viewing through
the eyes of is using IR.

o A few bugs fixed in the way bodies fly after death.  Floating bodies and
bouncing bodies should be gone.

o Spectators can no longer drop a knife upon entering a teamplay game.

o Dead bodies no longer appear red when using IR vision.

o %-vars (ie %W, %H, and the others) are no longer parsed within players'
names (ie a player named %W won't appear as his weapon when he says
something).

o Minor bug in bleeding from grenades fixed.

o Bug where sniper rifle icon would be stuck on your screen if you were
zoomed in when the other team all quit and you got "Not enough players to
play!" is fixed.

o Adjusted spacing in MOTD so certain combinations don't cause lines to go
off the edge of the screen.

o Shotgun shell ejection animation (when using "shelloff 0") improved.
 
o Fixed crash that occurred when a server ran a huge amount of maps in the
rotation (around 100 or more).

o ReadConfigFile() now closes its file and SelectFarTeamplaySpawnPoint()
frees its memory.

o Updated Action web page URL in MOTD.


CHANGES FROM ACTION 1.5 TO ACTION 1.51

o Now remembers how many times reload key was pressed.

o Shotgun reduced to Action Quake 1.0c levels beyond distance of 450.

o Bandolier/weapon-dropping bug fixed.

o Empty pistols animation setup improved.

o Firing sequence for dual pistols fixed (firing was simultaneously
before).

o Various grenade-related fixes.

o Knife slashing damage changed (should be more damaging now).

o You can now switch weapons while bandaging again.

o Leg damage (from falling) no longer taken while in god mode.

o Spelling of "trepanned" fixed.

o Item spawning problem that affected some old/odd maps fixed.

o Reloading sound/speed issues fixed.

o Point-blank knife-throwing bug fixed.

o Blood trail fixes.

o Death sound fixes.

o Negative value for "tgren" server variable is treated as 0 now.

o New server variable "skipmotd" allows you to leave out the standard
Action MOTD contents (except the two lines at the top), for people who
want really big local motd.txt files.

o Many server variables that didn't need to be SERVERINFO (ie: appearing
in GameSpy, etc) are no longer SERVERINFO.  

o New server command "sv reloadmotd" allows you to reload the MOTD from
disk.  Also, the MOTD is always reloaded at the end of each level.  

o The "playerlist" and "players" commands no longer contain frags when
"noscore" is turned on.

o New "ininame" variable lets you change the name of your Action INI file
from "action.ini" to something else.  Useful for people who run multiple
servers from the same directory tree.  

o Deathmatch mode is now forced on always, as in previous versions of
Action.  This was the cause of the "failed to find special item spawn
point" error when starting a game locally on your computer.

o Delayed kill attribution for falling damage fixes.

o Lasersight properly follows M4 during ride-up.

o Scoreboard cosmetic fixes.

o Players entering the game in a teamplay game no longer generate the "enter
game" teleport effect (green flash, etc) at a spawn point.

o Bug fixed that could cause crash when certain weird combinations of dmflags
were used (ie teams-by-skin with teamplay turned on).

o Players can now select "classic" style firing where shots land slightly
right or left (depending on your handedness) and down from the crosshair
(see the "hand" command in the README for info).

o The [DEAD] flag on a dead chatter's name previously didn't get tacked on
starting at the right time, so sometimes you'd see someone who appeared to
be alive (due to no [DEAD] on their name) say something but %-variables
(ie %W, %H, etc) didn't get expanded.  This also caused dead people's
messages to be able to reach teammates sometimes in the moments after
dying.

o After a team round has ended, all players (including players who
survived) can now see the scoreboard as if they were dead, to see who else
survived the round.

o The join-a-team menu now, if both teams have the same number of players,
defaults to the team that's losing (instead of defaulting to the first
team).

o Optimization in SetIDView and DetermineViewedTeammate suggested by
hal[9k].


CHANGES FROM ACTION 1.1b2 TO ACTION 1.5


General Weapon Changes

o Ducking alone (without lasersight) now improves aim.  Previously, it only
helped if you had a lasersight too (we believe this was a bug).  See "Spread
Modifiers" heading for more specific information. 

o Guns now center their fire around your crosshair, rather than an invisible
spot down/right of your crosshair.  

o Players have smaller head regions.  Any shot that would have hit the head in
the old system that doesn't now will instead hit the chest.

o Added support for Akimbo and Sniper Rifle bullet shell ejection, and support
for left handed usage with shell ejection turned on.


Specific Weapon Changes

o M4 Assault Rifle is now less accurate, the original accuracy was due to a bug
in the selection of which random function to call that determined spread.  The
same bug caused it to fire way to the right, and is also gone.

o M3 Super 90 Assault Shotgun now does slightly more damage.  Reloads slightly
faster.

o Sniper Rifle doesn't do the re-chambering sequence when leaving 6X
magnification mode.  Reloads slightly faster.  Lens-changing and firing
behavior improved slightly in some ways.

o Combat Knife remembers what mode it was last in (throwing/stabbing). Also has
improved animation sequence for putting away a knife prepared for throwing.
Doesn't have the old bug where knife becomes unusable for several seconds while
playing random animation frames.  Your last knife now isn't stopped by vests
incorrectly.  Knife slashing damage has been changed.

o M26 Fragmentation Grenade now drops to the ground at your feet if the pin is
pulled and user switches to another weapon or begins bandaging.  Slight
improvement in animation sequence for it dropping from view.

o In teamplay, you now start with a full pistol plus one extra clip
(previously you got no extra clips).


Spread Modifiers:

This section gives the specific details on all the spread modifiers in the
game.  These only apply to the weapons that fire bullets.

(without lasersight) 
Standing: base 
Walking: 2x as much spread
Running: 6x as much spread
Crouching: 35% reduction in spread over standing. 

(laser, compared to standing from above) 
Standing: 30% reduction in spread over standing w/o laser. 
Walking: base (standing from above) 
Running: base 
Crouching: same as crouching w/o the laser 

Burst mode (or semi-auto mode with the pistol) gives an additional 30% spread
reduction to any of the above.

The Sniper Rifle when zoomed (any magnification) is always 100% accurate,
regardless of any of the above.


Item Changes

o Lasersight improves accuracy while standing still and not ducking (makes you
almost as accurate as crouching).  Lasersight provides no benefit to a user who
is also ducking.  (See "Spread Modifiers".)  Lasersight's red dot is
translucent and follows your crosshair more closely.

o Silencer no longer suppresses flashes from Akimbo pistols.

o Bandolier correctly cleans up after itself when dropped.  If server
operator sets "ir" to 1 then the new command "irvision" is available which
toggles on/off infra-red vision while wearing the bandolier.  The new
"tgren" variable can be set by the server operator to a number, and that
many grenades will be given to each player who selects the bandolier in
teamplay (default is 0).  The bandolier now allows you to carry one extra
weapon in teamplay (the normal max carry is now 1 in teamplay, the
previous behavior was a bug).


Existing Command Changes

o "use special" now loops through all available special weapons, ie: if you
have two it will toggle between them.

o "drop special" will discard only one special weapon at a time.  It defaults
to the one you are currently using and then goes through your inventory in this
order: Sniper Rifle, Handcannon, M3 Super 90 Assault Shotgun, MP5/10
Submachinegun, and finally M4 Assault Rifle.  Switches to single pistol if
currently using Akimbo pistols, this is also the way it worked previously.

o "weapon": Knives now remember their last mode correctly.  Live players no
longer hear a "click" when a nearby observer changes their weapon mode.

o "team": Players can now use the "team none" to leave the teams and become a
spectator again in teamplay.


Other Changes/Improvements/New Features

o After dying in teamplay, you remain at the spot you died as an observer,
instead of being moved to a spawn point. 

o When a player enters a server, the default team to join is the one that
currently has less players.

o "sv_roundtimelimit" server variable is now "roundtimelimit", for consistency
with other server variable names.  The "roundtimelimit" feature now uses this
method for determining who won: which team has the most players, if the same,
then which team has the most total health.

o All items (such as ammo) can be dropped, see the README file for exact item
names.

o The new code appears to use a somewhat less CPU when running a server than
1.1b2 did.

o Jumpkick code improved, jumpkicks are more predictable and reliable,
less randomness.

o Location of grenade and item in right-side HUD reversed for a more logical
arrangement.

o New "id" command allows a player to turn off player identification if he
doesn't want it.

o Players can become observers in DM using the standard Q2 "spectator" variable
(spectator 0 or spectator 1).

o Messages from dead players are now visible inbetween end-of-round and the
start of the next round, for end of round chatting.

o MOTD: Server operator can now control how long the MOTD stays up by using the
"motd_time" variable (see README for more info).  Much more info about the
server is now in the MOTD.  If a "motd.txt" file is present in your action
directory, it will be appended to the standard MOTD.  The new "motd" command
allows a player to bring up the MOTD at any time.

o Teams-by-skin and teams-by-model now work in DM (other teamplay features also
work in conjunction with DM teams: radios, partners, etc...)

o New "unpartner" command allows you to break a partnership.

o New unstick system.  The new system is unobtrusive, there is no "unstick"
command and you do not get moved around in any way.  Players remain in the
"transparent" state where they are able to walk through fellow "transparent"
players.  After the "lights, camera" sequence finishes, players are removed
from the "transparent" state as soon as they are free of other team members.
Players can be shot and affected normally by all weapons/items regardless of
"transparent" state.

o When in center-handed mode, you now get an icon at the bottom middle of the
screen of which weapon you are currently using.

o Server operator can use the new "radiolog" variable to turn on logging
of all radio messages to the console. 

o Dead bodies are now removed at the beginning of each teamplay round, this
should allow for more strategy (you can tell who's down) and also remove some
lag (less entities lying around).

o New server variables: "weapons" and "items".  These control the maximum
number of special weapons and items that each player can carry.  "items" always
defaults to 1.  "weapons" defaults to 2 in teamplay, 1 in DM. Special-weapon
carrying is handled more cleanly in teamplay now, a player will always be able
to carry up to 2 special weapons in teamplay, not just his main weapon plus the
first other one he picks up.

o New server variable "knifelimit" allows the server operator to control how
many thrown knives can be lying around on the map at any given time. Default is
40.  This should be lowered if you are having overflow or lag problems when
players are using lots of knives.

o The "allweapon" and "allitem" server variables can be set to 1 in DM or
teamplay to give all weapons and all items to each player at spawn.  If used in
teamplay, normal weapon/item menus etc will not be presented. Defaults on both
are of course 0.

o The new "choose" command allows you to select your special weapon or item in
teamplay, without going through the menus.

o IP banning and flood protection are now supported (see README).

o The "give" (cheats) command has been improved to work better in the Action
environment.

o New "noscore" server variable allows a server operator to disable
individual scores in teamplay. 

o New "nohud" server variable allows a server operator to disable the
standard HUD on his server to record better-looking special demos. 

o New variable substitutions allow you to tell your teammates your current
weapon, item, ammo, and health, as well as which teammates are near you
(see README for a list).


Other Bugs Gone

o Various death message typos and grammar errors corrected.

o Long model/skin names work in action.ini.

o "###" lines are not required at the end-of-sections in action.ini.

o Scoreboards: The main scoreboard now looks decent in 320x240. Scoreboard no
longer gets stuck on your screen when chase-camming. Players' names are no
longer truncated unnecessarily.  More items on the scoreboard are updated in
realtime than before.

o The list of maps in the MOTD is no longer overwritten by the "Hit tab for
team selection menu" message.

o M4/sniper rifle can no longer crash the server when shooting two players that
overlap.

o Random crashes on certain maps (ie cliff, teamjungle, ...) gone.

o Your frags no longer appear as the frags of the person you're observing to
GameSpy, CLQ, etc.

o The item selection screen now always goes away properly after choosing your
item.

o Players hanging in midair at the spawn points, unkillable, will no longer
occur.

o Backdoor commands (testshow, forceend) gone.

o Picking up a gun in teamplay when you start with dual pistols no longer
lowers your total ammo.

o You can establish a new radio partnership when your old partner dies now.

o Dropping and picking back up a handcannon or shotgun no longer results in
ammo loss.


Features No Longer Present

o "noguns" is not currently supported, we have plans for more flexible "weapons
banning" support in the future.