The Universal World Owner's Manual

16 May 2011

 - Help system overhaul : Wrote up and updated most sections of the space help menu, and did a major overhaul on the interface.\\
 - New Shields Control system : Shields can now be manually turned on or off, or set to 'auto' - meaning the shields are turned off automatically if you fire and turned on automatically a bit later on once you stop firing.  Note it takes 25 seconds to charge and re-activate standard shields once they have been turned off.\\
- New players now start with Standard Shields by default[/b:bc461a361d]
- Weapons can no longer be used when shields are active[/b:bc461a361d]
- Added DELETE to toggle shield status in space, and F4 to change player target.[/b:bc461a361d]
- Maximum speed available when under red alert increased[/b:bc461a361d] : This is now a factor (1/3) of the ships max ion speed.
- The starting ship (Interplanetary Shuttle) now has a 10t cargo bay[/b:bc461a361d]
- Can now use mousewheel for lists/scrollbars. Scrollbar graphic improved.[/b:bc461a361d]
- uPnP support added[/b:bc461a361d] : If a user is on a LAN and invisible in space due to router/firewall restrictions (i.e. unable to make direct peer-to-peer connections), in some circumstances uPnP will allow the user to be seen. uPnP and port forwarding support will need to be available on the user's router. uPnP should also make it much easier for people to get their own world visible on the galaxy, without having to manually forward ports.
- New information display on the spacestation trade screen[/b:bc461a361d] : Providing info about the items available for purchase.
- Various bits of work on the space UI[/b:bc461a361d] : Moved the comm station menus to underneath the ship drives, tidied up the trade report & gal radio screens a lil, changed the infImp input window, removed some bits of UI when in stardrive, etc.
- Space mining improvements[/b:bc461a361d] : UI tidied up. New users now start with a 'Uridium Mining Kit' by default - this can mine water and uridium from asteroids for 'free'. A purchasable 'Advanced Mining Kit' is available that mines metals and minerals. 
(Graphic effects for all this will be added later). Activating mining now needs shields to be turned off beforehand.
- Missiles and bursts are banned in fed systems.[/b:bc461a361d]
- Bounty system disabled in fed systems.[/b:bc461a361d]
- Major overhaul on the existing ship settings[/b:bc461a361d] : Renamed 'Police Fighter' to 'Spearhead AXA Fighter'. Renamed 'GalFreighter' to 'Unicorp Freighter V1' (and readded the GalFreighter as a new ship with better stats. All of the ship speeds, acceleration rates, control responsiveness, armour and other settings have been significantly changed.
- 'Fighters' can no longer be equipped with cargo bay extensions.[/b:bc461a361d]
- Transport ships are limited to a 10t cargo bay extension[/b:bc461a361d]
- 4 new spaceships added[/b:bc461a361d]
- Reduced space starting cash to 10cr.[/b:bc461a361d]
- Significant rebalancing of the galactic economy[/b:bc461a361d] : particularly in terms of the range & type of products available in the starting systems.
- New nebula graphics[/b:bc461a361d]
- New fonts[/b:bc461a361d] : used throughout.
- "Factions" (mostly) renamed to "Squads"[/b:bc461a361d] : On a whim :]
\\
**Work-in-progress**\\
- New settings screen for world owners
- New shadowing system
- New water rendering techniques
**Bugfixes**
- fix for ship orientation load sometimes not working correctly (and possibly making the game unplayable for some users without a reinstall).
- changed the window resize method to reduce risk of directX reset failures
- Bugfix for asteroids spawning multiple times in starsystem. Made sure asteroids are included in starting systems.
- fixed bug that let you activate stardrive multiple times
- fix for bug in distance-to-asteroid calculation which caused the mining kit to malfunction 'randomnly'
- Fix for current ship damage sometimes getting 'lost'.

Just a minor, maintenance release this one. (Most of these probably won't mean much to most people, but i figured i'd put all the notes up for curiosity's sake) :

- Added shadow volume settings in graphics options 
  (Biplaneworld now demonstrates this new tech fairly nicely, if you have the hardware for it. Shadows in space can be nice but are very much WIP)

**Bugfixes** :
- Fix for 'random' memory corruption (and possible crashes) in cloned model code.
- fix for player shadows missing from 0.55.0
- Fixed renderstate inconsistency in tree rendering
- fixed a price display bug in the station trade screen when an invalidly priced item is in the gal setup (Also fixed the gal setup)

**Misc Other Bits**
- updated some gal admin commands
- subscription status replication
- Tweaked the space ship and gal econ settings a bit more

9-June-2011

- Removed the 'can't fire weapons this close to a fed spacestation' restriction[/b:ab8e64010b]
which isn't necessary given the current space combat configuration\\
- Increased the rotation speed of fighters (particularly the expensive ones)[/b:ab8e64010b]\\
- Tidied up the spacestation spectator screen.[/b:ab8e64010b]\\
- A few improvements to world scripted OSD[/b:ab8e64010b]\\
(Added new graphics, parameters can now include number variables, name fields etc)\\
- Removed the space bounty system[/b:ab8e64010b]\\
.. this will be getting replaced by a simpler mechanism shortly..\\
- Added ability to rotate single tile surface textures.[/b:ab8e64010b]\\
- Adding building setting "Positioning Mode"[/b:ab8e64010b]\\
 .. mode 1 means buildings are always placed in the center of the active tile\\
- vehicles -> camtype 28[/b:ab8e64010b]
.. as 0 but camera collides against buildings (handy for city scenes etc)
- [b:ab8e64010b]Added the fed channel button and background graphic[/b:ab8e64010b]
(More on this later ;] )
- [b:ab8e64010b]Adjusted the beam weapon damage[/b:ab8e64010b]
**Bugfixes** :
- Fix for camType 0 not sticking above the landscape (doh!)
- Fix for the fishing display overlapping the selection icons
- Fixed the 3d projection aspect ratio
- Fix for only 1 instance of each building type casting a shadow volume

**Work in progress**:
- Added (but not yet implemented) the law enforcement license as a replacement for the bounty system
- New space 'Battle Mode' system for organising (and recording) fights in space
- Various other things :)

(Sometime towards the end of 2011):
“Hia, Figured about time i wrote these up. A lot changed In the 6 months between 0.55.2 and 0.60 - some of it obvious (like having all the features removed :]), but most of the work has been in important back-end stuff that takes a lot of effort just to produce a client that appears to do nothing different than before. Such is the joy of programming.
In particular, 0.60 links to new server tech that should allow the game to scale more easily. It also includes a major re-write of the graphics engine which makes conversion of the game to other platform easier. (Though thats not gonna happen anytime soon, unless someone wants to provide us with a whole load of cash). The fact that the game probably looks no different than it did before is in fact a great achievement :)
Separately, worth noting that a lot of what's been happening lately is being driven by server script rather than client code (which gives obvious benefits when world owners want to do similar stuff but slightly differently) so a lot of things developed recently aren't actually listed here.
Anyway, heres the list of stuff from the source control logs :“

- New 'MainMenu' UI : Removed icons, new menubar, new layouts for inventory and building access screens etc.
- Fix for gal crash that occurs when there are more than 20 ppl in single system at once or after the gal has been running for more than a couple of weeks (at which point it thinks theres more than 20 ppl in a single system at once :] )
- New frontend/intro sequence
- Various bits for space storyline support
- Starting merging the squad and family functionality into a unified system
- Fix for occasional 'random' crash on shutdown of the game
- Cutscene additions : images, and improvements to fade in/out display
- Further support for web-textures referencing images on http servers
- Added 'ScriptedBuilding' type, that lets world owner create buildings driven exclusively by script
- Added 'AccessBuilding' script event
- Added 'gBuildingAccessNum' script system value
- CutScene 'Vector' functions : 'SetToPlayerCameraPosition' & 'SetToPlayerCameraTargetPosition'
- New button graphic
-Added OSDBUILDING type for OSDCreate - no background and aligned to fit on the new building access screen.
- Fix for custom events not firing off from building access events.
- New (WIP) archive system for referencing a bunch of files in a single download
- New news notification alerts (mostly intended for space, when we go back there)
- New (WIP) hunger and thirst mode that uses more complex nutrition calculations and variables
- Redid lighting/material calculations for greater consistency.
- Added commands to allow overriding of item use/type & nutritional values
- adding nutrition info to the 'edit item' screen
- New building access labels and display
- Added new 'mini BuildingDisplay' that pops up pertinent info about a building as you approach it.
- New 'point and click' control method (27)
- Fixed windows cursor behaviour when leaving window
- added OSDBullet for scripted OSD
- Added quickee surface layer option to the map ed
- Tweaked the daytime lighting calculations  (Slightly earlier sunrise etc)
- Fix for being able to login to gal with an invalid username 
- Tidied some of the downloaded file locations
- New (WIP) string variables in script
- Graphics engine refactor
- added vehicle->extras = 7, for always run.
- added graphics->welcome = 12, for a black band on the welcome image
- added world->DisableConstructionMenu, for disabling the um, construction menu
- tweaked generic landscape renderer for small tile sizes
- Network library refactor for consistency and better modularisation
- Create new login/Auth server, and user DB. (Sim-tested to 150,000 accounts without issue :] )
- Added new login connect sequence
- added funky shadowing thing for trees, by lowering the landscape colour around each tree.
- Rearranged startup flow to allow direct connection to specified world through the new auth & universe servers
- New 'Notifications' system for displaying transient things like high score tables and other 'headline' info
- Added transitional effects for login sequence
- Added setting: World -> Days in year, to control the number of days in a game-year
- Tweaked the daytimetype 1 daycycle (the one with the short nights) to start earlier.
- Allowed the lottery to be disabled (economy -> lottery mode 0, all other settings bumped up a number)
- Added a few new settings for controlling hunger & thirst - a 'low rate' needs modifier (to allow hungry/thirsty characters health to degrade more slowly) and a system for affecting max potential health when needs are high. Also fixed calculation inaccuracies so health system matches documentation.
- Linked in the notification score tables to the score data generated by the server
- Added 'oldest ever age' to billing records, and added generation of 'oldest ever' and 'current oldest' highscores to the list of tables to be generated on the server
- Removed 'GodsGoHungry' 99 - which is now default behaviour
- added OSDIMAGE type
- added OSDEXITBUTTON type (that closes the building window when selected)
- added OSDLISTBUTTON type and changed the original OSDBUTTON to use the game button Interface
- Tidied up the death screens a bit.
- Tidied up the highscore notifications menu a bit
- added *sethunger [NAME] [val 0-50000], and *setthirst
- *sethealth (0-60000) and *setmaxhealth
- added *showneeds [NAME}
- added 'NewPlayer' script event, called before PlayerLogin when a new user record is created
- Added namesfile field 'WELCOMEIMAGEHTTP' to specify a webimage for the welcome screen instead of it being a server download
- moved the clocks about
- fix for server commands not executing after a killbillall if the owner is billingID 2.
- added *buildingparam [BuildingRecordNum] [Param (0-255)]  for setting a param on a particular building instance. The param can be accessed by script using $gBuildingScriptParam
- Added $gPlayerHunger, $gPlayerThirst, $gPlayerMaxHealth, $gPlayerAge
- Changed life-security mode 0 and added mode 5, which don't suspend health loss for players not in a building when the server is restarted. (Which means the scores regenerate properly on server restart now)
- Fixed bugs caused by the owner not being recognised on startup of world until the owner logged in.

-Allowed dashes in editbox
- Stopped the construction menu being accessible on keypress when greyed out
- Return to frontend when kicked from world, rather than closing client
- Prevented .fish command when 'Other subgames' is 0
- Prevented .startrace command when racetrack is not valid
- Added 'PlayerBirthday' event
- Got rid of old menu on the character status screen
- Fixed bugs in script parser when using nested elses,else ifs and ifs
- Script parser now ignores semi-colons at the end of a line coz C programmers sometimes forget not to do that 
- Fixed lack of buildingScriptParam when using OSD button responses in scripted buildings
- Added racing mode 5 where races can only be created by sysops
- added totals to score table data (e.g. for 'collective wisdom')
- added *eventallonline 'CUSTOM_EVENT_NAME'
-  scripted osd in buildings closes when you leave the radius of a BuildingAccessDisplay
- added save password and auto-login options to frontend

- fix for other player's kudos not appearing in player list
- added new chat message types
- fixed ambient lignting settings getting broke when using .thunder
- added high-scores option to info screen
- Work on the auth server admin tool
- Added msg to indicate accounts were reset at the start of 2012 when authserver gives a no record response.
- added age to *showneeds response

- fix for server lives setting of 1 meaning this one + another. 
- Fix for 'all time oldest' scores not including dead people.
- fix for oldest age not being recorded or updated sometimes
- made the capital I in the main font look less like an l
- Fixed & changed the player labels
- added *gocrow [PLAYER]
- New PlayerTasks system and UI
- New inventory screen layout
- Added 'TaskComplete' event
- fixed scaling on topdown landscape render modes
- made sure deaths reset age
- fixed all item sizes to 1
- tidied the status screen a bit
- added item numbers to the world editor items list
- fixed rare bug that meant the high scores screen didnt disappear occasionally
- added *changeinventory function, which works the same as grantitem but doesnt message the player about it. Also added *updateinventory which broadcasts any changes to the player
- added $gTaskItem1, $gTaskItem2, $gTaskItem3 for script access during the 'TaskComplete' event
Any questions? No? Good :)