The Universal World Owner's Manual

25-May-2005

- destroyed vehicle effect 8, same as 4 but cash is also reset to default
- control for plane when on ground fixed
- fixed up some things on the value control so that certain windows (like sell to building and trade items) dont close (and print a warning message) when the user does something daft, like trying to exchange 0 items
- tidyups for leaving comms channel in space
- fixups for the termination of file receives, so the p2p guaranteed file transfer doesnt stop working after 1 successful transfer (i.e. ppl's profile images should always show up in space)
- fix for vehicle returning to 1 (rather than the settings 'Default Vehicle') on a full wargame reset.
- some fixes for turret + mouselock controls etc
- General menu tidyups (returning properly to parent window on a failed transaction etc)

- graphics -> playerlistmode of 100+ do the same as 0-99 but also show different things before the names of sysops, gods etc.
- building damage mode 8 - weapons dont affect buildings. Armour field in b.dat is used to control decay. 0 means the building doesnt decay, 1 means it decays at the rate set in the settings, 2 is twice that etc. etc.
- various lil fixes n msgs n stuff for things on republic
- fixes for killing wildlife ai type 4
- fixed potential server crash if attempting a log before the sys has been activated
- more gal econ updates - gal trade items prices now based on supply and demand and planetary type data.
- new 'end sequence' items
- towns removed properly from map on demolish/destroy/decay
- fix for the building list not showing correctly when using specialmenumodes
- server options to send position updates intermittently to reduce position send bandwidth

- multiple ship-types in space, linked to gal inventory
- new server setting 'Graphics -> Building Landscape Graphics' to have buildings affect the landscape in different ways - e.g. have a circle of trees around the border of every town, and have texmap 16 added underneath every tech 1 or above building. (unless theres other texmaps or surfaces already present)
- New dialog for allowing players to re-enter their password (or retrieve a forgotten one) when there gal connection is refused - better handling of failed connections to the gal (lil popups to prompt user to re-enter password, username or whateva as necessary)
- fix for *vehicle 1 command overriding default vehicle settings
- fix for text on needs % at home
- new template files for cutscene stylee end sequences trigged by one of the 'end 
sequence items' being used
-implemented 'DemolitionKit' item (use next to any building to destroy it)
- rubbish 'nuke' end sequence
- added level numbers to town on world map (when appropriate building process settings are used)
- fix for new wildlife models not showing up the first time they're downloaded
- Added 'ignore town limits' option to buildings editor 

3-Jun-2005

- added server option to change name displayed in chat when using server panel
- fix for sea disappearing when autoreset maps are triggered
- added new 'world -> building access mode' 9, that is like 5 (family members have partial control on all family buildings) but also allows ppl to acces non-family buildings as normal.
- End sequence for launch
- icons, mouse controls and screen layout tidyups on the space station screens
- building owners can use their own skill exchange buildings
- ship explosions in space 
- not drawing players in space when they're in the space station
- changed the lounge chat channel to a system wide one
- replicated shift state so that remote monkeys trigger run animations (etc)
- tweaked some of the positioning code to help keep server bandwidth use down
- Put the sun back in place.. ooh if i ever found out who stole that..!

17-Aug-2005

- browser updates - scroll bars & some html layout fixes
- split the inventory up so that 'purchased' items are dealt with separately from 'transferred' items
- Added 'log files' dialog to server to control what is and isnt logged
- fix for fire particles from a static 'campfire'
- change the nebula in space, and added a new landscape rendering routine which i thought would be 10 times faster than my old bodgy one but turned out to be 10 times slower. yay.
- new font drawing stuff so all game fonts load up from files generated by fontrast. (and they're now rendered as proper alpha-blended images rather than using some weirdass colourblend mode)
- fixups for the gal inventory screen
- extra server logging of building purchases
- removed .refreshweap (replaced with server command *refreshweap - to avoid all those times when a weapon is added or changed and the change is not picked up on the server, resulting in the server refusing to forward weapon messages coz it thinks a player is cheatin or somethin)
- made the namechange option only work when in space (as changing it when connected to a world had possible 'abuse' issues)
- added subgame -> racing mode 3  where the racecourse is permanently active
- modularised a pile of replicated code, moved a load of things around, took out a load of crap, did a lil jig - the result of all of it being better interpretation of remote player positions, and better physics calculations - particularly with regard to launching from the tops (and sliding down the sides) of hills n suchlike. Also re-enabled the vehicle settings -> bounce (0-999) where 999 is a near perfectly efficient bounce response
- changed the census screens so they dont show items/skills that arent present or being used on the world
- added close button to the ingame browser and made the window draggable
- added settings -> landscape -> wall rendering mode to um, control the um, rendering of walls (in some way that ive since forgotten)
- added settings -> economy -> cargo rules to um, control the um, rules for carrying cargo (in some way that i have since forgotten)
- added indication of passworded worlds on the f5 system map
- changed the camera on the 'landing on world' sequence
- added 'about' screen on the frontend, started linking in local world servers, and changed the startup sequence so skipping the 'a collection of monkeys presents' screen takes you to the intro screen rather than straight to space
- added realtime clock and player count to bottom right corner of space display
- made sure the gal radio gets turned off when its supposed to be
- (wip) replication & tracking of space missiles
- made sure the game properly resets if you fly into the sun
- better trails on missiles, ships and crows
- added muzzle flashes
- added textures to the flags (and made em all shiny like)
- clientside fix for robocrows not working until after a player has died once
- optional better server logging of player deaths
-  added fire=jumpjet to weapon script, and some other bits ill definitely have to document sometime
-  added pointless woomph-stylee gravity particles to subspacemode 2

19-Aug-2005

- Economy-> bank interest limit setting
- graphics -> particle effects setting  (1 turns off skid smoke)
- fix for weapons list display on weaponscontrolmode 5 and added mode 6 (same as 5 but ctrl instead of shift+del)
- fix for floaty gravity bug in control mode 1 (and similar)

- interior maps and rooms downloaded thru the httpdownloads stuff
- bits to stop the browser crashing on 'complicated' websites
- added messaging for 'scan player's inventory' (in space)
- changed the urdium/parsec range.. so that 1 uridium is enuf fuel for a 1 parsec journey. When uridium is bought, its in blocks of 10
- jettisoning cargo launches cannisters into space
- trade report screen on comm station in space
- rearranged and tidied some of the space station screens
- changed the system for calculating cargo space in ships, so each shiptype has a default cargo capacity (and cargo bay's are only required as extensions).
Also added 'System Scanner' gal item for allowing players to scan the inventory of anyone anywhere in space
- tidied space menus stuff a lil for very small resolutions
- [DeVice] - Unix version of server

- (Device) - Changed the radio download progress bar so that :
- The lil sliding bar shows the reading position again.
- The progress bar stays after downlad completed until we listen the whole song.
- (Device) fix for another crash when re-joining a world after ".launch".
- fix for rendering of turretted models in space
- (Device) Fix for being able to capture "shiny foutains" on mechzone.
- (Device) Reward for team holding the "crow flags" can now be kudos too. (Set by subgame->fixed reward param = 1)
- weapons ammo display disappears when other screen has focus
- various wip fixes for the 'remote access' model & texture selector screens
- tweaks to attempt to stop z-fighting issues in space
- duplicated cam zoom on - and = when not in process of typin stuff (to make it easier for laptops etc)
- fixed missing indicator on 'forget skills' menu
- layout tweaks (including fixin the rotated glass in the starport at last)
- exter server logging options
- various lil tweaks to the gal econ, fixed up the display of uridium purchases on the client and server, and increased the uridium capacity of stardrives to 10x their range. (e.g. L4 can hold 40 uridium, L8 can hold 80 etc)
- game requests a 32 bit z-buffer by default now
- fix for the calculation of sell price on the gal server (price was goin lower as reserves got lower)
- changed the way f-key icons are drawn in space & changed the method for accessing different views
- space autopilot
- tidied up the ship trails
- new docking and launching from space station camerawork n stuff
- fix for crash exiting space station on 47.7
- fix for 'reading over the end of allocated memory and into random territory' bug when loading compressed atm models
- added delay between retrieving building info as ppl often drain a lot of pointless bandwidth driving fast across populated worlds like sabrada with the building access menu open..
- fix for the occasionally broken trade list scrollbar
- fix for the comm station focus being lost after using infimp
- added hilights to indicate which console currently has the string focus 
- fix for stardrive textures not appearing
- added finite improbabilty drive
- swapped the finite drive and infimp drive items about
- changed/fixed the behaviour of the up and down arrows next to the space crosshairs
- fix & checks for font texture oddities
- changed gal player starting cash to 100cr

17-Oct-2005

(v0.48.0)
- (Device) More unix build fixes
- stuff to allow the textures to be refreshed at runtime
- Allowing access to starport through escape menu when no other building access is possible ("Iridis" mode).
- added space in gal records to store galactic bounty + number of 'space' kills and deaths
- putting in some code that might one day let us have bigger islands (in terms of number of tiles, rather than just scale)
- added new settings chunk for storing more details on surface properties
- turned off plane throttle display stuff when another primary screen has focus
- automatic landscape texture generation
- game uses more 32bit textures when possible
- additional stuff to allow the source textures used in the auto-terrain gen to be downloadable
- moved some of the landscape settings to 'surfaces' and linked in the auto-terrain gen (Settings -> Landscape -> Auto-texture generation mode )
- reformatted the settings edit screen and added description text for each setting
- fix for bug in import settings text
- (magicfinger) Disabled the password dialog box and brought the password function to the game window (like it is in full screen mode)
- added a few modes and some shading bits to the sky renderer
- World owners please note! - Swapped vehicle-> armour and turret limit settings around for 48.0. Armour now works with a different, simpler method... Default 0 is equivalent to 100 .. or 100% armour. A value of 200 means damage would be halved, value of 10 means damage done would be 10x.
- added property slots for the autogenerated textures
- stuff for running local, unregistered worlds
- market trader skill added
- settings for default server
- added robocrow cam mode 3 (behind crow view) and fixed robocrow cam mode 2
- filtering option to improve the small font rendering
- (Device) - Switching makefiles from pmake (FreeBSD) to GNU make format to ease up linux building.
- Added 'Market Stalls' - allowing players to create a stall to sell stuff from their inventory.
- Fix for the red and blue components of autogenerated landscape textures getting inverted.
- added some gal commands to reset users based on their ID and allow ppls passwords to be reset.
- changed the activity limit for ppl to appear on the gal top 10s to 30 days from 60
- (Device) - Fix for the REGISTERED worlds entering an infinite wait while connecting to gal. Thanx Zar :-)
- added some (wip) stuff to draw low level-of-detail terrain in the distance.
- Optimisation of landscape texture gen to reduce jerkiness & framerate drop
- added economy -> building process 11. As 10, but the item required to make each building is defined by the building tech level and ranges from "Build Item 1" for tech level 0 buildings, to "build item 8" for tech level 7 buildings (and up). 
- added a couple of extra weather settings
- Added avatar select screen and replication of players' current avatar selection
- fixed *recycle crash on local world, fixed non-exiting process & generally tidied up all the code that handles the main game loop
- fix for texture loads reverting to 16bit when a file is missing
- Changed on-world window appearance - added some prettier shading.
- changed weapon.mts load to gamescript.mts, (for later, more generic script code) and added it to the .isl export
- proper rendering of billboard sprites in robocrow cam 3
- removed old radio interface, replaced with smaller text display. linked radio to new icon button - (1 click to activate, right click to go back a track, double left click to advance a track, 1 left click to turn off)
- server option to log marketstall transactions. Added * settings -> World -> Market stall Rules to control access to marketstalls
- added *setitngs -> Landscape -> 'auto radio' to automatically play toons when a player joins the world
- various (wip) re-arrangements of the info & census screens (etc)
1) A new *settings screen with help and descriptions for all the settings - Makes life 10 times easier for sysops and world owners.
2) A new automatic terrain texture generation system - It produces quite pretty landscapes at the click of a button, rather than the world owner having to spend hours and hours with texmaps and surfaces trying to get something looking decent.
3) Free, unregistered worlds have been linked in and will be available publicly - anyone will be able to have a go at building their own world.