Hypovolemia - Update 8/5/2012 news

Hello everyone! Thanks for supporting Hyp; we're glad the community has been steadily growing.

I suppose every mod team must make this post at least once; apologizing for a delayed update. We've been working very hard and we'd like to take some time to let you guys know what we've been up to, and reveal some of the reasons for the delays.

We originally had planned on releasing a small bugfix update (version 0.1.1), but we've had some major stumbling blocks in our way. First was an almost two week long SVN outage, which halted progress completely. We also had several issues with the way the SDK code is structured. A small feature that we wanted to implement (being able to control grenade particle effects from the weaponscript files) quickly escalated into an entirely new inventory system. Similar things have happened with other features; small improvements were impossible without large changes. We've already made huge improvements over 0.1, and we have decided that our next update will be a full update, released as version 0.2.

Completed Changes

Here is a complete list of changes we have already finished, taken from our SVN logs.

Auto-updating

A new auto-updating installer/downloader automatically patches files, which makes updating the mod a breeze for both the user and us!

New weapons:

Pecheneg PKP - General-purpose machine gun
Weight : 8.7 kg
Rate of fire: 650 RPM
Default capacity: 100rd 7.62x54mmR belt

M240L - General-purpose machine gun
Weight : 10.1 kg
Rate of fire: 850 RPM
Default capacity: 100rd 7.62x51mm belt

AR15 - Civilian version of the M16
Fire modes: Semi auto only.
Weight: 2.27 kg

GM-94 - Pump-action grenade launcher
Weight: 4.8 kg
Capacity: 3+1
43x30mm grenades have only a 3 meter arming distance.
Small but lethal explosive thermobaric radius.

M1014 - Semi-automatic shotgun
Weight: 3.82 kg
Capacity: 7+1
Watch Hyp video of the M1014

Balance:

• Reduced accuracy for mp5 and hk416 while running.
• Reduced accuracy for all shotguns while running.

• Increased leg shot penalty.

"hitlocation_leg_slowdown_time" from 400ms to 620ms
"hitlocation_leg_slowdown_precent" .15 to .4

• Tweaked penetration exit spread so bullets with less velocity deflect more easily.

Models and animations

• New weapon models for mp5 and spas12.
• Added all new soldier animations for the spas12 weapon.
• Added all new soldier animations for the mp5 weapon.
• Improved and tweaked several mossberg590a1 animations.
• New jumping animations.

Maps

• Layout changes to several maps.
• Bug fixes and improvements to all maps.
• hyp_test and hyp_penetrationtest (internal testing maps) are no longer shipped with the game.

General Changes

• Optimized ragdoll networking. Ragdolls no longer cause the server to hitch when people die. There can now be about 8 active (moving) ragdolls without any lag. Stationary ragdolls do not use any bandwidth.
• Fixed ragdoll collisions, no more getting stuck on ragdolls when walking over them.
• Optimized tracer network usage.
• The Humvee vehicle no longer causes network lag from wheel dust particles.
• Updated the menu to use the new version of the Hyp theme song.
• Added a new ( second ) victory song and randomized song picking for victory music like defeat has.
• Added hyp_cam_lock, which locks the camera in place (only works while in control of a marine, not in freecam/spectate).
• Convar hyp_weapon_infinite now works with rail-gun.
• Convar hyp_hud is no longer a cheat, so players can disable the HUD if they want to take a clean screenshot.
• Fixed some cases where NVG was not resetting all ambient settings after being deactivated.
• Fixed screen flicker when switching to a weapon without FOV zoom (knife/grenade etc) while FOV zoom engaged (ctrl/shift held) while mouse was below the minimum zoom percentage.
• Changed FOV zoom to only activate while mouse is in the top 40% of the screen, increasing marine visibility.
• Added a lobby hint for mid game joiners

• Team title bars now pulse in the lobby, hinting what elements are buttons and what teams are currently available for joining.
• Added combined team scores in the lobby and scoreboard for TDM gameplay mode. Losing team score will appear red and winning team score will appear green. If the scores are tied both team scores will appear yellow.
• Adjusted the widths on the scoreboard.
• Scoreboard title bars for DM and TDM now match the gameplay mode colors.
• Limited gib velocity to prevent them from traveling at insane speeds on rare occasions.
• Added semi auto mode to FN FAL, AKM, AK12 and HK G3.
• Improved Humvee vehicle gunner seat camera and look/shoot angles.
• Added shell casings with smoke trail particle effect to all weapons except for HK G11 ( caseless ) .
• Completely rewrote the pickup system to make picking up items much easier. With the new pickup system, items, weapons, and ammo now have a unique radius, allowing for soft selection if the cursor is within this radius. This makes "pixel hunting" for items a thing of the past.
• The knife will now only play flesh hit sounds if you actually cause damage to someone.
• Ammo boxes now have their own correctly sized collision model, and brackets now wrap correctly to them.

Current Progress

We've still got some work to do before our next release, but our goals are clearly defined.

The new inventory system I mentioned earlier will add a large number of features to Hyp. With it, each marine will keep track of the weapons, magazines, and the cartridges he is carrying. Each cartridge and magazine will have weight, allowing the marine's weight to be fully accurate and you will have to manage how many magazines you will carry. As you fire your weapon, your weight will decrease slightly. Having this complex of a system allows each weapon to be able to use several different magazines, eg: HK416 will be able able to use different sized magazines, such as 30rd / 60rd / 100rd / 200rd. You will be able to have different types of cartridges in each magazine, such as explosive bullets, hollow points, etc. This system will not be 100% finalized for version 0.2, but the base framework for a new inventory system will be fully laid out. In 0.2, the inventory will be designed as to not need manual management with a GUI. Later on, these will be added in later versions with some new twists. We've created an early concept of what the inventory might look like, as seen here.

We're also working hard on fixing an unforeseen issue with players not being able to spawn on smaller maps. Due to our somewhat overzealous spawn radius protection, players were unable to spawn when more than a few players (~8) were in the server, since at least one player was within the radius defined by each spawn area. In 0.2, players will have the ability to force spawn even if there are no safe spots available. The spawn manager will then spawn them in the safest available spot.

A big bug fix I'd also like to mention is the config.cfg fix released by Jonathan Sutton at Valve. This fix was released on 7/6/12 to the Alien Swarm community. This fix allows mods to store their config.cfg files in the Steam Cloud separately from Alien Swarm, which fixes a commonly reported issue with our mod about key bindings being overwritten.

Another feature we're planning to implement is an easier to read hud for weapons that use the cocking mechanic. This will become more important in the future, when cocking is added to all rifles. Every time the small numbers next to the cartridges appear (green +1 or red +1) they will start large and quickly shrink to their smaller original size. This will allow the player to quickly and easily see the active weapon's current state without having to refocus their eyes on the hud frequently.

We would also like to share the fact that since it was time to renew our website domain, we have decided this was the perfect time to switch domain providers away from GoDaddy due to their support of SOPA, as we oppose anything that threatens internet freedom.

Team Positions

With that out of the way, we'd also like to put out a request for any programmers or modelers/animators that feel they've got what it takes to be on the Hyp mod team.

Programmers
It is required that you have strong C++ experience and are easy to contact. It is recommended that you have experience with the Source SDK.

Modelers
We are looking for all capable skill levels. You must be able to model at least one of the following:
* Characters
* Level props
* Weapons
* Usable items ( med-kits, canisters, ladders, night vision goggles, gas masks, blow torch, sandbags etc. )
* Vehicles

Animators:
- MUST have prior experience animating character models for source engine.
- Experience with handling firearms in real life is a plus.

To Apply

Send an email to defragen1@yahoo.com or you can get a faster response by adding me to steam friends: pavle_bodi
Thank you.

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We've also got some new original Hyp music to share:
Dark Secrets
Thomas the Train
Chaos

As always, if you have any questions or would like to suggest a new feature you would like to see, drop by our forums, at Hypovolemia-mod.net