Half-Life 2: Wars Beta 2.0.9 Released news

Spring is here and so is the latest update for Half-Life 2: Wars! Beta 2.0.9 features a slew of additions and improvements across the board and HL2: Wars is looking better than ever before. Updates to the HUD and interface in general have continued at a steady pace and various other models, animations and effects have been improved or replaced. The mod now features a singleplayer tutorial map for players unfamiliar with the RTS genre and we have also added a new 1v1 map, hlw_mine by Nqss[RUS], which you can see below:

There is also the usual host of assorted balancing changes and bugfixes which you can read about in detail in the changelog at the end of this post. Click the button below to update Half-Life 2: Wars via Desura. Alternatively, you can download the full HL2: Wars Beta 2.0.9 beta files from Moddb in 7z archive format (extract to your Steam/SteamApps/SourceMods directory).

If you are having trouble downloading from Desura or Moddb use our mirror instead: click here to download 2.0.9. Let us know on our community forum if you are willing to help us out and host a mirror for our releases!

If you haven't tried out one of our releases recently, this is a great one to check out!

WARS BETA 2.0.9 CHANGELOG

Balance and Gameplay:
* Added Rebel Partisan to Rebels Headquarters
* Changes costs of deploying Manhacks to 1 requisition and 1 power
* Added "Upgrade to SMG1" option to Combine Metro Police
* Rebel soldiers must now enter the Rebel aid station be healed (no longer healed in radius)
* Autocast of Heal ability now selects the unit with the lowest health
* Added Charge ability to Hunter
* Added Autocast to the charge ability of Hunter and Antlion Guard
* Reduced Grenade damage radius
* Soldiers now move to their closest cover/hiding spot when possible

Maps:
* NEW: Tutorial map (startable from the main menu)
* NEW: hlw_mine
* UPDATED: hlw_outland (multiblend shader)
* UPDATED: hlw_trapped (more space)
* UPDATED: hlw_base4

Models and Visuals:
* New bonus crate model, including a parachute landing and destruction animation
* Revolutionary Fervor Particle Effect, shown around the Rebel Partisan when the passive ability is active
* Heal Particle Effect, shown when an unit is healed by either the Rebel Medic or Cobmine Regeneration building
* Grenade target area and damage radius is now visualized by a sphere
* New Alternative model for Control Points

Interface and HUD:
* Autocast icon/visual indication on the ability icon
* Tooltip of abilities now shows if the ability supports auto casting and if it is on or off
* Many new and updated unit and ability icons
* Unit and ability icons now fade out properly in the notification messages
* Added a notification to the hud when a control point is lost or captured

Sounds:
* Barracks destruction sound
* Armory destruction sound
* New and updated Move/attack/select/hold position sounds for rebel soldier, combine soldier, Hunter, Strider, Vortigaunt, Metropolice

Fixed:
* Incorrect eye offset combine armory and rebels barracks models, resulting in incorrect LOS checks (e.g. units not shooting the building)
* Potential crash/freeze when right clicking the minimap due faulty position input from the minimap, which in turn triggered an infinitive while loop in a navigation mesh query function
* Progress bar of Control points still being shown in the Fog of War
* State of control points pontentially being incorrect when going in/out the fog of war
* Soldiers trying to move to the same cover/hiding spot
* Units being spawned below the ground in Overrun
* Building animations (e.g. construction/destruction) not being played when the client/player is not the same as the server
* Unit soldiers trying to mount a turret which is already mounted in some cases
* Progress animations/effects of factories not stopped during the building exploding.

Unit Navigation:
* Improved resolving navigation around blocking obstacles

Shaders:
* New lightmapped generic shader variant with team color support (LightmappedBrushGeneric), used by brush based buildings

Misc:
* Added entity "wars_player_follow_entity", which can be used to override and control the player's camera
* Added entity "wars_generic_item", placable and configurable in Hammer (Single Player)
* Added entity "trigger_nobuildings", which denies placable objects/buildings from being placed within this trigger
* Updated Swarm Keeper gamepackage (startable from the console using the command "map dk_map")
* Updated embedded Python to 2.7.4
* Updated CEF Library