Happy new year. I am a colossal idiot. Please note the edits at the bottom of this article.
Why do I start this update with big text and a self-insult? Put simply, Scarlet Mango and I found some pretty stinky issues with ZX that needed to be fixed.
For one, there was one weapon-- the Reaper hellfire rifle-- which, for some reason, didn't ever spawn ingame! I don't know how far back this issue stretches, but I've fixed it now. It was never meant to be a cheat weapon, although it IS quite strong for its slot.
For two, there's an exploit in the weapon wheel (at least in "stop time" mode) which the player can use to cheese the air bar full again, and stay underwater indefinitely without biospheres, invulnerability or Godspheres. It's fixed now. Also, there were four scripts getting loaded with the wheel which were complete dead weight, performance-wise. They are excised.
Naturally, since the mod's scripting has seen an update, saves will break. Again. I'm sorry, folks, there's zero way around that. Save files preserve the state of any scripts running at the time they're saved, and they freak out and whine when a script's been removed or altered. This is down to the way the engine works, and has always been a problem.
For three, I've rejiggered a lot of the zombies so their attacks don't have as many BS lucky hits. This means the hitscan zombies will be slightly less of a threat going forward, but the ones with projectiles and accurate hitscan weapons will remain a decent long-distance threat.
This truncated 9.1 release will drop soon-- I have to get the final tuning down on the tweaked zombies' attack spreads and damage. This'll take a couple days. 9.2 will drop later this year, and HOPEFULLY then I'll have drummed up the muse to finish out the monster writeups. I've got more monsters to add-- I'm not happy with there being more guns than there are types of monsters to frag with said guns. This means more blurbs I have to write up ex post facto.
EDIT: There'll be a fix to the EMG Rifle too. Thanks to NightmareKiller for catching that little eff-up of mine...and that led me to find that the revolver was borked too. Damnit...
EDIT 2: So, I'm staring down a Windows reinstall. I've backed up all the relevant files to the mod, so it shouldn't be horrifying, but it's gonna set things back a couple days while I piece my system back together. Right now I'm thanking God that I put most of my games on an external HDD and have backed up the rest. Expect it towards the end of this week, or the start of next one.
EDIT 3: OK...so I have run into a few complications with both my computer refresh and my mental health, after a whirlwind week last week. I'm sorry to delay this again, but I've got to drum up the muse to work on things. I've already gotten the malfunctioning weapons fixed and all, I just have to fine-tune the zombie attack patterns before release, and that's gonna be about a day's worth of trial-and-error as I've...modified those a fair bit. If you're still willing to give me a chance, and I perfectly understand if you're not-- thank you for the patience you've shown me so far-- please allow me two weeks minimum to pull myself together before release.
In any event, keep an eye out for a release within the week. I mean it this time.
-Xterra
