A Decade of BrewLAN news

10 years.

I started this project over 10 years ago.

It's silly to think that after 10 years, I still don't think it's complete. So, rather than pull a Spacebase DF-9 and just call it complete, here's BrewLAN 0.8.9; released on the anniversary of its first public release right here. But why you may ask is it not complete? The short answer is higher standards and expanding scope. BrewLAN is bigger than the original, albeit vague, design intentions and my skills are, somewhat, more advanced than they used to be. Oh also my old computer died and needed replacing, that didn't help.

But you didn't come here to read me reminis and complain. You came here to find out what's new. So with that in mind, here's the very abridged cliff notes of what has changed since 0.8.3.

Yes, this is the abridged version.

Graphical changes:

One of the things on the design document for what I consider BrewLAN 1.0 is reworks of most of my older units, these are the units that recieved graphical improvements in this version.

All-new models:

Slink, Gannet, Aeon tech 2 storages, Pigeon, Metatron, and Albatross were all given all-new unique models.

Model tweaks and major texture changes:

The Gantry recieved an extended model, and slight reworkings for the UV, shading, texture, and animation. The Poker recieved a redone gun, and some fixed up UV and shading. The Flame Lotus had it's UV's redone to fix some stretching, a new texture, and a wheel fold animation when in transport. The Guardian had it's entire turret body recreated, had it's UV's all reworked, and was given it's own new redrawn texture where previously it re-used the battleships texture. The Seraphim engineering stations that previously used the tech 2 artillery texture now have a new UV and their own texture. The Longbow has also recieved a new UV and texture, additionally it now has a chance to spawn with or without a head, and will spawn without it's dish if intel is restricted, as mentioned above. And finally, not pictured, the Scarab recieved some minor texture and shading reworks but recreations of its animations, and a number of additional animations for things such as loading into and out of transports.

Shader fixes, UV improvements, and texture changes:

Most of these weren't considered important or noticable enough to the casual observer for screenshots, but there were minor texture, shading, and/or UV improvements for the Pedestal, Aspis, Impaler, Moldovite, LSD-Pulse, Resupply, Wally, Custodian, Zenith, Little Bertha, AP-12 Trapper, and the Seraphim tech 1 air staging, shield, and tech 1 and 2 mines.

Other graphical changes:

• Units that increase the satellite capacity now have the amount listed as an ability.
• You can now see regular shields through anti-artillery shields.
• Bubble Tea: You can now see the shield projections of the Aeon experimental shield through other shields.
• R&D: Research centres working on tech level research are now visibly working on something the icon of that tier.

Additions:

Since the main focus of development towards BrewLAN 1.0 was unit reworks, and bringing the average unit quality up, there aren't a great many new additions this time around. But there are still a number of notable additions:

• R&D: UEF tech 3 penetration fighter.
• R&D: UEF tech 2 combat fighter.
• UEF tech 3 mobile air staging.
• UEF tech 3 mobile tactical missile defence.
• UEF tech 3 counter-intel satellite, an alternative built from the Novax centre.
• Aeon experimental structure teleporter. (Only available through cheats for testing purposes.)
• BrewLAN will now chat message you if you installed it wrong at the start of the game.
• Debug Tools: One of the tester units will tell you information about the BrewLAN installation in chat when built.
• Metal World: Added basic AI support for building extractors for LOUD, Sorian, and Vanilla AI, rather than the haphazard hacks it used to have.
• Spomeniki: A monument to the Spirit and Opportunity has been added.
  • The Iyadesu can rebuild them if it gets to reclaim the monuments.

Functional changes:

• Darkness no longer affects SACU's.
• Removed some obselete code from the Darkness, and improved it's performance.
• Novax centre no longer auto-builds the first satellite, to make it more obvious that it can build multiple now.
• Panopticon is now considerably cheaper and starts with most of it's arrays disabled, with enhancements to enable them.
• Nuke mines now have the option to auto-detonate, but default to manual still.
• The Longbow no longer gets radar or a visible radar dish with the INTEL restriction enabled. (It needs to specifically be the INTEL restriction by name.)
• Bubble Tea: Added the shields to the no-shields build restriction, yes this disables all three of the units added by the mod.
• R&D: Penetration craft (fighters and bombers) no longer fire flares after death, and no longer fire flares at missiles that have been targeted by flares.
• R&D: The Retributor is now restricted by the game enders restriction.
• R&D: Overhauled the AI control for choosing research, if the AI wants to build something that's research locked it will now start researching it. It will still fall back to random research if nothing is requested.
• R&D: AI will no longer try to build research centres after all research is complete, and will actively reclaim any they still have.
• R&D: Research that starts complete is now based on starting engineers and factories for tech level research.

Fixes:

• Numerous small translation errors.
• Fixed the Seraphim SACU getting both regular and armoured T3 resource buildings with the engineering upgrade.
• Slink no longer spams effects and sounds every 5 seconds when it's visible.
• Crystal HIll: Civilians are no longer counted for calculating transfering hill control.
• R&D: Fixed a script error related to game restrictions.
• R&D: Fixes towards having research for restricted units. (Some restrictions might slip by.)
• R&D: Fixed there being a research item for the hidden UEF hovercraft factory; a testing unit.
• R&D: The Lancer now lands on top of repair pads, not half in them.
• R&D: Aeon and Seraphim penetrator bombers can now land on air staging.
• R&D: Fixed other small issues regarding penetrator bombers and air staging.

Final words:

You can view the full, unabridged, changelog of the whole of BrewLAN's 10 year history here. Fair warning though, it's over 5000 lines, 500 of which are from the most recent update, and goes in to day by day detail of the process. It's fairly comprehensive.

If you're interested in that history though, you may also be interested in the time-lapse videos created during that process. The majority of these were exclusive to my Patreon supporters, but I've changed policy with those to have them be exclusive for 6 months before public release. As a result, a large number are now visible to the public. You can see some of them here, and all of them on my YouTube channel. More are scheduled for the next few days. Some of them have music I created 10 odd years ago over them, some are silent. Depends how I was feeling at the time of editing them.

If you want to support me financially, there are several options if you find Patreon objectionable. You can find them listed in the links below. Benefits asside from the fuzzy feeling you get from helping someone make something you love include early access to time-lapse videos, access to some exclusive content, such as raw files or pre-optimisation full size textures, and currently access to an unreleased double-resolution version of Experimental Icons Overhaul. There's currently not a great deal of exclusive time-lapses, but there are about 10 that need editing that should be releasing soon. Oh, I also charge per release, so what have you got to lose?