Yet another punctual update! news

hhhhhhhhi

so yeah it's been awhile. sorry! to recap I guess, progress -was- going smoothly towards public release, but then valve put out an SDK patch years back to fix some security exploits which in turn resulted in a whole lotta little changes that broke the mod in many different ways, making it super unstable. Since valve generally doesn't give modders full engine access, fixing this sorta stuff is a huge pain. And AFAIK we couldn't really just use an older SDK version since those security fixes were pretty important. SO we decided to just abandon it and remake it from scratch (while porting the models and maps we could) in Unreal Engine 4. Naturally this was quite the task, and while a fair bit of progress was made, a new job ended up taking nearly all of Jim+Steve's free time, so for now at least that's on hold.

So where does that leave us with the Source version?? Well I talked with Jim and Steve and got a hold of the source files for this. Our old dev roadmap site is back online, and I've tracked down all the various models and such that were still in the process of being implemented (like the shock rilfe and flakcannon, thank god). There's really not much left to do after the crashes are fixed, either. So, we're pretty much good to go on resuming development exceppttttt

none of us are anywhere near as experienced at programming as Jim and Steve are. We'll see where we (aka Derek/Overworld, our modeler/texture artist, and possibly three others?) can get but we may need more help. If you have any decent experience programming in Source mods, or know anyone that does, and aren't terrible at it, let me know below or send me a PM on here. If we do end up needing help we'll probably end up reaching out. otherwise, I'll update you all with whatever happens next.

If we can actually get somewhere, the order of events is basically gonna be:

'fix the crash(es) -> finish the public release checklist -> test like mad -> RELEASE FFS'

I do have some screenshots as well that were never seen before, or just never got posted in an article. So for the sake of making this update more interesting, have a LOOK:

^The new Colt SAA. It was one of the first models Dr. Derek made for us, and now he's redone it later using all his ~experience~ thus far. It's a hell of an upgrade, to say the least.

The New Scientist Shotgun model. Yet another Rocket Crowbar (a half-life 1 mod) weapon. Fires out exploding screaming bouncing scientists. The sorta weapon that only makes sense in the world of Rocket Crowbar.

The Half-Life Opposing Force Displacer. Functions just as it did in OP4, which is basically as a BFG with a twist: a direct hit will just teleport someone away, so you don't want to hit them head on. Likewise, alt fire will just make YOU teleport away and leave a massive explosion where you were standing. It's gr8 fun and IIRC it was the last weapon we added before we hit a wall.

The Unreal Tournament Flak Cannon. Left click for a ricocheting shrapnel burst, right click to fire out an arching explosive shot. It's a classic.

Another classic from Unreal Tournament. Left click is a hitscan beam, right click fires out a slow moving exploding orb, and if you shot the orb with left click it triggers an enormous explosion. I always loved that unique M1+M2 combination attack, so yea, had to have it.

There's still three guns more we hope to have in public release (The chainsaw, the Bofors cannon, and the bow and arrow), but they haven't been modeled yet (the bow is modeled and textured, but the arrows are still needing to be done). The Bofors at least does have a solid design drawn up, so hopefully we can get them done.

and lastly, here's some of the last footage from our test sessions, recorded in the time between our last MODDB post and the mod getting bricked. Should serve as a nice refresher for what the mod was like when it actually worked

Well that's all for now. ->IF<- we can actually get anywhere with fixing all this, I'll try and keep you all updated, but for now it's gonna be a huge pain. And like I said, if you're wanting to help at all, please let me know. Thankssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss