FROM THE BLOG

[KAG] BUILD 1537 – Quality of Life

Hey guys, mostly a “quality-of-life” build this time but also brings some important balance changes and content.

Prepare to get creative!

Before we get started, there are a few minor issues that have bled through from TR development into KAG, the “big” one is that fonts are smaller in various places – including the “Respawn In” dialogue and the loading screens. The old fonts will be back as soon as we find out exactly where they should be changed back properly (rather than a band-aid fix). If you notice any other strangeness please let us know ASAP so we can fix it!

Major Changes:

• Mechanisms in Sandbox:
  That’s right, mechanisms are finally available for building in sandbox and mods; along with a fancy “paged” building menu. There’ll be a guide coming in future about how the mechanisms system works with examples, but for now they’re there to play with and can be saved into custom image maps with the usual /savemap setup – this works for loading (for example) an unpopulated TDM map and adding in traps to the design. Be sure if you do later editing of the image that you use an image that can handle transparency – no MSPaint for mechanisms maps I’m afraid!
• Surrender Vote:
  There are some games that end up very one-sided – rather than having 5 players yelling “please cap, please” and the entire enemy team destroying your base for twenty minutes before they finally realise theres a flag to take, you can now “gg” out of the game with a vote. We’ll be monitoring abuse of this currently experimental feature but we earnestly hope it’ll help ease the frustration of a stomp.
• Vehicle Conversion:
  There’s a new GUI and better mechanics for vehicle conversion, based on live players within a generous radius – this allows capping siege engines from a little further away, but also allows defending them; the time to convert is also a bit longer. We’ll address the issues with spawning on contested engines soon.
• Trap Block Behaviour:
  Trap blocks now can be opened by same-team players, much like doors, which prevents them from team-trapping people and limits the amount of damage a new builder can do in building their “genius trap”.
  There is also a simple way to disable the new trap block functionality, which it utilised in TDM because some map designs rely on the old functionality.
• Materials Back from Many Blocks:
  In particular, doors and trap blocks give a fair percentage of the materials used for construction back, which punishes misclicks less and allows counter-tunnellers to get rewarded for their trouble. Plaforms do not give material back at this point due to them already being ubiquitous and not being team-biased.
• Wood doors decay Under Water:
  A suggested counter-tunneling mechanic that we’re trying, stone doors and U-bends will have to be utilised more to defend against flooding in tunnels, rather than simply spamming cheap wood doors every few blocks.

Minor changes:

• New Mechanisms:
  A motion sensor source block, directional wires for packing in dense designs, and a new appearance for the light component!
• Cancel Building Button:
  Oddly this is one of the most-requested functionalities of new players coming to KAG from minecraft and the like; a way to put away any block. While it may not really affect you, a lot of players have a simple mental disagreement with it, so we’ve added a button to allow you to cancel building completely. Old players may or may not wish to use it.
• Traders aren’t in the way:
  Traders are now no longer able to block arrows, explosions etc at their posts.
• Nicer TDM Scoreboard:
  More changes will inevitably follow, but we took the feedback recieved about the TDM Scoreboard to heart and made some changes; clan tags and usernames can now be seen, the spectators list renders correctly, and colours are back to indicate various user types.

Have Fun!

Geti/Max

Full Changelog:
[moved] traders into sprite layer rather than separate blob (thanks Verra)
[fixed] a few rules that were still using traders as blobs
[added] clantag/username support to the TDM scoreboard (partial thanks to verra)
[added] "admin colours" to TDM scoreboard (thanks Verra)
[modified] ctf_givespawnitems sets timers reliably at start of game
[added] water decays wooden doors quite quickly in CTF, Sandbox and TTH (not TDM to avoid breaking maps)
[updated] engine - fixed missing map edges, Maths::Clamp/Clamp01
[added] fire spreads on some blocks dying as well as over time
[added] materials back from some constructed blobs when destroyed as builder
[added] can move through trap-blocks like doors if they are like-team (prevents getting trapped in giant pits by "genius" teammates)
[added] old trap block behaviour to TDM (set with tag on rules "old trap blocks")
[added] Elbow and Tee Wires to BasePNGColors.as and BasePNGLoader.as
[added] elbow wire junction
[added] tee wire junction
[fixed] wire background layer
[modified] Wire.as to include functionality for elbow and tee wire junctions
[added] functionality in BlobPlacement.as for held blocks to ignore builder facing
[updated] Lamp component to be directional, and more visually distinct
[added] early opt tag checking for BuilderHittable.as, use "builder always hit"
[modified] CommonBuilderBlocks.as to add blocks based on gamemode
[MOD WARNING][removed] CTF_BuilderMenu.as, CommonBuilderBlocks.as inherited this scripts functionality
[MOD WARNING][removed] WAR_BuilderMenu.as, CommonBuilderBlocks.as inherited this scripts functionality
[added] Mechanisms to Sandbox
[updated] engine with changes for snapping camera to pixels + changes to minimap
[added] GamblersDen map for TDM
[updated] BuilderInventory.as to use CInventory::getInventorySlots()
[added] arbitrary costs to CommonBuilderBlocks.as for Mechanisms
[added] new mechanism component, motion sensor
[added] another constructor to the Component class
[added] Mechanical click sounds for mechanisms, thanks Rayne!
[fixed] connecting to non-LAN hosts while server is running (caused all sorts of weird bugs, thanks makmoud98)
[fixed] unsigned issue with fire_time (could cause lock-ups of vehicles)
[added] new vehicle conversion HUD + fixed vehicle convert sync + made rules more "fair" to both sides (defenders dont hard-reset the timer, but attackers can win by majority - both are displayed)
[added] Stop Building button and functionality to BuilderInventory.as
[added] ClearCarriedBlock(CBlob@) to BuilderCommon.as
[modified] BuilderIcons.png to include the new stop building icon
[MOD INFO][modified] CommonBuilderBlocks.as to include documentation for adding your own pages
[updated] GenerateFromKAGGen.as, fixes tile map hooks not working
[updated] BasePNGLoader.as
[added] LoaderColors.as, replaces BasePNGColors.as
[added] LoaderUtilities.as, holds tile map hooks
[added] vote surrender - experimental