Zombie Panic! Source News

Hey everyone!

Today, we're bringing some interesting changes to the game focused heavily on weapon balance tweaks, additional entities for mappers, Angelscript improvements, map adjustments, bug fixes as usual and other miscellaneous fixes. Two maps in question, Harvest and Frozenheart, got some deserved love after all this time.

On Harvest, we're letting Survivors go outside of the house again, some heavy optimization work has been done within the map, we've reverted the capture point objective, and made some other tweaks. On Frozenheart, we updated a group of models that had collision issues and missing LODs (Level of Detail) - improving the performance significantly. You may also notice some of those changes in many popular custom maps that use those props. Full details in the list below:



[h2]Achievements[/h2]

• Fixed "Grand Theft Auto" (hotwire Zomboeing's truck) being increased twice.
  
• Fixed last client on the server not earning achievements when round ends.
  

[h2]Admin system[/h2]

• Added unauthorized command usage logging to the console for dedicated servers.
  
• Fixed dedicated server crash when going to hibernate after an admin gets self-banned from the warning command.
  

[h2]Angelscript[/h2]

• Added "float Vector.DotProduct(Vector)".
  
• Added "float Vector.VecToYaw()".
  
• Added "int CBasePlayer.GetPoints()".
  
• Added "int CBasePlayer.GetScore()".
  
• Added "int CZP_Player.GetAmmoBank(AmmoBankSetValue)".
  
• Added "Globals.SetAutoBalanceBlocked(bool)" to enable/disable team balancing (will watermark server as Custom)
  
• Added values checks to "void CBaseEntity.SetSize(Vector, Vector)" to prevent a Source engine error from being triggered.
  
• Added "Vector CBaseEntity.GetSize()".
  
• Added "Vector CGameTrace.GetPlaneNormal()".
  
• Added "void CZP_Player.AddPoints(int)".
  
• Added "void OnEntityBreakEx(CBaseEntity@, CBaseEntity@, string)" forward whenever an entity is broken.
  
• Added "Utils.ShowImage(...)"
  
• Added missing "const" to "strTargetName" argument to existing "OnEntityBreak" forward. Update your Angelscript code if you are using this!
• Fixed menu item #0 not being signaled to the server.
  
• Fixed "void OnEntityUsed(CZP_Player@, CBaseEntity@)" being called twice.
  

[h2]Entities[/h2]

• Added the ability to control the spawning of event-related weapons (snowball) in "logic_player_manager".
  
• Added "game_image" entity for community mappers.
  
• Fixed "item_deliver" with the "drop on switch" setting enabled not adding weight.
  
• Optimized weapon and "item_deliver" pickup code.
  

[h2]Events[/h2]

• Updated all events CVARs descriptions to match the changes made in the previous update.
  

[h2]FGD[/h2]

• Added "activator only" spawnflag to "env_fade".
  
• Added sphere helper to "info_beacon".
  
• Removed leftovers of CSM (Cascaded Shadow Mapping) from v3.0 era.
  
• Updated descriptions of "trigger_itemreceiver" to be easier to read.
  

[h2]Game Rules[/h2]

• Changed team balancing to no longer happen when Zombies run out of lives (even if they do gain one).
  
• Fixed ammo limiter deleting shotgun shells if only Winchester were spawned. (Thanks n00kie)
  
• Fixed team balancing ignoring player who is trying to join a team.
  

[h2]General[/h2]

• Fixed collisions and smoothing groups for a bunch of prop models.
  
• Fixed "map cameras" (aka "cutscenes"/"point_viewcontrol" for mappers) not resetting players view when round restart/map changes.
  
• Removed some duplicated and unused assets.
  

[h2]Localization[/h2]

• Added French translation for the Angelscript Rock The Vote plugin.
  
• Updated several French, Russian and Simplified Chinese translation strings.
  

[h2]Maps[/h2]
[h3]Corpsington[/h3]

• Improved Zombie spawn timings in several areas.
  

[h3]Frozenheart[/h3]

• Converted several dynamic/physics props models to static ones.
  
• Disabled collisions on a bunch of static props that didn't need them.
  
• Improved chainlink door in generator room (players should no longer get stuck on it while it opens).
  
• Minor performance tweaks and visual improvements.
  
• Moved item receiver trigger on the roof away from Helicopter landing zone.
  
• Moved "objective list" logic to Angelscript.
  
• Updated all 'game_text' entities to use translation tokens instead of raw text.
  
• Various entity I/O optimization.
  

[h3]Harvest[/h3]

• Added more item clips in the basement and barn (for fuse and keys respectively).
  
• Adjusted outer basement entrance to match player's height.
  
• Changed police car headlights colors and brightness to be similar to older versions of Harvest.
  
• Improved optimization around the House and Barn.
  
• Improved "blast wall" sequence in the basement.
  
• Improved player clipping, texture alignments and prop placement around the map.
  
• Migrated some entity logic from I/O to Angelscript.
  
• Removed capture point objective sequences (fuse and truck).
  
• Removed "item cloning".
  
• Swapped around some physics props inside the house.
  

[h2]Score System[/h2]

• Reduced "Survivor" badge score to 100.
  
• Reduced Survivor turned score to 100 (normal) and 50 (Carrier).
  
• Removed Zombie Starter points.
  

[h2]Sounds[/h2]

• Fixed some soundscripts referring to files that did not exist.
  

[h2]User Interface[/h2]

• Added two informative messages to the random infected player being chosen for team balance (one for the selection, one for the cure if it happens).
  
• Potential fix for inoculator HUD staying on player's screen.
  
• Removed buggy close button on HL2:DM's MOTD for SourceMod plugins. (Thanks SuperConker)
  

[h2]Weapons[/h2]

• Added "sv_zps_green_inoculator_mode" boolean server CVAR. If enabled, green inoculators will cure infection. If disabled (default), they will delay the infection as usual.
  
• Fixed a bug where Hammer and Fists weren't doing proper damage on legs.
  
• Increased Axe's damage multiplier on head by 0.1
  
• Increased Cleaver's and Spanner's dmg range slightly.
  
• Increased Crowbar's base damage by 1 and adjusted its firerate slightly.
  
• Reduced Fist's dmg range sightly.
  
• Reduced Magnum's anti-recoil skip glitch time.
  
• Reduced Plank's base damage slightly and damage multiplier on body by 0.1
  
• Reduced Pipe's base damage by 1.
  
• Slightly increased Baseball Bat (Wood) base damage.
  
• Slightly increased both Baseball Bats (Aluminum and Wood) dmg range.
  
• Updated all firearms and melees to have better and consistent damage multipliers (head and body).
  
• Updated Magnum's firerate back to 0.75, tweaked recoil and spread to better match old values.
  
• Updated MP5 head damage multiplier slightly by 0.1
  
• Updated two-handed light melee animations.
  
• Updated Winchester's body damage multiplier significantly by 10%.
  

We'd like to give special thanks to all community members who provided valuable feedback and requested such changes to be present in this patch. We hope to continue doing these community polls in both Discord servers (Debyaka's & SoD's) and Forums to collect more suggestions on what to work next.


Last year we celebrated Half-Life 1's 25th anniversary with a ZP1 gaming event with the community, reaching almost 60 players around three servers hosted by Pikouchu! We noticed some of you couldn't make it or missed the date after it's announcement, therefore we're doing a second part this Summer!

We'll share more details in the future. Until then, join Pikouchu's or ZPS Official Discord servers!

See you there!

On November 19th, 1998, Valve debuted with the release of their first revolutionary shooter Half-Life. Since then, the modding community has released lots of memorable HL1 mods - one of them being the old gem Zombie Panic 1, released on Halloween 2004 by the former Zombie Panic Team.


We'd like to celebrate this special date with a Zombie Panic 1 gaming event on Dec 2nd! Like last time, the community member Pikouchu will provide the dedicated server with 32 slots and many custom maps! We want to thank those who have previously joined us in our first community night event and hopefully we'll see you all again this December! Be sure to click on "Set a reminder" to be notified, but here are the timezones just in case: GMT: 8:00 PM // PDT: 1:00 PM // EDT: 4:00 PM // CDT: 3:00 PM

If this is your first time playing or an old timer who forgot how to set up the mod, Pikouchu created a quick easy guide just for you! You need to have Half-Life 1 installed and follow all the instructions in the following link: https://pikouchu.com/zombie-panic

If you don't have Half-Life 1, then this is the best time to get it for FREE! (until Nov 20th)



See you then!
- Zombie Panic Team

We're releasing a very small patch today, focused mostly on code cleanup, few UI fixes, supershorty reload animation changes and other bugfixes as usual. Full details below:



[h2]Angelscript[/h2]

• Added "CBaseEntity@ CZP_Player.GetInfectedBy()" method which returns the entity that infected this player.
  
• Fixed weapons never calling the "OnEntityUsed" forward.
  

[h2]Entities[/h2]

• Fixed "func_clip_vphysics" broken "start disabled" key/value pair.
  
• Fixed weapons never calling the "OnPlayerUse" output.
  

[h2]Events[/h2]

• Added the ability to force disable an event by setting it's CVAR override to a negative value.
  
• Optimized the system in general.
  

[h2]General[/h2]

• Code optimizations in several places.
  

[h2]User Interface[/h2]

• Fixed radio menus always disappearing after 5 seconds (note: the fix is applied only for radio menus created by Angelscript. SourceMod will use it's internal "workaround" to keep the menus displayed more than 5 seconds).
  
• Fixed the annoying "Loading..." dialog taking the entire screen (rare on Windows, frequently on Linux).
  
• Fixed uncloseable radio menus created by Angelscript.
  

[h2]Weapons[/h2]

• [Super Shorty] Changed the starting reload sequence to insert a buckshot straight away.
  

We're shipping a small patch today containing game performance tweaks, client and server crash fixes, game rules changes for server admins/mods, minor weapon adjustments, and other bugfixes as usual.



[h2]Administration System[/h2]

• Added an exception for basic administrators (and higher privileges) to the anti-Zombie skipping system. This allows said administrators to switch from game to Spectators team in order to spectate players with bad behavior. Servers powered by SourceMod are required if not done already to "copy" their "admin. list" to ZPS's administration system in order for this to work. ZPS does not read SourceMod's admin lists.
• Added "silence" and "unsilence" commands (shortcut to gag and mute at the same time).
  
• Fixed AFK checker kicking players instead of moving them to the lobby.
  

[h2]Angelscript[/h2]

• Added "bool CZP_Player.IsSilenced()" and "CZP_Player.SetSilenced(bool)" methods.
  
• Fixed "CZP_Player.StripWeapon" leaving "ghost" weapons world models on player models.
  
• Removed the deprecated "string CZP_Player.GrabTeamSpawn()" and "Engine.ExtendGame" methods.
  

[h2]Characters[/h2]

• Changed Survivors walking animation speed. This is an attempt to fix the "drifting feet effect".
  

[h2]Client[/h2]

• Potential fix for the rare no HUD issue.
  

[h2]Entities[/h2]

• Added a hardcoded proximity check to spawn points that use "line of sight" checks.
  
• Fixed buttons that emit sparks spamming sound precache errors in the console.
  
• Fixed incorrect line of sight checks for spawn points that use this mode.
  
• Fixed rare crash involving "trigger_escape" and rage-quitters.
  
• Reworked capture point entity in order to fix glitch where constantly going in and out of the capture zone would make the capture itself faster.
  

[h2]Game Rules[/h2]

• Reworked how inventory weight is calculated (no changes to values/behavior) in order to improve performance and support for custom Angelscript/SourceMod plugins.
  
• Reworked how player's USE key is handled (no changes to values/behavior) in order to fix a crash.
  

[h2]Localization[/h2]

• Fixed mistakes in some French sentences related to Shreddingfield.
  

[h2]Maps[/h2]

• [Shreddingfield] Cleaned and optimized Angelscript scripts.
  
• [Shreddingfield] Fixed objectives not being "registered" (they were not visible in objectives list panel and on phone).
  
• [Shreddingfield] Fixed objectives text being hardcoded instead of being localized.
  
• [Shreddingfield] Fixed some broken spawn points.
  
• [Subway] Moved the Zombie spawn in the warehouse's staircase to somewhere else.
  

[h2]Models[/h2]

• Fixed invisible radio prop in Frozenheart and Harvest.
  

[h2]Score system[/h2]

• Removed "Worker" badge.
  

[h2]Server[/h2]

• Fixed crash related to players trying to switch to the phone if something removed it from their inventory.
  
• Fixed crash related to player movement.
  
• Removed several Half-Life 1/2: DeathMatch CVARs that are not used by ZPS.
  
• Reworked "sv_cheats" handling (no behavior change, just technical stuff).
  

[h2]Sound[/h2]

• Fixed "Carrier has spotted a Survivor" sound cue not being played to nearby Zombies.
  

[h2]User Interface[/h2]

• Added player's eyes position in the debugging overlay (it's the number between parenthesis at the origin row).
  
• Added "silence" and "unsilence" commands to the context menu in player list dialog.
  

[h2]Vote system[/h2]

• Added "silence" vote type to the "callvote" command.
  

[h2]Weapons[/h2]

• [Carrier & Zombie arms] Removed weight values when displaying on zps_debug command.
  
• [Magnum] Reverted the recoil decay value to the same one used in v3.2.4.
  
• [Winchester] Slightly increased the damage multipliers (bodyshot/limbs only).
  

[h3]Happy New Year folks![/h3]

We hope you had a great 2022 and have been enjoying the v3.2.5 update so far! Today we'd like to commemorate a special day (12-28-2022) when ZPS turned 15 years old! What started as a simple HL2 modification, ported to a standalone game and now we have a sequel in the works! A huge milestone for an old Source mod still being played and supported by many!



We want to give special thanks to ALL who have been with us along the way, supporting this game in every way possible by hosting servers, creating custom content, playing with friends and inviting new people!

There's also another big milestone that this community achieved a few weeks ago. The Official Zombie Panic Source Survival Guide, created on Youtube by SFM artist McVee back in 2008, has reached over 1 million views! We hope this guide has been a great help keeping you all safe from danger and pressing the right key to PANIC!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Those were some good times... Now, let's go back to the present because we have some interesting events happening within the community that we think you should be aware of!

[h2]ZPS Community Tournaments[/h2]

Throughout 2023, we'll have a series of community tournaments run by ZPS content creator Debyaka, where players will play through a pool of community-made maps fighting for the top 10 and for prizes! The series will be totally free to enter and will also be streamed on his YouTube channel! More info below!



All matches will occur monthly in the "SuperConker's Treehouse Reloaded" community server.

We may also have other free community tournaments throughout the year being run by different members in our ZPS Hub Forums, so be sure to check them out once in a while.

[h2]Zombie Panic! Gaming Night[/h2]

One thing the community has been requesting a lot is a ZP1 gaming night where players can download the first game from 2004 and hang out! Therefore, we'll be planning to schedule an official ZP1 gaming event with our own Pikouchu hosting the server. More details will be shared in a future announcement!

See you later!