Zombie Panic! Source News

We've rolled out the third patch for Zombie Panic! Source v3.1 - focusing on achievement fixes, client and server crashes, game balance and map adjustments, bug fixes, and more! Server owners must update their servers to receive the latest changes.

[h2]Highlighted Changes[/h2]
[h3]New ZP Options[/h3]
We've added more Zombie Panic! options based on community feedback regarding the number of door & player gibs, and the ability to toggle Zombie Teammate glow and objective notification displays. We will also be adding an option to adjust the color of the classic ammo bank in an upcoming patch.



Be sure to double-check these options and others you feel could improve your gameplay in Game Options > Zombie Panic! Options > Misc.

[h3]Game Balance[/h3]
With the release of today's update, players will notice improvements to the Survivors' arsenal with respect to Shotgun spread, base damage, and damage drop off - to be more intuitive and more reliable. The Magnum has been nerfed with an increase in its damage drop off - requiring a Normal Zombie to be within about 680 hammer units distance to be killed with one headshot.

Movement speeds have received adjustments in order to better balance them. Survivor walking and panic speeds have been made slightly faster, and stamina regenerates slightly slower. There will also now be a delay before stamina begins to regenerate after pressing walk or crouch. Zombies Feed-O-Meter will regenerate faster now. Normal Zombies also got a slight boost to their base speed, to keep the Carrier from outrunning them too much.

Several official maps have also received significant balance changes. We'll continue making more tweaks based on your feedback!

[h3]Voice Proximity[/h3]
This feature has been requested by a few people in past years and already implemented into the game in v3.0 for Hardcore mode. Some people would prefer to hear voice communication based on your location rather than listening to the whole team everywhere. Therefore, we decided to build on the existing option and create a separate CVAR command for server owners to set voice proximity in their servers without enabling Hardcore mode.

Now let's dive into the full list of changes below!

[h2]Update Notes[/h2]
[h3]Angelscript[/h3]
Added new "CBreakableProp" class which is a child of "CBaseEntity".
Added "CBreakableProp.SetBreakable( bool state )" to set breakable state on props.
Added "Globals.SetCustomCarrierArmsPushForce( float flForce )", "Globals.SetCustomHandsPushForce( float flForce )" and "Globals.SetCustomZombieArmsPushForce( float flForce )" to set the Carrier arms, Survivors hands and Zombies arms push force respectively.
SIDENOTE: Enabling this will mark the server as "Custom" and disable achievements progression.
Re-added "admin unban " CVAR command.
Fixed console variables registers.

[h3]General[/h3]
Added CVAR "cl_zps_gibs_life_time" (range = [0;20]) that controls the time in seconds before door/player gibs fade out (default = 20). If set to 0, don't spawn player/doors gibs.
Fixed progress based achievements not working properly.
Fixed clients not downloading Workshop items whose IDs wouldn't fit a 32 bits integer.
Fixed map not being changed when round state is "Waiting For Players".
Players can no longer join the Zombie team when all lives are used (they will join as Spectator instead).
Fixed Carrier role cycling to other dead Zombies.
Fixed players being able to Zombie skip by reconnecting and late joining as Survivor.
Fixed snow ball and tennis ball dealing armor damage.
Fixed Zombie Vision highlighting fatigue on Zombies.
Fixed some sounds muting background music.
Potential fixes for score manager crash on Linux Dedicated Servers.
Potential fixes for flashlight/weapons highlight/Zombie Vision issues.
Various code optimizations.

[h3]Balance[/h3]
Increased Zombie Feed-O-Meter regeneration speed.
Increased Normal Zombie base movement speed slightly (162).
Reduced Stamina regeneration speed.
Increased Survivor walk speed slightly.
Added a delay to when stamina regeneration starts after walking or crouching.
Increased Panic cooldown to 55 seconds.
Increased Panic duration to 5 seconds.
Increased Panic movement speed slightly (206).
Changed consecutive idle (camping) sound delay from 15 to 20 sec.

[h3]Weapons[/h3]
All Shotguns now share the same base damage.
Drastically reduced the spread on all Shotguns.
Reduced all Shotguns damage drop off. (They now do damage at longer distances.)
Increased Magnum damage drop off. (One headshot kills on Normal Zombies now only possible within about 680 hammer units distance.)
Increased Shotgun and Magnum weight.
Changes to AK47, Keyboard, Winchester and empty hands view models (fixing sound and other clipping/visual bugs).
Fixed missing texture on Winchester's shells.

[h3]Maps[/h3]
Aquatica

• Added some fences outside to indicate where to go.
  
• Added better vent shortcuts beacons for Zombies.
  
• Increased "Antivirus receive" brush trigger.
  
• Increased random chance to activate easter egg.
  
• Fine tuned melee weapons around the map.
  
• Fixed dynamic Zombie respawn timer.
  
• Fixed the boat randomly disappearing.
  
• Fixed boat leaving without the Antivirus.
  
• Made roof outside event teleport better after explosion.
  
• Removed Survivors 'have to be on boat to win' check.
  
• Overall map optimization.
  

Harvest

• Added a Kevlar vest in the house.
  
• Added an extra rifle/shotgun ammo box in the house.
  
• Buffed the reward for doing objectives.
  
• Fixed bad clipping at the tunnel.
  
• Reduced the broadcast starting time by 30 seconds.
  

Frozenheart

• Added a new Zombie spawn in a store shop building.
  
• Fixed players being able to go to the roof area earlier.
  
• Fixed crate not spawning boards and barricade hammer.
  
• Updated Zombie spawn timers and locations.
  

Tanker

• Added Survivor clip in front of the boat to prevent players from not doing objectives.
  
• Fixed players being able to surf on the water without taking damage.
  
• Fixed a bed prop fading too close.
  
• Overall balance changes to ammo and weapon spawns.
  

Others

• Changed Zombie respawn delay dynamically on Subway.
  
• Updated ammo and weapon spawns on Blackout.
  
• Fixed a clipping spot on Town.
  

[h3]Point Score System[/h3]
Buffed suicide penalty.
Fixed inconsistencies between score/kills. (Scores being added to kills, and vice-versa.)
Fixed score and assists not being reset when client reset.
Fixed suicide not subtracting a kill.
Reduced Carrier reward for respawning Zombie using roar.
Reduced Survivor prop/melee and generic kills Zombie multipliers.
Reduced Zombie prop and generic kills Survivor multipliers.
Removed reward for using green inoculator on yourself.

[h3]UI[/h3]
The Scoreboard can now be viewed during the End Round Results screen.
Added CVAR "cl_zps_hud_draw_badge_reward_announcements" to show/hide the badge rewards (on by default)
Fixed "timeleft" showing negative values.
Fixed some broken English tips.
Potential fix for server browsers related crashes when the Steam API instance is down.

[h3]Misc[/h3]
Added more Contributors as BOT nicknames.
BOTs and SourceTV can no longer earn achievements.
Updated contributors list on Credits.


As usual, we'll continue to work on fixing the remaining game bugs, technical and visual, in the coming weeks. We're planning to release a small Christmas update to wrap up 2020 in good shape, and afterwards take a small break from development. Don't worry, we still will be accepting feedback and working at a slow pace during the holidays, and afterwards beginning to release monthly patches more consistently.


Happy gaming,
Zombie Panic! Team

We've shipped a minor update that fix a few issues with the v3.1.1 patch. Server owners are required to update their servers to receive the latest changes.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
Fixed a bug where a zombie player would lose his Carrier role randomly. Fixed clipping spots on the barn and at the tunnels on Harvest.
Fixed a console spam issue with MP3 encoding.
Potential fix for flashlight/Zombie Vision crash.
Reduced broom and baguette res textures.
Removed leftover game text on Harvest.
Removed unused textures.

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]
Players running on 2K or above resolutions are having problems seeing their ammo HUD. A workaround is to use the classic ammo bank HUD by going to: Options > ZP Options > Misc > More > Enable Classic Ammobank.
Very few players are experiencing invisible characters in-game for an unknown reason even after a full game nor Steam reinstall. We'll be watching this issue closer here.

We'll continue shipping more update patches in the upcoming weeks as quickly as possible. If you experience any game crashes, please send us your ZPS crash dump files, located in your \\Steam\\dumps folder, through our forums or DM. Meanwhile, check out the latest announcement here:
https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/17500/announcements/detail/5373316712715667598

This announcement only concerns Linux players and dedicated servers. Nothing changed for Windows. See the original announcement here.

Hello everyone,

We just released a hotfix for Linux clients and dedicated servers to fix starting issues about the newly added "-linux-extra-bins" command-line argument.

Players should already have the hotfix by now, if that is not the case, please restart your Steam client.

Server operators will have to update their dedicated server(s) through SteamCMD to grab the hotfix.

Apologies in advance for the inconvenience.

We've released the first patch to Zombie Panic! Source v3.1 that addresses major bugs, game balance issues and minor changes reported recently in both Discord and Steam forums. We also want to leave an important note to all server owners and Workshop map authors in this announcement.

[h2]Notice to Server Operators and Workshop Authors[/h2]
Along with fixes to Workshop mounting for Dedicated servers, we've updated our requirements for map authors and now request that they add and/or update their Workshop item with a text file called "addoninfo.txt" in the root folder of your map. If you already have this file in your Workshop item, be sure to update your text file with the following line: "type" "map". For example:

"AddonInfo"
{
	"title"					"My Map"
	"description"			"This is my first map for Zombie Panic! Source."
	"version"				"1.0"
	"author"				"John Doe"
	"authorSteamID64"		"76500000000000000"
	"type"				"map"
}

This is an important update for all authors who have previously uploaded a Workshop map. You can find more information about uploading custom content to the Workshop in our community guide.

Server owners who utilize the Workshop collection can manually edit and update this text file @ "\\zps_custom\\workshop\\content\\17500" as a temporary fix. A reminder that they have to mount the Workshop item as well in "zps\\addons\\addonlist.txt", here's an example for Anoxia (workshop ID = 974503415) and Area 41 (workshop ID = 1068697639):

"AddonList"
{
	"974503415"	"1"
	"1068697639"	"1"
}

With that out of the way, let's dive into the changelog of today's patch.


[h3]Angelscript[/h3]
Added "int Utils.GetNumGamePlayers( bool bAlive )". Returns the number of players in the Survivor and Zombie teams which is more efficient than doing "Utils.GetNumPlayers( survivor, false/true ) + Utils.GetNumPlayers( zombie, false/true )"
Fixed map chooser and rock the vote/nominate server plugins not working properly.
Fixed missing "new line" characters in several log messages.
Renamed the chat broadcaster, rock the vote and spray checker plugins files to lowercase for Linux
Updated system to read custom content from "zps/custom" rather than "zps_custom".

[h3]Balance[/h3]
Adjusted pistols, shotguns and revolver by reducing its spread very slightly.
Adjusted "running and gunning" spread meta.
Increased Crowbar attack speed slightly.
Increased Sledgehammer headshot damage slightly.
Increased Survivor stamina recharge rate slightly.
Increased Z-Berzerk attack speed very slightly.
Increased Zombie lunge speed very slightly.

[h3]Code[/h3]
Fixed AFK checker making Survivors play their panic voice line when being moved to the lobby.
Fixed AFK checker not dropping the melee weapon if the Survivor had it's panic mode set to "switch to melee weapon".
Fixed AFK checker not ignoring admins of the server.
Fixed AFK checker not really moving players to the lobby room.
Fixed Hardcore game mode not increasing and decreasing zombie lives properly.
Fixed "nextlevel" CVAR having a restriction preventing server plugins to work correctly.
Fixed missing game sounds on Linux dedicated due to Source SDK 2013 MP engine binaries mismatch.
Fixed a round bug not turning the player as the new Carrier when the previous one left.
Fixed a game crash involving breakables entities.
Fixed round not ending in random cases.
Reworked player pain sounds and visual damage effects.

[h3]General[/h3]
[GAMEBREAKING] Added missing exclamation mark for 'You are awesome' voice line.
Changed lookup path of custom content outside of the Steam Workshop from "zps_custom" to "zps/custom".
Changed the behavior of "sv_zps_vote_adminonly_votes". If enabled, only admins can use "callvote".
Disabled Vanessa's gibs and LOD models as an attempt to temporally fix a client crash for some people running on low game settings.
Upgraded game engine to the latest public version of Source SDK Base 2013 Multiplayer.
Fixed "custom_map" Steam Rich Presence being shown when playing on custom maps.
Fixed a rare case of players being unable to launch the game.
Removed VR strings leftovers within the code and game start up.
Removed many old unused characters textures from VPKs.

[h3]Generic[/h3]
Made the following methods in "CZP_Player" virtual so that they can be used in SourceMod; const char *GetModelString() --- Returns the name of the character this client is playing ("eugene", "marcus"...)
const char *GrabTeamSpawn() --- Returns the class name of the spawn entity that concerns this client's team ("info_player_human" if you are on the Survivor team)
bool IsAwayFromKeyboard() --- Returns true if AFK checker considers this client as being AFK this simulation frame
bool IsCarrier() --- Explicit
bool IsInfected() --- Explicit
bool IsInfectionKnown() --- Returns true if the client is infected and knows about it (HUD icon changed, heartbeat sound)
bool IsOnATeam() --- Returns true if the client is not in the unassigned/lobby teams
bool IsRoaring() --- Explicit
void SetCarrier( bool value ) --- Explicit
void SetInfectionResistance( int percentage, float time ) --- Set the infection resistance chance and time (aka green inoculator effect) for this client, "percentage" is a value between 0 and 100, "time" is in seconds
void SetInfection( bool infect, bool forced, int time ) --- Set the infection state for this client, "forced" is set to true when a Survivor is infected because "not enough Zombies due to ragequit/kick and so on". Leave it to "false" to simulate a "normal Carrier" infection. "time" is in seconds.

Speaking of SourceMod, thanks to community member Silence, the "gamedata offsets/signatures" have been updated to run on the latest v3.1 update, improving compatibility and stability with SourceMod itself and plugins. You can grab the latest stable build here.

[h3]Linux[/h3]
Replace Source SDK Base 2013 Multiplayer's "libtier0.so" and "libvstdlib.so" binaries by symbolic links to their server counterparts. Fixes the missing important game sounds (weapons, footsteps, voices...) not being played (GH-VALVE-SDK2013-PR-448).
Replace Source SDK Base 2013 Multiplayer's "steamclient.so" binary by a recent version from SteamCMD (fixes the dedicated server getting stuck in Workshop downloads)
Shipped a compiled version of OpenSSL compatible with ZPS in an attempt to fix the "could not library" error with some Linux distributions with and without the Steam Runtime. This is not enabled by default to prevent breaking working setups, To use this compiled version of OpenSSL, add the "-linux-extra-bins" parameter to the command-line launch options.
[Update 10/26] Fixed a starting issue about the newly added "-linux-extra-bins" command-line argument.

[h3]Maps[/h3]
Aquatica (Objective) - Increased ammo count on high player count and re-scaled supplies distribution.
Asylum (Survival) - Fixed props outside of the map and optimized displacements.
Blackout (Survival) - Fixed few texture issues and updated ammo spawns.
Cinema (Survival) - Fixed a glitch spot on Cinema 1 with a player clip.
Corpsington (Objective) - Increased ammo count on high player count.
Corpsington (Survival) - Fixed some player clipping issues.
Deadend (Survival) - Added player clip on the door and the roof between cemetery and church.
Harvest (Objective) - Increased barricade & doors HP and ammo spawns on higher playercount and fixed fuse clip through the wall.
Keretti (Objective) - Increased ammo count on high player count.
Murskville (Objective) - Fixed double doors making the players stuck in the check-in room.
Sapidcerebrum (Survival) - Fixed visible NODRAW face and breakable glass near human spawn.
Subway (Objective) - Re-scaled supplies distribution.
Zomboeing (Objective) - Fixed areaportals leaking through the door.

[h3]Server[/h3]
In order to fix the BZ2/FastDL problem in Dedicated Servers, third-party content had to be moved from zps_custom to zps/custom folder. Servers operators are required use this folder to install new custom content (maps/sounds/materials) outside of the Steam Workshop. For further information regarding this topic, please visit this thread in our forums for details.
If you changed the "zps/data/adminsystem.json" and/or "zps/default_plugins.json" files, make backups before updating your server, we had to change them to fix some issues listed here and SteamCMD might override them.
[h3]UI[/h3]
Added a warning text in "Options -> Video" to warn players to restart their game if they change anything.
Added a text and progress bar indicator whenever a teammate is healing you with an inoculator.
Changed font for game progress HUD (game/round starts in...)
Changed the name of the badge "Mission Commander" to "Commander".
Fixed ESCAPE not cancelling server connection.
Fixed missing HardCore timer on top screen.
Fixed server info dialog having text overlapping issues.
Servers browser will no longer subtract bots from players count.
Servers browser will now show bots on a separate column.

[h3]Weapons[/h3]
Fixed stackable items/weapons (like grenade) not adding/removing weight when many of them were picked up.
Updated grenade throwing animations timing.
Updated carry animation on the fuse and keys item delivery.
Updated inoculator viewmodel animations making it faster to use.
Updated Survivor's hands viewmodel animations and added a "deploy" sequence.
Changed how you cancel reloads and unloads bolt action firearms (Super Shorty and Remington 870). Before you had to hold PRIMARY or SECONDARY ATTACK, now a simple press is enough.

Players running on 2K, 4K or above resolutions are having problems seeing their ammo HUD. Unfortunately, VGUI doesn't really support higher resolutions due being very outdated. A workaround is to use the classic ammo bank HUD by going to: Options > ZP Options > Misc > More > Enable Classic Ammobank. Very few players are experiencing invisible characters in-game for an unknown reason even after a full game nor Steam reinstall. We'll be watching this issue closer here.

There are still more bugs to fix up and we'll continue shipping patches (hotfixes in case of emergency) in the upcoming weeks as quickly as possible.


Lastly, we want to thank everyone who have played the update and shared their feedback in the forums! We really appreciate all the kind words and support you've been giving to us. A lot have quite liked the newest Human & Zombie animations and models from the 'Characters Update' Workshop - all made by our talented community members Mage and Silent. You can check out the comparisons below:



You can find the full v3.1 update announcement here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/zps/announcements/detail/2885077187675548830
Happy Halloween! 🎃