Empires 2.37.0 Released!

We're happy to announce version 2.37.0 which is live on Steam right now.
Changelog below and also on our Website

Come join us on Discord!
Don't forget to check Discord events to see the date and time of when Games are played.
(It's not dead yet)

Did you know we are porting this mod to Unreal Engine 5?
You can follow its development on our Website and/or Discord

Changelog:
[h2]Features[/h2]

• Grenades and mines make sounds when they bounce against surfaces.
• Added armor impact sounds.
  • Distinct sounds play when a vehicle’s armor is damaged, a vehicle’s hull is damaged, and when a sticky grenade latches to a tank hull.
  • Different armors can have different sounds, though most armors currently do not.
• Enabled several unused NF taunts.
• Updated the commander view’s zoom functionality.
  • Added zoom-to-cursor functionality. The camera will zoom towards the cursor position when enabled. An option will be added to the advanced section of the multiplayer settings menu.
  • Camera smoothing has been updated, updated cvars added to control this.
    • emp_comm_zoom_stepsize - Controls how many units to increment/decrement the target zoom amount per scroll.
    • emp_comm_zoom_speed - Original cvar, original values should still work with updated smoothing method.
• Enabled the trigger_portal brush entity.
  • trigger_portal is an brush entity in the Source base code.
  • It moves touched entity to a destination trigger_portal, preserving the relative position and velocity of the entity.
  • Warning: This entity can cause teleported entities to become stuck or escape the map, and has not extensively tested. Use at your own risk!
• Added team-limiting spawnflags to all trigger bruah entities.

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• Fixed the game phase material proxy not updating correctly.
• Fixed MG turrets continuing to play the shooting sound effect after game end.
• Fixed spectator HUD not displaying observer target info correctly.
• Added warning message when the vehicle customization menu fails to open because your team has no chassis researched.
• Changes to team physics content masking.

[h2]Script/Game Balance[/h2][h3]Vehicle Weapons[/h3]

• Guided Missile
  • Increased Maximum Guiding Range from 5500 to 8000
• Homing Missile
  • Increased Maximum Lock On range from 7000 to 8000
• Biological Missile
  • Reduced Bio Duration from 8 to 5s

[h3]Vehicle Armors[/h3]

• Regenerative
  • Reduced Health Regeneration from 4 to 3

[h3]Vehicle Engines[/h3]

• Bio Diesel
  • Reduced Cooling by 0.25

[h2]Other changes[/h2]

• Sever operators can now disable the server inactivity timeout by setting emp_sv_inactivity_timeout to 0.
  • If non-zero, the timeout has a minimum of 120 seconds.
• Deprecate the emp_sv_forceteam convar.
  • This functionality has been replaced by the new AllowedTeams field in emp_info_params.
    • Setting AllowedTeams to 0 allows players to join either team. Setting it to 2 or 3 allows player to only join Northern Faction or Brenodi Empire respectively.
    • This function can still be accessed by setting the emp_sv_forceteam convar, but that variable is now deprecated and will not show up in autocomplete.
• Remove remnants of the PushMap setting in emp_params
• Minimap icons will now be revealed to both teams when the game is over.
• When the game ends, the game timer on the HUD will freeze, displaying the final time for that round.
• When creating workshop packages, you can now specify a preview image.
  • This can be done by adding the “Image” “FilePathRelativeToWorkshopItemFolder.jpg” KV pair to the package.txt`

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

• Armor impact sounds are often too quiet to be heard well.