Forts News

G'day Forts fans! As always we are constantly trying to improve the performance and experience of Forts. Today brings a mixed bag of improvements and fixes, as well as a couple of features added to the 'Alert to new lobbies' setting in the Lobby selection screen. We appreciate your continued support, bug reports and suggestions.

[h2]Changelist 2021-02-06[/h2]

Add: sound effect and highlight when a new lobby appears in lobby select screen with Alert to New Lobbies enabled
Add: a count of lobbies found to the Lobby Select screen's Online tab

Improve: remove steam IDs from ranked replays
Improve: prefix ranked replays with the season
Improve: (Armourdillo active) new sounds for AP Sniper and fixed its sounds cutting off when spammed
Improve: (Magnabeam) hit sound has more variation to help solve loud sfx during accelerator
Improve: add error message when a weapon's inverted type doesn't exist
Improve: add logging of monitor selection for debugging
Improve: eliminate weapon overheating when rapid fire is enabled
Improve: change email address to [email protected]
Improve: add player steam id to crash and desync filenames
Improve: 'alert to new lobbies' set in Lobby Select screen is triggered for ranked lobbies
Improve: only show cursors in replays when position commands are being received
Improve: (Wedge) updated to have proper AI
Improve: remove featured replays that no longer exist on ftp on game startup
Improve: Raknet socket failure is not fatal to Steam multiplayer
Improve: hide "Player Name" text in reporting dialog for ranked matches
Improve: various map fixes

Fix: (Magnabeam) field projectile isn't recreated when the beam returns from off-screen
Fix: (Magnabeam) impact effect appears on portals
Fix: (German) translation of 'Capture'
Fix: (Chinese) various translations
Fix: ranked score logging accidentally enabled and spamming log
Fix: replays with missing local maps are considered invalid (old or corrupt). They can't be loaded and will get cleaned up if players click "delete invalid replays".
Fix: crash when a file prefixed with 'language-' exists in the mod folder
Fix: (Firebird active) flaming trail sounds missing
Fix: (Armourdillo active) AP minigun passes through many shields
Fix: (Buster active) flaming and flaming damaged DU warheads don't have DU projectile
Fix: when projectiles hit a shield, penetrate effects are not executed according to momentum; it's always impact
Fix: PhysicsManager::ExecuteProjectileAction doesn't apply speed loss to surviving projectiles
Fix: when the player doesn't have the resources to build a ground device, the error effect is at the origin
Fix: (Blastdoor) missing audio
Fix: invalid versioned featured replays appear in the featured replays list
Fix: game crashes if item download completes after being kicked from a lobby
Fix: terrain edges are drawn twice due to display list generation in both background and foreground
Fix: terrain filling and edge display lists assume current blend function and colour
Fix: (BreakStructure) when PlaceNode fails the link is not correctly destroyed
Fix: (replay desync) keyframes can be made in the middle of messages received for the current frame
Fix: (replay desync) temporarily braced node positions are not consistently updated after a keyframe is restored
Fix: disconnected player reporting issues

Remove: (ranked) Capture as an option due to lack of popularity

[h2]Changelist 2021-02-07[/h2]

Fix: Cannons, howitzers, etc. will cause no damage to shields
- projectiles without correctly specified penetration momentum will now use an impact effect
Fix: terrain edge corruption due to random series overshoot in some situations (reverted fix)
Fix: crash in HandleCollisions when node is out of range

[h2]Changelist 2021-02-07b[/h2]

Fix: (projectile desync) PNode::mProjectileAgeTrigger is uninitialised
Fix: terrain edges are drawn twice (fixed original fix)
Fix: steam ID in desync report folder name cause separation of host and client folders
Fix: flaming EMPs pass through enemy portals

G’day, Forts fans!

The Forts ranked multiplayer Season 9 has just wrapped up and the competition has never been fiercer. Against a field of over 9000 participants trygon_123 claims their first top 20 finish in style taking third place and breaking the DFC's lock on the podium. But the DFC is still the force to be reckoned with as [DFC] Matteo surges into second after finishing seventeenth in Season 8. And in first place, the new Forts ranked multiplayer 1v1 champion is [DFC] EtaN! Congratulations!

[DFC] EtaN wasted no time climbing to the top. After finishing third in Season 8 as a newcomer he is now crowned Champion in only his second season. He will be recognised with the awarding of the season 9 gold medal, with the second and third placed players receiving silver and bronze medals respectively. As usual, all players who finished in the top 20 will receive a medal to reflect that. Well done to all the following participants...

1. [DFC] EtaN
   
2. [DFC] Matteo
   
3. trygon_123
   
4. [DFC] Geiger
   
5. [DFC] Bowser
   
6. [DFC] Kaspov7
   
7. ✠Spealder✠
   
8. [DFC] Firework
   
9. KnuffigesPuffi
   
10. Xeilang
    
11. [DFC] felixwoelmuis
    
12. [DFC] Pan W
    
13. Marvin
    
14. [KFC]岩贼龙（zjz）
    
15. [DFC] LandPlanters
    
16. MandalorianJedi
    
17. [DFC] Tux
    
18. Teutonick
    
19. [DFC] ShinyMoney
    
20. [DFC] Taichu
    

Season 10 has already kicked off, and ends Wednesday March 31st. How well will you do this season?

If you haven't already, join our the Forts Official Discord server for discussions on weapons, strategies and modding with our friendly and helpful community!

Cheers,
EWG

Happy new year, Forts fans!

Players on the Official Forts Discord Server will know Romerolagus as one of the most helfpful, thoughtful and skilled members of the community. That’s why we are so pleased to start 2021 by announcing that he has agreed to join the EarthWork Games team as our new Community Manager.

As well as helping organise Forts tournaments, Romerolagus will now be your point of contact for help with Forts strategies and tactics, troubleshooting, as well as addressing any concerns regarding player conduct. We hope you will join us in congratulating him in his new role and work with him in continuing to make the Forts community as welcoming and constructive a place as it can be.

Welcome to the team, Romerolagus!

Cheers,
EWG

Seasons greetings, Forts fans!

Finally, 2020 is at an end, and to celebrate we are bringing you some festive cheers and a small update. We have brought back the holiday features with reskinned front end, holiday jingle and baubles, plus some tweaks and fixes.

[h2]2020 Retrospective[/h2]

We hope you have been enjoying escaping the real world by jumping into the Forts world, with the may additions we have brought to the game over the last year. Let's have a look back at some of the highlights.

[h3]Commander Update[/h3]

A few months back we released a huge free update for the commanders of Forts. This included huge rebalancing and a swathe of additional powers and abilities. As a result, we've seen the competitiveness of the fifteen commanders spread more evenly, with players moving away from the characters seen as traditionally strong, to see what the updated commanders have to offer. Click here to find out more!

[h3]Pro-HUD[/h3]

While the vanilla game and the Moonshot DLC had their own unique HUDs, we wanted to experiment with our first mini-DLC. This re-skin adds a new lick of paint to the main console, reactor readouts, commander gauge and replay panel, as well as adding unique versions of these for the Moonshot HUD. This was perfect for players who wanted to refresh their Forts experience with a slick visual overhaul, while also supporting us as developers, for which they also received an in-game medal. Click here to find out more!

[h3]Steam Trading Cards[/h3]

It only took three years, but Forts trading cards finally arrived on Steam, and boy did players enjoy them. Featuring a host of commanders, they were being traded immediately. Along with those, come emoticons, and steam backgrounds, my personal favourite. Click here to find out more!

[h2]Changelist 2020-12-22a[/h2]

Add: console Enter, Backspace, Paste and Quit (for cmdlist command) rebind-able keys
- found at end of input/all keys
Add: log time to load environment resources for dropout debugging
Add: CPU info logging for performance debugging

Improve: when auto recessing, don't consider devices being scrapped
Improve: Updated to latest fmod 2.01.06
Improve: use translated ReplayCorrupt string
Improve: some Chinese translations, mostly commander descriptions
Improve: rename English 'Toggle mute chat' to 'Mute chat'

Fix: crash when viewing replays of games with a timer
Fix: (Eagle Eye) laser sight tip can show twice in quick succession
Fix: (Warthog) Howitzer doesn't receive 2 second reload reduction
Fix: (Warthog) second chance icons aren't removed cleanly when weapons are deleted or disconnected
Fix: mute chat button sometimes fails due to double clicking
Fix: pressing keys while binding in input screen jumps within the list
Fix: the console will process some keys while the IME is open
Fix: players who re-join after elimination can't see the commander panel
Fix: 'Host 5 moonshot lobbies' awarded to non-owners through ranked hosting
Fix: (Pyromaniac) AI sometimes doesn't build delete the EMP, therefore not building the cannon
- Add DD_* result codes to DeleteDevice* script functions
Fix: logging of AI DESTROY_DEVICE actions incorrect for ground devices
Fix: AI instantly gives up trying to build a ground device if it's obstructed by an existing one
Fix: a period in the installation path will prevent some textures from loading, or cause a crash
Fix: timeouts when loading dlc environments due to decompression of dlc packs on slow computers
Fix: slow loading of environment packs can cause some players to drop out
Fix: smoke doesn't block machinegun AA in Moonshot campaign
Fix: Pack does not allocate enough memory in mTempFile to load the largest pack file
Fix: host chat is not logged to own replay
Fix: crash when double clicking maps, replays and training maps with missing required maps/mods
Fix: EnableDeviceUpgrade and EnableWeaponUpgrade doesn't handle * wildcard properly
Fix: multiple upgrade icons issue when first upgrade device is disabled
Fix: workshop screen doesn't cycle through map previews, shows cycle button for mods
Fix: uniform weapon spread is inconsistent
Fix: clicking on a checkbox fails to correctly check and uncheck many settings
Fix: (Drop the Bomb) buildable ground above bombs has non-buildable surface

[h2]Changelist hotfix 2020-12-29a[/h2]

Improve: additional lobbies can be shown in the lobby select screen (from 50 up to a theoretical 150)
Improve: reduce automatic lobby refresh from 5 to 10s to reduce chance of mis-click

Fix: open lobbies are displaced by closed lobbies when there are more than 50
Fix: in TDM players can see reactor health of team mates
Fix: (Pyromaniac) Cannon sometimes fails to build
Fix: (Rhino vs Tiger) Error: loading unknown effect mods/dlc1/effects/forcefield.lua at run-time; it must be pre-loaded

[h2]Changelist hotfix 2020-12-29a2[/h2]

Improve: log last memory file separately to last store file for better crash debugging

Optimise: file select screens (replays, maps, mods) don't progressively update their dynamic layout, reducing load time significantly
Optimise: don't look for cladding triangles to remove when the destroyed node is a projectile or an orphan

Fix: the menu hangs for several seconds when updating the lobby select screen at busy times due to progressive dynamic layout updates
Fix: crash in DestroyDeviceById when device not found
Fix: (Tutorials) speech bubbles are stretched every time the mission is restarted
Fix: (Ranked) on timeout and disconnect while loading, crashes on filename construction in OnStartNewReplay
Fix: cladding triangles could remain after the associated node is deleted

[h2]Changelist hotfix 2021-01-08[/h2]

Add: report button to player disconnection messages so they can still be reported after they leave a lobby
Add: minimum and maximum running average frame rate statistics (only at 1x speed)

Improve: video recording in replay while paused will resume, then pause at end
Improve: ignore effect spawned with invalid directions, and log add error message
Improve: support for Wine on Macs

Optimise: remove event functions for AI when operating in human assist mode

Fix: (ranked) deliberate disconnection can result in a win when Steam caches the change
Fix: (ranked) players can easily win by minigun rush then disconnecting
Fix: crash when upgrading device and platform is not found
Fix: crash on ranked scoring when local player times out
Fix: crash when selecting missiles of background team in Sandbox and Map Editor
Fix: crash when attempting to group a device that was destroyed in the same frame
Fix: crash when damage is applied to background structures
Fix: "Select" button does nothing in replay/file select after downloading required workshop items
Fix: crash when subscribing to items with % characters in some circumstances
Fix: output special characters correctly in player names and chat lines when sending reports
Fix: mods which don't set the fire speed and max fire radius create invalid positions when fired
Fix: crash when triggering context menu on a device that was destroyed in the same frame
Fix: attempts to record video at the end of replays sometimes succeed
Fix: crash in DeleteNode when deleting orphans
Fix: error message in BreakStructure when one of the nodes is deleted in the process
Fix: team Commander selection not updated when a player disconnects
Fix: (EnumerateLinks) PhysicsManager::VisitLinksFrom leaves struts in a marked state, causing destruction in unrelated code
Fix: if weapon min fire speed is zero it can create invalid speeds & positions
Fix: weapon max fire speed can be less than min fire speed
Fix: modded device capacity can be unreasonably large, causing overflow of UI elements (limited to 100k)
Fix: MinWindEfficiency not clamped to [0,1]
Fix: MaxFireClamp not clamped to [0,1]

Happy Holidays from all of us at EarthWork Games, and we'll see you in 2021 with more vaccines for your boredom!

Cheers,
EWG

G’day, Forts fans!

The Forts ranked multiplayer Season 8 has just wrapped up, and it's looking to be dominated by the DFC clan. In third place, we have [DFC] EtaN. Second goes to [DFC] Geiger. In first place, and the new Forts ranked multiplayer 1v1 champion is [DFC] M4r0x! Congratulations!

[DFC] M4r0x, who is a long time Forts player and supporter, will be recognised with the awarding of the season 8 gold medal, with the second and third placed players receiving silver and bronze medals respectively. As usual, all players who finished in the top 20 will receive a medal to reflect that. Well done to all the following participants...

1. [DFC] M4r0x
   
2. [DFC] Geiger
   
3. [DFC] EtaN
   
4. [DFC] Firework
   
5. [DFC] Bowser
   
6. [CSC] Trekjeft
   
7. 寒karry
   
8. [DFC] LandPlanters
   
9. [DFC] CronkhinatorYT
   
10. [DFC] felixwoelmuis
    
11. [DFC] Bobereto
    
12. extlxu
    
13. [DFC] ShinyMoney
    
14. Overlord
    
15. [DFC] Rothes
    
16. MandalorianJedi
    
17. [DFC] Matteo
    
18. Not 4 Hire
    
19. FYFT-编号203
    
20. Kira
    

Season 9 has already kicked off, and ends Sunday January 31th. How well will you do this season?

If you haven't already, join our the Forts Official Discord server for discussions on weapons, strategies and modding with our friendly and helpful community!

Cheers,
EWG