Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop News

Hot off the tail of last week's update, here are some fixes for bugs reported by the community.

• IAF Medical Gun: Fixed collision being oriented differently than the visible model.
  
• CR18 Freeze Grenades: Fixed collision being oriented differently than the visible model.
  
• Flashlight Attachment: Fixed a long-standing issue with this equipment's center of gravity.
  
• FG01 Hand Grenades: Fixed collision being oriented differently than the visible model.
  
• IAF Medical Amplifier Gun: Fixed collision being oriented differently than the visible model.
  
• TG-05 Gas Grenades: Fixed collision being oriented differently than the visible model.
  

• Fixed doors sometimes surviving a single large hit that dealt more than their max health.
  
• Fixed a rare ragdoll-related crash.
  
• Fixed a crash when killing aliens without a Steam client connection on a map loaded via console commands.
  
• Fixed a crash when leaving the mission settings screen with a dropdown menu open.
  
• Fixed a duplicate in-game voting menu being visible during briefing if a briefing camera is in use.
  
• Added convar asw_blip_color_parasite_egg for setting the color of unhatched parasites on the minimap.
  
• Fixed being unable to join lobbies for certain missions through the game UI.
  
• Fixed the list of disabled workshop addons not being loaded at startup.
  
• Fixed wanderers and hordes spawning behind vault doors.
  
• Added a workaround for the engine sometimes forgetting which players are voice-muted.
  

• env_sprite_clientside now changes to server-side env_sprite if it has a targetname or parentname defined. A warning is printed to the console if this happens.
  

Today's update fixes some inconsistencies in various weapons and campaigns. It also adds the ability to assign screen effects to individual marines, and a new trigger to apply different HDR settings to different areas of a map.

• Jacob's Rest: Timor Station: Fixed NPC pathfinding near the end of the mission.
  
• Research 7: Jericho Mines: Fixed objective markers failing to update with objective completion.
  
• Research 7: Jericho Mines: Fixed lag caused by physics calculations for falling pipes.
  
• Tears for Tarnor: Abandoned Maintenance Tunnels: Fixed walls having unexpectedly tall collision, negatively affecting grenades.
  
• Tilarus-5: Yanaurus Mine: Fixed walls being invisible with a rotated camera.
  
• Tilarus-5: Forgotten Factory: Fixed walls being invisible with a rotated camera.
  
• Lana's Escape: Lana's Bridge: Made performance optimizations to lighting and cinematic alien spawns.
  
• Nam Humanum: Platform XVII: Removed a tech marine requirement after the last hack is completed.
  
• Nam Humanum: Groundwork Labs: Fixed the countdown objective ending early.
  
• Nam Humanum: Groundwork Labs: Fixed lighting being unexpectedly bright.
  
• Nam Humanum: Groundwork Labs: Improved marine bot navigation.
  
• BioGen Corporation: Operation x5: Fixed death traps not being deadly enough.
  
• BioGen Corporation: Operation x5: Fixed aliens being able to spawn inside the ending elevator, causing it to get stuck.
  
• BioGen Corporation: BioGen Labs: Removed invisible ceiling collision.
  

• IAF Minigun: Fixed reloading with an odd ammo count resulting in 499/500 ammo.
  
• Flashlight Attachment: This weapon now reflects light like other weapons do.
  
• Grenade Launcher: Fixed a bug causing grenades to explode twice if they hit an alien directly. Instead, grenades now do double damage if they hit a character (marine or alien). This fixes splash damage from a direct hit bypassing one-hit protection and slightly increases grenade launcher damage (the first explosion would previously push enemies slightly away from the grenade before the second explosion).
  
• Desert Eagle: This gun has been renamed to PS50 Bulldog and has a new appearance and sounds.
  
• IAF Medical Amplifier Gun: Updated skin to differentiate it from the normal medical gun.
  
• TG-05 Gas Grenades: Updated the grenade box to match the style of other grenade items.
  

• Made grubs reflect light like other aliens do.
  
• Harvesters no longer spawn xenomites when they are killed by a direct grenade hit that deals more than double their remaining health.
  

• Updated Chinese translation.
  
• Updated European Portuguese translation.
  
• Updated German translation.
  
• Updated Italian translation.
  
• Updated Japanese translation.
  
• Updated Korean translation.
  
• Updated Russian translation.
  
• Fixed translations being silently truncated after 1023 bytes. Translations can now be up to 4095 bytes and a warning will be printed to the console if they are longer.
  

• Changed how animated props are networked. Reverted the change in the last update that makes the server drive animations. Instead, specific props are always visible to the client regardless of distance. Joining a game after an animation has started will play animations late, but this should fix the stuttering.
  
• Improved controller navigation in advanced settings.
  
• Added some example color correction files.
  
• Explosions now deal full damage within a small radius of their epicenter, and damage falloff only starts beyond that distance.
  
• Tech marines can now manually override the boot-up sequence of an unlocked computer that has downloadable data, and will automatically start the hack on a locked computer after 4 seconds.
  

• Added trigger_tonemap brush entity. This trigger overrides the active tonemap controller for characters inside its volume, and is overridden by the new SetTonemapController VScript function.
  
• Changed fog_volume to be based on the position of the currently-controlled character's eyes rather than the camera position. Some maps may need to be edited to shift their fog_volume entities north if they were originally made to compensate for the camera shift. fog_volume can now be overridden by the new SetFogController, SetPostProcessController, and SetColorCorrection VScript functions.
  
• Added an option to asw_spawner to ignore carnage scaling, for spawners where the number of aliens being increased due to higher difficulty is undesirable (eg. spawners used for cinematics).
  
• Additional colonist models are now available for use as ragdolls.
  

• CASW_Marine::GetMarineName() no longer leaks memory on every call and now properly translates the name.
  
• Added GetCommander method to inhabitable NPCs (eg. marines).
  
• Added SetFogController method to inhabitable NPCs.
  
• Added SetPostProcessController method to inhabitable NPCs.
  
• Added SetColorCorrection method to inhabitable NPCs.
  
• Added SetTonemapController method to inhabitable NPCs.
  

As Season 2 of Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces comes to an end, we are changing the competition from quarterly to monthly. We've also got a wide assortment of bugfixes and a few new VScript functions.

• Jacob's Rest: Rydberg Reactor: Fixed a bug in the ending area where marines could jump with jump jets underground to their death.
  
• Area 9800: Power Plant's Generator: Fixed narrow catwalks negatively affecting AI pathing.
  
• Operation Cleansweep: Landing Bay 7: Removed an invisible ceiling near the south egg room to prevent unintuitive grenade trajectories.
  
• Operation Cleansweep: U.S.C. Medusa: Pods will now reopen if a marine leaves, rather than if they are fully empty.
  
• Research 7: Illyn Forest: Fixed generator being targetable by marine bots.
  
• Tears for Tarnor: Oasis Colony Spaceport: Fixed a soft lock if a boomer used in a cinematic is killed early due to a challenge.
  
• Tilarus-5: SynTek Hospital: Reworked countdown at end of mission.
  
• Lana's Escape: Lana's Bridge: Fixed escape objective not updating when a marine dies.
  
• Lana's Escape: Lana's Sewer: Fixed escape objective not updating when a marine dies.
  
• Lana's Escape: Lana's Complex: Expanded the evacuation zone.
  
• Paranoia: Crucial Point: Reworked the final encounter. Marines must now defend a generator. If the generator is damaged, it will stop the completion progress until fixed by a tech. If no marine is near the generator, it will take additional damage.
  
• Nam Humanum: Logistics Area: Reworked geometry near a fire.
  
• Nam Humanum: Groundwork Labs: Fixed a large door being able to be damaged, which would cause it to get stuck.
  
• BioGen Corporation: Invisible Threat: Added markers and a visual clue for the fan room to make it easier to navigate for players who do not know the way.
  
• Bonus Mission 7: Fixed narrow catwalks negatively affecting AI pathing.
  

• Added Queen sound effects from the City 17 campaign.
  

• Fixed piercing chance calculation for bullets that went through a door or other non-living object. (A 200% chance, 290% chance, and 300% chance now all become 100% chance of piercing another target rather than 0%, 90%, and 0%.)
  
• M868 Flamer Unit: Doubled ammo per clip and ammo usage. Primary attack now uses one unit of fuel per shot.
  
• IAF Minigun: Doubled ammo per clip and ammo usage. Primary attack now uses one unit of ammo per shot.
  

• Updated Chinese translation.
  
• Updated German translation.
  
• Updated Italian translation.
  
• Updated Japanese translation.
  
• Updated Russian translation.
  

• Fixed non-Workshop addons acting as if they were disabled in the mission chooser.
  
• Fixed a crash at startup if the PATH environment variable was very long.
  
• Added an advanced setting to reduce motion on menus.
  
• Improved keyboard/controller navigation on Advanced Settings and Game Settings.
  
• Added a warning on the lobby list if you have a different version of a map than the host.
  
• prop_dynamic now uses server-driven animation timing. This fixes vault door opening animations getting desynchronized, but increases network bandwidth requirements in missions that use a lot of animated props.
  

• Fixed npc_bullseye failing to compile due to a key being too long.
  
• npc_bullseye now inherits AI relationships from its faction and is not an enemy of all by default.
  
• ai_relationship now delays applying its effect to gameplay start rather than map spawn.
  

• Added new VScript class TempEnts which allows creating Temporary Entities on clients.
  
• Added new global VScript functions to use when creating Temporary Entities.
  
• Added the PlayerVoiceListener class to VScript with access to the following functions.
  
• Added new VScript functions for CASW_Player.
  

[h2]TempEnts[/h2]

void Create( CBasePlayer player, string name, float delay, table )

Queue a temp entity for transmission on a client from a passed table of SendProp data.
Passing null for a player will playback Temp Entity on all clients.

void GetPropTypes( string name, table )

Fills in a passed table with all SendProps and their types for the temp entity

void GetNames( table )

Fills in a passed table with the names of all temp entities

[h2]PlayerVoiceListener[/h2]

bool IsPlayerSpeaking( int nPlayerIndex )

Returns whether the player specified is speaking.

float GetPlayerSpeechDuration( int nPlayerIndex )

Returns the number of seconds the player has been continuously speaking.

[h2]Global[/h2]

int PrecacheParticleSystem( string name )

Precaches a particle material

int GetParticleSystemIndex( string name )

Converts a previously precached material into an index

string GetParticleSystemNameFromIndex( int index )

Converts a previously precached material index into a string

void PrecacheEffect( string name )

Precaches an effect

int GetEffectIndex( const char *name )

Converts a previously precached effect into an index

string GetEffectNameFromIndex( int index )

Converts a previously precached effect index into a string

int GetDecalIndexForName( string name )

Get decal index from a string

[h2]CASW_Player[/h2]

CBaseEntity GetNPC()

Returns entity the player is inhabiting

CBaseEntity GetSpectatingNPC()

Returns entity the player is spectating

CBaseEntity GetViewNPC()

Returns entity the player is spectating, else will return inhabiting entity

CASW_Marine GetMarine()

Returns the marine the player is commanding

CBaseEntity FindPickerEntity()

Finds the nearest entity in front of the player

Vector GetCrosshairTracePos()

Returns the world location directly beneath the player's crosshair

As we continue preparing for the 6th anniversary update in 2023, there are some UI improvements and bugfixes we would like to release sooner. Notably, we've made font rendering more consistent for non-Latin character sets and added support for workshop addons that change or add BIK files.

• Area 9800: Wastelands: Fixed a soft lock that could be caused by director aliens spawning inside of a grate.
  

• Added statistics tracking for number of biomass ignited.
  
• Fixed aliens that were already on fire counting towards the "aliens burned" statistic.
  

• Updated Chinese translation.
  
• Updated German translation.
  
• Updated Italian translation.
  
• Updated Japanese translation.
  
• Updated Russian translation.
  
• Fixed missing letters on the mission complete screen for Chinese.
  
• The game now uses Noto Sans SC as its default fallback font instead of an arbitrary system font.

• Fixed a long-standing issue where doors that were destroyed before they became dented would not position themselves properly when falling.
  
• Updated the appearance of the tabs in the mission chooser and collections screens.
  
• Turn speed related convars are now marked as cheats.
  
• Removed per-map soundcache manifests to save disk space.
  
• asw_max_saves can no longer be set below 2, which can cause crashes or lock-ups.
  
• Added rd_dump_workshop_conflicts_client concommand.
  
• Added information about addon file name conflicts to the Addons screen.
  
• Added convar rd_reduce_motion, which disables some UI animations.
  
• Added some diagnostic data to Steam lobbies.
  

• Added a new entity, rd_briefing_camera, to show part of the level as the background for briefing. Mappers should try to keep large motions to a minimum (eg. avoid parenting rd_briefing_camera or having it point at a rotating projected texture) as this version of the briefing background cannot be affected by rd_reduce_motion.
  
• Added a field to asw_gamerules for setting the briefing background movie filename. If empty, the game will choose randomly from the four default movies. This random choice is now synchronized between clients.
  
• The game will automatically extract BIK files from VPK addons if needed.
  

• Fixed FileToString returning one byte from a previously read file.
  
• CBaseEntity SpawnEntityFromTable( string name, table ) // Spawn entity from KeyValues in table - 'name' is entity name, rest are KeyValues for spawn.
  
• int PrecacheModel( string modelName ) // Precache a model after the map has loaded and return index of the model
  
• int GetModelIndex( string modelName ) // Returns index of model by name
  

This update contains some bugfixes for the July 31st release.

• Updated Brazilian Portuguese translation.
  
• Updated German translation.
  
• Updated Italian translation.
  
• Updated Japanese translation.
  
• Updated Russian translation.
  
• Fixed an issue where the wrong translation could be partially loaded at startup.
  

• Fixed a crash when opening the voting menu while not in a lobby.
  
• Fixed SourceTV participating in ready checks.
  
• Fixed idle timeout warnings displaying incorrectly.
  
• Players that cannot be vote-kicked are no longer kicked by timeout.