Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop News

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.
  

Today's update contains changes to computer interaction, a new advanced volume settings menu, new graphics for gas grenades, a new translation and many translation updates, some polish to the user interface, and of course, bug fixes.

• Tears for Tarnor: Abandoned Maintenance Tunnels: Added a constraint group to the crane platform to avoid strange physics interactions.
  

• Added an experimental system where aliens can be controlled by players. There is currently no gameplay or UI associated with this system. Aliens can be inhabited using the asw_inhabit_npc concommand and spectated using the asw_spectate_npc concommand. Both of these concommands are cheats. In this initial version, rangers and harvesters have the ability to attack in this mode.
  

• TG-05 Gas Grenades: The visuals for this weapon have been updated.
  • The gas cloud and grenade trail are now yellow rather than green.
    
  • The gas cloud now visually fills the entire area of effect.
    
  • The gas cloud is now culled based on a visibility proxy rather than by map geometry. (The same way that glows from light sources are culled.)
    
  • There is now a red circle on the floor where the gas grenade is dealing damage.
    
  • Fixed the HUD damage indicator not appearing for damage caused by gas grenades.
    

• Added Brazilian Portuguese translation.
  
• Updated Chinese translation.
  
• Updated German translation.
  
• Updated Italian translation.
  
• Updated Japanese translation.
  
• Updated Russian translation.
  
• Added missing letter textures for Chinese, German, and Brazilian Portuguese mission success screens.
  
• Compiled caption files are no longer used by the game.
  

• Fixed a server crash during instant restart (ED_Alloc) when precaching entities pushed the edict number over the limit.
  
• Reorganized the alien class hierarchy in the code to facilitate the addition of future features.
  
• Moved the USE prompt to the side when hacking or using a computer.
  
• Computer hacks no longer start automatically after 4 seconds.
  
• Walking away from a computer after interacting with it no longer logs out of the computer. (The computer still returns to the main menu.)
  
• Added convars (rd_mixer_*) that affect the volume of various types of audio.
  
• Added "Advanced Volume Settings" to the audio menu.
  
• Mission chooser titles can now wrap to the next line.
  
• Made a bit of shaky text in net_graph less shaky.
  
• Increased the default FPS limit by 1 to avoid rounding errors (on a 60Hz monitor, the limit will now start at 61, etc.)
  
• Fixed dedicated servers having fps_max set by default.
  
• showbudget can now be used in multiplayer.
  
• Added a label to the "change view" button on the in-game HoIAF leaderboard to show what the current view is. Fixed the "no entries" error message getting stuck when changing between views.
  
• The SourceTV bot no longer shows up as a player in lobbies, can no longer become the lobby leader, and no longer counts towards the 60% requirement for a kick or leader vote.
  
• Closed captions in VCD cutscenes are now forced to be at least as long as the associated audio (rd_scene_extend_caption_to_sound).
  
• Fixed debriefing charts showing the first occurance of a stat (such as friendly fire) as if it had happened immediately at the start of the mission.
  
• Added convar rd_kick_inactive_players, which is the maximum number of seconds a player can remain connected to a server without taking any actions.
  
• Fixed flyout menus in advanced settings staying open when switching to the next section.
  

• Added a developer warning at mission start if any spawners are inside terrain.
  
• Camera rotation is now enabled rather than disabled by default. Mappers who want to disable camera rotation for players who haven't set a preference need to update their asw_gamerules entity.
  

• VScript save files no longer end with a NUL byte. Fixed VScript save files without a terminating NUL byte loading part of the previously loaded file.
  
• Fixed a client crash when calling Destroy on a player. (You still shouldn't do that.)
  

• Fixed cases where TileGen would fail to save files.
  

Today's update is a maintenance build. It is mostly bug fixes, with a few new toys for mappers to play with.


In case you missed it, Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop is now Steam Deck Verified! As always, report anything that doesn't feel right on the Steam discussion forums or via the feedback form on the website.

• Jacob's Rest: Sewer Junction B5: Fixed some places where the skybox could be seen through the floor or walls near the start of the level.
  
• Jacob's Rest: Sewer Junction B5: Removed skybox fog that was causing bright reflections in water.
  
• Nam Humanum: Groundwork Labs: Fixed some console warnings at map start.
  

• Aliens with "flammable" set to false by mappers can no longer be ignited by any means.
  

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

• The "Freezing Bullets" power-up effect now freezes aliens for 3 seconds rather than 100.
  
• The game instructor will no longer suggest using a mining laser on boulders that have a damage filter defined.
  
• Fixed a console warning when a player with no medal equipped takes over the lobby position of a player with a medal equipped before that player's medal finishes loading.
  
• Fixed a regression where scanner blips would not display motion.
  
• Added convar asw_draw_blips_real_time, which can be disabled to make scanner blips immobile.
  
• Fixed the "order marine to hold position" command always acting as if the camera was pointing north.
  
• Fixed map drawing speed being affected by slow motion.
  
• Added some diagnostics for the NO STEAM error screen.
  
• The new convar rd_skip_all_dialogue disables all voiceover audio and captions from characters like Williams, Richard, and Duval.
  
• Added convar rd_loading_status_text_visible, which can be disabled to remove the loading screen progress description.
  
• Added convar rd_fail_advice, which can be disabled to remove the hints on the mission failure screen.
  
• Removed lobbies that are on dedicated servers from the lobby browser by default.
  
• Fixed handling of UTF-8 files with byte order marks for files that get loaded from every addon.
  
• Fixed a client-server desync when an instant restart occurred during slow motion.
  
• Instant restart can now occur on challenges that use scripts.
  

• npc_bullseye can now be part of a faction and scale damage based on whether it came from that faction. Clarified what the Enemy Damage Only spawnflag means.
  
• Added asw_voiceover_dialogue, a much simpler way to add voiceover audio to a mission than using Faceposer. Unlike logic_choreographed_scene, it cannot play multiple audio files, control NPC actors, or be interrupted.
  
• Endless missions without the "points" tag now sort leaderboard entries in descending order of time.
  
• Dropped weapons can now be detected by trigger brushes.
  
• Added two orange skyboxes, one from Left 4 Dead and one from Half-Life 2: Episode One, for use in maps where a blue skybox doesn't make sense.
  
• trigger_serverragdoll now works on marines.
  

• Fixed a bug where a challenge would inherit game event handlers from the map if it did not define its own function for any given event.
  
• Added a global IsAnniversaryWeek function for community maps that want to do something to celebrate Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop's anniversary.
  
• Added OnGameEvent_fast_reload_fail.