From now until 9am PST on Monday, level your heroes twice as fast or get those Commendations twice as often. It's never been a better time to jump in-game!

Not forgetting the Sonnstill celebration! Until Thursday the 12th - enjoy the fresh, new, summer ambiance of Taal's Horn Keep. For a week, you can forget about the Ruinous Powers closing in, while you complete three new Event Quests. One of which gives you a neat summer Portrait Frame.

• Long press and doubleclick functionality of the sidebar can now also be used with the mouse and keyboard commands, for example selecting ILS* mode by longpressing the Insert key, or longpressing both left and right mouse buttons at the same time.
  
• Doubleclicking SID now automatically selects the highest altitude (handy for New York), and planes can be cleared for the localizer only (LLZ mode) by doubleclicking ILS (could be useful if still planes overlap and should not descend just yet), but don't forget to give the full approach clearance later on.
  
• if you don't like to manually handoff planes, then the pilots won't notify you anymore when they switch to a different frequency automatically; this is to reduce repetative messages.
  
• Hover the mouse above a plane to show the plane type and the distance from selected plane in the description text at the bottom.
  
• After a (very) long delay, pilots decide to divert automatically (costs 0.5 point).
  
• And some minor adjustments and bugfixes.

The latest update (v0.2.2.0) introduces four new vehicles: the Lacotec LH II mounted chopper, together with the Claas Orbis 750 cutterbar, brings a new, more intimate harvest experience. The MB Trac 1800, carrying a whopping 180 horses, and the Strautmann SZK-1802H bogy trailer complete the set.

This update’s highlight: muddy, messy dirt! Give your vehicles the dirt treatment on the fields, and clean them at the farm near the high pressure cleaner. Each vehicle and each implement gets its own dirt value, which increases the more they’re used on the fields. Also, driving on wet ground leads to a more dirty vehicle. Those in a hurry can also use the fleet menu to have their machines cleaned - for a little premium, of course. The active usage of the high pressure cleaner will be added in a later menu.
We have further expanded the game’s economy: prices now also fluctuate depending on the season - meaning it becomes sensible to store grain and wait for better financial yields in the winter.

In addition, our PBR implementation has been enhanced with various ambient occlusion techniques, eliminating the extreme glow of metallic surfaces on machines and making them more natural.

As always, you can find all other changes, bug fixes and new features in our changelog.

We are looking forward to your feedback!

The MBB team

• NEW: Mercedes Benz MB Trac 1800
  
  
• NEW: Lacotec LH2 mounted chopper
  
  
• NEW: Claas Orbis 750 cutterbar
  
  
• NEW: Strautmann SZK 1802H trailer
  
  
• NEW: Machines can get dirty and can be cleaned.
  
  
• NEW: A hint is displayed when the time is fast forwarded before a mission
  
  
• NEW: Prices now also fluctuate depending on the season
  
  
• NEW: The crop stubbles now move and deform when they have collision with tires
  
  
• NEW: Savegames can now be named individually when clicking on the input field in the save game slot
  
  
  
• BUG FIX: Deactivated “By Foot” controls are now also possible when the dead zone of a steering wheel is switched off
  
  
• BUG FIX: The false message about insufficient funds when selling bulls has been removed
  
  
• BUG FIX: The FPS collapses that occured when the worker has no seeding material to purchase have been fixed
  
  
• BUG FIX: Vehicles in the shop’s 3D preview are shown without dirt
  
  
• BUG FIX: Missions are now longer available than only one day
  
  
• BUG FIX: The icons on the minimap are drawn on the correct position
  
  
  
• CHANGE: The CabControl and UserAction slider now display the current value when they’re activated
  
  
• CHANGE: The weather report has been adjusted and now displays the correct weather
  
  
• CHANGE: The symbol for the farm silo is on the correct position on the minimap
  
  
• CHANGE: Changes in the interface - the unload destination list can now be scrolled to the bottom
  
  
• CHANGE: With manual gearshift, the selected forward gear is set again when shifting into reverse gear and back again
  
  
• CHANGE: The loading/unloading on the farm should work correctly now with the AI helper. Litre vs kilograms are handled correctly
  
  
• CHANGE: The physical driving behaviour was adjusted for wet grounds
  
  
• CHANGE: The speed for changing the implements’ height was adjusted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=nGVGcQ0JosQ

DCS: Spitfire LF Mk.IX and DCS: Normandy 1944 Map Updates
DCS World War II has two great updates this week! The first is the addition of several new features to the Spitfire. These include a new clipped wing version, slipper and torpedo fuel tanks, the ability to carry bombs, and continued to refinements to the flight dynamics. Together, these new features give the Spitfire longer legs and a more diverse mission capability. With these additions, we are pleased to announce that the Spitfire is now feature complete and out of early access.




More screenshots

The second big DCS World War II element is a substantial update to the Normandy 1944 map. The biggest improvements being updated and more accurate airfields, new concrete runways for appropriate airfields, shallow water effects, new objects like windmills and scattered farm houses, smoother beach transitions, regional specific bridges, and improved performance.



Another three elements currently in development, that will also improve the DCS World II experience is the new damage model, an improved sighting system, and improved dogfight AI!

DCS World 2.5 Update
This week we released many new features and fixes for DCS World and several modules. You can read the complete change log in the dedicated thread on the forum.

Some of the highlights of this week’s update include:

DCS World
Unique radio frequencies and TACAN channels that can be assigned to each ship in a group now.
Units now appear as 2D objects in the Mission Editor, rather than an icon. This allows much more precise unit and object placement.
AI taxi logic around the carrier has been improved to avoid collisions.

DCS: F/A-18C Hornet
Added carrier cold start instant action missions.
Corrected launch bar to shuttle shenanigans.
Canister munitions now have variable timed fuzes with height function for much greater accuracy.
Option for single and ripple rocket launches.
Waypoints numbers can now be edited in the Waypoint / DATA page.
DDIs can now be exported. Rejoice home cockpit builders!
Corrected selection of AG munitions after launching an AIM-7.
Corrected carrier TCN time to go indicator and added back TCN callsigns.
Abeam distance to course line added to HSI. Very handy for getting that 1.1 to 1.3 abeam pattern distance!
Radar no longer easily loses lock.
Corrected jettison issues.
New VFA-122 skin.

DCS: AV-8B Night Attack
Fixed strobe light
Waypoint edited add for UFC
Updated Tarawa model
Training missions for the Caucasus map added

DCS: A-10C Warthog and DCS Black Shark
Datalink restored

DCS: L-39 Albatros: Kursant Campaign, Available on Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/app/890290/DCS_L39_Albatros__Kursant_Campaign/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74f_qKICS9w

One tweak and language support.

• Added Russian language support with the help from Kein Zantezuken
  
• Transitional level now shows the check mark on the new level first tile if perfected

Seek Etyliv

Sanqui has been quite effective these last weeks getting stuck in with the mod portal, so we have some interesting additions to talk about.

Mod deprecation
A modder can mark a mod as deprecated, which indicates they are no longer updating or maintaining it. The typical case is a mod will add something relevant for the current version of the game (E.G, a mod to scan the players starting area), and then an update to the base game makes the mod obsolete. Just deleting the mod could potentially cause problems for people playing an older version, people might ask what has happened to it etc.



Marking as deprecated will keep the mod up on the portal, but it will be hidden from any public searches. This way people downloading using 'Sync mods with save' feature can keep playing, while new players won't stumble upon a mod that is no longer useful or up to date. It also preserves the downloads and discussions in case the author wants to revive it later.

Collaborators
It is often the case, that a mod author will want someone else to help them maintain and manage their mod, for instance if they are going on holiday when a major release is coming out. The way it has worked in the past, another modder would have to come and upload an updated version of the mod under their own name. Now a modder can set another player as a 'collaborator', which means they can help out will all the maintenance of the mod. Collaborators can do everything the author can do, except add or remove collaborators.



You might also spot the other feature, transferring mod ownership. This lets the author give the mod completely to a collaborator, in the case that they are no longer interested in working on the mod at all.

Discussions notice
Mod authors can now display a notice above their mod page discussions, informing the users of any useful information. For example, an author might prefer you to report bugs on their GitHub page, so the notice will inform users of where they should go. An additional option allows the author to disable the discussions completely, in the case they have their own forum/thread somewhere for discussions.



If you have any ideas for an improvement to the mod portal, please let us know on our Mod portal discussion subforum.

I feel that none of the propositions in the previous Friday Facts were really that great. We spent some more time thinking about the blueprints and the blueprint library while going through the player feedback, and we are now agreeing on what I like to call Proposal Zero, because it was the first idea and the first mockup I ever made related to this subject. Put simply, blueprints stay as items, and the blueprint library becomes a regular inventory, like a chest (that is of course accessible across all your saves).

The idea goes together well with the "quickbar is an action bar" idea explained in the FFF-191. The details and mockups for the action bar are taking shape, so expect more about it in a future FFF.

When working on GUIs, I like to create design documents where I try to explain how something works as objectively and as complete as possible. It ends up sounding like a boring legal document, but it helps force me to think of all the corner cases and possibly find problems. I will use this opportunity to also tell you how we usually work on the GUI. Here is what I have written so far:Blueprints and blueprint library Proposition Zero:

• In the text below, Blueprinting Tool = Blueprint, Blueprint book or deconstruction planner. Library = Blueprint Library. Book = Blueprint Book.
• Blueprinting Tools stay as items, they interact consistently throughout the game.
• The blueprint library: One window with one grid of large (or small?) spaces. The grid expands infinitely on a row-by-row basis (if any item is placed in any slot of the last row, a new row is added). This grid act almost identically as a chest. Items can be manually moved there, or fast transferred using any of the shortcuts that work for normal inventories (see comment below). This inventory grid can only hold blueprints, books or deconstruction planners.
• Special behavior: when picking up a Blueprinting Tool from the blueprint library, it is replaced with a "hand". This means that when pressing Q to drop it, it is not returned to the player inventory, instead, back to that slot in the blueprint library. This is so blueprints can easily be used directly from the library.
• The functionality of automatic blueprint library sharing in multiplayer is removed. The "shared blueprints" panel is removed. Blueprints and blueprint books in multiplayer will be shared by manually trading the items or by linking them in the chat. Blueprints or books linked in the chat can be clicked to pick up a copy that can be used as a normal item.
• Every Blueprinting Tool will have a unique identifier, so every blueprint item is unique, even if it has the same contents.
• The blueprint editing interface (the UI that opens when you right-click a blueprint) will have 2 new buttons:
  • Reassign: assign new contents to this blueprint. This is helpful when you want to update a blueprint and leave it in the same place in the player inventory, blueprint library or action bar.
  • Duplicate: create a new blueprint with a different unique identifier, but the same contents, and place it in the player cursor. This can be useful when players want to take a copy of a blueprint from the library to edit, experiment with or remove buildings from, without changing the original blueprint.
• Shortcuts to Blueprinting Tools can be created from the player inventory or from the blueprint library to the action bar:
  • Right clicking a shortcut to a Blueprinting Tool will open the blueprint editing interface, as if it was right clicked in its original location.
  • If a Blueprinting Tool is moved between the library and the player inventory, the shortcut in the action bar remains valid and unchanged.
  • If the Blueprinting Tool is moved outside any of these inventories (e.g., placed in a chest, or given to another player), the shortcut will become greyed out and cannot be interacted with, only cleared. If the Blueprinting Tool is placed back in the player inventory or blueprint library, the shortcut becomes valid again.
  • If the Blueprinting Tool is removed (or destroyed) from the library, and a different game is loaded that had a shortcut to that Blueprinting Tool, the shortcut will become greyed out forever, and it can only be cleared. This is to give feedback that there used to be a Blueprinting Tool there.
  • If a Blueprinting Tool is explicitly destroyed using the trash button, the shortcut will become greyed out forever and it can only be cleared. This is to keep consistency with the two rules above.
• Blueprint books will work very similarly to the library: it will be an inventory which can hold only blueprints (maybe also deconstruction planners?).
• Blueprint books will have the same sparse grid where you can arrange the contents as you like. 'Shift + Mouse Wheel' will move to the next/previous non-empty slot.
• Blueprint books will not have any special behavior or interactions while in the library, right clicking them will open the book in a separate window, possibly closing the Library. Clicking them will pick them up to the cursor.
• Blueprinting Tools are created using buttons in the Library. Blueprint string importing will also be there.
• Quick Copy pasting will be done using new copy-paste functions that work almost identically to blueprints. Pressing 'Ctrl + C' will place a copy tool, similar to a blueprint in the cursor. You can use this select a number of entities to copy. Pressing 'Ctrl + V' will place a quick paste tool in the cursor, similar to a blueprint with items. You can use this to place as many copies of the things you copied as you like.
• The quick copy and quick paste tools are not items. Pressing Q will simply clear the cursor and not return anything to the inventory.
• The quick copy and quick paste buttons will also be shown in the main GUI, next to the action bar. Hovering over the paste button will show a tooltip of the blueprint that is currently in the 'clipboard'.

Comments:

• Being able to use all the fast transfer shortcuts in the blueprint library makes it very consistent with a chest, but can lead to very nasty situations where one accidental click can transfer all the blueprints and books to your inventory, completely screwing the order and organization you had in the grid. At the same time "transfer everything" can be something some players might use often if they don't have many books.

Other:

• The blueprint editor GUI should allow you to zoom and pan around to better inspect it. You can add buildings while holding an item or ghost item from the action bar; for convenience a small interface will give you the possibility to place any ghost item in the cursor. This is intended for quick corrections. Things like connecting cables or changing entity settings will not be possible; for bigger changes use the Reassign button.
• The blueprint library button will be disabled until bots are researched or until any item is added to the library for the first time. This means less GUIs for new players to get lost in, also less of an invitation to use the controversial string importing at the beginning for the game.

Usually I create a very crude and simplified MS Paint mockup of any changed GUIs.


I use all this, the design document and mockup, to present the idea to the other devs, make some changes, and if we all mostly agree with it, all this goes to Albert so he can more thoroughly design the look and arrange all the GUI elements. There is usually a lot of back end forth between us so we can properly tie UI and UX together. After the mockup is finished, one of the programmers, usually Oxyd, Dominik or I(Twinsen) start putting it in game, with the help of kovarex who makes sure AGUI has all the new functionality we need in the back-end. After we have the interaction in the game and we are able to play with it, there is of course further tweaking.

Well, the process I wrote about is the ideal case, in reality every different part of the UI is done slightly differently, especially since we are still at the beginning and we are still trying to figure out the concepts of the GUI, but I hope we will be able to use this pipeline to go though the GUI like butter.

Let us know what you think of the proposed changes to blueprint on our Forum.

Hello!

Time for a new Gladius update! This one is much smaller than v1.25, but it comes with some important improvements, especially the new Day 2, the bow mechanics, and a fix to the endless mode ladder scoring system.

Day 2 scenario improved
• Changed the scenario to an Egyptian temple! The fights against mummies and skeletons take place in smaller areas within the temple, and the fight against the Minotaur on the arena.
  
  
• The minotaur now bursts through the gates in stage 3 and now looks at the player from behind the gate.
  
• Fixed bug that would stop spawning mummies after repeating the level several times.
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1433138054
  
  
  Bow mechanics improved
• The arrow is now positioned to the left side or the right side of the bow depending on the main hand. If you grab the bow with your left hand, the arrow will be on the left side of the bow, and if you grab it with your right hand will be on the right. Thanks [-NoE-] CODY3446 for reporting this one!
  
• The bow now rotates with your hand following the perpendicular axis.
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1433142393
  
  
  General improvements
• Day 3: Added notification to tell players to break the stone with the hammer and moved the hammer closer to the player.
  
• Team fights has the option to activate the Gore mode (1 hit kills the enemy)
  
• You can now save your team configuration as the default configuration.
  
  
  Fixes
• Fixed bug that in some cases would set the difficulty bonus to 160 in the endless mode. Sorry, but because of this issue I had to remove some leaderboard records (they were simply impossible to beat).
  
• Fixed killing your own horse in the chariots would leave the player in limbo. Now if one of your horses dies, you die as well.
  
• Fixed end of combat stats panel not being clickable some times. The panel will now follow your gaze if you look away. This fixes a bug that wouldn't let you continue if the panel appeared behind a solid object.

Cheers!

Edit: This contest has ended.

Hello everyone, we're very excited to announce our first Zombie Panic! Source Community Spray Contest in collaboration with GameBanana - one of the biggest PC modding communities!



It's been a long time since our last community contest, which was a mapping contest hosted by the formers ZPS Developers. We've been discussing internally how we could bring those contests back, and we decided to start smaller with community sprays. It's something that many people from the community will be able to participate in - if you can draw or make an image, then you can enter!

With this contest we're selecting the best ZPS themed sprays to become official content, which means they'll be available to players and developers of ZPS to use in-game. The top 3 winners will also be awarded some additional prizes! If you're interested in entering, please make sure that you review all of the information below or your submission may be invalid!



The winning sprays will become the property of both Monochrome, Inc and the Zombie Panic! Development Team - By entering, if you win you agree to authorize us the exclusive, indefinite right to use the image in any manner we see fit. The rights to entries not deemed as winning shall be retained by their original owners.

The spray must be:

• Provided in either BMP, DDS, GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, TGA, or VMT + VTF format.
  
  • Dimensions must be a power of 2 (such as 128x128, 256x256, 512x512), and no larger than 512x512 texels in size.
    
  • The image file size cannot exceed 512kb. (This does not include the size of a VMT file, they are excluded from this requirement.)
• Appropriate content for Zombie Panic! Source.
  
• Original content of your own work.

The spray must NOT:

• Contain any inappropriate content (porn, inappropriate or offensive content, warez or anything else not safe for work).
  
• Contain any religious or political views.
  
• Contain any official trademarks (such as real company names or brands), or copyrighted materials (other than properties of the Zombie Panic! Development Team - such as art, characters, etc from Zombie Panic! Source).
  
• Have been a duplicate of somebody else's work.
  
• Have been released publicly before.

Additional Rules:

• The winning sprays will become the property of both Monochrome, Inc and the Zombie Panic! Development Team - By entering, if you win you agree to authorize us the exclusive, indefinite right to use the image in any manner we see fit. The rights to entries not deemed as winning shall be retained by their original owners.
  
• Multiple entries are allowed, however quality is better than quantity.
  
• Each entrant may only win a maximum of one (1) prize.
  
• Entrants must sign up to GameBanana and create an account to upload their submissions.
  
• Entries must be submitted and tagged as a contest entry before the deadline.
  
• Entries cannot be modified after the deadline, except for changes to the submission profile (changing the description, notes or screenshots).
  
• Team based entries are allowed, but the entrants will have to decide and agree on how to split any prizes awarded.
  
• Judges cannot enter or assist entrants.
  
• Members of the Zombie Panic! Development Team cannot enter or assist entrants. (This does not include Playtesters.)

The following prizes will be awarded by GameBanana:

• 1st Place - 1 year of Ripe, 10,000 Points, and a "1st Place" Profile Medal.
  
• 2nd Place - 6 months of Ripe, 5,000 Points, and a "Runner-up" Profile Medal.
  
• 3rd Place - 3 months of Ripe, 2,500 Points, and a "Runner-up" Profile Medal.
  
  
• Every Entrant - Will receive an "Entrant" Profile Medal.

Ripe is the ultimate way to support GameBanana! It has some benefits, which you can check out here!

Points can unlock special features for your GameBanana profile, or be used to buy game keys on the BananaExchange! For more details on how their point system works, check their wiki.

Medals symbolize skill, commitment and contribution on GameBanana, you can read more info about them here.


Each winner will also:

• Have their spray featured as official content in-game.
  
• Be identified with the "Contributor" status in-game and on other platforms (Discord, forums).

Honorable Mentions:
If you're not among the top 3, then don't worry! Any additional sprays beyond the top 3 that we like and think would fit the game well - will be featured as Honorable Mentions.

Honorable Mentions will:

• Be featured as official content in-game.
  
• Be identified with the "Contributor" status in-game and on other platforms (Discord, forums).

As is required by the other winners - Honorable Mentions will also be required to forfeit the rights to their property, as mentioned before, if they want their spray to be added in-game and receive "Contributor" status.



The deadline for this contest is July 30th, 2018.

Edit: This contest has ended.

Entries must be submitted onto GameBanana and tagged as a contest entry before the deadline. The entries also cannot be modified after the deadline, except for changes to the submission profile (changing the description, notes or screenshots).



You must sign up to GameBanana to upload and confirm your entry.

After reading GameBanana rules and general information, be sure to compress your files into a .rar, .zip or .7z format.

Upload your submission to our running Gamebanana contest page before the DEADLINE! (If you don't see the contest listed on the add/edit form of your submission, make sure you have hit "Join" on this contest page first.)



The Judges will be looking to see how well the sprays match the ZPS theme and the quality of the spray. The winners will be decided ultimately on how well the sprays will work as official content in the game.



We're looking forward to seeing what you all come up with! Take your time, be creative, and most importantly - have fun!

Any questions or issues, please let us know in the comment section down below. Or better yet, contact us directly on our official Discord server at - https://discord.gg/zps


Best of luck!
- Zombie Panic! Development Team

Follow us on social media at:

Hi again, everyone! This update is a bit later than I anticipated, but I've made great progress in the second half of June. Continue reading below for some highlights of what I've been working on!

I'm excited to say that I've been working on a brand new and improved Dialogue Editor design for v0.5! The overall usage will be similar, but I think the new design will be better suited for writing dialogue. The nodes will be stacked in a vertical flow and can be collapsed, for example to only show a specific route in the dialogue that you're focused on. More to come on this in later updates!



The scripting language in v0.5 will now include a function to print information to the debug console as desired. This function can be used to check the value of a property while the game is running, for example, or inserted into a script to troubleshoot a scenario that isn't working properly.



Another set of features I've been working on recently relates to game localization. Firstly, I added the ability to import a translations spreadsheet via a CSV file, similar to the current version. In addition to importing, you'll now also be able to edit your translation data or add to it from with the Game Configuration dialog.



I also just finished up implementing the option to localize your game's item data. This will be a new feature to v0.5! When localization is enabled, you'll be able to switch between your game's configured locales and populate the item names and descriptions directly within the Item Editor.



The "Cursors" section of the Game Configuration dialog for overriding built-in cursor images and setting up custom cursors is now migrated over to v0.5. This functionality will be mostly identical to the current version, but it's nice to have one more feature out of the way!



Lastly, I wanted to share a screenshot from "The Dungeon of Astryon", a game currently being created with RPG in a Box by community member Jiminus. The dungeon looks like it will be a lot of fun to explore, and I'm looking forward to seeing his game progress!



Thank you so much for reading and for your continued support! Don't forget to check out the Trello board for RPG in a Box to follow my development progress in real-time!

If you'd like to find out more about RPG in a Box or try out the free demo version, check out my Itch.io page here. Thanks again! :)

We fixes two major bugs:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/460060/discussions/0/1729828401690532692/

And

https://steamcommunity.com/app/460060/discussions/0/1729828401696611275/

And few minor bugs as well ːsteamhappyː