[Released] JKGalaxies 1.3.24 (Preview Version)

[Futuza]

May the 4th be with you!  Jedi Knight Galaxies v1.3.24 is ready for public testing.  You can try out the new release by going to the download page here and downloading the beta release (found in the beta table).  Or get it from JKHub here.  You can find a list of full patch notes here.    We also plan to hold a few scrimmage matches over the weekend of May the 4th to test the new patch.


Here are some of the patch highlights!

---

New/Improved Systems:

• Armor Penetration - Weapons (and ammo overrides) can now penetrate or ignore a % of armor on a target, allowing the weapon to more easily damage armored opponents. Penetration can be added via weapon, ammo overrides, or through means of damage. By default only crossbows do armor penetration as of this patch. Please note this is similar, but different from ignoring armor (which is what pulse weaponry does).
   
• Armor Resistance - Armor can now be resistant to specific means of damage such as fire or poison. (They can also be made vulnerable to specific damage types.) This is in addition to their normal reduction of damage. For example: an armor can be resistant against fire damage, taking 25% less damage from fire damage sources.
   
• Basic Durability System - When taking damage to a location protected by armor, the item's durability has a chance of being damaged (item tier quality determines that chance). At 0 durability, the armor is no longer able to protect you. At 10-25% durability armor's effectiveness decreases by 25%, at 10% or less armor effectiveness decreases by 50%.  You will need to repair it to a durability level above 0 for it to be able to offer you protection. You can repair it in the shop, similar to how refilling ammo works. The chances of an item's durability being decreased by taking damage is determined by that item's tier. Higher tiers are less likely to lose durability and Legendary Tier items are immune to durability loss. This feature is enabled by default for now, but can be disabled by server owners by setting the cvar jkg_durability to 0.
   
• Crowd Control Assists - Players who assist with kills by using some kind of crowd control method such as a emp, slow, stun, or knockback will be awarded additional credits for their help.
   
• Custom Slice Improvements - The slicing custom feature has been expanded on and several bugs with the original have been fixed.  It is now possible to specify grid width's and heights separately from each other (for example you can have a 3x7 grid now).  To try out the changes, as an example, you can run the following slctest command: slctest custom 7 5 3 90 2 3 4 3 2 0 0 12

• Improved Toxin/Poison Filters - There are now two types: toxin filters, and toxin removal. If you are inflicted by a poison debuff, the toxin removal option will actively remove the debuff, while the toxin filter option is only preventable measure and will only prevent further application of the debuff. See this video for a demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6ifUOhLIWQ

• Basic Quest System - While this system is largely disabled during Phase I, improvements to the quest system have been added to allow devs and players to get feedback on the status of quests they have started.  Command is: `/ply.Quests`

• Improved UI Change - A few improvements have been made to inventory, shop menus, and other UI systems including:
    - Better item description text displays (it now breaks up text on spaces instead of dashes as before)
    - W/S keys allow you to scroll through inventory menus (you can still use mousescroll as well).
    - Icons on the HUD's top left corner for resources such as hp, shield, or stamina now light up with green when the resource is full.
    - Several improvements to inventory and shop menus so that more information about weapons and other items can be viewed.  Most firemodes will now display most stat information correctly.  However, there are more changes to come and this is still somewhat incomplete for some items.
   
• Shield Updates - Shield code has been rewritten.  Shields now have their own files (.shield) for greater customization.  Shields can now override blocked/allowed damage types.  If a shield varies from the standard behavior, it will be listed as a modified shield type along with information about which damage types have been overridden.  For example, the shield_prax_medium shield blocks vibroblades, slugthrowers, and bleeding, while no longer protecting form disruptors dmg or pulse dmg.  Shields will also now protect players from knockback.  (If damage penetrates through a shield's charge, knockback will be reduced by 25%).  Shields can also now trigger a lua script to run when overloaded as well (try shield_blastech_ind for a taste).  More changes to come including bubble shields, shield activation effects, and greater efx customization in future patches.
   
• New Outfits for Male and Female Humans - Noodle has graced us with some additional human options in the species section.  Note: these will typically not be available on Gangwar themed maps that force specific team skins.  In addition, we have also switched over to a new skeleton, which will make some really cool things possible in future patches...
   
• SDL2 updated to v2.30.8 - This is a necessary update to allow the game to continue running natively on modern systems.  You likely won't notice any significant changes, although some rendering and audio might be slightly improved.

New Items:

• Array_Ion (Jawa Gun) - There is now an EE-3 Pistol for when you want to take your favorite blaster rifle on the go. Courtesy of Jonthe and Silverfang.
• EE-3 Blaster Pistol - This has been finally been added after it was teased by Pande back in 2015. You can now fire the 3rd blaster seen in Star Wars at unsuspecting stolen astromech droids and then sell them to unsuspecting farmhands.
• Diplomat Outfit - Noodle made this model based on concept art by Tony Warne, aka "Jedi-Art-Trick".
• Sunguard Armor Set - Jonthe & Noodle
• Jensaarai Armor Set - Jonthe & Noodle
• Pyromaniac Helmet - Jonthe & Noodle
• Imperial Shoretrooper Set - Scerendo
• Shadows of the Empire Imperial Guard set  - Phazzer, ZanderNao, and Noodle

Map Changes:

• There are no map changes this patch.

Bug Fixes, Quality of Life Improvements, and Balance Changes:

Some adjustments to weapon balances including accuracy, damage, cooling, and cost have been adjusted.

• Flechette Pistol now deals ACP damage instead of bypassing shields completely.
• Shotguns can now overheat, bringing them a little bit in-line for balance.
• Bryar Shotgun has been buffed and now feels more worth the cost.
• Westar-34 Heat has been increased so you can't just fire it with reckless abandon anymore.
• Westar-34 no longer has missing strings.
• Crossbows (MOD_QUARREL) now do 25% armor penetration by default.
• Firing shots while jetpacking is now 20% more inaccurate, and more likely to be affected by knockdown when firing weapons with knockback.
• Fixed a bug where explosions did extra damage (lol) to armored targets.
• Balance changes to the following means of damage: Blaster's do slightly less damage to organic targets, and slightly more damage to shields. Electric does slightly more damage to organic targets. Explosions do standard damage to shielded targets, damage to droids is reduced from explosions and slightly more hurtful toward organics. Carbonite damage now does 1/2 damage to organics, and is reduced by 70% to droids. EMP damage does slightly more to armored targets.
• frozen, fire and ignited means of damage now do standard (1.0) damage to shields. Fire was previously very underwhelming against shielded opponents.
• Carbonite damage (and debuffs) are now blocked by shield, this slightly nerfs the carbonite gun.
• Pulse damage is weaker against shields and organics
• Ion does slightly more damage to organics.
• Sonic damage is now weak against armored opponenets.
• EMP damage now drains jetpack fuel (in addition to health).
• Droids can now be healed by MOD_REPAIR means of damage. Unfortunately there are no real droids to use this on yet.
• Fall damage is more deadly (falls are now 2x as deadly).

Other Fixes

• Added prisoner npc (for more vendors).
• Imperial Mining Helmets now filter toxins properly.
• Destroying allied trip mines no longer give a credit reward for 'destroying enemy equipment'.
• Giveother cmd now gives better feedback so admins can tell that it worked.
• Grenades no longer lock your weapon and prevent you from being unable to switch weapons.
• Bonus credits for when your team gets a kill is no longer getting doubled for both teams (just the losing team).
• Team Kill Bonuses fixed, no longer randomly awarding them.
• If you switch jetpacks from higher maxfuel capacity jetpack, it now resets the fuel capacity to the freshly equipped jetpack's capacity instead of carrying the old fuel value.
• Jetpacks now have a required cooldown to turn them on. (Most require ~200ms).
• Jetpacks now have an initial 10% fuel capacity cost when activating (minimum of 1, maximum of 5 fuel).
• Admin teleport functionality improved, admins can now teleport themselves to specified players as well.
• Fixed overheating efx so it only shows the efx on your own barrel instead of mistakenly duplicating it on all players barrels.
• Improved notifications for busymode for pazaak.
• Fixed linux builds (this fix probably took the longest to figure out - special thanks to Daggo for assistance on this one). Several crashes on both server and client have been fixed.
• Detonator consumables now have a check in place so you can't place your last one/remove your detonator remote. This is a temporary fix while we investigate a more elegant solution.
• Slicing programs that require input now re-enable btn_stopslicing after input is received.
• Fixed bug with armor resistances not parsing correctly.
• setItemDura cmd added for debugging/testing durability (requires cheats).
• Fix for cinbuild if client is not logged in.
• Improved debuginventory command.
• HeatGenerated and armorPenetration have both been added to the ammo override system.
• Fixed a bug where some torso hits to armor were counting as leg locations.
• Workaround fix so that after a match ends, players are forced onto spectator team to prevent armor visual persistence bug from affecting players (this also has the side effect of mixing up teams after each match).
• Inventories are now capped to 256 items (this will likely change in the future).
• Improved splash damage for weapons so that they can also apply debuffs in an area, as well as allowing the old method that used G_RadiusDamage() instead of JKG_DoSplashDamage()
• Fixed executable property details (Windows) to display the correct application version information, copyright and app info.
• Rusty stormtrooper helmet now has its own model/texture.
• Fixed memory leaks from chatcmds.
• Footstep sounds now play correctly while sprinting.
• Expanded and improved various lua API options.
• Fixes for various exploits.
• And much more!
  
  JKG Contributors and Credits

---

Binaries and assets will need to be updated this patch (no map changes).  Follow the instructions on the download page to patch/install.

As a note, we hope to soon release v1.3.25 ( additional inventory/shop and shield features and qol improvements), but we've also started working on the next major version v1.4 (featuring lightsabers), which is where we'd like to put our focus on next.  Those interested may want to view our project roadmap located here.  We want to again express our appreciation for everyone that helps contribute to and support our favorite modding project. 

May the force be with you!

[Futuza]

As a note, you can now get v1.3.24 from here on JKHub as well.  Thanks JKHub staff!