Game version 3753

See the patch notes of 3751 for the full patch notes.

Bug fixes

• (#4741) Fix build preview of underwater storages

• (#4739) Fix Aloha being ignored by tactical missile defenses

• (#4740) Fix reclaim values of wreckages

• (acc6893) Enforce UTF8 encoding of preference file
  We weren't entirely aware that we stopped enforcing the encoding of the preference file. As a result a lot of people encountered issues. We hope by enforcing it again that those issues are resolved

Contributors

• Jip (#4741, #4739, #4740)
• KionX (acc6893)

Game version 3752

See the patch notes of 3751 for the full patch notes.

Bug fixes

• (#4736) Attempt at fixing the autolobby options missmatch

Contributors

• Jip (#4736)
• Sheikah (#4736)

Game version 3751

In this first development update of 2023, we introduce three month's work of bugfixes, quality of life changes, and assorted improvements. It is, by far, the most exciting patch we've released so far. While the full changes are detailed below, a quick summary of those changes we think you'll find most important:

• We've changed how structures interact with the terrain. Previously, structures built on uneven ground could create terrain deformations. On some maps, this resulted in changes to the terrain that prevented the player from placing neighboring structures and created pathing issues for units. With this update, buildings deform the terrain less and may be placed at a slight angle.

• We've introduced a new series of hotkeys that will make it easier to select and micromanage your units.

• The process of managing your mex upgrades will now be easier than ever thanks to several small features. You can now choose to have mexes automatically queue an upgrade and (un)pause extractors when you order engineers to assist them.

• Several smaller quality of life changes have been made to existing features, such as no more empty reclaim orders and preventing ground attack orders from snapping to props or units. You can read more about all these changes in the 'Features' section.

In future updates, we'll be shifting our focus to improving the AI we ship with FAF. So far, we've been working on a navigational mesh that can help the AI understand any map you throw at it. The task ahead is to extend this with additional features to help the AI understand specifics about a map. You can read what we've achieved this patch in the 'AI' and 'Navigational mesh' sections.

And last, but certainly not least: this patch contains the largest performance improvement to date; the game is on average 10% to 20% faster in comparison to the last developers patch! This is exciting because with this patch the average game no longer slows down. We've been running tests and a CPU as cheap as a Ryzen 3600 can now run up to 6000 units without slowing down. We find this is extremely exciting: the game is nearing the point where you can just enjoy playing the originally intended experience in real-time!

With appreciation towards all the contributors that made this patch possible,

Jip

Features

• (#4584, #4607, #4615, #4636, #4714, #4724) Improve terrain structure interactions
  Instead of flattening the ground below structures, they now slightly tilt to reduce terrain deformation.

• (#4474) Ground attack now ignores all props/units
  You can now assign a ground attack exactly where you clicked without it accidentally snapping to props or units

• (3dd620c) Prevent being able to issue 'empty' reclaim orders
  It is now impossible to create a reclaim order with no prop or unit attached to it

• (#4474) Move command mode no longer creates patrol orders by accident
  When you specifically issue move commands using the hotkey (usually 'm') or by clicking on the move command button it now ignores the 'convert to patrol' functionality

• (3dd620c) Remove the use of CTRL to issue commands with formations
  When you hold control units first move towards each other and create a formation before they would go to where you told them to. This is a hidden feature of the engine and often players were not aware. We patched this out because often people use the same key for hotkeys, after which players (usually accidentally) would issue a formation order instead of a regular move or attack move order

• (#4510) Add a game option to set the zoom threshold at which reclaim values are grouped together in the reclaim-overlay

• (#4586) Add game option to tweak the camera shake multiplier
  When set to zero it will entirely remove shaking from the game. Additionally, the default shake multiplier is now set to 0.5 (instead of 1.0)

• (#4577) Add game option to upgrade and pause tech 1 extractors when you issue an assist order
  A small quality of life feature that reduces the use of a few hotkeys

• (#4577, #4620) Add game option to unpause tech 1 extractors as engineers start assisting
  A small quality of life feature that reduces the need to check up on your extractors

• (#4587) Add hotkeys to divide your current selection into subgroups
  There is a separate hotkey to tab through the subgroups. This feature significantly improves your ability to manage and micro larger chunks of units

  As a few examples of divisions:

  • Divide your selection by tech level
  • Divide your selection into groups of 5
  • Divide your selection over those nearest and furthest from your mouse location
  • Divide your selection into two equally sized groups

  For UI mod authors: the changes introduces a framework that allows you to define additional ways to split a selection into subgroups.

• (#4626) Allow mass storages to be built underwater

• (#4490) Add mission briefings to the lobby for all campaigns that ship with Supreme Commander
  When you are in a co-op lobby the patch notes button is replaced with a briefings button. There you can see the briefing of a map. Only original campaign maps support this feature at the moment.

• (#4689, #4690, #4691) Add hotkey that resembles the 'hard move' functionality introduced by Strogo
  For those unware: it allows you to continiously issue move orders without queueing them and without accidentally converting them to patrol orders. This is particularly useful for ASF battles

• (#4095) Adds a partial share game option
  An alternative variant of full share. While structures and engineers are transferred, all other mobile units are lost.

• (#4463) Add a new key binding to select naval units, excluding sonar structures

AI

This update adresses several long-standing issues that affected the custom AI that FAF introduces. Further developments and improvements of the AI will remain our focus in future updates.

Additionally, we would like to remind people that there are various mods that provide different AI experiences. We can highly recommend you to download them from the vault and give them a spin too.

A short list of AIs we recommend at this point:

• M27: made by Maudlin
• RNGAI, as made by Relent0r
• Sorian Edit, as made by Marlo
• Uveso AI, as made by Uveso
• Dilli Dally, as made by Softles
• Swarm AI, as made by Azraeel

And not to forget the AI that ships with the Total Annihilation mod that is maintained by Dragun.

• (#4413, #4419, #4450) Tunes the economic assesments of the AI.
  Throughout the game the AI constantly tries to balance his decisions and those decisions depend on various conditions. These conditions can be tweaked and that is exactly what we did here.

• (#4445, #4447, #4455, #4462, #4461, #4460, #4454, #4475, #4505)
  General tuning and bug fixing of the AIs. This involves all sorts of improvements, such as fixing a bug causing the AI to hoard units in their base and improving their use of naval units.

• (#4386) Separately keep track of radar structures for AIs
  These are interesting and often vulnerable targets for the AI. By keeping track of them separately it can interact with them more easily.

  Better guard those radars from now on!

• (#4412) Add logic to prevent prematurely disbanding a platoon
  A platoon is a group of units that is acting according to some logic that describes the behavior of the platoon. When a platoon disbands it returns to base to receive a new order. We fixed platoons disbanding too soon due to a bug.

• (#4682) AI has been upgraded to make better use of experimentals.

• (#4436, #4450) Improve consistency of builders used by the AI
  A builder is not an engineer, but a set of conditions that the AI uses to determine what to build. These conditions depend on the status of the AI (do I need additional factories given my income?) and the status of the enemy (should I produce more interceptors?)

  These are tweakable and that is what we did here.

• (#4525) Allow AIx multipliers that are lower than 1.0
  Some people asked for this feature and here it is - for new players you can lower the multiplier to below 1.0

Navigational mesh

The navigational mesh is an abstract representation of a map. The AI can use that representation to gain an understanding of what the map 'looks like'. The navigational mesh is generated at the start of the map and works on any map.

We're looking for people with an interest in computer science to add features to add many other functions that allow the AI to understand. One example of such a feature is the ability to generate expansions markers: points of interest for the AI when it would like to build an expansion. And we'd like to add so much more so much more so that an AI can understand and properly play on any map. The navigational mesh is only use by the AI and only runs when there are AIs in-game.

• (#4432) Add label utilities
  Allows the AI to understand the value of an area, such as a plateau.

• (#4485, #4495) Only load in the navigational mesh as requested
  Entirely skip the generation of the navigational mesh when it is not used. This prevents allocation a few megabytes to store the navigational mesh in memory

• (#4555, #4559, #4561) Improve retrieval of (nearest) leaf for path finding
  This is an improvement to a macro feature (what is the general path from A to B?) and not a micro feature (how should I move this unit?). It is now more consistent, such that if a unit is remotely able to navigate to some place it will always have a label assigned to it.

• (#4569) Add generation of expansion markers
  These markers are generated for each map. The AI can now identify sane expansion locations on any map

Bug fixes

• (#4483, #4482, #4496, #4499, #4508, #4519, #4546, #4550, #4580, #4599, #4600, #4605, #4606, #4608, #463...

Game version 3750

Land

T2 Land

T2 land is much slower than T1 and T3 which doesn't allow it to adequately cover the map, raid, and defend against attacks, especially on bigger maps. The meta in team games is to generally either completely skip T2 or go all in. These changes hope to make T2 more viable in team games and 1vs1. Another advantage in increasing the MS of T2 land is how they will interact with Rambo ACUs, especially in 1vs1. Currently, Rambo ACUs are extremely strong and even if you have more army value it's very difficult to press your advantage since if you are the one engaging the enemy gets at least 2-3 OCs for free. With the MS changes it should allow the player with more army to more easily punish the opponent for miss positioning their ACU or being overly aggressive/borderline suicidal.

Increase of 0.1 Movement Speed to all Flaks, MMLs, Range Bots, and Main battle tanks.

Rhino gets a buff of 0.2 (and so does Cybran flak) as it's currently comparatively weak to its T2 counterparts and Cybran needs a buff during its T2 stage.

Hover tanks don't get a movement speed increase as they are already very fast and we don't feel like this change is necessary for them. Perhaps they will get some other small tweaks next patch.

Asylum (Aeon T2 mobile shield)

• EnergyMaintenanceCost: 45 > 55

Aeon t2 land has become arguably the best with a combination of powerful tanks, cheap shields, and the strongest ACU. This minor nerf aims at reducing the strength a little bit.

Titan and Loyalist

• BuildTime: 2160 > 2400

The Titan and Loyalist build-time buffs from patch 3725 are reverted to make it harder to snowball out of control with a T3 land rush.

Titan

• HP 2600 > 2400

Loyalist

• The Loyalist's ability will no longer disable weapons and the charge will kick in 1 second faster

After T3 rebalance Titans with their fast recharging shields became a bit too oppressive and they are currently stronger than loyalists. A small HP nerf should put the unit in the right place while not taking away from its specialty of constantly dashing in and out and letting its shield recharge.
Loyalists' ability has been underwhelming and thus it's getting a well-deserved buff, we hope this will be enough to make mixing in Loyalists in your army in later stages a more viable option instead of being a gimmick that is rarely used.

Sniper bots

Sniper bots get an overall nerf to make it harder to snowball out of control. With the energy cost nerf specifically we aim at delaying the first few snipers from hitting the field immediately after a player gets T3 Land.

Usha-Ah

• Mass Cost: 880 > 960
• Energy Cost: 9700 > 15.360
• BuildTime: 4500 > 5400

The snipe mode icon is changed to make the difference between the snipe mode and normal mode easier to see.

Sprite Striker

• Mass Cost: 800 > 880
• Energy Cost: 8900 > 14.080
• BuildTime: 4500 > 4950

Air

Air Experimentals

Air experimentals were always extremely cheap in energy cost compared to t3 air. This led to the ability to build air t4’s without any power setup like is required for t3 air and thus became a relatively cheesy way to win games. With this change, the e cost is more streamlined with t3 air.

We also reduce the crash damage of air T4s. Their ability to kill heavily shielded targets by simply dying and hitting them provided the defending player with little counter-play. They still deal a considerable amount of damage to not break the immersion of the game but these values will be further reduced if deemed necessary.

Ahwassa

• Energy Cost: 780.000 > 1.920.000
• DamageRadius: 20 > 19
• Crash damage 10.000 > 7000

In addition to the energy cost nerf the ahwassa gets a small nerf to its AoE considering its dominance compared to the other air T4s.

CZAR

• Energy Cost: 731.250 > 1.530.000
• Crash damage 10.000 > 7000

Soulripper

• Energy Cost: 480.000 > 952.000
• Crash damage 7000 > 5000

SoulRipper Mini-rework:

A decrease of roughly 15% across the board. The goal is to make the SR a more viable option and further establish it as the value over time air experimental. With the lower cost, it will be easier for the player to justify investing in the SR
and slowly leverage a small-medium advantage he had in the air.

In addition to the stat changes we also increase the movement speed by 1 and give it 75 hp regen per second.

HP: 90.000 > 75.000
Regen Rate: 0 > 75
Mass Cost: 34.000 > 29.000
Energy Cost: 952.000 > 812000
BuiltTime: 56.250 > 48.000
DPS: 1535 > 1368.3

The decrease in hp is slightly larger than the decrease in DPS meaning the SR will be a bit less tanky but will pack a bigger punch relative to its cost.

Strategic Bombers

All strategic bombers have their elevation reduced. This will make them easier to hit by non-homing AA which should greatly increase the effectiveness of T1 AA and T2 Flak (although that will now hit rarely instead of never) which should make the early strats a lot less oppressive since now every play will be able to build a unit that will at least partially counter the strat.

• Elevation: 20 -> 14

T3 UEF Air

Added jamming for Spy Planes and Strategic Bombers allowing for more counter-intel capabilities. The scouts will have their jamming on by default and for free while the Strats will have theirs off by default and it will cost 25e/s to run (same as the T3 gunship). These changes should allow UEF air players to trick their opponents by including Air scouts in their mix and artificially inflating the size of their ASF cloud. It will also make the Air scouts harder to shoot down by static AA/ASF and buff unscouted strat runs.

T2 Air crash damage

Notha

For some reason Notha had different crash damage than other T2 Fighter bombers

• Crash damage 25 -> 200

T2 Transports

T2 transports had lower crash damage than T1 (100). These changes will also nerf arty drops since now if the transports die and land on top of them it will kill all of the arties.

• Crash damage 25 -> 250

Navy

For a long time, Aeon frigates were absolute garbage while their Destro's were insanely good while Cybran had the exact opposite with OP frigate and weak destroyer. These changes redistribute the power of those factions while retaining the units' unique traits and further enhancing them by adjusting the ranges of the frigate. We hope it will also introduce more micro potential in frigate fights, especially with Cybran vs Aeon.

Bulwark gets a mini-rework to establish it as a T2 support vessel instead of a unit that is mainly used during the T3 stage with Battlecruisers and Battleships. This should help UEF's notoriously weak T2 stage while making their T3 one less oppressive.

However, with the changes to Bulwark UEF Battleships are left out to dry. We are making them slightly less clunky so that hopefully they can dodge at least some shot if you micro them.

Tempest has been very powerful for a long time and it's getting a well-deserved nerf. It will cost a bit more, and you will need more BP/infrastructure ready to build one. It won't be able to act like a quick mass dump after spamming destroyers and skipping T3 Navy completely.

Frigates

Aeon

• Mass Cost: 290 > 280
• Energy Cost: 2900 > 2800
• Built Time: 1450 > 1400
• Range: 31 > 33

Cybran

• Mass Cost: 250> 260
• Energy Cost: 2500> 2600
• Built Time: 1250> 1300
• Range: 28 > 26

Destroyers

UEF

The valiant has always been one of the weakest destroyers. With this change, we hope to give it more of a tank role that fights at a short range.

• HP: 7200 > 8000

Cybran

Salem has always been extremely squishy compared to other destroyers. It will still have the least hp but will now be able to survive a few more shots.
The TurretYawRange of salems is again slightly increased to improve the handling and micro potential.

• HP: 6050 > 6500
• TurretYawRange: 140 > 145

Aeon

Exodus was one of the 2 higher-range destroyers yet it had the highest HP of all. This was necessary due to how weak the Aeon frigate was but this kind of balance made Aeon really bad at T1 and extremely oppressive at T2 where they spammed destroyers only. With the buffs to their frigate, we can finally tune down Exodus a bit. We are reducing its HP to punish Aeon players for letting their destroyers get into range of their enemy and reducing the max range down to 70 to allow shorter-range destroyers to get into range more easily. This will also mean that the Cybran destroyer will now outrange the Exodus and thus have some edge over them.

• HP: 7500 > 7200
• Range: 80 > 70

Bulwark Mini-rework

Decrease of roughly 1/3 in the stats to allow UEF players to get them out during the T2 stage to support their navy without having to worry about having fewer destroyers and dying immediately to an enemy push.

• Mass Cost: 1300 > 900
• Energy Cost: 13.000 > 9000
• Build Time: 5200 > 3600
• Maintenance Cost: 150 e/s > 100 e/s
• HP of the unit: 750 > 550
• Shield HP: 8000 > 5500
• Shield Recharge Time: 40 > 30

Battleships

UEF

With the changes to the bulwark Summit will struggle against the other Battleships since it's the slowest one by far and is not able to dodge shots. It used to rely on Shield Boats to just tank all of that damage but that won't work to such a degree anymore. We are increasing its Movement Speed and Turn Rate slightly to make it less clunky and allow UEF players to micro their Battleships

• Movement Speed: 2.5 > 2.75
• Turn Rate: 25 > 27.5

Acceleration and Break speed were adjusted accordingly

Experimentals

Tempest

Tempest is an extremely powerful unit in the right hands. It was a common sight to see them with 20k+ mass killed while the Battleships had < 5k. With a relatively cheap mass cost and e...

Game version 3749

Features

• (#4522) Add snowflakes to lobby

Bug fixes

• (#4446) Remove abort button when connecting with matchmaking
  Data shows that the majority of games do not launch because players
  pre-maturely cancel during the connection phase

• (#4449) Fix encoding issues with preference file
  This caused a wide range of issues for various users, including the issue
  where mods could not be updated and that the mods shown activated when
  hosting a lobby isn't representative of what is actually enabled

Contributors

• 4z0t (#4522)
• Sheikah (#4446)
• Jip (#4449)

Game version 3748

Bug fixes

• (#4414) Revert changes to prefetching of assets
  We thought we understood how prefetching worked, but we were wrong. As a result some
  people ran out of memory. That results in an application crash.

  We reverted the changes.

Contributors

• Jip (#4414)

Game version 3747

Features

• (#4377, #4380) Improve reclaim overview
  Adjusts the colors, scaling and depth to better represent what is valuable.

• (#4387) Add toggle to enable / disable always showing splash damage
  It is off by default, you can find the toggle in the game options -> interface -> cursor features

• (#4393) Paint feature for observers
  Observers can now paint on the map and other observers can view each others paintings. Useful for
  casting to communicate to your viewers and fellow casters.

  Works by pressing the ALT key, can be adjusted in the game options.

  This feature also works in replays.

• (#4391) Improve rendering quality of water
  Slightly adjusts how water looks like in-game to make it look better overall

• (#4390, #4409) Add in missing tooltips for game options
  All the game options should now have a consistent tooltip.

• (#4385) Change default aix multiplier values
  Especially the AIs that can be found in the vault become complete beasts when they have
  twice the resources and build time. The default multiplier is now set to 1.5

  Note that you can change the AI multipliers in the lobby options

• (#4406) Prefetch session and unit assets
  Decreases the loading time when launching through the lobby. Assets of units are loaded
  as you play to reduce stuttering of the game.

  This is an experimental change.

• (#4405) Tweak network parameters
  Reduce the amount of lag that players experience by reducing the delay when messages are send.

  This is an experimental change.

Bug fixes

• (#4379) Fix weapon priorities not working for units that can snipe

• (#4367) Fix the UEF factory unit build animations

• (#4367) Fix the cheat window build preview hanging around

• (#4370) Fix the resource sharing panel
  The 'resources' button is now available again in the diplomacy panel

• (#4306) Fix SubtractCurrentEngineer and formatting in base manager

• (#4388) Revert accidental footprint changes of Titan, Loya and Ilsa

• (#4375) Fix TMDs trying to shoot down missiles that are too nearby
  They now have a minimal firing range, it prevents them from trying to hit missiles
  that they can't find a firing solution regardless

• (#4398) Fix and update recall feature
  In particular, fixes a few glitches that people could apply to influence the results.

• (#4407) Scenario Framework GetRandomEntry fix

• (#4408) Slightly reduce mods manager size
  Fixes the overlap of the last mod in the list with the search bar

Other changes

• (#4366) Add slight transparent background to changelog

• (#4369) Add guard for validation of LayoutHelpers
  It would otherwise spam the logs, causing a delay

Contributors

• ErikMekkes (#4379)
• Relent0r (#4385)
• BlackYps (#4391)
• 4z0t (#4306, #4407)
• Hdt80bro (#4377, #4370, #4369, #4398, #4409)
• Jip (#4348, #4367, #4366, #4380, #4387, #4389, #4393, #4390, #4406, #4405, #4408, #4375, #4388)

Game version 3746

I'd like to show my appreciation to those that made a friendly report on what was broken. We tackled
the majority of the issues, with the exception of the resource button in the diplomacy tab. We disabled
that for now.

As an alternative you can also share resources via the scoreboard. The default scoreboard supports
this too by ctrl / shift clicking on the resources of an ally. See also the tooltips.

I was also informed that the author of Economy Manager released a patch, it is now compatible again. For
those that use the range ring preview you can download a UI mod called 'Build Range Preview' made by Sheikah.

With thanks to 4z0t and Sheikah for their help in writing this hotfix,

With kind regards,

Jip

Features

• (#4358) Allow reclaim overview to be customizeable
  You can now enable / disable batching via the game options. It is part of the
  interface section. You can also scale the text of the labels. Note that
  excessive scaling doesn't work properly with batching.

  It is highly recommended to enable batching for low-end systems.

Bug fixes

• (#4348) Fix attack ping cursor being stuck
  Occured when you tried to issue an attack ping.

• (#4353) Update Nomad shaders to the latest version
  As part of a series of steps to remove shaders from the Nomads repository. We can't
  update our shaders unless we update theirs too. Instead, we now migrate the Nomads
  shaders into the base repository and remove the version in Nomads.

  This should fix graphics issues that people are experiencing.

• (#4354) Fix cursor for text message
  Occured when you tried to issue a text ping

• (#4354) Fix decals not showing for strategic launcher

• (#4352) Re-introduce the zoom pop hotkey
  This was removed on accident

• (#4355) Rating now shows properly on the scoreboard again

• (#4359, #4363) Fix hotbuild being unable to reset the cycle properly

• (#4361) Fix error when spawning in units

• (#4362) Fix air units not sinking
  This was not related to the patch, but we included it anyhow. Transports would sometimes be unable to sink
  properly, especially when they are landed on water.

Contributors

• 4z0t (#4363)
• Jip (#4348, #4353, #4354, #4352, #4355, #4359, #4362, #4361, #4358)

Game version 3745

And there it is, the last major patch of the year!

This patch was ambitious. The purpose was to introduce modern features into the game, while at
the same time make the game easier to customize to your liking. Some of the patch can be
immediately applied by players, like the extended features on control groups, camera recall
functionality and the improved performance of the reclaim overview. Other features are not
immediately visible but are a major step forward, like the navigational mesh we generate for
the map you're playing on for AIs.

Previous patches primarily made changes in the code directly related to the simulation. This
patch also includes changes to the code surrounding the user interface. Also refers to UI
code or UI mods. It was not possible to do this patch without causing incompatibility with
some of the UI mods that are out there. We introduced a list of incompatible mods at the
end of this changelog. Authors can update their mod, bump the version number and the game
should automatically make it available again.

As a minor note to the authors of UI mods: it is better to have many small UI mods that each
add in a single feature, then it is to have one large UI mod that adds in many features. One
example is Economy Manager - a mod often used by players - is no longer compatible because
one of its dozen features is incompatible:the command feedback no longer triggers with Economy
Manager enabled. Long story short: keep the UI mods small and simple, as people can enable
any number of them.

And as this year ends I'd like to show my personal appreciation to some contributors and community
members. I'll start off with hdt80bro, who has been working on the repository for the past few
months. His extensive knowledge and motivation was visible in our discussions and above all in his
code changes. We're lucky to have him. Next to that I'd like to thank Madmax for always being
there when I needed essentially anything. Whenever I needed a tester, Madmax is usually there
ready to help confirm the stability of it. And of course there is Rowey - always ready to assist
with his friendly character. Rowey has pushed the FAF Youtube that increased exposure on the development
of this game, like being there when we were producing the game development series. a lot of the videos
on game development. And last I'd like to thank Sprouto - creator of the LOUD community - for being an
inspiration to what he managed to achieve with LOUD. Every time we talk I learn something new and I am
looking forward to our next conversation.

And like that, a new year of development will start. And with a new year we'll take a new route
to how we'll further develop this game. Instead of having a 'game team' - that introduces an arbitrary
boundary between contributors - we'll move towards how other projects are managed: by creating a clear,
properly scoped backlog of issues that contributors can pick up. Anyone can add and discuss issues in
the backlog. Once an issue is accepted it is added to a milestone. Milestones allow us to steer contributors
towards a common vision. They make it immediately clear when you can expect your changes to be live. Alas -
there's too much to tell and too little room in this changelog. For those interested, we'll soon make a post
on the forums and release the new contribution guidelines on the repository.

With appreciation towards all the contributors that made this patch possible,

Jip

Features

• (#4119) Extend functionality of control groups
  Adds in modern features into how control groups work. This includes:

  • the 'stealing' units from other control groups (like in Starcraft II)
  • being able to toggle the control group inheritance of factories
  • allow you to adjust the behavior of the camera when you double tap
  • allow you to adjust the double tap interval

  And on top of that we've introduced various new hotkeys that interact with
  control groups.

  You can find the settings in the game options. You can find the additional
  hotkeys in the hotkeys menu.

• (#4124, #4331) Improve cursor / command behaviors
  Acts as an integration of the 'Random UI improvements' mod of Strogo. This includes:

  • disabled reclaim cursor when you can't issue reclaim orders due to camera distance
  • manual tactical / nuke launchers no longer attach to units, and instead always
    target the ground
  • area of effect preview when you try to issue an attack order
  • allow you to adjust the selection threshold, particular useful for 2K+ displays or
    when watching replays

  You can find the settings in the game options.

• (#4124) Extend camera features
  Acts as an integration of Additional Camera Stuff. This includes:

  • Allows you to retrieve up to 9 camera locations
  • Allows you to restore the previous camera position

  You can find the additional hotkeys in the hotkeys menu.

• (#4188, #4190, #4191) Allow observers to view mouse position of players in-game
  In particular useful for casters. The feature does not work with replays or live games
  (that are replays too). In order for it to work you need to be an observer in the game,
  as it starts. The information is not stored in the replay either.

• (#4203, #4204, #4212, #4234, #4244) Introduce recall
  Adds in a recall feature. Similar to a the 'concede' feature that other games provide,
  it allows you to cast a team vote on whether you want to recall as a team. When you
  are with two or less alive players it requires all alive players of the same team to
  agree. When you are with three or more alive players it requires all but one
  of the alive players of the team to agree.

  Was introduced because people got frustrated with the Fullshare mode in combination
  with the limitated player base size.

• (#4219) Add in successive upgrades hotkeys for Hotbuild
  Allows you to easily queue the upgrade of an upgrade using Hotbuild.

• (#4232) Add batching of reclaim labels
  Reclaim labels are batched as you zoom out. As a result they remain readable.

• (#4241, #4334) Add coloring of reclaim labels
  Reclaim labels are colored based on their value.

• (#4175) Add PBR blender nodes for rendering of units
  This acts as a step-up towards introducing PBR-based shaders. It is used to check the
  textures / assets of units and acts as an inspiration to the shader implementation.

• (#4131) Introduced of shared armies
  Allows you to play as one army, where you all share control over the same units. This
  used to be a standalone executable and is now integrated with the base game.

  You can find these settings in the lobby options. Note that when applied the game
  is no longer rated.

• (#4254) Improve text markers
  When you create a text marker it is also send to the chat with camera coordinates
  attached. This allows you to jump to text markers.

  Based on a forum post.

• (#4253) Attempt at fixing engineer behavior for Seraphim air factories
  Engineers constructed by the Seraphim air factories get teleported instead of
  'tractored' off the factory. This was the only factory that made it impossible
  to select the engineer during roll off. Attempting to make the unit selectable during
  tractoring introduced a pile of issues.

  Therefore now all Seraphim air factories are magicians until we find better effects.

  Based on a forum post.

• (#4249) Add in a hotkey to select intelligence structures

  Based on a suggestion by a user.

• (#4249) Add in a hotkey to filter your selection to the engineer with the highest tech
  All other engineers in your old selection will assist the selected engineer

  Based on a suggestion by a user.

• (#4266) Improve pathing surrounding props
  Only large props (the size of a frigate or larger) block pathing.

  Previously a lot of props blocked pathing, in particular small rocks. This introduced a
  lot of noise in the occupancy layers, where it isn't clear that this noise exists. Especially
  when you are zoomed out, being unable to see the rocks.

  The noise caused units to behave strange, suddenly stop, circle around, etc. By removing
  this noise we indirectly improve pathing a lot.

• (#4270, #4282, #4285, #4298, #4312, #4313, #4308) Introduce generated navigational mesh to interpret maps
  This feature is technically involved. The idea is similar to the marker generator that has
  been part of the Uveso AI for a few years now, but instead of markers we work with
  areas. The navigational mesh can be used by AIs to understand and interact with the map.

  The feature is based on compression via quad trees that compress the pathing information. We use
  the leafs of the quad tree to create a graph. This graph is initially used for just pathfinding,
  but we can use the graph for so much more.

  All the code related to this feature is licensed using the MIT license. We're improving
  it in collaboration with the AI developers. We try to convert their requests into an
  algorithm that computes the answer. The algorithm needs to be simple, yet efficient as there
  is essentially no budget to perform computationally expensive algorithms.

  We're open to new contributors to help maintain and expand this exciting new feature of FAF.

• (#4287, #4328) Adjust factory behavior when building and finished building a unit
  Drastically reduces the time it can take for a unit to roll off the building pad of a factory. The
  production of a new unit starts the moment the build pad is clear. Also allows units to rotate to
  the correct roll off point right before being finished.

  Tech 1 tanks, artillery and labs have one second additional build time to compensate for the
  ...

Game version 3744

The maintainers of Nomads have resolved the issues with tactical and strategical defenses! They should now work as intended again.

Jip

Bug fixes

• (#4178) Do not allow regular projectiles to collide with missiles

  Reverts the behavior to before game patch 3741.

• (#4173) Fix minor issue with recoil of weapons

Contributors

• Jip: #4178
• Hdt80bro: #4173