Devlog KAG Build 2657 - Fantasy Heads, Bounties Cleared, Crates, Map, Fixes, Spanish, Saw Jump changes, Red Bar

Hey Folks!

Quite a big build this time around!

This build coincides pretty closely with the release of the Fantasy Heads Pack DLC, as voted by the community! This pack will be available on steam here from 8pm PST on the 27th of July if all goes well with valve release certification - it may become visible before then for pre-orders if it gets certified earlier.

The pack provides 34 new exclusive heads; 17 for each gender. We hope you will enjoy these new customisation options, and welcome any feedback on the pack!



All the bounties that the community voted for this month were filled very quickly, thanks to PotatoBird, Pirate-Rob, and GoldenGuy - and everyone who pitched and voted for the bounties! The bounty system is ongoing, and you can participate in voting through github and discord.

The crates are probably the star of the show, with numerous changes made; mostly by PotatoBird with some collaboration with Pirate-Rob. They can be purchased from the builder shop, hidden inside, provide protection from some explosions, contain booby traps, and can conveniently pick up resources en masse. They also provide a valuable avenue for teamwork, with archers or knights carrying builders safely in crates to the front. There's plenty more to note in the changelog for the curious. We are quite excited for the amount of attention the crates have gotten to make them an interesting, viable addition to the game! tl;dr: "I r8 cr8/8 m8"



The other big bounty was the addition of visible gold to the minimap. Gold now appears as a yellow area with a subtle outline, which should prevent it being missed on some maps, and avoids the need for silly workarounds like saving the map for competitive play. This was somewhat contentious in the community discussion, so there is a config file which allows disabling the gold rendering completely. The code also serves as a very good example of a minimap handling script for mods to build on. Thanks to Pirate-Rob and GoldenGuy for this contribution!



The final bounty was a fix for inconsistent bomb arrow damage in some edge cases. This may still have some rough edges, but it seems more stable now and Rob is happy to follow up as needed on any further fixes. Thanks to Pirate-Rob for this contribution. Looking forward to seeing it tested out in "prime time".

Thanks again for your contribution to all those who took on bounty work!

There have also been some important in-house developments, as well as some other contributions and reports from the community.

• A spanish translation from Vikhenzo was added. We welcome feedback and any revision on this addition! Vikhenzo also fixed an issue with the vote kick message appearing in the chat box.
• A minor changes to the quarry from Mazey that got missed last time - rounding the output to the nearest 5 units - was added.
• Farming for coins with wooden structures is less viable now, as it gives the same income as wooden blocks. This should prevent unsporting platform-spam at the tent while not much affecting "normal" builder play very much.
• The red barrier during build time has had some synchronisation issues sorted out. It no longer pushes players as much and there is a few tiles of no build zone at the edge, to prevent builders being tempted to touch it so much. The no build area has been adjusted slightly to accomodate this change, so maps should not require editing in response. Thanks to Bunnie and Franek for their thorough reporting of this issue.
• The female voice pitch modifier on several sounds has been reduced slightly - the sounds should actually be audible most of the time now! It may still need adjusting in one direction or the other, feedback is welcome.

Thanks to all the community members involved in developing, discussing, reviewing, and revising these changes!

Engine side, there are also a few changes:

• An important performance improvement has been added thanks to Asu: batched rendering of sprites and particles. The rendering is not really the slowest part of KAG, but this batching will speed things up a little more, especially for people with underpowered integrated graphics. Nothing should look different, it'll just perform a little better.
• Mod download speed may be improved, and the joining protocol has been sorted out to avoid potential double downloads and timeouts for big complicated mods. Some security aspects of mod downloading have also been improved.
• The top of map collision has been brought down one tile further which prevents easy clearance of towers that reach as high as possible. This is likely to somewhat curb saw jumping to the enemy tent, at least if they have proper defenses established. Bombs can still be tossed through the 1-high gap between the top of the map and the top of the buildable area, and saw jumping still works.
• Minimap updates can be triggered from scripts per-tile, which may be useful for custom minimap implementations.

I think that's everything of note, but please let me know if something slipped under the radar!



Have Fun!
Max

Code:

Full Changelog

[added] huge crate rework + crates in CTF (see below) (thanks PotatoBird and Pirate-Rob)
[added] gold visible on minimap (thanks Pirate-Rob and GoldenGuy)
    Bonus: configurable serverside for gold or no gold, see Rules/MinimapSettings.cfg
[fixed] bomb arrow damage consistent (thanks Pirate-Rob)
[modified] bomb arrows "hit through shield" fix (thanks Franek for the report)
[added] spanish translation (thanks Vikhenzo)
[added] quarry remainder change (quarry gives resources in multiples of 5)
[fixed] the message for vote kicking (thanks Vikhenzo)
[added] support for fantasy heads DLC
[added] runnerheads script automatically supports new dlcs via engine-side heads pack definitions
[added] red barrier sync (fixes desync on levels with custom red barriers)
[modified] red barrier aligned to a tile boundary
[modified] top border collision moved down 1 tile
[modified] widened fade border on map
[modified] female pitch modifier reduced (less "shrill" sound)
[added] isInventoryAccessible checked on server before putting stuff in/taking stuff out of inventory
[added] void CMap::EditMiniMap(int x, int y) function to trigger a minimap pixel update
    (for custom minimap special cases)
[added] forced a periodic sync that may help with "infinite stun on join" glitch
    (or may not - please report if you notice any change in the frequency of the bug)
[fixed] various script download issues + double download of mods (thanks Asu)
[fixed?] timeout on joining servers with big mods
[added] official sandbox server port numbers (so they are gold in the server list)
[added] batched rendering (thanks Asu)
[modified] increased number of particles available
[added] better net graph (thanks Asu)
[added] raised snapshot cap (relevant for some mods with extreme packet numbers possible)
[added] n_file_simultaneous console variable for setting maximum simultaneous mod file downloads
[modified] default simultaneous mod file downloads lifted to 8
[modified] default n_file_chunk_size lifted to 32k (ATTN admins: update this variable for faster mod downloads)

Crate Changes:

[added] Crate to builder shop: either 150 wood or 20 coins

[added] Players autopickup most items into carried crates

    [added] Crate autopickup when touching most items
    [added] Activate held crates w/ spacebar to dump items
    [modified] Logs now stack to 2 (and crates pick them up)
    [modified] Crates yield 100 wood on hitting a saw
    [dev] Crates make thud noise when storing an item

[added] Crates can be booby-trapped with mines

[added] Crate hiding: hold crate and press E to get in / out

    [fixed] You can now use emotes from inside crates
    [modified] Crate w/ hidden player breaks + stuns an enemy that tries to interact
    [added] Players hidden in exploding crates are launched + damaged
    [modified] You can remove allies from crates by pressing E near them
    [modified] You can enter a crate that has other items
    [modified] On entering crate, some items pop out if necessary to make room

    [modified] Crates break on player exit, not when last item removed
    [modified] Entering/leaving crate keeps momentum
    [modified] Players jump up out of crates they were hidden in
    [modified] Players/corpses are 2x2 in inventory, to fit more in crates
    [fixed] Attacking out of crate: now get brief stun
    [added] half of the explosion damage taken by crates will also be taken by player inside
    [added] Kegs kill crates and the players inside them
    [added] When getting out of crate, players say hullo

Crate properties:

    [modified] Crates more team-specific, accessibility tweaks (can put item into occupied crate)
    [modified] Crates can only store 9 items (3x3 inventory)
    [modified] Crates are now heavier when there's a keg inside
    [modified] Crates have less drag for better throwing
    [modified] Crates have 2x health, take 4x builder damage
    [modified] Crates cannot be stored in any inventory
    [modified] Now you should be able to mill people in crates with saws somewhat more consistently
    [modified] Kegs can't be launched as far as other items out of crates by dumping them
    [modified] Crates with lit kegs in them are even heavier

Fixes / Minor:

    [fixed] No more perpetual screaming from crates (cured claustrophobia)
    [fixed] Opening own inventory while inside crate
    [fixed] Taking players into own hand/inventory, etc
    [fixed?] Entering dead crates to vanish/levitate
    [dev] Normal crates appear carried on the back
    [dev] Crate tweaks: can't jump out of fast falling crate
    [fixed] Crate destruction sprite
    [dev] Crate item popout velocity tweaks
    [fixed] Bombs/items stashed in crate keep original team/owner
    [fixed] Translatable crate buttons
    [fixed] Explosions destroy crates from inside + fling items further
    [fixed] Items now pop out of dying crates consistently
    [fixed] Players can't use pickup key to escape crate without breaking it

 

Released a hotfix addressing issues with:

• red barrier not being there
• void not killing when dropped into
• minimap not showing up (can still happen occasionally)
  
• script downloading issues for modded servers

 

Bombjumps over the tallest wall are not possible now, which is a terrible payoff for not considering the saw-bombjump an abuse and removing it as teleporter jump was back in the day (which required a greater deal of craft). Removing it as a solution was simpler and less intrusive to knights, but always in my opinion.

Also, in the situation below you literally can't jump over.

 

July update upcrate is here!

I can't wait for my pointy hat fantasy heads tbh. Been using my plumed helmet for years since I started playing and now I'm finally gonna change it

Yeah, that was kind of the point, you shouldn't be able to jump over it even without the spike. I'm also in favor of removing the sky limit tho, I think people should just build roofs lol. I don't like how a tower that's a block or two short is useless, but suddenly once you go put a couple blocks on top it is completely unscalable and vastly more effective. Makes it basically necessary to build all of your buildings as high up as you can.

And also, the harder it is to get over, the more tempting it will be for people to go under, and ratting I think has more haters than the "solorek knight bomb jumping over any tower" thing the sky limit was meant to counteract in the first place.

 

My point is that the use and exploit of a mix of features (bombs explosions boost, sawmills triggering all of them if lit, no damage of 4 bombs on team doors or trapblocks, and -last but clearly not least- getting coins from building platforms) from a few guys have made the devs come up with a solution that affects greatly the higher part of the players, pubs and competitive alike, which never tended to do that exploit, but which suffered them pretty often lately. What is more, despite I don't have any official sources that this will happen, laying platforms will give you no coins so as to avoid the coin farming usually knights do. This, obviously, would affect builders that do build, but that's another story...

What I think is that for validating the fact that a simple player can fly over the whole map and drop a keg wherever he pleases (which is surely pure fun itself, but, as usual in my opinion, breaks the game balance and makes you feel cheated when you lose to that), this new fix has been introduced: you can build to the very top of the map, and not you or anybody else can bypass that obstacle (leave alone builders having to learn to build that section again, and the inconvenient of not being able to stand on your own castle's roof). Not even archers with grapples or knights with bombjumps.
This, to my eyes, adds to the problem of the stalemates as well, but the thing is, something that has been a major feature in KAG since perhaps 2012, is now not possible: bypass a tower with 2 or 3 bombs. Bombjumping and grappling to bring chaos into an enemy base should be part of it, without the need of damaging it first. You can shoot 2 bomb arrows, or even one, if the top is reachable at shoot, but now you need to do that in the case you want to sneak into.

So, well, it's too early for taking further conclusions, but perhaps this forces players to attack more at a mid-height, but it also forces more ratting. The first sounds nice to me, and it adds to the idea of everybody pushing together.

Also, this is from a build 4 years ago
(https://forum.thd.vg/threads/build-1180-shop-boat-map-coin-tweaks-and-many-fixes.20893/):

" No more getting into crates
As fun as it might be for you, we're quite tired of complaints about players effectively wasting a team slot by spending the entire game asking their team to carry them into battle. The code is still in there, just commented out for those who want this in modded servers."