TrueCombat: Elite Revival

[Saadi]

I just read the News on www.truecombat.us

Coroner Returns From The Grave!

TCE’s main coder and member of G6S, Coroner, paid a visit to the forums today with some rather interesting news.

Not only does he have backups of the once believed lost content of 0.50, but he has big plans on expanding TCE some more.

On his to do list:

• make it more enjoyable for LAN gaming
• visual updates
• revision of weapon selection
• fix CTF
• and more!

To read his post, visit the TCE forums.

Diane
Team Terminator

Lets see what will come next, I am really curoius about how the unreleased maps gonna be.

[_omator]

Hey,

i’d thought I could use this thread as a kind of blog, so ppl can read what I am actually doing and thinking about the project “Close Quarters Battle”, say CQB.

Please don’t reply in this thread, open another one for comments.

First off, I’d like to thank Diane and the community for the hospitality here in the forum. I am also happy to see Liquid and Lok around again.

Second, and very important, I would like to mention again that this project evolved from plans for private LAN and ther is no commitment from my side that something is going to be released, though I very much hope to be able to.

Third, since I want to avoid any confusion about this issue, CQB will not be a bugfix and update to TCE 0.49b. Design ideas for QCB route more back to Q3TCs inventory system merged with the true-scale and movement system of TCE, as well as with its weapon behaviour model and, finally, merged with role-play-game character generation elements like Abilities/Perks (also known from Cod4 and MW2). Initially, also the bodycount (team deathmatch) experience will be in the focus, along with reinforced objectives like CTF.

What’s tossed around at the moment is:
A major design change will be to put much more emphazies on the character customization and on very detailed and route-rich maps. In combination, these features should offer a huge variety of individual playstyles.

To be continued …

It’s been some time … so, I thought I could share some news again.
There is some steady but slow progress at the moment. I fixed the bbox issue where shots were not registered when players touch an object that they use as cover. Usually, the piercing bullet did not do damage in this case. In a LAN test I also stumbled across the ugly jittery player movement of stock ET which I almost forgot due to the long absence. Now, playing mostly Cod4 in LAN, it really sucks to see that awful jittery moves in TCE. Anyhow I was able to fix it, don’t know whether it ever was an issue with dedicated servers at all. Now I have to interpolate the third person lean movement, too. It suddenly sticks out from the otherwise smooth movement.

Gameplay wise I did some revisions of the weapon simulation code. CQB is based on the 0491 internal which used a new unified simulation of all weapons already, which I guess is a bit different to the public version. Thus, it doesn’t make much sense to talk about changes with regard to 049b. The general goal for me was to tone down the exaturated representation of recoil in TCE. New values are based on the bullet impulse rather than on the kinetic energy which is more realistic. During testing I also introduced a server variable to switch between arcade/hardcore mode, uuh, yeah, which even enables a crosshair for hip fire. Don’t know whether this will make it to a release version ever, but don’t be scared in hardcore mode will be as always without crosshair. Generally, I would like to exchange hip fire against unaimed shoulder position, but I guess for the third person view it has to stay hip fire, so that you can really tell whether somebody is aiming or not.

That’s it for now, Coroner

Hey,

the weekend was busy but I managed to make some progress with CQB. Todays blog will be on the weapons in CQB. As I mentioned already, the weapon selection in CQB is based on the goal to have really uniquely behaving weapons without multiple different models that would basically offer the same style of playing. This saves a lot of development resources, however, one feature of the TC family I’d still like to maintain are the different weapons for the both teams. The weapons will have addons like suppressors or reflex sights or akimbo for which the player will have to spent design points to use them. A second change from the former weapon system is that there are more options for sidearms that they will be more powerful gameplay wise.

There will be six primary weapons all offering different pros and cons and all suited for different styles of game play. For the specops team (tentative terrorists equivalent given in []) the following collection is planned and partly implemented (addons are given in brackets). Without addons all weapons offer iron sights:

Primary:

Recon:
B&T MP9 [MAC M10] (Silencer or Akimbo)
9x19mm, 1000 rpm
Short range

Gunner:
Franchi SPAS 12 or M1014 (Choke disperser)
00. Buckshot
Short range

Commando:
H&K UMP 45 [MP 5/40] (Silencer or Aimpoint)
.45 ACP, 600 rpm
Short range

Assault:
Colt M4 [AKS-74U] (Silencer or Aimpoint)
5.56 NATO, 750 rpm
Medium range

Rifleman:
Barrett REC7 [AKM] (Eotech)
6.8 SPC, 700 rpm
Medium to long range

Marksman:
KAC M110 [M76] (4x Scope)
7.62x51mm
Long range

Secondary:

Glock 18 SF [Beretta 93 R] (Akimbo)
9x19mm, 1200 rpm

Glock 21 or some 1911 (Silencer)
.45 ACP

Mossberg 590 Compact (Choke Disperser)
00. Buckshot

IMI Desert Eagle (Aimpoint)
.50 AE

… time for some news, again.
The weapons are shaping up very well. The AR-15 based rifles are all in the game, along with the UMP and the MP5/40. Aimpoint and Eotech reflex sights are implemented and in game, offering real projection of the reticles on the target spot. In combination with the vector based aim code, they offer a real advantage as soon as the player is moving and the iron sights get slightly misalighned. I just put the MP9 and the M76 in game. One new thing about the sniper rifles (M110/Mk11 and M76) in CQB is that they can be selected without the scope. In this case the backup iron sights come into play, offering accurate and powerful semi auto rifles. Thanks to the vector aim code, the weapon behaviour feels much superior compared to current commercial games to me while weapons finally offer the same details with 5000-10000 polys.
I am looking forward to play testing to make the six primary weapons really unique in their behaviour.
Overall, there will be about 130 unique weapon combinations of primary and sidearm per team. I also decided to make all sidearms identical for both teams, giving more space for a wider variety. Next to the Glock 18, there will be a 1911 based .45, Glock 20 (10mm), and the Desert Eagle. The Mossberg 590c will get a double-barreled sawed-off as small brother at a later point.
Ui-wise I added anisotropic filtering (I actually had never activated it until now) and the two settings for drawFPS (average and average plus range).
Currently, I am working on the AK which will either be a AK-47 or 103 equipped with ris mounts.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=24788

[Chris2]

Waiting for powerball/domination revival more

[_omator]

There is no chance to add specular and bump or any other pixel shader and engine related stuff since it requires access to the engine code.
TCE already pretty much maxes out whats doable without touching the rendering engine itself. I’ve been tossing around some ideas to add sun reflexions for water surfaces but decided to not spent much time with such things.
I’ve been trying some new shader effects for WETs fake specular reflexions on the new weapons and they look quite good.
There will be graphics updates in the sense that polycounts can be dramatically increased. Since 2006, 4 years have passed and there is headroom for improvements. Even on my 3-4 years old laptop, 50000 polys in a scene are not big problem.
Whats doable is the look of COD4 (e.g. overgrown) with all pixelshaders turned off. I think that would be a huge step even without pixel shaders.
The good thing is that the game would run smoothly with 2x 60 fps as required for real 3D. Another thing about pixel shaders is that it will hardly be doable to create good looking assets in a meaningful time, I mean, its hard enough with only the color channel textures already.

There are rumors that teams are trying to recreate WET (engine) on the Idtech3 (quake3) GPL code but I don’t know whether anything about this is true. I mean there is Xreal which is really impressing, on the other side I am quite happy to not have to care about a buggy engine when using stock WET. UrbanTerrors Iobumby engine (forked off something I am sure) seems even more interesting because it uses radiosity bumpmapping for lightmaps. Nevertheless, even when UrT offers a stable version of that engine with the release of 4.2, I would still have to migrate TCE to quake3 back again. If it is about graphics it would have been the smartest to mod for COD4 …

I agree with Diane, advertising is early enough when a release candidate is there already.

As for some specific game design questions that have been posted:

· will CQB still have infinite turning speed?
The 0.491 internal had something that I termed “Physical Player Movement System” PPMS back then, which, yes, also limits the turning speed to realistic values depending on stance. Currently, CQB features this system. The turning times have been stopwatched for me (considered as quite trained and fast back then ) and allow for fast movement in narrow angle ranges up to ±90 degs and slowed movement for larger angles and full turns. All angle movements also impact gun sway. I gave a lot of details in my old blog or the old forum if I remember right, unfortunately I don’t have these lenghty postings anymore and don’t remember the details right now.
Whether the system is any good has to be tested.

· what are movement speeds going to be like?
The movement speeds are unchanged to 0.490 as they were already pretty realistic, I might have done minor adjustments in the 0.491 code base.
I currently have an arcade/hardcore mode server variable that changes only damage and xhair. If it will survive, movement speeds could be slightly increased in arcade, although I personally would like to keep the PPMS identical in both settings.

· will there be more realistc stance based leaning like COD4?
Don’t remember whether PPMS already featured this; good idea otherwise. I might have to get reminded if I forget it. Sway is definately already affected.

· what kind of movement penalty on weapon accuracy will be portrayed?
Pretty much along the lines of ‘the havier and the longer the weapon, the harder the impact’. Again, there have been changes to 0.490 due to the unified weapon model. Details are subject to play testing and balance.

· what role will sniper weapons play in CQB?
Interesting question, actually. As the term CQB usually refers to engagement distances <= 30 meters which is correct for 95% of the maps, sniper rifles shouldn’t play an overemphazised role. That’s why QCB is planned to only feature one semi-auto battlefield type sniper rifle (7.62 Nato class) among the six unique primaries. I guess sniper weapons are pretty much a special purpose weapons that come into play when real teamwork is used. Probably they often might get used without scope and with the backup iron sights to benefit from their penetration capabilities.

· will there be explosive munitions (grenades)?
Currently one slot could be used for either an explosive, smoke or stun grenade. As such, their number will be dramatically reduced and tactical grenades might come more handy.

Q:Please give us a bolt action rifle as well. Like those we have in game at the moment, they could be scope only and will be a “one hit kill” weapon.

A:Well, the project is termed CQB … at the moment a bolt action rifle is not planned and I wouldnt want to increase the workload right now.
Furthermore, any one-hit kill 7.62mm bolt action rifle wouldn’t fit with the 7.62mm Soviet and 6.8 SPC calibres and any 338 Lapua or particularly .50 BMG calibre would already be an anti-material sniper rifle not fitting a CQB scenario. I agree that bolt action would be unique in behaviour but I don’t see it fitting in the scheme at the moment. Regarding one-hit kills, it is currently not clear how the semi-auto 7.62 class rifles will behave (subject to game testing), one hit-kill for headshots is going to be likely.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=24915

I can add two things:

Freeaim does not effect recoil or damage or anything else. All it does is two split the angle rotation into rotation of the weapon and rotation of the viewaxis to equal amounts in a corner region of the screen.

Freeaim is and will stay an option, so everybody is free to choose whatever he/she likes or dislikes. If there could be an subjective or gameplay advantages with the one or other setting, everybody has the choice to use this setting.

[macbeth]

Waiting for powerball/domination revival more

yes i like this mod a lot

[_omator]

Well, blog time again. Some of you might have followed the discussion in the other thread.
One idea that ironed more and more during the last weeks is that I would like to publish something soon and early during the development, basically as soon as all basic features are in the game. The release will also be stand-alone in the sense that it does not require TCE. In agreement with this goal I limited myself to finish the first set of guns and to proceed with some other game elements that have to be implemented.
For the first CQB test version, a limited set of weapons will be available, probably Beretta 93R, Glock 20, Mossberg 590C, and as primaries MP9/Mini-Uzi, UMP45/MP5, Mk11/M76.
The next step is to bring the abilities/perks to life, which is quite simple in many cases. Some changes have to be applied to the leaning system which will depend more on stance (crouching, moving, etc).
The distribution of character skins also has to be changed since CQB should be 12 players max with each having an individual skin at any time.
The only thing that causes real headache is the single map that is going to be published in the test version. I would really like to push it up to the new graphic standards, probably it has to be a small place done from scratch. Still this requires a lot of work.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25046#25046

HOPE TO SEE THIS TEST RELEASE SOON =)

The last days have been busy with work on TCEs q3map2 and mapping. Finally fired up GTKRadiant 1.4 again. One goal for CQB is to achieve a visually different look when compared to TCE. TCEs look was strongly dominated by distance fog and at times quite low contrasts. Some might even say it was “wasched out”. Historically, the look evolved from design considerations related to well visible enemies also in darker areas. For CQB, I would like to return more to contrasty scene exposures as well as to the originally more moody style of Q3TC 0.45. I therefore did some experiments with changes to parameters in the perceptual tone-mapping code in TCEs q3map2 as well as in the dynamic eye code in CQB with very pleasing results. Currently I am working on a small test level which is based on some geometry of an old Q3TC map that was further developed for the unpublished Elite626. It’s fun how many detail models we can use nowadays and how much the look of the game is influenced by a large number of TCEs excellent models (thanks to Liquid and Bruce). I hope to be able to share some WIP shots soon, though this week will be busy with RL work.

another quotes

Happy to see the discussion returning to some more content again.

There have been some questions I’d like to answer:

Yes, I will release the custom q3map2. The biggest issue would be to clean the code from unnecessary dev stuff. If we don’t take the GPL so serious (still much more serious than the folks at UrT, however,) I guess you would rather like to have an executable than nothing at all. It mainly includes some bug fixes in the bounce code and other issues of the original q3map2 and the perceptive tone mapping.

No, a G3 will not be included. However, as for TCE, the weapons can be exchanged by simple scripting. Gameplay wise, the 7.62mm sniper with iron sights will act like a G3.

It is correct that QCB will be released as a stand-alone mod for WET. In this way TCE will stay intact as is. Since I cannot even promise when and in which state QCB will be released, I cannot promise anything about merging fixes back to TCE src code.

Regarding perks or abilities I can already foresee huge waves of rants and discussion. One very first thing I’d like to start with is that perks and abilities (or whatever name you give it) are an essential feature of role-play games (RPGs) and served character customization for ages. My main goal with QCB is to allow a very high degree of character customization, with equal opportunities for everyone. Very much like in the initial design phase of a character in an RPG, CQB will give you some design points which you can spent for weapons, attachments or character abilities. These design points are always the same for everyone and will not change during the course of the game. The system will be comparable with customization in Q3TC .45 where the availability of slots limited the possibilities and served the same purpose as a design point system. All the remaining things are very much a matter of taste, like whether there are special tactical boots to choose for being less audible (Q3TC) or whether there is an equivalent ‘stealth’ perk.
You can be assured that I will try my very best in designing the abilities with realism in mind as well as with playability. When the initial perks will be running in the game, I can give more details. I am also open to hear suggestions about abilities. Obviously there are some along the lines of:

-increased stamina
-(enhanced) free climbing
-(enhanced) lean
-reduced ready aim spread
-knifing ability
-stealth
-increased health recovery

In the end playtesting will be the key.

Hi, I wasn’t aware that the term ‘perk’ would be a misfit. It is quite regularly used in role-play games for character advantages that serve individual character custamization.

Regarding the health system, I’ve replaced the health boxes by time based regeneration (similar to how it is in latest Cod, but also other games). The underlying 3-zone damage model is untouched. I feel it is more ‘realistic’ than collecting and dropping health boxes. I also thought a lot about medkits and bandaging or team bandaging options and studied other games and mods but returned to a simple, time-based regeneration system in the end.

WEAPONS

[_omator]

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25265#25265

Hey there, dropping in again.
Last weeks were quite busy with real life, so the progress with CQB is limited. Nevertheless, I was able to address some issues.
Next to fixing a bug in the physical player movement system, I did some tweaking work on my level. I also improved the projective player shadow routine a bit and made the darkening of the shadow depend on the ambient and direct light relationship. One other issue that really annoyed me was that current nvidia drivers (maybe also some others) produced some z-fighting problems for decals. Fortunately this aged Idtech3 engine is even tweakable enough to be able to fix things like this. Most importantly, I guess, I finally digged out some old resources I started with to fix the “floating hand” in the third person anim. And after having fixed some problems with stance transition anims, I finally got a new third person anim for the former ETish “hip fire” stance working which is now replaced by a shouldered one. Also the aimed stance was fixed, is now dependent on the weapon, and the “floating hand” is history. Nothing is perfect but much better and much less ETish look and feel.
I uploaded some WIP shoots to Diane’s ftp, so probably there will be some screenies around soon. That’s it for today. Cheers, Coroner

[nukits]

Really amazing weapon models and human models !

[Saadi]

I can’t waiittt!
Amaizing quality improve!

[_omator]

Hey there again.
Well, this time I don’t have much to report, majorly due to real life issues. Now I am really happy that I didn’t announce any release date or made huge promises. The main advantage with this policy is that I can still enjoy working on CQB without feeling preasure and with making only limited progress. Yeah, its actually really fun. Even if I come to think about it and work on it only every now and then, I can finally enjoy it. In the end it will hopefully pay out for everyone.
So, what happened? I’ve once more increased the number of internally handable weapons which is necessary to handle all the addons in such a stupid and quick and dirty way as I do it for now. I am not happy with it, and have a better system 75% in code since old TCE times, but I felt that sticking to the proven system is safer and faster right now, at least for the first release.
This brings me to the plans for the first release.
In the meantime I decided to allow a combination of sight and supressor attachments which results in four version of a each primary weapon (bare/red dot/suppressor/both). As a sidenote, I also studied some other free games (can’t remember the names) and figured that they allow for various modifications and customizations like barrel length and ammunition which reminded me of plans back in Q3TC times.
To keep things doable I’ve set up a three stage plan for the weapons. The initial release will have the weapons with * and the follow up ones additionally the ** and *** ones.
As you will see, I’ve included a .338 Lapua bolt action rifle in the final release (would otherwise be sad to leave the existing anims and my own recorded large caliber shell sounds unused). Additionally, so many ppl were asking for it.

Primary weapons (Specops/Terror):
MP9* / MiniUzi*
UMP45* / MP5/40*
MP5K*** (both teams)

M4Commando(Vltor)* / SG552*
SCAR6.8 or REC7** / AK47**
AKS74U*** (later SG552 will be both teams and AKS for terror only)

Mk11* / M76*
M1014** / SPAS12**
TRG42*** (both teams)

Sidearms (both teams):
Beretta93R*
Glock20*
Mossberg590c*
1911**
SawedOff**
DesertEagle**

I also started to develop a story behind the whole TC franchise (who needs this?) with a main protagonist. It’s not quite ironed yet but I can tell as much as that the roles of good and bad are less stereotype’sh in CQB.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25331#25331

[_omator]

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25509#25509

Goodbye Hitboxes.
Well, real life is still busy, nevertheless I have something to report. Catching up any of the loose ends of development didn’t seem appealing during the last week so I grabbed ETPro’s Realhead code and merged it into CQB. After getting the routines to run I started writing my own bone-based hit detection code which is in experimental but working state now. Currently about 16 bones (like lower left leg, upper left leg, …) are traced as a cylindrical tube volume capped by half spheres. That works quite smooth to approximate the player model. The whole bone stuff follows the animations and bending, turning like done on the client side. That’s it already for today.

Hey again.
I’d like to start with some comments on discussions I’ve followed in the forum and I do it here, so it is comprehensive to read for ppl that are not reading the forum otherwise and easy to find again, additionally.

One suggestion or thought which is coming up repeatedly is about engine switch. For CQB I can clearly say no. There are multiple reasons and you can also be ensured that there was much consideration from my side before I came back to W:ET again. One main reason to stay idtech3 based is that the existing code base makes it possible to get something like CQB done at all. Never forget, there is like 10 years experience and countless man-hours involved and I know every line of code by heart, so to say. Another issue with modern engines is the huge workload required to get decent bump/specular textures and many other assets done that would be on par with the AAA quality of plain color-channel texs we have now. The third main reason is the existing very well known production pipeline including (most importantly) the map editor and the md3 model pipeline.

That brings me directly to the question of how much is doable with that old battle horse idtech3? A lot. You have to feel comfortable with the retro look due to lack of bump/specular, though. - As a side note, I have to admit I started seeing it as a feature and it gives a good feeling to be so far off the current games that the hunt to somehow try to catch up is finally over. - So, what’s doable? CQB is aiming at 50.000 - 60.000 verts per scene @ 60 Hz, which on average compares to a similar amount of triangles. At my machine (3 GHz Core2 and GTX 275) this runs with stable 100-110 fps. It still runs well on my aged Laptop with a NV 7400 Go (can’t remember the fps right now). In the years to come, most ppl will be able to have stable 60 fps with very rich graphics this way. So, were would the limit of idtech3 be? There is no hard limit for polycount, the problem however is the architecture of idtech3 which misses vertex buffer objects (VBO). As such, there is always the bottle neck of compiling vertex arrays and sending it to the graphics card on a frame basis. As hardware will be faster and faster, we probably can do 200.000 polys at stable 60 fps in just a few years. The issue is more that it could be done today already if VBOs were available (see Xreal and other idtech3 beef ups).

Much talking, the bottom line is that excellent models and excellent textures with decent poly detail in stable stock W:ET is much more than buggy beef-up engines with old maps and strange wanna-be bump/specular maps.

Finally, a friend uploaded a camera screen capture showing off CQBs new free look feature. It’s not best quality but you can see some action and how CQB will look. Thanks for that and enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lflXNbEtJik

[_omator]

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2077&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=345

Fill me in on Dutchfix.

As for the bone tags, yes they exist in the ET models, but without ETpro code, the server/game doesn’t load the required model/skeleton nor does it setup and animate the skeleton. Now I implemented the ETpro realhead code into the server and made various adjustments and fixes. I now have the bone tag positions on the server in sync with the client (unlagged) and can construct hit zones for the different bones. Imagine the upper left leg would be traced as a cylinder with the diameter of the leg and closed with sphere caps at the knee and the hip (looking like a pill in shape). This is still a hitbox in the wider sense, compared to per triangle hit detection, but it is much better suited to approximate the body shape than the axis-alighned bounding boxes (AABB) that were used before.

There is some misconception about CQB being developed for private LAN, probably I stated this in a sloppy way. My motivation to work on CQB was driven by the fact that we play only Cod4/5 on private LAN if we do it from time to time. Therefore, I initially thought to create a new more fun and more polished game based on TCE without the pressure to aim at a public release. Later I thought, hey if I get something done, even if it is only a first alpha, why not to share it.

The free look feature will be optional as the free aim was and will be, and both can be used in combination or only one of it. If you don’t want to use free look, just don’t bind the button to unlock the view.

[nukits]

jeez it looks like cod 4 !!! amazing

[stealth6]

wow that really does look very nice!

[_omator]

http://www.truecombatelite.com/index.php?action=fullnews&showcomments=1&id=91

Posted By Coroner on 06.23.10
In TP view, the head will turn. As such you can also use it to nod or to indicate directions to team mates without breaking silence.

As a consequence of the physical player movement system, all turning speed or limited to realistic values. The head/eye movement as accounted for by free look is the fastest way and more or less instant.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25652#25652

Let me add something to the pros and cons of the new hitboxes.

On the pro side I can clearly see the points that were already mentioned, like better calculation of body zones and overall smaller and more accurate hitboxes along with fixing some bugs were the current boxes were off the animated model.

Possible cons could occur on laggy systems in combination with weird and fast movements and jumping. The problem is here that the antilag isnt perfect and the faster the movement, the bigger are possible offsets between the estimate on the server and what the client really saw. Now that the hitboxes are smaller, the misestimation might matter more than before. Lets see.

For me the most important thing is that during realistic movement and static poses the hit detection is improved. Wild jump action moves and instant prone-stand are another issue … not under debate today.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2077&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=435

Hmm, regarding wild moves and movie action jump/bounce/whatever, I guess I have to disappoint some ppl. In terms of that virtual realism scale drawn earlier, like:

UrT----------------MW2-Cod4---------------AArmy-----Arma2

I clearly see CQB between Cod4 and AArmy, movement wise, probably even closer to AArmy (not much difference to Cod4 anyhow). For me, the action and fun comes with the variability of playstyles and accesability of weapons, not with weird moves. Even Arma2 which has slower movement could be considered fun if the handling of the weapon wouldn’t feel like turning a tank turret (probably they used the same physics model behind), way off from any realistic weapon handling. I think the pace of a game is not solely defined by its movement speed and trick jump ability, but more by the abilities to engage enemies and by realistic and thus (assuming some training) fast targeting.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25707#25707

[quote]there is no ‘jog’ speed

Wrong.

I dunno, but sometimes these speed discussions go wild.
Matter of fact, the normal movement in TCE is a pretty fast jogging/running. It is 180 units/s = 13 km/h, and you can use this without limitation. There is also walk, which is close to 6 km/h and for that reason on the fast side, too. AmericasArmy3 has something about less than 10 km/h for the run movement mode. Moreover, with CQBs new regular stance having weapon shouldered instead of ETs hip position, the current run speed looks a bit dull in thirdperson already. Its all easy to verify, just pack some gear, maybe even not, search for a location with similar dimensions like railhouse or such, shoulder an imaginary weapon and make some moves for 10 minutes. You will realize that all movement speeds in TCE are much faster than reality, except for sprint which is pretty good. I think this has to be like this to a certain extent, like also the weapon range effects have to be overemphasized in a game, to compress time and range effects.[/quote]

[_omator]

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25725#25725

Time for a small update again.
I am currently trying to finish all the loose ends of development with the release of a first test version in mind. All first-person weapons for the first release are done and working, some third-person models have to be finished, but since the are based on the TCE TP models, it is nothing big. I would say, the first version is 75% done. They deployment menu is updated with six loudout profiles which can be saved and which replace the old indentity choices. The identity (playermodel/skin) is now decided by the server to make sure all 6 players per team have a unique skin. I also fixed some stuff mentioned in the forum regarding server crashes and exploits. The loadout profiles will also be carefully checked for integrity on the server before they are applied. There is still some way to go but I try to not add new features anymore and to wrap this up.
One thing I just postponed is to add new cracking flyby sounds for supersonic projectiles and to use the current whizzby sounds only for subsonic, supressed ones. Would be nice to have, as CQB also has ballistic bullet tracing which with the average engagement distances in mind only really counts for subsonic bullets.
That’s it for today. Stay tuned.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25733#25733

All platforms will be supported. However, currently I can do only win compiles, since my other compilation environments are not available at the moment. I will need to contact some ppl who helped me with providing the linux machine and environment and Tier for the mac universal binary. I hope it works smooth, last compiles for linux and universal binary were internal 0491 versions in 2007 …

If someone could provide me with a ready-to-go cross-compiler (working with stock ET SDK) on a windows (XP) machine I would be very grateful!

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25790#25790

Good and not so good news.
I had the very first alpha test fight against some bots in the weekend, after finishing the third-person weapon models. That’s very good news, I guess.
I could track down a number of issues, thats’s what the rudimentary bot system is good for. Unfortunately one issue were major framerate drops with the new player shadow projection at certain spots of the test map. Even more unfortunate, I couldn’t really isolate the problem in a number of map compiles and various code iterations. The problem with the decal projection is burried in WETs engine and there is no obvious reason (from looking at the geometry) why framerates should drop in some spots and are perfectly fine in others. I guess, I could figure it out by having a look at the Q3 source, but this wouldn’t help. An alternative is Ydnars new decal code in WET which I disabled in TCE cause it doesn’t work with skybox entities. Without the skybox entities it works fine without fps drop, however, it allows only too few shadow decals to be added per frame, so part of the shadows would randomly flicker and dissappear. Except for removing the nice new shadows (as cvar option) I don’t see a nice solution right now.

[_omator]

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25797#25797

Regarding maps, there is no clear plan at the moment. For the sake of workload, the maps will have to be based on existing ones. There are however some design changes required, introducing much more routes and removing the choke point design. At least for Bodycount and reinforced objective, I will also remove the spawn zones and spawning will be distributed over the map using some smart logic. For the reinforced objective I would think of dynamically relocating targets (eg computers) or of zones distributed over the map. The major goal is to have a huge variety of routes similar to the original design in Q3TC. Next to the design changes all maps get a complete detail overhaul.

I also have past/present versions of the maps in mind giving them a different mood, in some cases more rotten and overgrown areas, combined with some route changes. This would be very cost effective with regard to development time. One version would be in the late 90s at the time of Q3TC 045 and the other version in the near future. Weapons (bringing back Mac10 and Saiga12k) and the roles of the teams would slightly change …

For the first test release, I might finish my small new map (appearing in the video). Other candidates are an updated version of Liquids raid map Bruces Arab map which is nearly finished and was never published.

for pictures of map that Coroner is talking about (OBJ RHUK) look here and scroll down:
http://www.guido-block.com/?s=true+combat
i am crossing my fingers to finaly see this live

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25803#25803

I have managed to simplify the shadow projection massively and can now draw 6 complete projective player shadows without any framerate impact (using the faster trap_projectdecal). I will probably add a cvar setting that draws the remaining shadows (if there are any in the scene) with the more expensive routine that does not suffer from polygon limitations.
Even with adding the more expensive shadow polygons it should be faster than before for up to 12 players.
In TCE, three shadow quads were drawn for each player (blob shadows). Now, shadows are drawn depending on the lighting conditions and direction. If diffuse light is dominating, no shadows are drawn at all. In areas of strong directed light, the projective shadow is drawn with a max of 6 quads, depending on distance and shadow lod settings.
Problem solved.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25807#25807

dynamic spawnpoints:

less predictable
less chokepoint action
more awareness required
no spawn camping

there will be a better radar
there will be a max of 12 players

1-life is another issue, of course

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25833#25833

The reason why single fire was more effective in 0.48 was that the damage was reduced increasingly for successive bullets in bursts/full auto, i.e., a three round burst had only the summed damage of something like 2.25 bullets (1 + 0,75 + 0,5). That made semi auto more effective and powerful. With more elaborated simulation of recoil, this balancing method was removed.

I agree that the marksman ability could raise the power of the first shot and reduce the power of the succesive shots similar to the method employed in 0.48, combined with recoil/accuracy adjustments.

[_omator]

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=25884#25884

Very good news.
I managed to bust all issues with the new projective shadows and now CQB actually offers more performance with them compared to TCE with the old ones.

I also tracked down (and fixed meanwhile) a number of bugs during test sessions with bots. I further improved the hit detection, rewrote the handling of portal scopes and improved the graphics of the scope overlay, optimized the particle system for smoke (though there is still headroom). I also improved the rendering of the own legs/feet, that I added along with the free look feature. You can see some action here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2oTt-rfAv8
As a sidenote, the bots are a debugging tool and are the same as in TCE. At the moment, I have no plans to improve them.

Next steps on the way to a first alpha are the player skins and the radar. The radar will show own team members and will disguise all firing opponents if they don’t use suppressed weapons. Furthermore, all sighted opponents that are either shot at by a team member or only sigthed and focused on for a while are automatically added. I will probably remove the appearance of team/opponent names in the center screen area and add an option to mark the own members in first person view like in 0.48.

[Soup_Nazi]

well… played much t:ce… its much better than counterstrike because of its realistic…
what a pitty thats it down …

i have the newest version of hamachi ( a Lan over Internet programm)
and i will open a few t:ce networks to revive it for the moment … hope it doesnt lag too much
but it should be okay for 8 - 12 players on a map…

if you like this idea reply or send me a private message …

:stroggtapir:

[_omator]

tc:e .49b still has around 150 active players + mapmakers / modelers so it aint that dead