Ok got that out of the way. 😛 So here’s what’s going on:

• Yeah v0.4 was released in a bit of a rush right before I had to head off for a vacation, so a lot of bugs and problems slipped in, most critical one being the crash when you finish a research, but if you avoid that you should be mostly fine. Even worse, GitHub stopped sending me notifications, so I missed a whole bunch of fixes submitted there, sorry about that. 🙁 We’re working on a v0.45 that will fix all the nasties so you don’t have to wait all the way for v0.5, but if that’s not enough for you, you can always just try the latest Git build.
• This website is old! Dusty! Wrinkly! Web 1.0! So I’m working on something better. If you’ve got suggestions on what’s missing on this website, what you don’t like, what you’d like to see, feel free to throw them at us! Also would you like to see OpenXcom on all those new-fangled social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc? Let us know! I’m too much of an old coot to have any clue about what’s hip and cool and what kids are into these days, you gotta help me out here. 😉
• Linux! Where did you go? Back when I announced the end of Linux builds, plenty of people were volunteering to do it, where did they all go? I guess most of you are happy compiling it yourselves, but it would still be nice to help get some archives and packages out there in the wild to streamline the process and spread the project around the various distributions (and even other platforms) out there.

I think I got overambitious with this version, I tried to put in everything I wanted to and still didn’t have enough time for everything… oh well, there’s always next time. As usual, remember to get rid of any old versions and saves (they won’t work!) and read the Wiki. Screenshots and builds for other platforms will come later.

New features:

• Basescape:
  • Research screens.
  • Manufacture screens.
  • Soldier improved stats.
  • Tank equipping.
  • Armor equipping.
  • Wound recovery.
• Geoscape:
  • New globe shading.
  • Craft pathfinding now uses great circles (more accurate).
  • New radar detection formula (more accurate).
  • Terror sites.
  • UFOs of all sizes.
  • Tied research requirements to everything.
  • UFOs in dogfights fight back.
• Battlescape:
  • Abort screen.
  • Debriefing screen.
  • Battlescape save game.
  • Panicking units.
  • Skill increase and promotions.
  • Ranged based accuracy is now optional (see UFO Extender for details on Ranged Based Accuracy).
  • Minimap.
  • Flying units.
  • Grav lifts.
  • Optional pathfinding preview.
  • Medikits.
  • Laser weapons.
  • Large units.
  • Motion scanner.
  • Alien deployment rules.
  • AI taking cover & throwing grenades.
  • Damage to items.
  • Mind probe.
  • Stun rod.
  • Show/hide battlescape layers button.
  • Rough battlescape artefacts salvaging functionality.
  • Added civilians.
  • Added support for skyranger landing on non 0-level.
  • Added support for multiple craft/ufo maps.
  • Psi Amp.
  • Added support for more alien races.
  • Load Game button.
• External rulesets.
• Added entries for most entities in the game.
• New Battle screen.
• Options screen.
• Startup logging.
• Game icon and logo.
• 64-bit version.
• Support for multiple data folders.
• Support for XDG specification.
• Support for user soldier name pools.
• Various new options (see docs).
• Debug mode.

Bugfixes:

• Two duplicating ammo bugs.
• Wrong rocket launcher hand sprite.
• “Not enough time units” during alien turn.
• Bug where alien weapons are given to the soldiers.
• Target mode is canceled when switching unit.
• Reserve time unit button is reset when starting new turn.
• Minor drawing glitch visible when walking down the skyranger ramp.
• Geoscape sidebar didn’t show up on first start on some languages.
• Bug with line of sight inside UFOs along diagonal walls.
• Bug with pathfinding inside UFOs along diagonal walls.
• Aliens not black when in undiscovered terrain.
• Issue with turn and shoot.
• Too many reaction fires from autoshot (each shot had a chance of a reaction shot which is wrong).
• Unit selection arrow showed up during alien turn.
• Double sliding door didn’t open when walking diagonally.
• Energy usage not calculated correctly.
• Missing text in Monthly Report.
• Ground items showing up in soldier’s hands.
• Improved interface performance.
• Bug with seeing through undiscovered floors.
• Updated the Rank Bonus values used to calculate soldier “value”.
• Apply changes to the base / soldier name when user presses OK.
• Incorrect globe zoom levels.
• Incorrect UI strings.
• Incorrect colors in Battlescape UI.
• Crash when starting mission on back side of globe.
• Endless number of soldiers in Skyranger.
• Clicking visible enemy units clicks other stuff too.
• Fixed lazy ground inventory arrangement.
• Aliens do not suffer from fatal wounds anymore.
• Improved straight line pathfinding in battlescape.
• Fixed unable to hit unit on stairs.
• Fixed drawing hidden object’s outlines.
• Fixed pistol aiming position.
• Fixed HWP rank image.
• Fixed no LOF error issues.
• Fixed issue where unit stopped walking when not seeing new alien units.
• Fixed alien reaction shots costing no TUs.
• Camera centers on selected unit on battlescape start.
• Fixed battlescape kill counter not working.
• Fix cursor hiding and scrolling during AI turn
• Fix camera scrolling into dark infinite and beyond
• Fix unit FOV calculated before AI reaction shot.
• Fixed “alien floating error”.
• Fixed walking under skyranger.
• Fixed firing XP from explosive ammo.
• Fixed active weapon display.
• Fixed issue with dead alien count.
• Fixed autoshot of HE ammo issue.
• Save turn number in savegame.
• Fixed free autoshot ammo.
• Fixed wrong UI colors.
• Updated translations.
• Fixed craft loading bug.
• Fixed crash with invalid savegames.
• Fixed savegame list not being sorted.
• Game no longer crashes if no sound device is available.
• Crafts that are outside of base no longer show in base view.
• Fixed globe not redrawing properly sometimes.
• Fixed various data loading bugs.
• Sell screen now decreases item quantity.
• Fixed craft pathing bugs.
• Fixed bug in command-line parameters.
• Various performance improvements.
• Added fallback if no soldier name pools are available.
• Fixed radar detection.
• Fixed some bugs in globe.
• Fixed inventory crash with certain armor types.
• Fixed crash with loading DOS sounds.
• Fixed battlescape buttons responding to wrong mouse button.
• Improved mouse click handling.
• Fixed Language dialog having wrong height.
• Game no longer crashes if language isn’t found.
• Game no longer crashes if User directory is unavailable.
• Game now shows an error if no languages are available.
• Fixed various bugs with text strings not fitting.
• Fixed text caret not always aligning properly.
• Fixed crash with UI buttons.
• Fixed Intercept string not always showing correct stats.
• Fixed colors in Target Info and Items Arriving windows.
• Fixed various savegame bugs.

Known Issues:

• There’s no Geoscape AI, alien spawning is completely random.
• UFOpaedia is incomplete and not tied to research.
• Dogfights are missing functionality.
• Not every ingame item is implemented yet.
• Geoscape sidebar isn’t always translated.

Hello! It’s been… a while, hasn’t it?

*dodges tomatoes thrown at him*

Ok, I know there hasn’t been any real update in months. Here’s the gist of it. Most of this time I’ve been busy with university, it’s really stressing and time-consuming and after months of going nuts over coding at school I don’t really feel like coding much at all when I get back home. On the bright side I’m almost finished with my MSc. Anyways I have my last exam tomorrow, followed by a week off everything to clear my head, relax and hopefully get me back coding.

What does this all mean to you? OpenXcom v0.4 will be coming out this July! That is a promise, if I don’t finish everything I planned I’ll just pack it up as-is and move on. I know in an open-source project “version releases” don’t really mean much given you can just grab all the latest stuff off the source code, but I like having these clearly-defined milestones to mark the progress of the project, with a whole bunch of new finished features (instead of just in-progress stuff) all properly packed and prepared for the common user.

OpenXcom v0.4 will feature a lot of new things since the last version, with special thanks to our great community for always lending a hand. Research, manufacture, medkit, motion scanner, tanks, debriefings, armor, terror sites, rulesets, tons of bugfixes and more! A new website might be revealed! I might spontaneously explode! Stay tuned. 🙂

P.S. To everyone contacting me stressing out over the server, relax! We’re not going anywhere! We appreciate the concern but our terrific server admin NineX has got it all under control, the donation drives are not a desperate last resort, just regular reinforcement so all these X-Com websites keep running without a hitch, and so far they’ve been doing splendidly. If you have any further concerns, please contact NineX directly.