Weekly Development Activities

[Marsman]

Sporkfire has posted this weeks Weekly Devlopment Activities.

Work moves forward on version 2.8, with the following updates. This version is expected to enter QA this week for possible public testing at the end of the week. All of this was reported in last's Weekly Dev, but this should be the week that you get your hands on it. I would like to point out that we are making substantial strides in improving performance by reducing memory overhead. Our team is reducing the load daily and players on 512MB machines should see substantial improvements.

• We have made some performance optimizations by reducing the client's reliance on the system page file in lower memory machines.
• Data tracking is being implemented to begin the tracking process for Merit Commendations. With the first update, no awards will be available, though the data will be tracked to count toward the first round of commendations when they are released. The shoulder pad will be implemented and the Meritorious Service (one year of playing) commendation will be available.
• The Map screen will now feature an overlay grid, dividing the map into sectors that can be easily identified and communicated. A soldier's grid location will be shown in the proximity radar. each squad member's grid loc will be displayed in the squad display beneath their name (so, you see squad member number, name, health, armor, and Grid Loc for each squad/platoon member)
• Players will be able to toggle their LFS flag to turn off be off when they first log into the game.
• A new feature is being implemented called Proximity Squad formation. This feature will simplify the squad formation process by sending an invite to un-squadded players with the LFS flag on within a certain radius of the player who initiates the command.
• Players will have the ability to spawn multiple chat windows, where they can send different channels to. For example, a player could create a new window that all broadcast chat would be sent to.
• There will now be 8 banks of 8 shortcut keys. CTRL+F1 through CTRL+F8 will switch between them (where F1 represents shortcut bank one, F2 represents bank two and so on). You can also use "+" or "-" to switch between the next or previous shortcut bank, respectively.
  Enemies spotted by yourself will properly appear on your radar. Previously, they would only show up on your squadmates' radar (or not at all if you were not in a squad).
• Outfit invitations will now display the name of the Outfit you are being invited to, in addition to the name of the person inviting you.

In addition, the following previously discussed items are also in development, but will not be a part of version 2.8. Battle Islands will most likely be a part of the 2.9 build with the Phantasm and joystick support being slated for an update further out.

• Three new Battle Island continents are in development.
• The Phantasm, a light cloaking air transport, is currently in development.
• Enhanced Support for joysticks is in development.

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