Category Archives: Steam Powered

Steam Powered

Sorry to pop in unannounced

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The fine folks over at ETF2L have launched their Highlander Community Challenge, and we’re excited to be a part of it. We’ll be giving out in-game medals to everyone who participates, so if you’ve got some friends who should stop wasting their gaming time and get to the work earning virtual goods (for you), now’s the time.

Ubercharged.net has put up their most recent Interview with a Community Item Creator, Larolaro. We love reading these, because it’s often the case that we get the best feedback when the community talks to itself, instead of when it’s talking to us.We ask for feedback on our tools all the time, and everyone’s much too nice to tell us directly that they’re like a “beautiful ornate chair with a spike carved into the seat”. Also, Hackett mentioned to us that he’s trying to get in contact with other Community Item creators, so if you’ve made something that we’ve shipped, and want to create more colorful analogies for describing our toolset, then contact him on the UC forums.
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Steam Powered

Commander: Conquest of the Americas Update Released

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Updates to Commander: Conquest of the America have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Version 1.03 (Patch 1) 9.8.2010

Features:

– Ship highlighting in tactical level
– AI will now build fleets with 1-3 squadrons
– A message is received when colony has a need
– Resource window can now be accessed by clicking the 3D resources and from Colony-founding view
– Morale information now shown in port name tags on strategic level

Balancing:

– Overall autoresolve balancing
– Overall ship balancing (schooner, xebec, brig, carrack, cutter)
– AI has now the possibility to select upgrades to ships
– More damage inflicted when fleeing from autoresolve
– Destroyed fort affects ships’ morale less
– Need amounts are decreased
– Smaller visibility range for squadrons
– Increased warehouse capacity (all levels)
– Reduced birth rate
– Reduced damage to crew from grape shots
– Ship upgrade prices are now relative to the ship price
– DLC 1: Colonial Navy overall balancing

Fixes:

– Info text and tiny icon shown over ship icon in shipyard if the shipyard level is too low
– Problem with water showing black with some older graphics card drivers fixed
– AI nations will not make war offers to player anymore, if it is in war with him
– strategic camera scroll tweaked
– Impossible to select “heavier cannons” upgrade if the ship has no cannons
– Soldiers don’t shoot from sinking ships anymore
– When Port attack is clicked from squadron interface, it’ll show red crosshair on enemy ports, when mouse hovers over them
– No “cannon accuracy” upgrade for ships with no cannons
– Tooltips for upgrades in Shipyard now show full upgrade description
– Graphics and tooltips for shipyard build button improved
– “Build more warships” -mission fixed
– Fixed tax-slider (smoother)
– Now to move trade items from warehouse to squadron also when balance is under 0
– Fleets cannot resupply at colonyspots anymore
– AI doesn’t add more colonists than there is space left
– It’s not possible for forts to flee the battle anymore
– Problem with squadrons of a larger fleet disappearing when entering a port fixed
– CTD-fix: AI squadron-merge caused a crash on savegame
– CTD-fix: clicking “sell all” in the colony trade view caused a crash sometimes
– CTD-fix: When trying to load a game or trying to return to main menu while in tactical with a fort, the game could crash
– screen edge scrolling fixed for dualscreen & triplehead (triplehead can be enabled from options.txt)
– possibility to lock cursor to game window or on dualscreen to the other screen (can be changed from options.txt)
– Strategic camera problem with low fps fixed
– GUI shows amount of cannons correctly now
– AI will now repair their fleets at port in month change
– Fixed flashing strategic loading screen when loading a game from main menu or ingame-menu before showing the correct loading screen.
– Player can’t see AI squadrons in docks/trade/people-windows anymore when in alliance and AI squadron arrives to player port for resupplies.
– New commander created for captured AI squadrons
– Friendly fort not spawned anymore on top of enemy fort when attacking enemy colony after multiple defending colony battles.
– Tooltips for specialist fixed (squadron info window)
– DLC ships used to display wrong icons in shipyard
– Building prices now correct in every difficulty level
– Building prices sometimes didn’t fit the designated area
– pressing tab (changing colony) did not hide selected fleet bouys
– rare CTD caused by native raid fixed
– “Buy soldiers” button disabled ( grey ) when no more room for soldiers
– tactical level tip-text removed since we now have a tutorial box on the top right corner
– “Barcelona” is changed to “Sevilla”

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Steam Powered

Europa Universalis: Rome Update Released

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Updates to Europa Universalis: Rome have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

  • Annexation of two province states allowed
  • Rebels can now declare independence
  • Rebels and pirates now fight as if they had a martial 7 leader, and use tech modifiers
  • Mercenaries are now twice as expensive to maintain, but reinforce (with their own manpower) at a slow pace
  • Revised the childhood events of characters to present clearer choices
  • Civil wars no longer affect trade routes
  • Improved handling of foreign occupation of provinces at the end of a civil war (no more gamey auto-conquests)
  • Winning a civil war now gives a big loyalty boost to all characters
  • Winning wars gives ruler popularity, losing costs popularity
  • Generals and admirals no longer lose or gain loyalty and family prestige when assigned or dismised, or when units are reorganized
  • Generals and admirals gain some monthly loyalty for each cohort or ship they command that is _not_ personally loyal to them
  • No longer possible to disband units with personal loyalties
  • AI improvements across the board
  • Women are allowed to hold offices among the Siluri and Catavellauni
  • Leader skill now matters less in combat
  • Some new events, characters and character ambitions added
  • Tylis is now a powerful tribe at game start to simulate the Gallic invasion of the Balkans
  • Massively speeded up load times

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Steam Powered

Hearts of Iron III: Semper Fi Update Released

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Updates to Hearts of Iron III: Semper Fi have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

  • Fixed multiple crash bugs, most related to nations being annexed
  • Fixed the missing unit model picture bug
  • Fixed the Arcade Mode freeze during “Adapting History”
  • Fixed the bug with automated HQs below Theatre level suddenly deciding to defend the whole theatre front
  • Convoys should no longer ship either fuel or supplies when none are needed in the area
  • AI improvements across the board


Source Continue reading Hearts of Iron III: Semper Fi Update Released →

Steam Powered

Counter-Strike: Source Beta Reopened

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Starting today the Counter-Strike: Source Beta will be available to all PC Counter-Strike: Source players. As we continue to update CSS and address issues, we want to make sure to not destabilize the core game. By releasing updates to CSS Beta first, we will be able to solicit community feedback before those changes are applied to CSS.

If you would like to be part of the group that helps us test future updates of Counter-Strike Source, please join the Beta – simply install and launch “Counter-Strike: Source Beta” from your games list in Steam. To give feedback on the changes, report bugs, or offer suggestions, please use the CSS Beta forum. Don’t worry, you can join the Beta program and still play the standard Counter-Strike: Source at anytime. The Counter-Strike: Source Beta is currently not available on Mac.

Here are the change notes for today’s CSS Beta release:

  • Fixed prediction errors that were causing greater weapon inaccuracy (bullet spread) on client than server.
  • Made the bomb the primary target of a USE command. This fixes a problem with objects placed around the bombsite interrupting defuse attempts.
  • Fixed the ‘skating’ behavior that could occur when a bomb planting attempt was aborted. Also fixes the resulting out of sync hit boxes.
  • Fixed bug in which a player who crouches rapidly and repeatedly was seen as stationery by other players.
  • Fixed problem in which the sound of a reload that was occurring when a player was killed persisted into spectator mode, making it sound like a reload was taking place near the spectated player.
  • Gave chat interface priority over scoreboard to reduce conflict between the two.
  • Increased size of HUD icons.
  • Fixed bug with env_hudhint that caused problems when its value was greater than 255 characters.
  • Added fcvar_archive flag to mat_hdr_level, r_rootlod, r_waterforceexpensive.
  • Made the message of the day screen dismissible by hitting ENTER.
  • Improved the look of the font on the achievement toast.
  • Fix servers not being to set sv_hudhint_sound
  • Added console variable cl_hudhint_sound
  • Added cvar sv_enablebunnyhopping, defaulted to 0. ( A value of 1 autotags the server with “bunnyhop” )

    Additionally, we’ve made some Counter-Strike Beta only changes to simplify perf testing. These changes only exist in Counter-Strike Beta and will not affect Counter-Strike:

  • Disabled HDR
  • Disabled vsync
  • Disabled motion blur
  • Disabled stats
    Source Continue reading Counter-Strike: Source Beta Reopened →
    • Steam Powered

    Week 16

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    Week 16: Gib Fest! If you only had one thing? If you don’t play a mutation, why?

    Gib Fest

    Blast the infected to shreds with M60s.

    Swords can slice up some fun. Chainsaws can tear apart the infected. But you need to get close for both and well? chainsaws are really loud! Time to go with the ultimate gun, you and three friends armed with M60s and unlimited ammo. This is going to get messy.

    If you only had one thing?

    Last weeks question was – Ignore the game for a minute. This is real world zombie apocalypse. You fought your way to a boat and boarded. You are unbitten. You are heading towards an Island in the Keys you hope is deserted but you have no idea. If you only had one thing you could wish to be on the boat with you heading towards that Island – what would it be?

    Since the numbers are similar on both platforms we combined them:

    56% Zoey

    22% Shotgun

    13% Ellis

    7% Health Kit

    2% Defibrillator

    While we would have taken Ellis over the shotgun ourselves, this voting makes sense. Almost. I have to ask the 2% who voted for the defib. If it was for you, who was going to use it on you? If it was for someone else, were you really going to walk around looking for a random dead immune Survivor to resurrect? Either way, you scare us.

    If you don’t play a mutation why?
    We did an update to our web blog this week about Mutations. While we go into more detail there, we are curious. If you don’t normally play Mutations, what is the main reason why?

    Next Week’s Mutation: Iron Man

    Source Continue reading Week 16 →