3.6.10 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) Now Available!

[chief1983]

Announcing the immediate availability of FS2_Open 3.6.10 RC2.

RC2 is based on SVN trunk 5141.

Windows builds were using Visual C++ 6.0, compressed as zip for ease of use and distribution
OS X builds were made using command line xcodebuild on a PowerMac G5 with running Leopard 10.5, and Xcode 3.1.
Linux builds were made on OpenGEU 8.10 32bit using the standard build-essential compiler installation*

This fixes several critical bugs in RC1, including:

• Problem with more than 8 ships in multiplayer modes that support 12
• Final tweaks to the callsign feature
• Mantis 1899 (Nuke's rotation weapon issue)
• Mantis 1900
• Accidentally compiled RC1 without Voice Recognition - Enabled now, but problems seem to still exist**
• Linux builds were not built with -m32 from a 64bit machine, so a 32bit machine was used for RC2

Windows builds were compiled to include both Text-to-Speech and Voice Recognition support

Don't use Inferno builds unless you're playing Inferno, or TBP, or any other mod with a gargantuan amount of ships

FUBAR reminded me:
This build breaks multiplayer compatibility with RC1 and all other 3.6.10 versions.  You have to use RC2 with RC2 or RC2 Inferno with RC2 inferno.

Launchers, if you don't have one already:
Windows:  Launcher 5.5d
OS X:  Soulstorm's OS X Launcher 3.0
Linux:  YAL or here or whatever you can figure out.

Windows
Regular
Inferno

OS X
Regular
Inferno

Linux
Regular
Inferno

This is not a one-stop shop to make your FSO the prettiest it can be!  These are only the FS2_Open executables.  If you're starting from a fresh retail or GOG install,  you probably want the MediaVPs as well, which should be sticked in a post in the Freespace Upgrade Forum.  For a full blown install it all solution, look at Turey's FSO Installer, but there have been reports of corruption with the 3.6.10 MediaVPs, so you might want to get those separately.

As always, use Mantis for any new bugs, or if you can't activate your account, post here.

See the RC1 thread for info on new features.

* - This also included using OpenAL Soft (libopenal.so.1) instead of the OpenAL SI (libopenal.so.0), so a symlink creation may be necessary in case it is reported as missing.  If you run into this issue (likely on Fedora, maybe others), cd to /usr/lib, and '(sudo) ln -s libopenal.so.0 libopenal.so.1'.  Then pester your distro to update its OpenAL package to OpenAL Soft.

** - Voice Recognition seems to be refusing to find the voice recognition engine, even when it's running.  Will be investigated for RC3.  For now, I suggest testing the -voicer option with windowed mode enabled, which makes it easier to terminate when you have trouble.  Post any new information at the #1906 Mantis report

[Wobble73]

Wow! Am I glad I logged on tonight! Downloading now!

[captain-custard]

thankyou........ like lots

[FUBAR-BDHR]

This build breaks multipalyer compatibility with RC1 and all other 3.6.10 versions.  You have to use RC2 with RC2 or RC2 Inferno with RC2 inferno. 

[captain-custard]

This build breaks multipalyer compatibility with RC1 and all other 3.6.10 versions.  You have to use RC2 with RC2 or RC2 Inferno with RC2 inferno. 

thats useful info , will your standalones be running this?

[Rhymes_With_PSYCHO]

Somebody, put this on the announcements PLEASE.

[Mongoose]

Somebody, put this on the announcements PLEASE.

Done and done.

[chief1983]

You guys don't leave me much time to get to that stuff do you

[Vrets]

• Final tweaks to the callsign feature

What is this "callsign feature?" [/list]

[karajorma]

Allows you to assign a callsign to a ship which then appears on the HUD and in messages instead of/as well as the wing name. So instead of getting messages from Alpha 2 you get them from Iceman or Ghost or whatever.

[redsniper]

Talk to me, 'Goose!

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Allows you to assign a callsign to a ship which then appears on the HUD and in messages instead of/as well as the wing name. So instead of getting messages from Alpha 2 you get them from Iceman or Ghost or whatever.

heeey thats new

[Antares]

Some more stuff I've noticed:

- When your wingmen are given the order to disarm an enemy capital ship, friendly capital ships will stop attacking it entirely. Bug or feature?

- Did some testing of the aforementioned bug in Endgame through the tech room and discovered that Kaysers were available in the mission. Oops. I thought it might have been the mission select cheat doing it, but I peeked at several other missions and none of them had similar problems. Time paradox! 

- The "auto-target nearest hostile" function gives priority to fighters and bombers over other enemy targets. This is generally useful, as focuses upon the most dangerous threats to you, but it also causes some problems; for example, my wingmen completely ignored an Azrael transport attempting to capture the Ratna in He Who Rides the Tiger in favor of attacking some Seraphim bombers that were several klicks away (my targeting computer also ignored the transport, even though I was right next to it at the time).

- I know this isn't new, but when defending a target, wingmen tend to ignore fighters that attack them directly, which can make it easy for them to be shot down. Is there a way to fix this?

- 64x time compression appears to cause some strange AI behavior, which can significantly affect the outcome of a mission. For instance, wingmen don't seem to be able to shoot down enemy fighters as efficiently. This causes some scripting weirdness in He Who Rides the Tiger; the science cruisers advance so far toward the jump node that when the Abaddon jumps in, it completely overshoots them, causing the Repulse to give a "The Ratna is out of range of the Abaddon" message before the Lambda transport has even docked with it.

- Since there's already a cheat to rearm a given target, can't we add this to the comm options for supply ships?

[Goober5000]

- When your wingmen are given the order to disarm an enemy capital ship, friendly capital ships will stop attacking it entirely. Bug or feature?

Idiosyncrasy.  The "disarm" order toggles the "protect-ship" flag.

- I know this isn't new, but when defending a target, wingmen tend to ignore fighters that attack them directly, which can make it easy for them to be shot down. Is there a way to fix this?

- 64x time compression appears to cause some strange AI behavior, which can significantly affect the outcome of a mission. For instance, wingmen don't seem to be able to shoot down enemy fighters as efficiently. This causes some scripting weirdness in He Who Rides the Tiger; the science cruisers advance so far toward the jump node that when the Abaddon jumps in, it completely overshoots them, causing the Repulse to give a "The Ratna is out of range of the Abaddon" message before the Lambda transport has even docked with it.

Solution: Don't use 64x time compression when stuff is happening.

[Herra Tohtori]

- 64x time compression appears to cause some strange AI behavior, which can significantly affect the outcome of a mission. For instance, wingmen don't seem to be able to shoot down enemy fighters as efficiently.

No ****?

I'd love to see you trying to shoot down enemy fighters accurately at 64x time compression. Seriously, even computers have their limitations...


Sorry, I just found that amusing. On the topic, nothing seems to be out of place except the voice recognition option being broken, and it's already a known problem.

[Rhymes_With_PSYCHO]

The only thing you CAN do at x64 is cover a lot of distance REALLY REALLY FAST.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

The only thing you CAN do at x64 is cover a lot of distance REALLY REALLY FAST.

...and greatly reduce beam damage, if I may be so bold to point that out.

[Antares]

I'll rephrase. 

Wingmen protecting a given target have a tendency not to defend themselves against attack; they'll protect whatever they're supposed to be defending, but if the escort fighters themselves are attacked, they'll just ignore the enemy fire until they're blown up.

A short, easy escort mission on which to test this is Crisis in Capella; if your wingmen are ordered to defend the transports, they will do so very single-mindedly, and will often be shot down by the Basilisks that aren't targeting the transports.

EDIT: DORF, knew I was forgetting a good one.

This is a Port-specific bug, but it smells like something wonky in the code, so I'll post it here. In certain missions, apparently those where the ships at the bottom of the list on the ship selection screen are used to outfit your entire squadron (meaning that none remain), the list locks and will no longer scroll up and allow you to select other ships.

Example: Secrets Reborn. Scroll down the available ships and outfit your entire squadron with 12 Lokis, leaving none in reserve. The Loki "slot" at the bottom of the list will remain empty, and the list will no longer scroll back upward, even though other fighters are available for choosing. Can be fixed by dragging any ship from the squadron back onto the list, placing at least one Loki back in reserve. Same behavior on Abandon Hope.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

If you knew of these problems before the RC stage and they are reproducible then why didn't you post about them then or open a Mantis report on them? 

[Antares]

Most of this stuff I didn't discover until the past week or so; a couple, like the Endgame loadout bug, I didn't stumble across until tonight. I suspect that some, like the "disarm target" issue and your wingmen being too dumb to actually return fire are issues that date back to retail.

Besides, it'll all be fixed in 3.6.11, just like everything else.