GalaxyHack - Change Log

Version 1.72 - 23/08/06

slightly reduced small laser power yet further
increased frigate armour and shield
slightly reduced capital ship armour
range circles are drawn somewhat more accurately
slightly increased length of large laser animation (purely visual change)

Version 1.71 - 16/08/06

put small laser range back up to 600
slightly reduced small laser power
range circles are no longer drawn individually for each capital ship weapon
some optimizations
some bug fixes to bugs noone noticed

Version 1.7 - 05/08/06

battles are now properly deterministic, so whenever you restart a battle the same random seed will always give the same result (previously restarting a battle without restarting the game could give differing results)
frigates and capital ships work out weapon ranges between the nearest points of themselves and their target, rather than from their weapon points (which was how capital ships worked previously) or from their centre (which was how frigates worked previously)
small laser range reduced from 600 to 400
removed -D__linux__ from makefile as now WIN32 is now tested for instead

Version 1.69 - 22/07/06

moveaway commands now correctly overwrite old move commands given in the same run of a script
ships only stop moving on collision with their movement target if they are moving towards them, not if they are moving away from them
ships will not fly off the screen when attempting to de-overlap themselves
fixed a massive memory leak when loading images
improve some error messages and avoid some crashes when attempting to load non-existent files
updated to SDL 1.2.11
Windows GDI is now the default graphics driver in Windows, because for some reason it seems to be faster than DirectDraw
graphics driver option in settings file now also has an effect in Windows

Version 1.67 - 25/06/06

capital ship weapons no longer become dysfunctional when a capital ship takes damage

Version 1.66 - 08/06/06

fixed laggy mouse response regression
right clicking on side popup gives both whole side and individual group options
added side list group info type cycling to right click menu (previously just a keyboard shortcut)
removed follow view option from windows and shortcut keys, as for some time now it has been automatic whenever you select a group
changed #ifdef __linux__ to #ifndef WIN32 so things like storing the settings file in $HOME will now also happen when compiling on other unix like systems
changed documentation and command line help to be more wary of recommending people to use the dga video driver in Linux

Version 1.65 - 16/05/06

maybe fullscreen switching won't ever crash now (now whenever you switch all graphics are reloaded)
fixed some issues with in game resolution switching
game speed is reset on battle end
title screen logo centred depending on screen dimensions
fixed exceedingly minor bug only visible on incredibly fast computers

Version 1.64 - 14/05/06

in game fullscreen toggling and resolution changing
added new high 1280*1024 resolution
previous Linux users will need to delete their old settings.dat
an array wasn't quite big enough for the sprintf which was then used on it because the output was bigger than when I first chose the size for the array, running in debug mode I got a crash due to this. Really I should use snprintf but nevermind, instead I just made a whole bunch of arrays a little bigger
now has a window title
a bit of minor code tidying

Version 1.63 - 17/04/06

opened up forum again, opened up fleet submission again
removed dependency on SDL_gfx
no longer draw a circle with a radius of 1 when displaying the range of a ship without a weapon
change to MSVC++ to compile Windows version again

Version 1.62 - 02/11/05

fixed range circles sometimes crashing game in fullscreen
ships are selected when chosen from the side group list
ships can now be deselected after they have been killed

Version 1.61 - 01/11/05

all torpedos now do 100 more damage
small weapons on capital ships and frigates become dysfunctional as ships take damage
selecting a unit displays range circles (a white circle for small weapons and a light blue circle for big weapons)
the cursor keys can now be used to scroll the view

Version 1.6 - 30/10/05

torpedo range increased from 400 to 600
if a ship fires at a group that has been entirely destroyed, it will now fire at the last known position of the last unit left alive in that group, rather than the last known position of a random unit from that group
very minor code tidying

Version 1.55 - 20/09/05

if ordered to move towards a dead group (i.e. via a save group variable), ships will still do so, but they will not attack them
added total remaining health to batch mode output
removed unused "Flag" information from fleet information window

Version 1.54 - 11/08/05

fixed batch mode not working regression

Version 1.53 - 10/08/05

fixed hard lock on exiting fleet editor on some computers
fixed exiting entire game when you quit the fleet editor

Version 1.52 - 09/08/05

I thought I'd fixed a freeze bug, but didn't actually
I think that now all AI script errors are immune from "my screen has filled with popups!" problems if the same error occurs for lots of different units at once
game uses far less CPU in menu screens
when you copy a fleet, any pictures for that fleet are also copied
game does not warn about multiple move commands

Version 1.51 - 26/07/05

fix typo in #ifdefed Linux code

Version 1.5 - 24/07/05

unit pictures can now be stored in an individual fleet's directory as well as the base "standardpictures" directory
all fleets in database that use pictures changed round to use their own unitpictures directory, and also changed all zips to be relative to "fleets" directory rather than to base GalaxyHack directory

Version 1.47 - 28/06/05

revert to earlier version of GCC, I'm pretty sure 3.4.4 was causing crashes

Version 1.46 - 22/06/05

change back to GCC, VC2005 was causing issues for some (well at least one and therefore probably more) users

Version 1.45 - 20/06/05

small ships equipped with torpedos suffer a 25% movement penalty (meaning a ship with ultra engines and torpedos is a tiny bit slower than a ship with improved engines but no torpedos)
overlapping capital ships and frigates no longer cause each other damage when they explode
if a number of frigates and/or capital ships are all trying to move towards the same target, they will attempt not to overlap each other
frigates can no longer be made to overlap each other in the fleet editor
Possibly fixed a bug that could cause the fleet editor to crash (hopefully)
S is a shortcut key for Setup Battle, To Battle, or Start Battle, depending on context. So hitting "S" 3 times from the main menu will start a battle
F is a shortcut key for Fleet Editor
Switched compiler from GCC to Microsoft VC2005

Version 1.43 - 14/06/05

capital ships are 1/4 of the cost (or 2.5 times the cost in versions before 1.4)
capital ships have 1/4 the armour
torpedos have just over 1/4 the power
large lasers have increased range
large lasers have increased firing rate
ultra small engines are slightly more expensive
ultra big engines are slightly more expensive
improved small shields and ultra small shields are slightly more expensive
fixed setting group saved groups from within the force editor
space bar can be used to toggle a game speed slider
I is a hot key for standard game speed, O is a hot key for maximum game speed
keypad + and - can be used to control game speed
game checks that no units exceed their maximum points value when loading a fleet
when a large laser hits a capital ship or frigate, it creates an explosion (a purely visual change)
torpedo explosions last less time (a purely visual change)

Version 1.42 - 12/06/05

now runs about twice as fast (though batch mode is almost unaffected)
exploding ships damaging overlapping ships now works properly
no longer possible to select dead groups
no longer sometimes crashes if game remembers fleets which are then deleted
compiling creates far fewer warnings

Version 1.4 - 12/06/05

capital ships are ten times more expensive
battle results are only written to the log file in batch mode

Version 1.39 - 11/06/05

game speed slider and window color slider tell you when they are at the normal/default value
re-added option to copy and delete fleets from fleet editor
removed rename fleet option from fleet editor as it was broken
tidied up some of the source code a bit

Version 1.38 - 25/05/05

groups no longer have trouble moving away from each other if they are overlapping

Version 1.37 - 23/05/05

when a capital ship or frigate explodes, all overlapping frigates and capital ships will be damaged
fixed a couple of capital ship pictures that didn't have properly black backgrounds, causing some graphical glitches when they flew over the top of each other
when dragging units into new positions immediately before a battle (i.e. not in the Fleet Editor) you are allowed to drag groups outside of their allowed starting positions for debugging purposes

Version 1.36 - 21/05/05

fixed bug that meant small capital ships had very little health, and which also gave newly created units incorrect default equipment selections

Version 1.35 - 21/05/05

made world arena quite a bit bigger. As part this change, all fleets now start with open space on all sides
ships have momentum, and hence take a short time to change direction
capital ships can move
battles are no longer declared a draw if only capital ships are left
it is less likely that bombers will run past fighters and the fighters are then unable to catch up
Game is much faster when at maximum game speed (though in batch mode it is the same speed as before)
white rectangle to show current view area on radar
added option to exit without saving to force editor
increased keyboard key repeat delay so it is harder to accidently go back through too many stages with the escape key
maximum instructions processed error messages go to AI error report window
only first AI error is reported for each group to prevent massive numbers of error reports bringing the system to a crawl
stats window is now the default group information window
fixed bug in AI interpreter when combining a check on a saved world edge with an && or an ||
AI report window reports compass directions correctly
an error is reported if variables in scripts are not given a number

Version 1.25 - 14/05/05

no program window at all is created in batch mode
random numbers standardardized across different systems
batch mode automatically sets speed to maximum possible
frigates will not start firing big lasers and then stop half way through because their target has gone out of range in the meantime
fixed issue that meant occasionally the game said the battle was a draw due to the frame limit being reached, when actually it was because there were no ships left other than capital ships
prebattle state no longer keeps making calls to get random numbers for as long as you are in it, allowing battles to be totally deterministic
added window that allows you to set the seed for the random number generator on the battle setup screen.
added command line option -r <seed> to set the seed for the random number generator.
game shuts down more cleanly if there is an error during initialization

Version 1.21 - 05/05/05

Previous Linux versions probably automatically exited immediately whenever a battle ended. This should no longer happen
distance/range checks no longer sometimes work incorrectly
missiles are slightly more powerful
removed option to toggle window borders and window transparency
settings file has changed, Linux users must delete $HOME/galaxyhack/settings.dat
batch mode automatically sets fullscreen to false and resolution to 640*480 on a temporary basis
shields reset their recharge timer when hit
rather than creating a popup AI errors can now be viewed from a side info window
right clicking a fleet popup window or a fleet name in the main popup now allows you to select any of the available types of side info windows
The Windows binary was compiled using GCC rather than Visual Studio. Combined with one of the bug fixes this probably means it runs slower

Version 1.18 - 28/03/05

fixed bug that could make it impossible to give a capital ship small weapons

Version 1.17 - 28/03/05

torpedos are a bit less powerful
outstandingly minor change to prevent highly unlikely error in AI interpreter

Version 1.16 - 17/03/05

the desktop icon optionally created by the installer now works properly
removed the ability to copy and delete fleets from within the game because it was broken and I can't be bothered to fix it right now

Version 1.15 - 03/03/05

include the correct Makefile

Version 1.14 - 26/02/05

fixed GCC compile error

Version 1.13 - 14/02/05

fixed regression bug which meant changing the size of a capital ship from within the fleet editor caused a crash
the command line option to go straight into a battle is now a lower case x, not an upper case X
an early work in progress command line option to run in batch mode (battles are not displayed, instead the results are written to a log file, and then the game automatically quits)

Version 1.12 - 13/02/05

fixed regression bug in unit picture selection menu that made it slow and crash-prone

Version 1.11 - 10/02/05

fixed regression bug in 1.1 which meant function calls didn't work if they had comments on the end

Version 1.1 - 06/02/05

the Start Menu icon created by the Windows installer now works properly (grr)
you can no longer accidently select groups behind the radar
tabs are stripped off the end of function labels/calls
more graceful handling of major errors in some circumstances
removed ZipArchive dependency (and in doing so zip functionality)

Version 1.0 - 24/01/05

clicking on a group during a battle selects that group, focusing the view on it and bringing up a window with information about it
clicking on radar mini map now always works
changing the fleet selection when setting up a battle has been streamlined a little bit

Version 0.98 - 18/01/05

scripts can generate a random number between 1 and 100 with the keyword "random"
the game now has a border if run in windowed mode. In Windows windowed mode is slow, in Linux windowed mode is ridiculously slow, but if you've got a fast computer maybe you'd prefer to run it in a window so you can alt tab to ai scripts etc.
the game remembers which fleets have fought or been edited most recently and automatically loads those fleets when you click "Setup battle".
the settings file has changed, so Linux users need to delete ~/.galaxyhack
changed round to some different music
reverted to old winning conditions: a fleet only wins if it destroys all of the enemy's/enemies' capital ships

Version 0.96 - 09/01/05

The Windows release is now compiled with optimization, meaning it now runs more than twice as fast.

Version 0.95 - 04/01/05

Fixed jerky scrolling

Version 0.94 - 03/01/05

AI scripts now run every 10 frames, not every 11
Added a couple more checks for invalid lines in AI scripts

Version 0.93 - 03/01/05

fixed the bug that meant capital ships could be placed on top of each other when first added to a side
fixed a few regression bugs from 0.92
switched to Visual C++ to compile Windows binaries, and changed quite a lot of code to allow this. Currently the Windows binary is unoptimised and hence very slow, I'll sort this out at some point

Version 0.92 - 01/01/05

Changed the victory conditions: A side has won, when for every enemy at least one of the following conditions is true:
- the enemy has no capital ships left
- the enemy has only capital ships left
each fleet has its own directory - all the fleets in the database have been adjusted accordingly
made torpedos quite a bit more powerful
the settings file has changed, so Linux users need to delete ~/.galaxyhack
major refactoring of GUI code

Version 0.9 - 21/12/04

Fixed false "illegal starting positions" error message bug
Fixed crash when moving towards a global saved world edge bug
Fixed bug that allowed you to work around capital ship capacity limitations
Capital ships are allowed AI scripts to carry out calculations and set variables
Various minor user interface improvements - e.g. game and scroll speed sliders are now the traditional way round, and dead groups are listed in faded grey
Added modulo (%) operator

Version 0.85 - 25/10/04

added northedge, eastedge, southedge, westedge
you can save world edges in save groups, test them in if statements, compare them for equality, or move towards them
the game data is no longer a seperate file to the binary releases, you need only download a single file to install the game

Version 0.84 - 19/10/04

if you select no to "include pictures" when zipping a fleet, the dialog box no longer remains on the screen
blank space after the colon of a function label no longer prevents the byte-code compiler from being able to match the label
loading game with music off and then turning music on will no longer abort the game
the game inits video and audio seperately, and will keep going if no audio device is available (hopefully)
checks people don't try to use a single equals sign in an if statement
removed my capital ship and frigate programmer's art from data file

Version 0.83 - 09/10/04

reset global variables when battle is restarted
zip files no longer include pictures multiple times if the same picture is used for more than one type of unit
made missiles slightly less powerful
reduced range of missiles

Version 0.82 - 09/10/04

in fixing the Windows XP problem in the last release, I broke the AI interpreter somewhere else. This has been fixed.

Version 0.81 - 09/10/04

in previous versions the AI interpreter did not work correctly on some versions of Windows (including possibly all versions of XP). This has been fixed.
added new art from David Meriwether to data file
if we reach the end of a function before reaching a return, then return (rather than falling through). This means that putting a return on the end of each function is no longer always strictly neccessary.
blue and yellow sides now have blue and yellow lasers
some basic checks on edited weapon positions
warning given if a group receives multiple move commands

Version 0.80 - 01/10/04

fixed checking whether two global saved groups refer to the same actual group
added specifiers insmallrange, inbigrange, ourinsmallrange, ourinbigrange
positions of small weapons are no longer always overwritten by default values
missiles are slightly more expensive

Version 0.79 - 26/09/04

ability to find whether two groups refer to the same actual group
increased power of torpedos
increased range of missiles
reduced cost of missiles

Version 0.78 - 25/09/04

numx commands. Note that these cannot yet be used in if statements, currently they can only be assigned to variables
removed option to zip up a fleet from Windows version for now because for some reason it seems to create corrupt zips
for Linux users, added an option to include pictures when zipping
given up on allowing brackets to order logical operations for now - brackets have been totally removed
You no longer use brackets for tests following a "!" (not)

Version 0.77 - 19/09/04

a fleet can only have a number of frigates proportional to its number of capital ships
frigates only get one unit per group
slowed down frigates a little bit

Version 0.75 - 18/09/04

setting a saved group to "our" no longer causes problems
having a comment one line before the last line of a script no longer causes the last line to be skipped
an error message is given if indentation includes any spaces (as opposed to tabs)
you can cycle through various sorts of information in a side's group summary list by pressing the F4 key

Version 0.74 - 17/09/04

if statements no longer sometimes test for dead people when they shouldn't
if statements no longer accidently test false due a typo in the source code
FireBig resets from aiming stage if enemy now out of range
added misstarget, an equivalent of torptarget for missiles
fixed not being able to position newly added groups in the fleet editor until you saved and quit and reloaded the fleet again
fixed cap ships not resetting bounding rect when their type is changed in force editor

Version 0.73 - 16/09/04

totally restructured and rewritten much of the code that interprets "if" statements, hopefully they will be less prone to not working now
There are now 10 of each sort of variable
Old AI scripts which use timers will no longer work because when starting or reading a timer you must specify which of the 10 timers to use
Old side data files will no longer work because side data files now store 10 of each save group. This is fairly easy to fix in a text editor if you look at a side created with a new version of the game to see the format in which they are saved
I thought I'd made it so comments didn't interfere with blocks of code, but they did. This has been fixed.
found out that the reason zipfleet wasn't working for anyone but me was because my zip program was ignoring empty directories when creating the release files. This has been fixed.
setting savegroups to "our" works
you can display side/group script variables mid battle
you can now specify multiple pieces of information from a nearest type group in an if statement (as the documentation already heavily implied that you could)
a few new health/shield/armour group specifiers
if a group is patrolling and hits edge of screen, it will go back round its patrol circle in the opposite direction
a great number of other minor improvements / minor bugs fixed

Version 0.72 - 13/09/04

Added a bunch of options to settings.dat, removed a couple of command line options. This means that Linux users must delete ~/.galaxyhack before upgrading.
Comments can now come at the end of line of code, they no longer always need a line to themselves

Version 0.71 - 12/09/04

The AI interpreter was rewritten, this means:.
1. The game is no longer anywhere near as pernickety about the number of spaces you may or may not have between each token
2. When specifying multiple pieces of information from one group you should no longer use a comma (just use a space instead)
Fixed the bug which meant small ships would fire torpedos when absolutely miles away from their target, even when not asked to fire at all.
Fixed the bug that meant zipping up a fleet only worked in Linux.

Version 0.63 - 07/09/04

Log file is now placed in the data directory, not in the current working directory (this doesn't affect Windows users).

Version 0.62 - 04/09/04

Nested if/else/elif statements did not work correctly in any previous version, this has been fixed.

Version 0.61 - 23/08/04

Somehow I managed to delete the empty (but required) "zippedfleets" directory in 0.6, it is reinstated in 0.61. (actually, I later discovered it was missing in this release too, and many others, due to my zip programming not including empty directories)

Version 0.6 - 22/08/04

Changed to a more Python-esque syntax in two ways (this will totally break all existing AI scripts, sorry):
1. Blocks of commands are now grouped using tabs, not curly brackets
2. elseif has changed to elif (it still works in exactly the same way)
Also, the game is now less likely to crash if it comes across an error in a script

Version 0.54 - 12/08/04

Hopefully I really fixed function calls in AI scripts this time
A new "Game Info" window, which for now just displays how many frames have elapsed
Reorganised the part of the source that deals with AI scripts

Version 0.53 - 09/08/04

I thought I fixed function calls in AI scripts in this version, which were broken in 0.5ish, but a stray "+1" meant actually I didn't.
new command line option to skip menu screens and go straight into a battle
added "none" as a possible value when testing for bigtype in AI scripts
a couple of minor bug fixes
the Makefile included in the source release is now somewhat less useless

Version 0.52 - 24/07/04

Torpedos no longer look like they are missing half the time (actually two seperate bug fixes)
Game no longer forgets to place stars in background the first time the game is loaded
For Linux, rootperms.sh gives galaxyhack root permissions
Restart battle has an "Are you sure?" dialog
Returning from position forces no longer goes right back to "choose which force to edit"
Morennian frigates now have a slightly different AI script in the included test side (still very boring though)
Very minor tidy up of readme.txt
Source code tidied up a tiny bit

Version 0.51 - 21/07/04

I forgot to include the required dlls in the 0.5 Windows binary

Version 0.5 - 20/07/04

Totally removed network play. Instead, you can download other fleets to test yours against from an online database. You are encouraged to submit your own
For this to work some changes have been made. For instance, starting positions for groups are now chosen at the same time as designing your fleet, not immediately prior to battle starting
Because of this, old fleet data files will no longer work. Old unit files and AI scripts will still work fine
It is now possible to script simple arithmetic in AI scripts: +, -, *, /, ++, --
New variable that allows you to check the number of units left in the group
New variable that allows you to check how many torpedos are already flying towards a given capital ship
New variable that allows you to check what type of ship a group contains
Various minor bug fixes/changes/improvements

Version 0.42 - 08/05/04

fixed setting saved group variables from within the force editor
a bit more tidying up of the source

Version 0.41 - 07/05/04

fixed "bigammo"
changed "aedge" to "nedge", and made it work
lots of largely superficial tidying up and improving of the source in various ways

Version 0.4 - 30/04/04

AI scripts are read and interpreted in a staggered fashion once every 10 frames (at the standard game speed this is 3 times a second), so the game should be able to cope with far larger AI scripts without slowing down
in totally the opposite direction, the speed of all units and weapons has been reduced so the game can be watched at a fairly relaxed pace without everything becoming all jerky
changed the included test sides to use the nice artwork contributed by Kasper Hviid
More comprehensive testing for game end conditions
Various minor changes and bugs fixed

Version 0.3 - 26/04/04

Windows version
New Linux version is compatible with the Windows version
Large lasers now have 70% accuracy (as opposed to the somewhat less than skilled 0% that it was before)

Version 0.2 - 23/04/04

server checks whether clients are using the same game data and same version of game (though it would be very easy for cheaters to remove these checks and compile their own cheater's version)
choosing a new unit picture is less awkward
some exceedingly basic checks for syntax errors in AI scripts
general code tidying/very minor bug fixing