KeeperFX Unofficial - continued development - alpha builds

[YourMaster]

KeeperFX Unofficial was intended as a polished final release after KeeperFX was abandoned. However, spartahawk has shown himself willing to put effort into the continued development of KeeperFX, and has picked up where Mefistotelis has left off, using KeeperFX Unofficial as the basis. EDIT: Spartahawk has had to shift priorities as well, but development continues anyway, through my own work and the contributions of others.

So, in the future you can expect a new release of KeeperFX Unofficial, but for now I'd like to regularly share alpha builds. This will allow you to play with the latest additions and fixes, and allows us to receive feedback if we introduced new bugs or when new features have unexpected consequences. Keep in mind, these builds are not tested very well, if this is a deal-breaker for you, play the latest full release instead.

A full list of Alpha builds can be found here.

These are small patch files and need to be installed by extracting the contents of the archive over the latest KeeperFX Unofficial.

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The first alpha we would like to share is Alpha 1863. --- EDIT: This is no longer the latest version. Read the rest of the thread below. ---

With special thanks to Schizz who contributed some fixes, and burntonion for his input on the keepcompp.cfg. The rest of the code for this release was done by Spartahawk.

What's new:

• Units on the minimap are shown more clearly. (Became too small in higher resolutions.)
• Tunnelers will no longer duplicate on the map screen.
• Skirmish maps (1Player) will no longer use computer7, but use one randomly from computers13~16.
  
  Computers 13 ~16 have been added specifically for skirmish mode. Playing a skirmish will result in random opponents that will behave differently. It might rush, or it might turtle, check the log file to see against which computer model you played. This is all configurable by editing keepcompp.cfg
• Frameskip now also possible on laptops without a dedicated + key
  
  'Ctrl and +' increases gamespeed, 'Ctrl and -' reduces gamespeed. 'Ctrl and =' now also increases gamespeed, just like 'Ctrl and -' from the alphanumeric field also works to decrease gamespeed.
• Bug fixed that caused the Meteor spell to not explode on creature impact.
  
  When Meteor hits a creature, it now properly explodes, causing pushback on the unit it hits and those around it. Rebalanced the Meteor spell and friendly-fire damage in general around this bugfix to not cause too much damage to friendly units engaging the target of meteor.
• Fixed PushOnHit function and added it as an option to add to shots in magic.cfg
  
  Useful for modders only. Give PushOnHit a value on a shot in magic.cfg and have the attack cause pushback.
• Fainted imps no longer block attacking the heart. They (and other unconscious units) are pushed back when hit.
• No longer possible to dig through neutral walls in possession mode.
• Map updates:
  
  - C18 - Treasure room made neutral like it was in original game. This allows a backdoor into hero dungeon.
  - NG+18 - Treasure room neutral like in regular campaign
  - C8 - Turned one Barbarian Neutral again, like in original game.
  - NG+7 - Blue no longer rushes, he gets a bridge only when player builds one.

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Enjoy. All feedback is most welcome. Please share which version you are using if you are giving feedback.

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All the links to alpha versions prior to 1928 are gone. They can still be found here.
KeeperFX Unofficial 0.4.7 is released and new alpha versions require 0.4.7.1913 as a base.

[Woudo]

[*]No longer possible to dig through neutral walls in possession mode.

I had no idea this was a thing.

[YourMaster]

That was news for me too.

[Woudo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukBnIMUiIaE

Oh yeah I knew about this. Because the treasury is neutral, the white reinforced wall has no white tiles nearby and reverts back to dirt when the tile gets updated. That's why the speedrunner claims path up to the wall.

I thought you meant all neutral reinforced walls could be dug through in possession mode.

[spartahawk]

I thought you meant all neutral reinforced walls could be dug through in possession mode.

That's actually what was happening. If the neutral wall was still reinforced, it could be dug through. You can test it on this map. https://github.com/dkfans/keeperfx/issues/787

[YourMaster]

I thought you meant all neutral reinforced walls could be dug through in possession mode.

Yeah, they could. I attached a test-map on the issue I raised. Try for yourself.

Do you know of any maps where Tunnelers have to dig through neutral walls?

[Gold Knight]

Well this is a nice surprise. A few questions:

[*]Tunnelers will no longer duplicate on the map screen.

Just Tunnellers or all map elements? On more than one occassion I've seen spell books duplicated all over the place on the mini map as well.

[*]Fainted imps no longer block attacking the heart. They (and other unconscious units) are pushed back when hit.

Should hitting an unconcious creature not kill it? It doesn't really make sense that they become invincible to everything but lava (as well providing any attackers with experience).

[YourMaster]

The first question: I don't know. It's not implemented specifically for tunnelers, but I have never seen the spellbooks duplicate, so I don't know if it's fixed. You tell me.

And hitting unconscious creatures to kill them, well, perhaps, but that would be a real change to the current behavior and don't know what would happen. Perhaps you end up with hardly any prisoners after a big fight. Like this it's only a minor change, just to prevent the annoying situation where a fainted imp makes the heart invulnerable.

[Gold Knight]

The first question: I don't know. It's not implemented specifically for tunnelers, but I have never seen the spellbooks duplicate, so I don't know if it's fixed. You tell me.

It is / was rather rare, but I'll keep an eye out.

And hitting unconscious creatures to kill them, well, perhaps, but that would be a real change to the current behavior and don't know what would happen. Perhaps you end up with hardly any prisoners after a big fight. Like this it's only a minor change, just to prevent the annoying situation where a fainted imp makes the heart invulnerable.

I just feel like being able to grind experience off of unconcious creatures feels like a bug and, if not, very poor design. I don't think any negative effects (if they can be even considered so) would be noticeable during average gameplay. Is it even a bad thing if not 100% of enemies are conveniently left at 0 HP for your Imps to go and mindlessly cart off to prison? Not to mention that possession mode's auto-aiming mechanic often focuses / directs spells towards them (particularly homing missiles).

[YourMaster]

Yeah, getting experience for hitting unconscious creatures isn't very nice. I never did that personally, XP grinding is quite slow in most cases and when you're getting prisoners that's not the time to do stuff like that.
But, I'm not defending the current design of invulnerable prisoners, I just left it as it was. And I don't know how big the change would be if they would actually die when taking damage while passed out, most battle fields have poison gas, meteors, hailstorms, word of power attacks that could decimate prisoners.

The issue with them being in the way in possession mode, should now also be solved by the pushback.