Sven Co-op: Pleasing Taste, Some Monsterism

Sven Co-op v3.5 Mid-Way Progress Report
15 August, 2005 | by Sniper

Sven Co-op v3.5 is still in development, as is Sven Co-op 2 for Half-Life 2.

Currently, things like college and our real-life jobs are slowing down progress. As far as Sven Co-op v3.5 goes, the Team has been thinking about releasing incremental patches. For example, in the first patch, features we haven't finished yet will be commented out of the code. We're thinking about doing "Bronze Release, Silver Release, Gold Release." When we finally reach "Gold Release" status, all of our planned features will be in a working state.

This is just something we want to do for the community, because we know how long everyone has been waiting for the new patch. We haven't been ignoring you.

In the Bronze Release, most of the new v3.5 game modes will not be available. However, things like Running and Shooting for the AI and many bug fixes & new features, will be there.

Some of the things, which are 100% complete, are listed below. This does not list in-progress items, as mentioned above.

Finished Item Change Log

Fixed FGD bug that caused an error in Worldcraft/Hammer if loaded for the first time.
Fixed bug that allowed players to gain an unlimited amount of ammo after dropping specific weapons.
Fixed missing name for the Nihilanth boss monster.
Increased Alien Grunt Armor protection.
Decreased rappeling speed with the barnacle grapple.
Increased allowable server name length, server names no longer appear "corrupted".
Clamped suit volume to 1 to prevent any "SV_StartSound: volume = X" crashes.
Fixed animation popping for the Sniper Rifle when doing a full ammo reload.
Fixed various name declarations for monsters.
Fixed mp_respawndelay not being set when defined in a map cfg file.
Fixed bug that froze monsters in place if their follow-target died.
Alien Grunts can now turn their heads.
Scripted_sentence feature: When adding a "+" in front of a wav file path under
- "Sentence Name" in Hammer, the monster will be able to say the given wav file without the need for a sentences.txt entry. (Sounds are automatically precached)
Big Mommas will now run after and attack anything that happens to kill one of their children.
If in an alert state, monsters will run to help any nearby friends by looking for their enemies (if ally is engaged in combat). Result is a more active group of monsters that are better aware of their surroundings.
Monsters now run over to dead bodies of their allies, rather than stare off into space.
Changed priority of following monsters to keep following their player-owner more often.
Grunts now regard Big Mommas as their Nemesis if being pursued by them.
Squad leaders can now communicate with other visible squad leaders.
Upon encounters with new enemies while being attacked, Big Mommas will attempt to shield themselves from incoming attacks.
Hud now properly outputs a weapon's clip count, weapons can have over 100 rounds in a clip.
Increased view height of nodes from 8 units to 32 units in order to greatly improve navigation around obstacles like stairs, the top and bottom of hills etc.
- [Note: 'Maximum visible nodes' level design error was removed.]
Fixed a serious node-graph linking glitch, node graphs allow monsters to navigate areas 100% better.
Fixed bug that would allow monsters to damage/break objects with their melee attacks even if "Trigger Only" was set on func_breakables.
New entity: monster_handgrenade
- Can have custom model and health option sets the delay before explosion when spawned.
Changed "monster_satchelcharge" in FGD file to "monster_satchel" since there is no "monster_satchelcharge" entity in Half-Life.
Small CPU optimization/fix added for the Bullsquid when it fails to find a path to its enemy.
Idle sounds added for the Voltigore.
Fixed problem with the Squadmaker entity not transferring free-roaming options to its created monsters.
Cleaned up Squadmaker and Monstermaker code.
Female assassins can now run away from dangerous zombie-like creatures as all other human classes do. (And they're quite good at it, too!)
Monsters now recognize Big Momma's mortar as a dangerous thing and attempt to run away from it.
Melee-only Male Assassins will now flee if they're being pursued by an attacker, and come back to fight when their enemy has its back turned.
Fixed problem with the Apache (when killed) constantly exploding and throwing metal if it fell on top of another monster.
Monsters will make an attempt to get away from Apaches/Ospreys when the helicopters are falling to the ground.
Female Assassins no longer make running sounds when walking.
New trigger_push spawnflags: "No Clients" and "No Monsters"
- Will cause the trigger_push to ignore either entity type.
"Disable Respawn" spawnflag added in for items (healthkits, batteries, etc.)
Added a "Health Cap" option for item_healthkits.
- Allows for bonus-health, or to disallow players to use the kits after a specified health level.
- NOTE: 1 unit of health will drain from the player every 2 seconds if over the maximum health amount.
Health kits can be set to give a specific amount of health to the player, individually from other health kits.
Increased grapple entity tongue size to make it easier for players to grapple onto things.
Osprey Helicopters now fall and slide onto the ground a bit once they crash, and explode after a second or so. Any grunts riding inside of the craft are jettisoned out when it explodes (and killed)
Tweaked func_pushables. Stop moving and +use one to "pick it up", move into it to push, or move into it and +use while aiming slightly downward to push with more control. Pick up and start moving to throw a short distance.
When attacked, Barnacles will flinch in place making them easier to notice.
Cleaned up sound effects, client-side effects, AI glitches, and a crash bug for the Shock Trooper monster.
Tweaked/Reduced Shock Trooper damage resistance.
Revamped trigger_hurt damage function, players get correct levels of damage regardless of lag level (E.g. no more instant deaths from trigger_hurts that give 20 damage)
Re-worked ammo-dropping system to only drop as much ammo from the player as can be picked up by the standard ammo_entities.
Medkit healing rate increased
Added "item_generic" to the Sven Co-op FGD (Accidentally left out)
Alien Grunt Hornets have 50% reduced sight range, and only tracking-hornets will be fired if the Monster can not see his enemy.
- If enemy is visible, the alien grunt will fire hornets in a similar manner to the player hornetgun's secondary fire.
Shell casings and gib models now properly bounce and react to the ground.
Increased shell casing life time from 2.5 seconds to 5 seconds.
Changed tongue orientation for the barnacle grapple.
Screen now shakes when in proximity of grenades or other dangerous explosive devices, intensity of screen-shake based on damage.
Tweaked shell-casing ejection points for a few weapons
Crossbow zoom-toggle delay decreased
Minor change: Monsters make a pain sound when they're injected with a needle from the Medic Grunt. Sorry, we had to do this :)
Fixed schedule bug that affected monster attack animations.
Monsters will immediately start following a new player when they're +used, instead of just stopping and clearing their old follow-target.
New weapon: M249 Squad Automatic Weapon
Pitdrones now hide from their enemies when reloading their spikes.
Monsters now make various sounds to coincide with the NPC commands.
Fixed a few issues with the "Create" command for mappers. Adding a "1" at the end of the input will toggle friendly/enemy monster spawning.
Mandatory delay of 2 seconds added for teleports, to prevent impatient players from telefragging their team mates.
Increased the turning/facing speed for Male Assassins
Fixed rare crashbug related to humans running away from dangerous monsters
Updated HWGrunt attacking behaviors and fixed tracking bugs
Player Health column added to the scoreboard.
Decreased accuracy for Otis and Medics that use the Desert Eagle handgun.
Fixed some issues with monsters walking off of ledges.
Re-worked Gargantua flame-mechanics for brush-based enemy support.
Gargantuas now respond to bullets when shot from behind.
Added light-based muzzle flashes to weapons
New fair and balanced scoring system. The more health a monster has, the more points you receive for taking them out.
Changed around head-bob mechanics for falling/landing. (Requested)
Male Assassins now take more opportunities to use their grenade attack.
Fixed problem with secondary attack not calling the dry-fire animation on the Glock 9mm.
Scientists can now be set to "fear" players and other friendly monsters.
Fixed various reloading glitches for the Glock and 357.
Door improvement: Check added to make sure linked doors remain in-sync with eachother.
- Can be disabled with flag.
Set gl_round_down to default to 0, offers greater image quality.
New Entity: Trigger_change_class
- Changes a monster's classification when triggered.
Changed some display errors in the sven-coop.fgd file.
Fixed a friendly fire problem that caused monsters to shoot their partner's backs by mistake
Falling into water is no longer a safeguard against fall-damage. The deeper the water, the lesser the impact.
- Can be disabled in map CFG with "mp_water_falldamage 0"
Light entities now have a flag to remove them from the world. As a result, they no longer [need] to add onto the entity count limit (Regardless of if you do specify a targetname for them)
Global light control entity added. Mappers now have the ability to toggle all texture lights in a level on or off, or give them a specific pattern (e.g. flicker)
Streaming audio support and *.pls playlist file support added for the Sven Co-op MP3 player.
New Entity: trigger_track_goal
- triggers a func_track_train to start moving toward a specific path_track path entity. Acts like a "call" button for elevators, and can be used to direct trains to specific destinations.
Fixed akimbo uzi hud ammo visibility bug.
Changed scoring system points per-monster.
Weapon models can now have custom weapon muzzle sprites specified by the weapon.QC file. Use: { event 5005 <attachment#> "sprites/spritename.spr" } -
- NOTE: Ensure sprite model is precached.
Fixed various "freezing" problems with the Voltigore AI
Fixed ancient bug which prevented "running through shallow water" sounds from playing
Players no longer make "bubble" sounds when standing in water, sound effect now plays when fully submerged in water.
Redundant server-side footstep sounds no longer play.
Particle system created for water splashes and hit effects, etc.
Mysterious "second bullet" decal mark is no longer drawn when the 357 and Sniper rifle fires.
Mapper placed weaponboxes now automatically respawn.
Fixed a series of third person player animation bugs.
Tweaked Wrench secondary damage.
- Takes about 5 seconds to charge up secondary fire, to give a maximum damage bonus of 85 damage points, in addition to the weapon's standard damage.
Scientist now plays fear animation for gunshot fire (Bug existed since Half-Life)
Fixed monster yaw speed handling.
Players can now retrieve their own detpacks by +using them.
Things like shell casings now float in the water.
Offloaded FMOD DLL to svencoop cl_dlls folder to prevent any further 3rd party mod incompatibilities.
Fixed several crashes with the mp3 player code.

If you have modelling experience, and would like to join the team, please send a portfolio of your work to sniper@svencoop.com. NOTE: We're looking for people who want to work with the Half-Life 1 engine, not Half-Life 2, at this time. We need some additional talent to help finish various Sven Co-op for Half-Life 1 modelling tasks.

We thank everyone for being patient during this process.