GearHead2 v0.502

[Joseph Hewitt]

I've just uploaded v0.502 to SourceForge. Here is the list of changes; it looks kind of small, but there's a lot in there.

- Added lots of new components for the core story
- Added NOFAC tag if xxran element has no faction (playwright.pp)
- In ASCII mode, neutral props are grey (vidmap.pp)
- Shops show item info when selling items, viewing mecha (services.pp)
- Shops can now spell out their wares in ASCII mode (randmaps.pp)
- Added lots of new meshes
- Fixed mesh rotation bug
- Added Rishiri Spinner
- Added Red Mask Raiders, Aegis Space Force factions
- Regen, Stone, and Haywire should now wear off (ghweapon.pp)
- Map generator set properly when moving from dynamic scene to metascene (arenascript.pp)
- Scene content generator speed, selection improved (randmaps.pp)
- Global element search won't return undeployed unique content (playwright.pp)
- Campaign browser now uses collapsed view (pcaction.pp)
- Fixed a problem in StringMatchWeight with low match (texutil.pp)

Try it out, and let me know what you think. Now that this release is public it's time for me to start work on the graphics engine switchover.

[Erathoniel]

Downloading now.

EDIT: I played it and it was awesome until I got stuck in space. Is it possible to starve to death?

[Chris]

I checked it out, and it seems awesome so far. The game is actually starting to have a sort of "complete" feel it didn't have before, probably because there were so many broken quest lines and not so many now. The only hold-up I've run into so far is I got a main quest objective to go to a different Spinner to meet a friend, and that friend proceeded to join me, but now there seems to be no more direction for where to go, as my memo only says "Kepbo has decided to join your adventure" or something like that, and that's all. Beyond that, though, fantastic job as usual. I look forward to seeing how much better this game will get as it gets completed.

[Burzmali]

Downloaded and playing.

Still got a plot deadend (A#) during the first episode (maybe the transition) in ~15 start.

I haven't had much luck advancing yet, still ending up in a losing situation with (or shortly after losing) my initial mecha.  The biggest hurdle seems to be the ~10 renown missions that seem to be present in lot of cities (i.e. the follow up mission to Adrianna's "Embarrassing Problem" mission, and the X has a hydroponic station mission).  The main killer in mecha combat has been Fire-aligned enemies.  They sport AoE weapons that are near guaranteed to light you up.  The other offender (though usually as part of a team) has been the new Crossbones Buru Buru, in particular its Blunderbuss which never seems to miss.  In general, I go from battles where I can't be hit and rarely miss directly to a battle I am never missed and rarely score a hit with skills at 6.

All-in-all, I still haven't had time to give it a thorough shake down (though I've added a minor bug to Sourceforge already), so expect a better write up in a week or two.

Standard disclaimer, love the game, definite improvement over last release, no intent to offend with my comments.