Crysis PC Game - News: Mod Software Development Kit - Development Status

Crytek published another weekly update reporting to the world-wide community on the progress of various Crysis related topics. This weekly update focuses on the Mod Software Development Kit for Crysis.

We welcome you to the “Crysis Weekly Update #3”, which is an official status report from Crytek to the world-wide community in order to get you up-to-date on the progress of various Crysis related topics.In this update we want to talk about the Mod Software Development Kit for Crysis that is scheduled to ship around patch 1.2. In addition to that we are going to introduce you to quite a few new bug fixes of the change log and also new features that are included. We also got news on the status of patch 1.2 for you which is nearing completion.

Mod SDK – Development Status

The long awaited Mod Software Development Kit for Crysis is in development for quite some time already. Within the past weeks we have made great progress on it to get everything ready when patch 1.2 ships. The installer for the SDK is already completed and has been verified.

Next to the installer the important tools such as the resource compiler, FMOD designer for sound, polybump plugin/application and of course the exporters for 3DS Max 8, 9 and 2008 are finished and included as well. This should allow every modder to export their creations to the Sandbox2 Editor based on the documentation we provide for this.

Currently the team is working on getting the example assets functional in the Sandbox2 Editor and making them compatible to all the different exporter versions. These are being used as reference how different objects (characters, vehicles and more) are set up correctly. Also some minor adjustments and bug fixing are left to be done.

The game source code for the SDK is currently being prepared based on the final patch 1.2 source. Once this has been finished the whole SDK is getting put together and will get checked for stability and usability.

Right after everything has been approved the SDK will be made available to the whole modding community.

Patch 1.2 – Status Update

Additionally we also got some interesting news about the upcoming patch 1.2 for you. In the first weekly update we mentioned that the content is locked and will not change unless another issue is found.

This means we have set up the final installer for patch 1.2 and sent it to both EA and Crytek QA departments. They will now do a last final test on it and verify its functionality. Once this is done we can schedule a release date and let the community know about it.

However, even though the patch 1.2 is nearing completion there is still a bit of work ahead of us. We hope to get everything done in time in order to release the multiplayer focused patch for Crysis in the upcoming weeks.

Patch 1.2 – Bug Fixes & Features Introduction

In every Crysis Weekly Update we are going to feature a few of the upcoming bug fixes and/or features from the change log and talk about them in more detail. The introductions for this update are:

Multiplayer – HUD Readability

Tweaking the information displayed on each player’s HUD in a PowerStruggle match was an important topic for us to address in the upcoming patch 1.2 in order to improve readability for new as well as more experienced players.

The first new addition to the HUD is about a new icon that is visible when you purchased a vehicle. This allows you to directly see where the vehicle is located.


Additionally the red near-death HUD effect has been improved together with the visual feedback for a player being hit, to ensure enough readability is provided while being in combat and not having enough time to check the health status in the right lower corner.


For a quicker reference during a PowerStruggle match new numbers have been added to the top HUD screen information. These numbers display the percentage of how far the alien energy of the respective team is. The numbers are visible for both teams all the time.


The last part of the readability update is about the TAC icon for enemy players that will now disappear when the player who is carrying a TAC launcher cloaks. This adds more dramatic to the endgame scenario and also re-implements the cloak mode as useful tactic to get closer to the enemy HQ. Still cloaking consumes the most energy and thus needs to be used very carefully since on uncloaking the energy is low and the player is very vulnerable to bullets.


Multiplayer – Air Combat Balancing Part 2

Last week we introduced you to the first part of the air combat balancing topic. It included adjustments to the air and anti-air vehicles. Based on the analyzed data and feedback from the community a list of balancing changes have been created which are being applied in patch 1.2.

Today we release the second part of this balancing topic which is about bug fixes and upcoming tweaks to air and non-air vehicles.

All Air Vehicles:

  • Added new shell ejection effect for air vehicles.Explanation: This increases the visibility of an air vehicle shooting at a target.


VTOL:

  • Fixed an issue with incorrect "friendly fire" icon in multiplayer VTOLs.Explanation: Sometimes the enemy aircraft would get the red cross of friendly fire showing up which is fixed.

  • VTOL cannon now has correct spin up or spin down sounds.Explanation: Increases readability when a VTOL is starting/stopping to fire with the mounted machine guns.

  • Fixed issue with VTOL weapons not overheating correctly.Explanation: Adding more balancing to the air combats since mounted machine guns in VTOLs now cannot be used constantly due to the appearing overheating.


Anti-Air Vehicle:

  • Greatly increased AAA damage vs. VTOL and Helicopter.Explanation: Anti-Air Vehicle now can be seen as offensive weaponry against the air superiority of the VTOLand Helicopter.


Rocket Launcher:

  • Adjusted damage of rockets vs. AAAExplanation: To complete the scissor, paper, stone principal the Rocket Launcher damage against the Anti-Air Vehicle has been adjusted accordingly. Even though this vehicle might be very powerful against air vehicles it is still vulnerable against ground units, especially tanks and Rocket Launchers.



Change Log Abstract

As usual we are going to inform you about additional bug fixes/tweaks included in the patch. With the upcoming weeks we try to inform you as good as possible about the change log, but no promise that we can finish the whole list until the patch is released – it is quite huge!

1. Optimizations and Stability

  • Fixed a number of memory leaks with some procedural vegetation and destroyable objects physicalization.


2. General Fixes/tweaks

  • Allows loading of custom “objectives.xml” files inside the respective levels folder.

  • Decoupled basic speed-mode movement speed from current suit energy level. Sprinting still takes up energy.


3. Weapons

  • Players are no longer revealed to enemy on enemy mini map when using silencers on weapons unless they are within 5 meters of another player.

  • Improved the behavior of guided rockets, when aiming through player collision proxies. This should reduce instances of rockets flicking away from targets occasionally.

  • Fixed an issue with some weapon effects that would cause explosions not to be rendered.


4. Vehicles (already introduced further above)

  • Fixed an issue with incorrect "friendly fire" icon in multiplayer VTOLs.

  • Added new shell ejection effect for air vehicles.

  • VTOL cannon now has correct spin up or spin down sounds.

  • Fixed issue with VTOL weapons not overheating correctly.

  • Greatly increased AAA damage vs. VTOL and Helicopter.

  • Adjusted damage of rockets vs. AAA.


5. Singleplayer

  • Player will now be prone if loading a level that was saved while they were prone.

  • Fixed issue where after saving the game manually while in the shell, the save will not immediately appear in the save list.


6. Multiplayer

  • The vehicle you purchased is now visible with a blue icon. (already introduced further above)

  • The loadout menu no longer changes to the weapons menu when an alert event occurs in the game.

  • When using PDA, if any player captures a location it will no longer revert to the first page of the PDA.

  • TAC icon for enemy players will now disappear when the player who is carrying a TAC launcher cloaks. (already introduced further above)


7. New Features (already introduced further above)

  • Added numbers to energy bar in PowerStruggle for quicker reference.

  • Improved red near-death HUD effect and visual feedback for player being hit.


So that’s it for the third Crysis Weekly Update! We hope you enjoy the information and thanks for your irresistible support. Do not miss the next update on Wednesday!

-Crysis Dev Team

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