bbosen - 2019-03-24

When compared with version Lac07p28, changes in the Apr2019 version (Lac07p56) include:

Bots have been made a little smarter, so that they don't crash into the ground as frequently.

The LAC Server interface has been made more sophisticated.

Two bugs that were causing severe network jitter under certain conditions within MissionNetworkBattle02 were fixed.

A bug that was causing excessive network jitter immediately after any aircraft was destroyed in any of the multiplayer missions has been fixed.

Some excessively "noisy" run-time diagnostic messages have been eliminated.

All of the aircraft have been able to manoever too well, especially at high speed. Accordingly, the "maneoverability" attributes of all aircraft have been adjusted and as a result, all of the flight models are a little more realistic now.

The visual appearance of the Bell P39 fighter aircraft has been significantly improved, thanks to the work of Blake Williams.

Morse Code sound effects have been improved.

Rocket aiming has been made easier because rockets now launch and fly straighter.

The Norden Bomb sight has been stabilized and recalibrated for better accuracy, and the instructional prompts that it displays have been enhanced with additional details.

Aircraft and rocket crash sound effects have been improved.

Aircraft lethality has been adjusted for greater accuracy compared with the best available records.

Sun glare and sunblindness effects have been improved.

Some bugs were fixed in the logic that accumulates rocket damage against battleships.

Visible surface textures have been improved for the Me110, Dornier, the airfield tower building, and the bunker buildings.

Several serious bugs in MissionNetworkBattle02 (the desert terrain mission) have been fixed. It no longer suffers frequent segmentation faults at startup, and the terrain features are identically synchronized for all players. The terrain also benefits from improved appearance, with dramatic new cliffs and canyons. Bombs and rockets no longer cause multiple explosion sounds when they descend below the altitude of airstrips.

RADAR has been made more realistic: Aircraft flying at extremely low altitudes are no longer detected by RADAR and are immune from airfield-based anti-aircraft fire. This has significantly improved MissionNetworkBattle02 because its desert terrain now features numerous canyons into which players can descend below RADAR detection level.

Experimentation has demonstrated that game play benefits from battleships that are easier to destroy than traditional, heavy battleships like "Bismarck" or "Yamato" or "Iowa". Accordingly, I have decided to refer to LAC's "Battleship" as a "Pocket Battleship" (similar to Germany's "Deutschland", "Admiral Scheer", and her infamous "Admiral Graf Spee"), which implies a large, lightweight ship built for speed but armed with heavy cannons larger than the 8-inch guns generally used by naval cruisers. The "maxDurability" of LAC's battleship is now set at "120,000", which allows its destruction when hit by about 3 bombs and about 8 rockets. A B25 can even sink it with just its heavy, devastating guns and cannon (but that requires a lot of passes and is VERY dangerous unless the anti-aircraft guns of the adjacent airfield have been neutralized).

The Morse Code radio has been improved so that the unshifted "\" key is interpreted as the "?" key, since Morse code makes no provision for the modern "shift" function of keyboards. Accordingly, whenever the operator wants to send a question mark on the Morse code radio, the "\" key can be used, and the resulting transmission, vocalization, and display operations handle it as a question mark, avoiding any requirement for "shifting" the keyboard.

The four required "*.LAC" configuration/log files have been moved into the user's hidden ~home/.LAC folder alongside LAC's other configuration and log files.

Installation has been improved, and LAC is more forgiving of installation errors now. LAC now automatically regenerates any of the following seven configuration files in the user's hidden ~home/.LAC folder if they are missing:

1 of 7: LacConfig.txt
2 of 7: LacControls.txt
3 of 7: LogFile.txt
4 of 7: DefaultHeightMap.LAC
5 of 7: GunCamHistory.LAC
6 of 7: LastTerrain.LAC
7 of 7: OnlineScoreLog.LAC

 

Last edit: bbosen 2019-03-25