For the past few weeks I’ve been working on fixing bugs, improving performance where it was particularly bad, and generally cleaning things up to make way for smooth future development. That work is complete for now, and since it’s all underlying mechanics stuff, it can also be ported into the builder demo release.

Consequently, the builder release version 0.2.9.0 is now available for download with the following changes:

2014-02 – 0.2.9.0

Changes:

Significant internal code cleanup and refactoring to make way for smooth future development

Major performance improvements for building very large vehicles. Still room for further improvement

Vehicles no longer need to freeze to a flat position while adding parts

Bullets no longer look like they’re firing with casings attached :]

Vehicle speed readout is now the total magnitude of your speed, not just the forward/backward speed

Improved snap point availability checking

Minor save file format changes (old vehicles are still compatible)

Improved the “tilt check” that automatically freezes the physics on the build screen if the vehicle tips too much

Removed two of the medium chassis front-side snap points as they were impossible to actually use except for placing armour (which clipped with the wheels when turning). Tried moving the wheels instead but they can’t *quite* fit with room to turn in the 1.25m space available.

Power now starts fully charged, instead of fully depleted

Bug Fixes:

Rewrote the whole weapon available range calculation system to use a new method. The old system was initially simpler, but seemed to have endless edge-case bugs

Fixed ramp position bug on test map

Fixed double-clicking on the save/load screen not working when the grid was scrolled down

Fixed suspension being linked when a vehicle is loaded if a vehicle was saved with suspension unlinked, but front and rear suspension values the same

Fixed SFX volume preview always playing at the old volume level

Fixed dropdowns closing when the scrollbar is dragged with the mouse

Fixed vehicle view zooming in the background when mouse-wheel scrolling in a save/load dialog

Other minor fixes and, let’s be honest, probably new bugs too. Lots of internal code changes here

Those of you with vehicles where your weapons weren’t calculating their available movement range correctly, check them out (hover over the weapons on the build screen) and hopefully they should be better now. Keep in mind that weapons do need to be able to shoot straight forward to be allowed to shoot at all.

Those of you with massive vehicles with hundreds of parts, try adding and removing parts on them now. It should be much much faster (especially compared to what it was), though there’s still room for even further improvement in the future.

I’m now moving back onto new features – multiplayer integration, new maps, Kickstarter rewards stuff, plus lots of other things to do. This may be the last builder demo update for a while since most of what’s coming up only applies to the full release, but I’ll keep everyone updated on what’s happening behind the scenes. Major bug fixes etc will still be ported across as usual.