Patch 1.08 Details

[Gobalopper]

And you thought Westwood/IG wasn't doing anything!

GENERAL ISSUES

1) We have added an 'invite' button to the custom lobby and chat rooms. Click on the playername you wish to invite, and press the new button. This will bring up the 'host custom game' setup window. Choose number of players, game type, and/or a password. When you enter the host lobby, 'playername' will get an invitation to join you.

2) New multiplayer maps can now be downloaded separately and placed in the EmperorDataMaps subdirectory. We plan on releasing several maps each month. Please visit www.westwood.com for details.

3) Game load times are now a bit faster. (approx. 15% improvement).

4) In the chat rooms, you can now use the following slash '/' commands.

 a) Type /page nickname message to page the player 'nickname' with the 'message'.

 b) Type /r message to reply to the last page with 'message'

 c) Type /on nickname to see if player 'nickname' is online or not.

5) You can now hide the side-bar interface during gameplay by pressing the '/' key.

6) You can now select multiple teams by pressing the first team #, then holding SHIFT and the next team number. E.g. press '1' then SHIFT-'2' and you'll have units from both teams 1 and 2 selected. Note: There is still a 64 unit limit to group selections, so with large groups, you may not get all of the 2nd group.

7) When a building is ready, pressing the 'E' key will automatically put the building footprint in your cursor for fast & easy placement. It will also turn the sidebar to the building tab.

8) Construction Yards can now set a rally point for all reinforcements to go to. Additionally, the 'R' key will return units to the primary construction yard's rally point. Select the Conyard and then hold down the CTRL key, changing your cursor to a flag. You can now click anywhere on the map to set the rally point.

9) You can now set refinery rally points by selecting the refinery and clicking on a spice field anywhere on the map. (no need to use CTRL). Harvesters will then choose that spice field first until it is depleted of spice. Once depleted they will go find another spice field.

10) Deviators & Leeches will no longer continue shooting at units which are already effected by their bullet. Once a unit is deviated or leeched, the Deviator and Leech will choose new targets. Note: If there are no other targets within range, they will continue to fire at the leeches, as their bullets do some damage.

11) Skirmish, LAN & Internet game host screens now support 'random house' selection for AI and players. If you wish either of your sub-houses, or even your main house, to be randomly selected upon start of gameplay, right click on the house icon. A question mark will appear, and you will not know your assigned house or sub-house until you begin the battle.

12) Units in Guard mode (e.g. with little shield over their heads) will respond to ranged attacks by attacking the unit that shot them (provided they don't already have another target). This will prevent long-range artillery from picking off units which are 'guarding' an area, but the enemy is not within their guard range.

13) Fixed a bug where the AI would sometimes get 3 sub-houses. (LAN & Skirmish only)

14) Fixed a corrupted Korean movie problem in the Atreides 'Just like contraband' movie. In order to keep the patch download small, we have truncated the Korean movie. The loss of the last few seconds does not change the storyline. NOTE: If you play co-op Atreides campaign with a Korean friend, that movie will stop early for both players.

MULTIPLAYER ISSUES

1) Firewall support has been added. This will allow users behind most common firewalls to connect with other users, and vice versa. If you have previously had lock-ups on your 'connect with players' screen, and never seem to be able to join online games, please try again under version 1.08.

2) Your buddy list will now identify whether your buddy is online or not.

3) Improved LAN & Internet gameplay performance. You should notice smoother & faster frame-rates in both LAN & Internet games. (NOTE: The slowest computer/connection in your multiplayer game is still the final determining factor to your overall game speed.)

4) Password protected games now have a key icon next to the game's name in the custom lobby. You will need to know the password to join that game.

5) Help bots & moderators are now color coded green in the chat rooms.

6) When you ally with another player during multiplayer games, you can now build off their conyard (e.g. place buildings near their conyard). You can also gift units (by selecting the unit and pressing 'O') to your ally, and they will gain exclusive control over them. Additionally, the Atreides Repair vehicle can repair your ally's units.

7) You can now type longer chat messages in the Chat Rooms. When you type to the right end of the text box, the text will left-scroll within the box allowing you several lines of final text.

8) When starting a new Co-operative Campaign game, a warning will now show if the action will overwrite your existing co-op savegame.

BALANCE ISSUES

1) Atreides Air Drones will no longer be able to out-run missiles. Their speed & armor have been decreased.

2) Harkonnen Devestators now fire a modified plasma bullet which has some nice splash damage. This makes them much better against groups of infantry, like the Atreides Kindjal. Thus, they live longer, and can be more effective against vehicles & buildings.

The patch should be out within the next two weeks according to Cliff(Devinoch), they have a lot to test as you can see above. :)