BlastZone 2 Release Notes: (PC/Steam version) v1.36.3.0 - High frequency update rate support at low framerates and bug fixes -Added support for independent update rates from the frame rate -Allows for running the game/simulation update at a much higher frequency than the frame rate -Allows for snappier, more precise controls, even for low frame rates -If the frame rate exceeds the target update rate, the update rate will dynamically increase as well to prevent duplicate frames -The target update rate acts as an update floor, only taking effect for frame rates below it -Defaults to a 60hz update rate, but can be adjusted in the range of 30-200hz -In previous versions, enabling game update multithreading had a small latency penalty in exchange for higher performance -Running a higher update rate allows for having the performance benefits of multithreading, with lower latency at the same time -Doubled bullet firing density for the Boss 4 first bullet firing pattern -Addresses a safe area exploit that made this area too easy in previous versions -Added an "MSAA" suffix to all applicable antialiasing settings -Fixed bugs that would occasionally make the player ship too large or too bright during level intro/flyin animations -Fixed broken enemy bullet rendering when disabling the VBO render code path -Slightly optimized enemy bullet rendering -Updated the external configuration program to support the new UpdateRate setting v1.36.2.0 - Improvements to multithreading and performance -Most of the advanced multithreading options can now be applied without restarting the game -This includes the following options: -Game Update Multithreading -Particle Multithreading -Auxiliary Particle Threads -Core elements of multithreading management were updated to make this possible -The "Sound Multithreading" option still requires a game restart at this time -Improved thread management of the particle system -More of the startup loading process is done asynchronously, slightly improving the game startup time -Reduced frame hitching when many particles are on screen -Optimized memory bandwidth performance for the particle system -Results in up to a 10-25% particle update performance gain -Greatly cut down on memory fragmentation -Added support for SIMD FMA CPU instructions -Improves general performance by up to 10% for CPU's that support these instructions -Matrix multiply operations on the CPU side benefit the most from this, being over 100x faster -Uses an SSE2 fallback for older CPUs that don't support these instructions -Enabled anisotropic filtering for several HUD elements and sprites to improve sharpness of them -A few small optimizations to render matrix calculations -Small optimizations to localization text data management -Fixed a few potential bugs v1.36.1.1 - Several improvements to the 2nd person shooter sequence in Mission Mode Area 5 -Improved enemy bullet firing behavior for the 2nd person enemy in Mission Mode Area 5 -Fixed alignment issue between the "charge up" animations and fired bullets from the enemy -Slightly reduced the enemy bullet speed in this sequence -Improved timing for charging/firing bullet events, improving animation smoothness -Improved enemy tracking bullet behavior for varying framerates -Fixed incorrect Z tracking behavior for tracking enemy bullets -This is most noticeable for the 2nd person sequence in Mission Area 5 -This makes each tracking bullet enter the gameplay plane multiple times -Fixed some stationary enemy bullets disappearing too quickly -Also fixed these bullets quickly shrinking after being fired, even when they are supposed to increase in size -Many of these bullets are used in the 2nd person shooter scene -Fixed a 'divide by zero' bug when spacer sections are used for enemy firing scripts -These are generally used when there is a long waiting period between enemy bullet firing -Generally applies to bosses and mini-bosses v1.36.1.0 - Improvements to physics, frame hitches, frame time consistency, and the frame limiter -Improved physics in a few areas of the game -More accurate movement calculations when accelerating objects -Fixes slightly different movement behavior for different frame rates -Affects these areas of the game: -Player throwbacks when firing big weapons or getting hit -EnemyC Behavior 4 (bouncing movement) -Many particle effects, including explosions, bullet trails, bullet impact buffs, etc. -Improved particle spawning performance -Uses an additional thread to run particle spawning in parallel to other particle operations -Reduces particle update hitches when numerous explosions occur at once -Reduced render frame hitches when many particles are on screen -Dynamically allows more time to buffer particle data into vram when many particles are on screen -Improved CPU thread management to improve frame time consistency and reduce hitching -Better matches the number of active threads with the number of available CPU cores/threads -Ensures the graphics driver has enough CPU resources to maintain consistent rendering performance -Improved precision and accuracy of the frame rate limiter -Uses 64 bit operations for the whole frame limiter process to improve precision -Reduced computational overhead for calculating the timing of each new frame [Hotfix]-Fixed Mission+ mode erroneously being unlocked by completing Survival mode [Hotfix]-Fixed some mode/ship unlocks occurring after Wave 6, now consistently requires Wave/Area 8 completion in all modes v1.36.0.0 - Added Mission+ Game Mode -Added the Mission+ game mode -Starts the Mission campaign with all weapons and abilities unlocked, and level 3 stat upgrades -Always uses "Veteran" difficulty and fewer starting lives, to offset the more powerful starting loadout -This serves as a new way for advanced players to play the game -Requires completion of Pilot Mission mode to unlock this mode -Added new local highscore categories for the singleplayer and multiplayer variations of Mission+ Mode -Automatically migrates local highscore data from previous versions on startup -Added world leaderboard support for Mission+ Mode -Slight optimization for preparing draw calls -Particle system optimizations when spawning new effects -Fixed mismatched drawing parameter count for some objects -Fixes potential visual inconsistencies for some objects -Upgraded a few 3rd party libraries: -Curl v8.0.1 -FreeType v2.13.0 -libPNG v1.6.39 -libVorbis v1.3.7 -SteamAPI v1.56 -Updated vertex shaders for the GL 4.X renderer to prevent potential rendering issues -Fixed debug frame data briefly showing zeros for most stats when first opening it -Fixed some Mission Mode script playback not being stopped when entering the gameover screen v1.35.0.0 - Added Turbo Mission Mode -Added Turbo Mission Mode to the game -Increases the speed of enemies, enemy bullets, and player movement by 35% -Uses the same enemy formations and quantity as 'Pilot' difficulty -This new mode serves as an alternative way to raise the difficulty for advanced players -Added new local highscore categories for the singleplayer and multiplayer variations of Turbo Mission Mode -Automatically migrates local highscore data from previous versions on startup -Added world leaderboard support for Turbo Mission Mode v1.34.2.0 - Rebalanced Training difficuly for Survival/Blitz modes -Rebalanced the Training difficulty for Survival and Blitz modes -Greatly reduced the enemy spawn rate baseline for waves 1 and 2 -The spawn rate significantly increases each wave until wave 7 and 8 nearly reaches the spawn rate of previous versions -Reduced bullet firing rate of Type A Enemies -Reduced starting lives from 5 to 4 -Added a popup message when entering wave 7 to instruct the player to use charge weapons here -Charge weapons are stronger in Training mode, and can break through large groups of enemies -All Type A enemies in Survival/Blitz modes now wait a short period of time before starting to fire bullets -Added support for centered message text during gameplay -Ship/Mode/Difficulty unlock messages now use centered text -The new Training mode Wave 7 message uses centered text -Addressed text that was not localized for Ship/Mode/Difficulty unlock messages -Unlocking a new ship now immediately saves progress to disk -Fixed a rare crash bug when closing the game -Was caused by a rare thread collision when shutting down Steam services -Added a new command console interface -Press the tilde '~' button to access it -Displays a history of previously received messages -Press up or down to access previously entered commands -This makes it easier to text chat with other players in online multiplayer games -Added input support for several special character when sending chat messages in online multiplayer -Includes the top number bar of special characters, and slashes, brackets, colons, quotes, etc. -Double quotes are disabled to prevent packet parsing issues in multiplayer -Optimizations for the particle system -Improves framerate and update time consistency -Changed menu item and description text for friends list and online lobbies multiplayer v1.34.1.1 - Maintenance release -Improved event timing when doing screen wipes -Ensures the screen is always fully obscured when loading is taking place -Optimized the damage flashing effect for enemies, bosses, and the player ship -Previously used 2 passes to create this effect, now its all done with one -Generally provides a minor performance boost, but can improve performance by up to 5% for bosses for some systems -This optimization only works for the OpenGL 3.0 and 4.6 renderers -The OpenGL 1.5 renderer reverts to the old 2 pass approach, slightly reducing performance -Fixed the player ship being occasionally being stuck in a glowing state during the ship selection screen -This would occur when leaving a previous game while the player ship is taking damage -The debug frame stats display now uses commas for the draw calls and particle count displays -Also updated spacing for the particle count displays v1.34.1.0 - Added new sounds and updated sounds in a few areas -Added new sounds to the game -Flurry weapon firing -Flurry bullet impact -Charge level 1 attained -Charge level 2 attained -Shortened a few sounds -Menu open -Change menu option -Select menu option -Collect health pickup -Collect points pickup -Collect stat boost pickup -Music now changes to the appropriate tracks when changing backgrounds after Wave 8 of Classic, Survival, and Blitz modes -Updated the particle effect after attaining charge level 1 while charging for charge level 2 -Improved debug frame data -No longer displays immediate values for every frame -These values often changed too fast to be legible in great detail anyway -Collects data every frame, but only updates the values on screen 3 times per second -Added average value displays -Averages frame data from the last 60 frames -Added max and min value displays -Evaluates the last 60 frames of data to calculate these values v1.34.0.2 - Improved ship selection screens and BZ1 updates -Improved ship selection screens for single player and local multiplayer games -Changed the currently selected ship name and selector arrows to yellow to match the color scheme of other menus -Added grayed out short names of the other ships to show all the ships there are to choose from -Also shows which ship is next/previous on the list -Updated selector arrow positioning for multiplayer ship selection to match how the single player screen is done -Updated BlastZone 1 to v1.4 -Fixed an exploit that would slow down enemy movement while rapidly pressing the laser fire button -Reduced enemy movement speed by 5% to account for enemies moving while firing the laser -Screen shakes no longer affect screen wipes -Updated Spanish translation for the ship selection title text -Trimmed down the localization data file size by eliminating unused data v1.34.0.1 - Bug fixes and minor optimizations -Fixed broken player bullet and charge sprite rendering for newer Radeon drivers (22.7.1 and later) -Player and enemy bullets are now layered on top of all particles and other effects to prevent them from getting obscured -Player bullet particle trails now more closely follow the main bullet sprite -Fixed broken weapon charge animations when turning off particles, doing a weapon charge, then enabling particles again -A few optimizations to player and enemy bullets -All optimizations combined improve performance by up to 1% *NOTE: Using AntiAliasing with Radeon graphics cards and drivers 22.7.1 or later causes graphics corruption **This bug has been fixed as of Radeon driver 22.11.1! Anyone using drivers 22.7.1 or later should update to 22.11.1 to fix this antialiasing issue -One workaround is to use Radeon drivers 22.6.1 or earlier -Another workaround is to disable AntiAliasing -This is a driver bug and cannot be fixed on the game engine side without severely hindering performance -22.7.1 introduced an entirely rewritten OpenGL driver, which greatly improves performance, but unfortunately introduced bugs as well v1.34.0.0 - Added a new lobby system for online multiplayer using the Steam Matchmaking system -Added support for public Steamworks Lobbies for online multiplayer -This opens up online multiplayer and discovery between all players on Steam -This uses the Steam Matchmaking system -Steamworks multiplayer games used to only be available by inviting players from the friends list -This is still available for those who want to use it -Anyone can now create a lobby for other players to join -Added a lobby browser to search for games to join -This browser will find lobbies in your region -Displays the user name and game options for each lobby -Lobbies are limited to 2 players each -Replaced all Steam Networking code with a new Steam API for online multiplayer -The previous Steam Networking API used by BlastZone 2 was deprecated some time ago -The new API may improve responsiveness and consistency of Steamworks multiplayer games -Using the new API ensures there will be no online multiplayer service interruptions if the old API is removed -Fixed incorrect Steam friends list display while fading in the menu for it -Added Steam name displays for the client and server for all Steamworks multiplayer games -Sending online multiplayer chat messages now always uses each player's Steam username if they are connected to Steam -When not connected to Steam, it falls back to using each player's current world leaderboard name -Improved realtime feedback of Steam friend invitations -Will show a consistent "connecting..." display until the connection times out or succeeds -Fixed Steam friend invitations occasionally not being sent after a connection timeout -Fixed an issue that a Steam friend invitation isn't always received by the client -Users running a Direct UDP or Direct TCP multiplayer game can no longer accept Steam friend invites -This was done to prevent bugs that would occur in these circumstances -Fixed a bug that caused a broken menu state when creating a UDP Direct IP server, closing it, then accepting a Steam friend invitation -Renamed the "Online (Steam)" multiplayer type option to "Steam Friends" -Added a new multiplayer type option "Steam Lobbies" to access the new lobby system -Renamed "Online (UDP)" and "Online (TCP)" multiplayer type options to "Direct UDP" and "Direct TCP" respectively -Added localization for all Steam multiplayer connectivity messages -Adjusted the blending of ship stat bars during menu transitions for all ship selection screens -Fixed several elements of the online multiplayer server selection screen not fading during menu transitions v1.33.3.1 - Fixed a few bugs for the Steam Deck and Mission level design changes -Made a few Mission level design changes -Slowed down the 2 dueling enemies near the end of the first section of Area 2 by 50% -Made a few changes to a section about 1 minute in to Area 6 -This is the section when enemies come from the front, then quickly swing behind the player to shoot -Lengthened this section to be about 3x as long as it used to be -Spread out enemy movement here to give the player more space to move -Fixed muted sound issue for the Steam Deck -This has also been fixed for some systems that also had this issue -Fixed frame pacing issues for the Steam Deck -This has also been fixed for some systems that also had this issue -Removed 2x and 4x Antialiasing settings for the Steam Deck -Using these settings would introduce graphic glitches -Fixing bugs with these settings would reduce performance, so removing them is preferable for the best experience -It is recommended to use 8x Antialiasing for the Steam Deck anyway, and this setting doesn't have graphic glitches -Changed the default "pause" gamepad bind from the "Y" button to the "Start" button -Changed this as the in-game default, and for the external config program -Fixed an occasional game hang related to background explosions -Removed sound muting when switching focus to another program -Removed 60fps cap when switching focus to another program -Removed the 16x Antialiasing option for all systems -No consumer grade hardware support this anyway -The external configuration program was also updated to remove this option -Fixed a blank default "Monitor" value in the external config program -Now properly defaults to "Primary" -Fixed sounds not playing for the online multiplayer client if the server has sound volume set to 0 v1.33.3.0 - Improvements for enemy bullets and ship selection screens -Greatly optimized enemy bullets -Bullets render over 10x faster now -Improves overall performance by up to 50% for specific scenes and PC hardware -Highest gain is for the final mission boss -Highest gains are for very low end dual-core CPUs (~50%) -Good gains for moderate to low end quad-core CPUs (~20%) -Small gains for modern or higher core count CPUs (~2-3%) -Enemy bullets now always render at full detail, even when many are on screen -All ship selection screens have been improved -Rearranged the layouts -Added weapon icons for every loadout -Optimized the player ship booster -Improves performance by up to 2-3% -Fixed rendering errors with the OpenGL 1.5 renderer for clouds, water, and some text -These issues were introduced in the previous v1.33.2.0 update -Fixed ship selection menu backgrounds using the incorrect color during transitions v1.33.2.0 - More accessible Training Mission Mode and rendering system upgrades -Reduced the speed of Training Mission mode by 25% -This includes all aspects of mission mode, except for the player ship -This affects enemy spawn timing, enemy movement, firing rates, bullet speed, bosses, and the environment camera -This was designed to help onboard newer players into the game better -Helps newer players get ready for the more advanced difficulty levels -Optimized general performance by up to 1% -Implemented a generalized texture batching solution that affects nearly all objects in the game -Optimized menu background box rendering -General shader setup optimizations -Optimizations for background particles -Improved leaderboard score submission security -Overhauled code organization for the game engine rendering system -This lays the groundwork for potential big updates in the future -This is purely a game engine design upgrade, and doesn't change functionality for the end user yet -Fixed the connection error message for TCP multiplayer, so it now displays correctly when attempting to join a server -More time is now taken when attempting to join a TCP multiplayer serve -More reliably determines if a successful connection can be made -Retries the connection multiple times before giving up -Improved robustness when starting and stopping a TCP multiplayer game to prevent potential bugs -Fixed a small memory leak when applying new video settings -Fixed a rare crash issue when applying new video settings soon after starting the game -Renamed the "useParticleHelperThreads" config file option to "useParticleAuxThreads" -This will reset this option to "Enabled" when first starting the game after updating -If it is desired to disable this option, it can be disabled the normal way after updating v1.33.1.0 - Added mouse cursor lock for the A1 ship and bug fixes -Added the ability to lock the player ship to the mouse cursor -This is currently only enabled for the A1 ship -This eliminates the "trailing behind" effect for the ship when quickly moving the mouse cursor around -Added a new text display in the ship selection screen to show which ship uses cursor lock or not -Fixed a few mouse button bugs that would erroneously have buttons stuck in the "down" state in menus -Fixed a rare crash bug related to player bullet deletion -Fixed a rare crash bug when attempting to parse truncated packets in online multiplayer -Fixed occasional particle alpha value clamping issues -Fixed incorrect world leaderboard display in some cases -Optimized general performance by up to 1% -Optimized areas that affect most objects in the game, providing a consistent uplift v1.33.0.0 - Overhauled the text display system to add localization support; 11 total languages now supported -Added localization support for all text in the game -Reworked all text displays in the game to support dynamic replacement based on the selected language -Automatically detects the default Steam language to work as the "Default" language setting in-game -Additional languages can be added in the future by updating data files without updating the main game executable -Translation errors can be quickly corrected without waiting for the next stable binary release -Upgraded the FreeType text rendering system to support UTF-8 character sets -Previous versions only supported the 128 character baseline ASCII character set for text -Now, up to 65536 unique characters are supported -This enables compatibility with translations to numerous other languages -Now supports 11 total languages -Current list of languages: -English -Spanish -French -Italian -German -Portuguese -Polish -Japanese -Korean -Chinese -Russian -Users with any of these languages set as their system language will automatically have the localization setting adjusted accordingly -Other users who wish to use any of these translations can change it from the options menu, or the external configuration program -Made numerous adjustments around the game for text positioning, sizing, and menu dimensions to fit several potential localizations -This includes centering the menu items for several menus and using two menu selector arrows, one on each side -Greatly improved VRAM usage efficiency for the text rendering system to counteract higher memory requirements for supporting more languages -Reduces text VRAM usage when using the English language by about 25% -Adding support for accented characters for the Spanish translation only adds about 50% more memory usage for the text system -This equates to about 2mb more VRAM -Without this optimization, supporting these new characters would double text system VRAM usage (8mb total) -This saves hundreds of megabytes of VRAM when East Asian languages are used -This consists of 3 main optimizations -All non-visible glyphs are no longer loaded into VRAM at startup -Only glyphs that exist in the loaded TTF file are loaded into VRAM -Extended characters are dynamically streamed as they are used, instead of being loaded at startup -This ensures only glyphs for the current language are loaded -Improved performance of all text rendering -Up to a 10% rendering performance boost for text -This raises overall performance by about 1% -This was done by eliminating draw calls for all space ' ' characters -Made a few HUD text adjustments when running the English language -Changed the "XX Left" enemy counter to "XX Remaining" -Changed "x mult" to "x multiplier" -Made several adjustments to the English language text around the game -This includes descriptions, dialog text, etc -Greatly improved background particle spawning performance -Has the greatest effect when spawning many background particles per frame (>100) -Internal testing shows over a 10x performance improvement in the background particle creation process in some situations -Background particles are very rare in this game, so most users won't notice a difference -Improved general particle spawning performance -Improves update thread performance by up to 20% -Reduces hitching if numerous explosions are set off at the same time, such as completing a level -General robustness improvements have been made to the sound system -Prevents a few potential sound-related bugs from occurring in the future -Updated the external config application to handle language changes -Changed the default value of "Display Switch Compatibility" from enabled to disabled -This allows display switching to work better for most users -This is only needed for one specific system setup: -Using a secondary display when connecting a laptop to an external monitor while using a hybrid passthrough display -Swapped menu item locations of "Online (TCP)" and "Online (Steam)" in the multiplayer selection menu -This makes the menu item order more intuitive; in priority order -New item order: -Local -Online (Steam) - This is the best option for most users, so it is more prominent now -Online (UDP) - This is the next best online option, should only be used if unable to connect to Steam -Online (TCP) - This is a last resort option if unable to connect to Steam and the connection quality is very poor, causing bugs in UDP -Updated the Leaderboard Submission/Download process to eliminate all drive usage -Previous versions would download sever data to local files, then read those files -Now, all server data is downloaded into system memory, then directly used from there -This improves performance of all Leaderboard-related operations -Added a countermeasure to prevent game-breaking bugs if the update thread becomes overloaded -This issue was never reproduced under normal conditions, but was technically possible -Fixed a bug in the online server lobby screen that would erroneously display only the second player ship when the second player hasn't joined yet -this would occur after previously playing a local coop game with the mouse as the second player controller -Fixed some wave intermission text not being displayed when completing wave 8 of Classic A Training mode -Fixed a rare multithreading crash bug in the particle system v1.32.7.3 - Native 64bit binaries and optimizations -Added native 64bit binaries for the game -Replaced the main game executable and all DLL files with native 64bit versions -32bit versions are also available for the latest version of the game for those running a 32bit OS -Benefits of 64bit include faster loading times, and support for greater than 1.8gb of ram -This allows the game to run natively in a 64bit OS without depending on a 32bit compatibility layer -Fixed a rare case when the game speed could slow down when running on a low end CPU -This used to occur when there was a heavier load on the simulation/update thread than the render thread -Optimized matrix operations across many objects; reduces update thread workload -Eliminates unnecessary calculations for components that dont need to be updated -Improves overall performance by up to 1-2% -Reduced memory usage overhead when loading models by up to 25% -Uses 10% lower memory overall during the startup loading bar -When switching backgrounds with Extreme quality terrain, reduces memory usage while loading by 100mb -Other terrain quality settings also reduce memory usage, but the difference is proportionally less -This also slightly improves loading times v1.32.7.2 - Maintenance Release -Reduced particle update hitching when first exceeding the 20,000 particle precache size -Still hitches a little when this occurs, but much less than before -Fixed a rare multithreading crash bug in the particle system -Migrated from LibPNG 1.5.30 to 1.6.37 *Hotfix - Fixed a small memory leak when displaying dialog boxes during cutscenes v1.32.7.1 - Multithreading fixes, log output, and reduced vram usage -Reduced memory usage for Medium and Low texture detail settings -This was done by building a new texture downsampler that works for more textures -Reduces vram usage by up to 5-6mb for these detail levels -High and VeryHigh texture detail settings are not affected by this change -Added debug log output for initializing the OpenGL renderer -Outputs to the "GLinit.log" file in the game directory -This can be submitted to the developer if the game crashes on launch -Reduced the multithreading stack size to the default value -Uses less memory (~1mb) -Launches new threads slightly faster -Fixed occasional erroneous multithreading behavior for some systems -Fixed rare thread timing issues that could throw off the game speed -Fixed rare crash issues related to thread synchronization -This was done by changing how thread encapsulation is handled -Added new Advanced Options menu items -Particle Multithreading -Sound Multithreading -Disabled large address support -May fix compatibility issues with some systems -Adjusted particle precaching to reduce hitching in specific cases v1.32.7.0 - Particle system improvements, new sound loader, and much faster game startup time -Improved particle system update performance by up to 1-10% -This was done by more evenly distributing the workload across CPU cores -The amount of performance gained depends on the number of particles on screen and number of CPU cores/threads -Performance gain is increased when there are more CPU cores/threads available -Performance gain has less of an impact when there are a greater number of particles on screen -For example, having a 10 core CPU running 10,000 particles, will result in up to a 1% performance gain -The same CPU running 1,000 particles will reach up to a 10% performance gain -The amount of performance gained varies frame-to-frame, but results in more consistent performance overall -The lowest performance points received the greatest boost in performance, bringing them closer to the higher performance points -Built a new in-engine sound loader that eliminates dependencies on alut.dll -Removed the alut.dll file from the game -This slightly reduces game installation size, and uses slightly less memory -General performance of the loader is similar to the old system it replaces -Much faster game startup loading time -Startup loading time has been cut by up to 87% -Internal testing has shown loading times reduce from 8 seconds down to 1 second -Enemy behavior scripts are now loaded in the background during the main menu -By the time gameplay starts, the enemy data will be ready for use -Improved overall rendering performance by up to 5% -This was done by improving draw call batching -This performance boost has the greatest impact when there are many objects on screen, such as bullets or enemies -Migrated from DirectInput7 to DirectInput8 for non-XInput gamepads -This doesn't affect XInput gamepads at all -This improves general support for DirectInput devices, fixing potential bugs and compatibility issues -Increased the deadzone area for DirectInput devices to fix drifting issues on some gamepads -This doesn't affect XInput gamepads -Added a limit of 33 messages to the command console -Prevents using excessive memory in some circumstances -Prevents drawing offscreen messages v1.32.6.0 - Added a new Advanced Options menu -Added a new "Advanced Options" menu -This is a submenu of the regular Options menu -Moved the existing "Renderer" and "Draw Call Type" options to this new menu -Added a few new options: -Game update multithreading -Enabling this improves performance (default) -Disabling this reduces input lag at the cost of performance -Particle helper threads -Enabling this greatly improves particle performance (default) -Disabling this can be used to test CPU core scaling performance -Display switch compatibility -Enabling this fixes a bug for secondary displays for laptops with a discrete GPU -Disabling this allows taking advantage of secondary monitors with greater than a 60hz refresh rate -Added in-game descriptions of each of the advanced options at the bottom of the screen -Added a new "Advanced Options" menu to the external configuration program -All new options and options moved mirror the same changes made to the in-game advanced options menu -Added a new "Show Advanced Options" button to show them (hidden by default) -The external configuration program now defaults to the Primary monitor when upgrading from an old version of the game v1.32.5.0 - Vastly improved particle multithreading performance -Particle system now scales much better with more CPU cores/threads -Up to a 57% performance gain for particle system updates -This was measured using a 6 core 12 thread 4.0ghz CPU test system -Systems with more cores will scale better than this -Stress tests have shown over 110k particles running at 60fps with these optimizations -This was measured using a 6 core 12 thread 4.0ghz CPU test system -In previous versions, this same system would be limited to 73k particles to maintain 60 fps -The particle subsystem that calculates and distributes CPU thread workloads has been greatly improved -Speeds up the time it takes to calculate the workload for each CPU thread -Has the ability to launch all CPU thread workloads simultaneously -Greatly improves CPU core parallelism -Previous versions would gradually load each CPU core as the workloads were prepared, leaving some CPU cores idle some of the time -Performance now scales close to linearly with the number of CPU cores/threads available -This update does not affect machines with 1 or 2 CPU cores/threads -This requires atleast a 4 core, or a 2 core/4 thread CPU to take advantage of these improvements -Increased XInput gamepad analog stick deadzones by 25% to fix drifting issues for some gamepads -Migrated to Steam API v1.51 (from v1.46) *HotFix - Fixed a particle precaching bug -Reduces memory usage by about 30mb *HotFix - Fixed a startup soft crash for the demo version *HotFix - Fixed a text flicker when opening the final demo quit screen v1.32.4.0 - Improved overall performance and minimum update rate for particles -Improved performance for player ship booster particles -Improves overall performance during gameplay by 5-10% -This completely reworks how the player ship booster is rendered -In isolation, the booster now renders 20x faster -This was the last particle effect not upgraded to a single draw call from the v1.32.0.0 update -Greatly improved performance when the foreground particle limit is reached -Affects all particle detail levels, except VeryHigh -VeryHigh has no particle limit -Greatly improves the minimum update rate for particles in the most intense scenarios -Improves particle performance from 10% up to 800% -Depends on the rate new particles are being spawned -The 800% figure is from an extreme stress test scenario -More common in-game scenarios will be closer to 50-60% in specific cases -This update deletes the oldest particles when the limit is reached -In previous versions, older particles were culled out, but were still being simulated -This update has no effect on the rendered framerate of the rest of the game -Only improves the asynchronous update rate of particles -Improved particle multithreading when both foreground and background particles are on screen -Improves performance by up to 16% when both particle types are on screen -Makes no difference in performance when only foreground or background particles are on screen -The main game doesn't use background particles, so most players won't notice a difference -Added an opening fade in animation for the gameover screen -Fixed the gameover screen default menu selection being incorrect -Fixed a rare bug that didn't clear out all particles when changing scenes -Fixed rare background particle graphic artifacts -Slightly improved background particle rendering performance -Reworked how draw call and triangle counting is calculated for debug displays -Much more accurate now, previous versions missed some draw calls and triangles in the counting process -This is only used for debug displays, not used otherwise v1.32.3.5 - Maintenance release -Optimized background particles CPU load -Improves CPU-side performance by up to 38% -Combines multiple particle update operations into a single pass -The main game doesn't use background particles, so most users won't see a difference in performance -Does not affect foreground particles (explosions, bullet trails, etc) -Improved terrain loading speed on startup for mechanical hard drives -Makes the biggest difference for VeryHigh and Extreme detail terrain -Fixed a rare issue when the startup loading bar or score uploading bar may breifly not display the correct fill value v1.32.3.4 - Improved sound multithreading, dialog scripts, and loading bars -Reworked the way sound system events are handled -Fixes very rare crash bugs related to audio multithreading -Fixes very rare instances of sounds not playing -Updated dialog box script file format -Uses slightly less disk space -Makes it quicker and easier to change dialog text -Reworked loading bars -Improved smoothing of loading bar progress -Optimized rendering and multithreading support -Applies to the game startup loading bar and the leaderboard score uploading bar -Unifies all loading bar logic to prevent bugs and makes it easier to make more improvements in the future -Added antialiasing to the startup loading screen and the leaderboard score uploading bar v1.32.3.3 - Particle System Improvements -Fixed occasional flickering explosion particles -Increased the particle system CPU core/thread limit from 16 to 128 -The particle system now fully scales to 64 core, 128 thread cpus if available -Older versions had bugs with using more than 16 threads, but improvements from v1.32.0.0 fixed them -Extra time was taken to test high thread counts to ensure stability -Added support for automatic compressed texture format detection -Allows for swapping out compressed textures of different formats without needing to update the game executable v1.32.3.2 - Improved enemy bullet rendering and final death red fade -Fixed occasional Z clipping issues for enemy bullets in the background -Made the front of enemy bullets more prominent than the tail to improve visibility -Fixed the final player death red screen fade not affecting enemy bullets, particles, or the HUD v1.32.3.1 - Improved player ship booster -Fixed occasional Z clipping artifacts for the player ship booster -Slightly optimized player ship booster rendering v1.32.3.0 - Added a new "Desktop" resolution option -Added a new "Desktop" resolution option -This auto detects the resolution to run the game at depending on what the current desktop resolution is -This allows for running the game at any resolution not previously supported as a discrete option -This also allows for running the game in fullscreen mode for vertically oriented displays -Any resolution that doesn't use a 16:9 aspect ratio will automatically have black bars applied to it -Changed the default resolution option to "Desktop" -This provides the best display compatibility by default when first starting the game after a fresh install -Updated the external configuration program to include the new "Desktop" resolution option v1.32.2.0 - Added monitor selection support -Added support for selecting the monitor to display the game on for multimonitor setups -Previous versions only displayed the game on the primary monitor -Running the game windowed could be moved to another monitor, but would always start on the primary monitor -To change monitors, adjust the "Monitor" option in the game's Options menu and press "Apply" -Allows for running the game fullscreen on a secondary monitor without workarounds -The default value is "Primary", which always selects the main monitor, no matter which monitor number it is -There is a hidden "MonitorSwitchCompatibility" setting in the config file -The default setting is "Yes" -This ensures monitor switching works correctly on all system configurations -However, all monitors other than the primary monitor will be limited to 60fps when vsync is enabled -The primary monitor will still work okay at over 60fps with vsync enabled for high refresh rate displays -If this is set to "No", all monitors with refresh rates over 60hz with vsync on can achieve frame rates above 60fps, but has compatibility issues with some systems -One test laptop using NVidia optimus graphics with Intel integrated graphics has a startup hang when running the game on the non-primary monitor -This should be left as default for most users -Built entirely new code to handle changing the monitor resolution when running in fullscreen code -Added a new monitor selection box to the external configuration program -Fixed potential compatibility issues with a theoretical future OpenGL 5.X release -This ensures that the maximum version used is OpenGL 4.6 -If a newer version of OpenGL beyond 4.6 is released, BlastZone 2 will need to be updated with explicit support for it to be used *HotFix #1 - Updated the way the game window attains focus on startup; May fix the game occasionally launching behind other windows v1.32.1.0 - Native XInput support and improved data syncing for UDP/Steamworks online multiplayer -Added native XInput gamepad support -Previously, XInput gamepads were supported through a compatibility layer with DirectInput -This worked for most gamepads, but some had compatibility issues with this -Many XInput-only gamepads that were previously incompatible will now work correctly -DirectInput is still supported, but its only used for gamepads that do not support XInput -To use DirectInput, select and explicit controller number in the config screen, the same as previous versions -XInput gamepads are now the default option -For most users upgrading from a previous version, it will seamlessly migrate gamepad selection to XInput without any changes needed -Only users who have a DirectInput-only gamepad connected in addition to an XInput gamepad will need to explicitly change the option -XInput gamepads are bound to the player specified on the gamepad number display and can't be changed -Allows for binding actions to the gamepad triggers -Enables more descriptive button binding displays -DirectInput only uses button numbers -Now, button A, B, X, Y, right bumper, right stick, right trigger, etc. can be specified -Allows hot swapping gamepads while the game is running -DirectInput required restarting the game for new gamepads to work correctly -Fixes bugs when disconnecting a gamepad while the game is running -Updated the external configuration program to support the new XInput options and explicit gamepad bindings -Full data syncs are now used for very poor connections in UDP or Steamworks online multiplayer -The client machine can now request a full data sync from the server when needed -The client automatically detects when the existing packet loss countermeasures are not enough on a moment to moment basis -If there is a temporary connection interruption, the client also detects when the connection returns to normal -This is only used as a last resort and is almost never needed for good quality connections -This greatly reduces the chance of corrupted data on the client side when there is very high packet loss -It is still possible to have client data corruption with UDP, but only occurs for extremely poor connections that would be unplayable anyway -This reduces the need for a TCP connection, but the option will remain just in case -TCP eliminates all data syncing issues, but runs slower -Added adaptive time scaling support to the particle system -This corrects particle movement slowdown when the particle system is heavily loaded (100k+ particles on slower CPUs) -Particles now always move at their normal speed, but can scale to a lower frame rate independent of the rest of the game in extreme load situations -This also fixes the particle "pile up" effect that would compound drops in performance when the particle system is heavily loaded -This allows particles to evaporate at their normal rate, so the on screen particle count doesn't get artificially inflated during a slowdown -Fixed overlapped "Player X" text in the ship selection screen when playing local multiplayer with a mouse as the Player 2 control device -Fixed incorrect Player 2 respawn animation during online multiplayer v1.32.0.0 - Added UDP Direct IP multiplayer support and huge particle system improvements -Added UDP Direct IP multiplayer support -This improves online multiplayer responsiveness and smoothness from the existing TCP Direct IP code path -Internal testing has shown that devices connected via wifi or a 3G/4G connection gain the greatest benefit from UDP -However, this has the drawback of potentially introducing bugs for poor connections -Many poor connection countermeasures are in place to mitigate this, but it's not perfect -UDP should be used for most users, only use TCP to fix issues for very poor connections -Steamworks multiplayer already uses UDP -Those who use Steamworks multiplayer will be unaffected by this -This new UDP multiplayer option adds more flexibility for those who want to play over a LAN, or cannot connect to Steam -To use this, select "Online (UDP)" from the multiplayer menu -Renamed "Online (IP)", to "Online (TCP)" to eliminate ambiguity -UDP uses the same 50768 port as TCP Direct IP -Huge particle system improvements and optimizations -Greatly reduces the number of total draw calls during gameplay -Cuts the average draw call count from 500-600 down to 150-175 -Reduces CPU load and rendering overhead to render particles -Reduces frame hitching when many player bullets are on screen -This mostly affected systems that are just barely able to maintain 60fps -Brings many more particle effects into the main, highly optimized, particle system -Player bullet trails -Player charging animations -Player damage animations -Player final death explosion -Background speed particles -Explosion flares -General particle management optimizations -Improves overall performance and reduces particle thread processing time -Added CPU thread scaling above 2 threads for background particles -Foreground particles already scaled above 2 threads in previous versions -Background particles are not used in the main game, only in a test level pack -A greater portion of the particle update pipeline now scales up to 16 cpu threads if available -In previous versions, only rendering-related particle operations scaled above 2 threads -Now, particle update simulations also scale up to 16 threads, significantly improving performance on high core/thread count cpus -Greatly improved thread parallelism -Improves game responsiveness and frame rate when the particle system is heavily loaded -Particle animations can slow down independent of frame rate if the particle system is heavily loaded with a slow CPU -The above optimizations make any kind of particle-related slow downs more rare anyway -Added new particle effects when firing the following weapons: -Normal bolt -Flurry shot -Wave shot -Added a completely new model loader -Uses a new proprietary binary model format -Uses about half the disk space for identical model data -Loads model data at startup much faster -Game startup now takes 20% of the time compared to previous versions -Converted all models in the game to the new ".bin" format -Moved all models that used to be compiled into the game executable to separate ".bin" files -Reduced the executable file size by 75% without any effect on game functionality -Reduced RAM usage by about 3-7% depending on detail levels -Updated the player ship booster charging animation during the wave intermission screen -Added an additional startup loading thread to reduce loading time -The startup loader now scales up to 9 CPU threads if available -Loading times are also reduced for lower core count cpus by more consistently loading all available cores -Added more frame stat displays -Includes the following new stats: -Triangle count -Draw Call count -Foreground particle count -Background particle count -Press F1 3 times to access this info -Shows scene complexity and allow for better comparing each detail level -Moved the frame stats display further to the right to improve game visibility -Updated the test background particle effect of test_pack_1 to use more particles -Updated the online multiplayer menu item descriptions to better describe which option to choose -Reduced renderer blocking time after failing to connect to a TCP server -Improved game process shutdown time after previously playing a TCP multiplayer game -Fixed background enemy animations not being cleared when quitting out of a level -Fixed occasional particle-related graphic glitches -Fixed incorrect alpha channel of background particles -Fixed a crash bug when starting a custom game with test_pack_1, then quitting out and starting a new game -Fixed a bug for an online multiplayer client that would use incorrect game settings when the server selects "Training" difficulty -Fixed a rare crash in the particle system related to multithreading and particle emitters -Fixed a broken TCP server state after creating and shutting down a server when no client was connected -Fixed enemies occasionally being stuck in a glowing state when hit -Fixed occasionally incorrect background particle Z sorting -Fixed client ship flickering on the server side during cutscenes and flyin animations in online multiplayer -Fixed background flickering on the client side during online multiplayer -Fixed an occasional crash when opening the Steam friends list when some friends have special characters in their name v1.31.3.1 - Gamepad control improvements -Improved analog movement with a gamepad thumbstick -It is now easier to move slightly up/down while moving left/right and vice-versa while angling the thumbstick direction -Now uses continuous 360 degree angling instead of "snapping" to up, down, left, and right, with smaller analog angling zones between them -Reduced the thumbstick dead-zone from 20% to 10% to allow for more precise movement -Improved gamepad deinitialization on shutdown -Reduced the number of averaged frame times from 10 to 8 -Helps reduce game speed reaction time when the rendering workload quickly changes -Maintains enough averaged frames to smooth out frame hitches well v1.31.3.0 - Huge LOD optimizations for environment terrain and further view distances -Added support for terrain model LODs to greatly improve performance -Uses lower detail models for terrain far in the distance -Has a small reduction in image quality, but in most cases it is barely noticable -Improves performance by up to 50-60% over previous versions -Lower terrain detail levels have about a 15-25% boost -Higher detail levels have the greatest boost -The startup loader now scales up to 9 cpu threads if available -These additional threads load terrain LODs in parallel -This does not reduce the overall loading time, only loads more data in the same amount of time -CPUs with 9 threads or more will see no increase in loading time -CPUs with 6-8 threads will only take slightly longer to load, and will have a higher and more consistent workload across all available threads -CPUs with 4 threads or less will take longer to load now -Previous versions already saturated all 4 threads, and there is a larger amount of data to load now -Loading times should only increase by a few seconds at most -For reference, previous versions scaled up to 6 cores/threads -Increased the view distance for all ViewDistance settings -Increased the "VeryHigh" setting by 20% -This slightly reduces performance, but overall performance is still much higher from previous versions from the LOD optimizations -Each of the other settings are equivalent to one setting higher from the previous version -"High" is equivalent to the "VeryHigh" setting from previous versions -"Normal" is equivalent to the "High" setting from previous versions -"Low" is equivalent to the "Normal" setting from previous versions -Adjusted fogging for the cloud plane to more gradually shade the fog color and eliminate the solid color "bar" far in the distance -Fixed the Outer Space background not rendering correctly when using the "Low" ViewDistance setting -Fixed some screen elements and objects not rendering correctly for low/normal view distance settings on some hardware/driver combinations -Transition screen wipes and fades -Final player death red screen fade -Ship select stat bars -Distant background color for the cave environment v1.31.2.0 - Terrain rendering and culling optimizations -Made several improvements to object frustum culling -Offloaded frustum culling calculations to the update thread is many cases -Reduces the rendering thread workload, improving overall performance -Added support for early object culling in many cases -Eliminates most setup calculations for objects that are culled out -Added a new high precision codepath -More aggressively culls out objects near the edge of the screen without affecting visible objects -Is more computationally intensive, but is usually combined with offloading from the render thread to accelerate the process -This is handled automatically without any user configuration -Big terrain rendering optimization -Uses the new high precision frustum culling code path to eliminate more offscreen terrain -Also makes use of the offloaded frustum culling calculations and early object culling detailed above -Improves performance by up to 15-20% depending on system specs and terrain detail settings -Offloaded all terrain matrix operations from the render thread to the update thread -Better balances the workload between threads, improving CPU performance -Increased the minimum requirement of the OpenGL 4.6 renderer to OpenGL 3.3 -This fixes issues with some OpenGL 3.1 and 3.2 drivers -These drivers will now fallback to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer -Player and Enemy bullet trails now smoothly move offscreen -Previous versions would remove the bullet trail too soon after the front of the bullet moves offscreen -Increased the thread priority for a few startup loading threads and the particle thread manager -Improves startup loading time by sacrificing loading bar animation smoothness -Distributes particle thread work more quickly for CPUs with more than 2 cores -Fixed the player occasionally picking up item drops after death -Fixed incorrect enemy sizing in some situations -Fixed fog not being applied to distant enemies v1.31.1.1 - Improved HUD textures for low res displays -Improved HUD textures when using lower resolutions -Only affects screen resolutions lower than 1080p -All HUD textures now use lower res versions when a lower screen resolution is used to match detail -Graininess and moire effects have been cleaned up for lower resolutions -Performance has been slightly improved for lower resolutions -Changed the atmosphere glow design around the planet in the outer space environment -Also changed how it is rendered to improve performance -Small optimizations to CPU side particle processing (~1%) *HotFix #1 - Fixed occasional stuck player ship highlight during wave intermissions and wave intro animations v1.31.1.0 - New long range attack for the B1/B2 ships, ship descriptions, many rendering optimizations, and bug fixes -Updated the "Burst Shot" main weapon for the B1 and B2 ships to be more viable for long range -Now, the center bullet for each burst shot no longer disappears, allowing it to hit long range targets -This is especially useful for bosses -Previously, the only long range option was the low charge Fire2 shot, but that required rapidly tapping the Fire2 button -This is still available now, just as a secondary option -However, the B1/B2 ships still aren't as effective long range as other ships -Long range bullet DPS is lower than other ships by about 25% -Long range bullets travel slower, making it more difficult to hit fast moving targets -This is to balance out the very high short range damage they have -Added a short description for each ship for the single player ship selection screen -Helps newer players get an idea of the type of gameplay each ship has -Optimized vertex throughput on the GPU side for all shaders in the game -Results in a 10-20% performance boost in all situations -Optimized lighting calculations for all Normal Mapped and Vertex Lit objects in the game -Boosts performance by up to 5-10% when many lit objects are on screen -Built a new set of 2 light shaders to greatly improve performance in some situations -Previously, a set of shaders were built for when 1 light or 3 lights are active, and used 3 light calculations when only 2 were active -Now, when only 2 lights are active, the shader workload is reduced by 33% per object rendered -For reference, the 3 types of lights used are: -Camera light (always on) -Hyper mode glow light -Beam light -Optimized the shader management system to eliminate unnecessary shader setup in some situations -Offloaded many CPU-side rendering calculations from the render thread to the update thread to better balance the workload -Results in up to a 10% performance gain when many enemies and bullets are on screen -Client side rendering performance for online multiplayer increases by up to 15% when many objects are on screen -Fixed a shader bug that would occasionally render item drop models incorrectly for some systems -Fixed a few rare graphic glitches in enemies and the home world terrain for some systems v1.31.0.3 - Maintenance release -Optimized the startup model loader -Reduces game startup time by about 3-5% -Makes the biggest difference for VeryHigh and Extreme quality terrain settings -Frame rate and runtime statistics displays are now multithreaded -Improved terrain model loading progress feedback when starting the game -The startup loading bar no longer appears to stall when loading high detail terrain -It now continuously fills the bar for all assets -Improved particle system performance by up to 20% v1.31.0.2 - Added new in game options -Added in game option for Terrain Detail -Has the same detail options previously only available in the external config program: -Low -Normal -High -VeryHigh -Extreme -Detects if the free DLC has been downloaded or not for VeryHigh and Extreme options -Shows warning for VeryHigh and Extreme options as having high system requirements -Added in game option and DrawCall Type -Has the same options previously only available in the external config program -VBO -DisplayList -Shows warning for DisplayList that it only works with the GL 1.5 and 3.0 renderers -Reorganized the options menu layout and spacing -Improved general stability -Fixed glitched background environment when starting a new game after previously playing through an addon pack v1.31.0.0 - Added a new OpenGL 4.6 renderer -A new OpenGL 4.6 renderer has been added to the game -Uses the OpenGL 4.6 Core profile rendering context to ensure compliance with the latest OpenGL standard -Upgraded large portions of the rendering engine to use the latest OpenGL standards -Maintains backward compatibility with hardware and drivers going back to OpenGL 3.1 -Going below this will switch to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer -This new renderer does not support the "Simple" model set, or "Display List" code path -These use older technologies that can no longer be used in modern OpenGL -These options are still available when using the OpenGL 1.5 or 3.0 renderer -The "Simple" model set would require a complete rebuild from scratch to work with GL 4.6 -The OpenGL 3.0 renderer now uses an explicit OpenGL 3.0 Core rendering context -This gives the graphics driver specific information on the intention of this renderer -This has the potential of improving compatibility, performance, or memory characteristics -Upgraded the VBO draw call code path so that all objects in the game use VBOs -This was done to establish compliance with the OpenGL 4.6 Core context -This improves performance by up to 10% for all 3 renderers, OpenGL 1.5, 3.0, and 4.6 -Many areas of static geometry are now loaded into graphics memory instead of streamed every frame -The text system in particular has been greatly optimized for this code path -Slightly optimized the DisplayList draw call code path -More areas using static geometry are now compiled into graphics memory -This improves general performance by about 2-3% -Renamed the "OpenGL 2.0/3.0" renderer to just "OpenGL 3.0" to maintain naming consistency with the other renderers -Now, the name of each renderer represents the maximum feature level it takes advantage of, but maintains backward compatibility with lower versions -Updated the external configuration program to add the new OpenGL 4.6 renderer option -Improved the Leaderboard score uploading progress bar design -Fixed an object distance culling bug when starting the game with low view distance, then changing it to high -Fixed a blank loading screen bug when using the OpenGL 1.5 renderer with Antialiasing turned Off -Fixed changing the number of AA samples in game not taking effect for some NVidia graphics cards v1.30.0.0 - Many technical improvements and optimizations to the game engine and a few bug fixes -The game now defaults to a newly overhauled VBO-based draw call code path -This changes how geometric detail is managed in memory and submitted to graphics hardware, greatly affecting performance across the entire game -A new "DrawCallType" option has been added to the external configuration program to change this back to the old DisplayList code path if needed -This option can be changed independently from the version of OpenGL renderer used -There are 2 available options: "VBO" - A new draw call code path that provides the most consistent performance across the widest range of hardware configurations -This was previously only used for the Android version of the game, but is a viable option on PC now -This has been completely overhauled, including the following features: -Analyzes every model loaded and selects the most optimal rendering method for each one -When optimal, model data is transcoded to a compressed format in memory -Performance has been greatly improved compared to this same code path in previous versions of the game -Triangle throughput has increased by 100-200%, depending on how each model is built -Terrain triangle throughput in particular has increased by about 200% -General performance has increased by 30-75%, depending on the combination of hardware and settings -Scene change loading times are reduced significantly "DisplayList" - The draw call code path used for previous versions of the game -Option suggestions for each graphics card vendor: AMD/Radeon - DisplayList is preferred, being 10% faster than VBO NVidia/Geforce - VBO is preferred, it fixes a severe performance issue when using VeryHigh/Extreme quality terrain with DisplayLists Intel integrated - VBO is many times faster in all situations than DisplayList and should always be used -Added graphics hardware feature detection in several areas -If the OpenGL 2.0/3.0 renderer is used for hardware that does not support atleast OpenGL 2.0, it will automatically fallback to the OpenGL 1.5 renderer -If the graphics hardware does not support the full OpenGL 1.5 spec, the renderer will automatically fallback to the highest feature level supported -Can fallback to a minimum of OpenGL 1.1 if needed -Using these fallbacks will only occur for hardware below the minimum spec for the game, so features will be missing and graphics may not look correct -This was done to allow very old systems to atleast run the game, but in a compromised state -New optimizations for the particle system -Improved per particle efficiency by up to 35% depending on system specs and settings -More data is now reused between frames, reducing workloads on both the CPU and GPU -Dynamically switches between multiple rendering code paths to achieve the best performance depending on the number of particles on screen -Built a new concurrent streaming system for vertex data, improving frame pacing and performance -Improved game startup time and scene change loading times -Improved scene change time with multithreading optimizations -Improved startup screen loading time by improving per-thread performance for the model loader -The biggest difference is observed when using VeryHigh or Extreme quality terrain -Improved performance for VertexLit and NormalMap shaders -Added the ability to keep the command console open for multiple commands by pressing the tilde '~' button -The existing 't' single command hotkey is still available to use old behavior -Press Esc to close the command console -Added an option to turn off particles from the Configuration Program -This option was previously only available in-game -Fixed compatibility issues with the external model loader for a few model file format variations -All models currently included with the game did not cause any compatibility issues -This prevents new models from causing issues in the future -Fixed an intermission player booster not displaying when one player dies right before beating a level in a 2 player game -Fixed the player revive text occasionally flashing in a 2 player game -Fixed a startup bug that attempted to compile HUD models before OpenGL is fully initialized -Fixed a single incorrectly rendered frame after completing the startup loading screen -Fixed a potential OpenGL resource conflict in the particle system when applying new in-game video settings -Fixed particle emitters occasionally spawning too many particles when running at a low frame rate -Migrated to newer versions of a few 3rd party libraries -FreeType v2.10.1; Used for generating fonts -LibOgg v1.3.4; Used for music playback -cURL v7.66.0; Used for leaderboard uploading/downloading -SteamAPI v1.46; Used for Achievements, friends list, and Steamworks Online Multiplayer -Rebuilt a few 3rd party libraries with Visual Studio 2019 - Utilizes the latest compiler optimizations and bug fixes -LibVorbis v1.3.6 -LibPNG v1.5.30 -zLib v1.2.11 -The game executable now requires a Visual Studio 2015 or higher runtime installed -This is now included with the Steam download, so it will be installed automatically v1.29.4.3 - Added new ultra-wide 21:9 resolution support -Added 3 new ultra-wide 21:9 resolutions -2560x1080 -3440x1440 -5120x2160 -Black bars are added to the left and right sides when these resolutions are used -Gameplay and field of view are not affected by these resolutions -Updated the config menu to use a "(4:3)" or "(5:4)" suffix for resolutions that are 4:3 or 5:4, such as 1024x768 -Updated the configuration program to support the new 21:9 resolutions v1.29.4.2 - Fixed occasional shutdown crash and improved startup loader -Fixed a crash bug that would occasionally occur when closing the game -This was a multithreading-related bug that would occur more often on higher core count machines -Improved the startup loader -Reduced loading time when starting the game -Reduced memory usage during the loading screen -Smoothed out the loading bar fill animation to make it easier to follow -Improved system responsiveness for slower or low core count CPUs -Refactored several areas of code to prevent bugs and speed up development time in the future -Slightly reduced VRAM usage *HotFix* Fixed a game startup crash when attempting to use the "VeryHigh" or "Extreme" detail terrain packs without downloading the DLC *HotFix #2* Improved framepacing *HotFix #2* Added a new useGameUpdateMultithreading config file setting that is enabled by default *HotFix #2* Executable is now built using Visual Studio 2019 *HotFix #2* Updated the configuration program to support the new useGameUpdateMultithreading config option *HotFix #2* The configuration program now supports running in native 64bit (Still backwards compatible with 32bit CPUs) v1.29.4.1 - Migrated to Visual Studio 2017 and eliminated Windows XP support; Critical sound bug fix -The BlastZone 2 executable is now built using Visual Studio 2017 -Migrated from Visual Studio 2010, what all previous versions were built from -Takes advantage of all the latest compiler improvements, such as better performance, smaller file size, bug fixes, security fixes, and more -Minimum OS requirements have been raised to Windows Vista or above -Eliminates compatibility with Windows XP -This was done because the Steam Client no longer supports Windows XP, so this userbase no longer has access to BlastZone 2 anyway -Minimum system requirements have increased, but are still very low -Still compatible with SSE2 32bit cpus and above -Recommended CPUs have been raised to a 2.0ghz Intel Core 2 Quad or AMD Athlon X4 or above -This is from the big improvements to multithreading over time -Quad cores care recommended, but the engine can utilize up to 16 cores/threads if available -Higher core counts have diminishing returns though -Minimum graphics cards are the Radeon HD 2400 128mb, Geforce 8400 128mb, or Intel HD 2000 or higher -Recommended graphics cards are the Radeon 250 1gb, Geforce 750 1gb, or Intel HD 4600 or higher -Migrated the Configuration program to Visual Studio 2017 and .NET Framework 4.5 -Migrated from .NET Framework 3.5 -Most modern machines already support .NET Framework 4.x, but have to install a separate .NET 3.5 Framework runtime -This eliminates the need for installing this old runtime -Moving to .NET Framework 4.5 also eliminates compatibility with Windows XP -This was done for the same reason the main game executable no longer supports Windows XP -The newer .NET Framework 4.5 has many technical advancements that can now be utilized -Fixed a bug that would save out the Sound and Music volume as 0 when closing the game -Greatly improved music processing distribution over time -Would previously have a 3-4ms processing spike every second or two -This would cause hitches on some systems -Now uses a consistent 0.2-0.3ms processing time every frame without spikes -Significantly improves frame pacing -Turning off music now completely eliminates music processing -Improves performance for low end systems when music is disabled -Fixed enemy bullets appearing the incorrect color when only tracking the player in Z space v1.29.4.0 - Maintenance and refactor of engine components -Refactored several components of the engine, including the camera system, light system, background switching, window initialization, menu system, text system, and more -Makes the codebase more robust and reduces the chances of bugs occuring in the future -Improved frame pacing when vSync is off or the frame rate is below the refresh rate -Fixed some rare inconsistent timescale update values (improves frame pacing) -Greatly improved the outer space background load time -This makes the biggest difference when using VeryHigh or Extreme terrain detail settings -Improved netcode packet loss tolerance for the following scenarios: -The client pauses the game -The client returns to the lobby -Sending text messages by the client or server -Renamed the in-game "Vertical Sync" option to "vSync" to maintain naming consistency with the configuration application -Optimized cpu usage of all text rendering -Applied a small optimization to background terrain rendering -Improved multithreading concurrency for background terrain, water, and clouds -Fixed brief graphical corruption when switching between the OpenGL 1.5 and 3.0 renderers -Fixed the player ship aura animation playing too fast in some situations -Fixed some particle effects appearing differently depending on the current frame rate v1.29.3.4 - Bullet trail improvements -Greatly improved enemy bullet trail animation consistency across all framerates -Used to look best at 60fps, but have distortions above and below 60fps -Added 1 more enemy bullet trail shadow to improve animation smoothness for high refresh rate displays -Updated enemy bullet trail detail scaling to maintain the same performance of previous versions -Optimized enemy bullet trail matrix calculations by reusing more temporal data from previous frames -Evened out the player bullet trail particle distribution for framerates above and below 60 fps -Makes the biggest difference below 60fps -Makes the player bullet trail look the same for all framerates v1.29.3.3 - Improved specular highlights and other maintenance updates -Improved specular highlight accuracy and performance in the shaders for all enemies, bosses, player ships, and the cave background -Only affects the OpenGL 2.0/3.0 renderer -The cave background has the greatest improvement, adding more depth and detail to the lighting -Reduced Boss hull damage from 50 to 25 -Reduced hitching from thread timing improvements -Increased the framerate cap to 60fps when running in the background -Increased ambient light for the OpenGL 1.5 renderer to match the OpenGL 2.0/3.0 renderer -Fixed an occasional crash when a large number of particles are on screen *Hotfix #1*-Fixed a bug that wouldn't reset the LevelSelect state when playing an online multiplayer game after previously playing a level select game *Hotfix #1*-Changed the default online multiplayer GameOver menu option for the client player to "Return to lobby", instead of "Disconnect" v1.29.3.2 - Training Mission mode balance adjustments and other tweaks -Rebalanced Training Mission mode to be more fun to play -Greatly increased weapon damage for all ships in this mode to make enemies easier to destroy -Also makes boss battles complete faster -Many level sections can be completed faster now, putting a greater emphasis on generated "popcorn" enemies -Reduced the number of starting lives and bonus lives to counter balance to the easier to kill enemies -Increased the Z range when enemies can be hit by player bullets -Makes enemies moving quickly in Z space easier to hit -Added hand placed Health and Points item drops for fast moving Z space enemies in Mission Area 2 and 3 -Converts these enemies to "bonus enemies" with rewards for destroying them -Adjusted several enemy spawn positions for Mission Area 1 -Updated emissive lighting for bosses and enemies to be completely uniform, regardless of external lighting -Added a "Try another game mode" gameover screen option when using Kiosk mode -Removed the "Quit Game" menu options from the Pause and GameOver screens -The only "Quit Game" menu option left is in the main menu -Added a new "Ship Selection" menu option to the GameOver screen -Removed the "Disconnect" menu option from the Online Multiplayer pause screen -This makes it more difficult to quit/disconnect from an online game accidentally -Added a hidden "useParticleHelperThreads" option to the config file -This is enabled by default -Disabling this still uses multithreading for the particle system, but limits particle updates to a single thread -Enabling this uses existing functionality from previous versions, allowing dynamic particle thread scaling up to 16 CPU cores -This option was created for debugging purposes; it fixes a rare crash issue when multiple instances of the game are running on the same system -It is still recommended to keep this option enabled, as the crash issue doesn't affect running a single instance of the game v1.29.3.1 - Bug fixes, tweaks and adjustments based on feedback -Increased hyper power usage for the OmegaCannon from 200 to 250 -Increased all ship damage for Mission Training mode to make enemies easier to kill -Player 2 exploder shots are now easier to see -Changed the wave intermission weapon unlock text to be more exciting -Increased starting stat levels for a few level select options -Removed screen wipe animations during the level select screen -Removed the Local/Online selection menu when playing a multiplayer Kiosk game -Fixed incorrect game render scaling when Windows is set to a high DPI render scale above 100% -This fixes rendering issues with many 4k displays -Removed UAC access requests -This fixes administrator requirement issues with some systems -This fixes some antivirus false-positives -UAC access was never used in BlastZone 2 and the access request in the executable manifest was left in by accident v1.29.3.0 - Greatly improved netcode packet compression and new Classic mode command ship -Created a completely new netcode packet compression system -Reduces latency by 2-16ms depending on system specs -Significantly reduces CPU usage during online multiplayer games -Uses similar bandwidth to the old system, but with higher data precision -Uses lightweight specialized compression logic as each packet is built instead of running an expensive post operation -Added a command ship you need to defend in Classic A and Classic B modes -Converts the game mode into an escort mission instead of abstractly preventing enemies from passing you -Updated Classic mode help screens to reflect the new objective to defend the command ship -Added support for the Classic A/B death sequence on the client side for online multiplayer -Corrected kill counts for Survival and Blitz modes in the help screens -Fixed a few rare multithreading crash bugs -Fixed the disconnection option not working correctly in the gameover screen when playing a Steamworks multiplayer game -Improved multithreading concurrency in a few areas to improve performance -Optimized the final death explosion sequence -Added "Help", "HighScore", and "Credits" main menu options to the Kiosk version -Renamed the "Config" menu to the "Options" menu -Removed bonus lives and unlock messages from the Kiosk version v1.29.2.0 - Added a ship unlock progression system, a new Classic enemy type, improved emissive lighting, and many tweaks and fixes -Added a ship unlock progression system -The game now starts with only the A2, A3, and B1 ships available; the rest are locked out -Surpassing Area/Wave 8 of Mission, Survival, or Blitz modes unlocks new ships -Unlocking a ship in one mode will make it available for all modes -Anyone upgrading from a previous version will start with additional ships unlocked based on other progress -Having Mission Veteran difficulty unlocked will unlock an additional ship -Having Blitz mode unlocked will unlock an additional ship -If one of the above conditions are met, the B2 ship will be unlocked -If both of the above conditions are met, the B2 and A1 ships will be unlocked -Integrated all unlock text displays into the general messaging system -Added new unlock text displays for each ship unlock event -Added a new EnemyB type to Classic A and Classic B modes that also moves up and down -Gradually introduces this new enemy type in later waves -Added per-object material emissive lighting support to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer -Light emission now works correctly for item drop models, just like how the OpenGL 1.5 renderer behaves -The amount of light emission can now be different for each enemy model -Light emission is now animated for enemy and boss models -Disabled the "kills left" display during the outro screen for Survival/Blitz/Classic modes -Optimized matrix operations for several object types, such as particles, bullets, and enemies -Improved packet loss tolerance in a few areas, including ship selection, ship size, current health, and boss/player state -Reduced multiplayer item drops by 25% overall and by 50% when one player runs out of lives -Fixed a bug allowing ship changes after selection in the local multiplayer ship selection screen -Fixed a broken lighting bug when switching from the OpenGL 3.0 renderer to the OpenGL 1.5 renderer -Fixed screen shakes not affecting the player booster -Fixed screen shakes affecting the wave splash screen and dialog box when it is not supposed to -Fixed a wave progression bug for online multiplayer games -Fixed incorrect player 2 animations for some wave splash screens v1.29.1.0 - New enemy patterns for Survival/Blitz modes, balance changes, and lighting improvements -Added 4 new "enemy wave" spawn patterns for Survival/Blitz modes -New pattern #1 simultaneously spawns several quick enemies in a symmetrical angle shape -New pattern #2 spawns many quick moving enemies sequentially in a curving wave -New pattern #3 spawns many regular heatseeking enemies -New pattern #4 spawns many vertical tracking enemies -Made several balance changes to the Survival/Blitz game modes: -Adjusted the proportional frequency of each enemy spawn pattern to be more evenly distributed -Adjusted the times when each new enemy spawn pattern is introduced -Increased the overall frequency of enemy spawn patterns by 67% -Increased the kills count per wave -Survival Singleplayer: 40->50 -Survival Multiplayer: 60->70 -Blitz Singleplayer: 80->100 -Blitz Multiplayer: 120->150 -Made numerous realtime lighting improvements -Added Emissive lighting to all enemies and bosses -Improved interaction between diffuse and ambient lighting for all objects -Improved specular highlights for player ship rendering -Corrected cave background vertex normal values, fixes how lighting should behave relative to the light source and camera -Added specular highlights to the cave background -Added scripted fly in animation when starting new waves in Classic/Survival/Blitz modes -The ViewDistance and ParticleDetail settings now default to "VeryHigh" to take advantage of recent optimizations -Terrain positioning is no longer affected by the ViewDistance setting -Optimized ship and cave background shaders -Eliminated a few redundant per-pixel calculations that can be calculated per-object instead -Eliminated multiple light calculations when only a single light is active for the cave background (ships already had this optimization) -Reorganized and updated the credits screen -Cleaned up a few areas of code to prevent potential bugs and memory leaks -Combined separate color and alpha textures for all wave intro splash animation textures -Reduces startup load time -Reduces memory usage on some systems -Slightly reduces CPU overhead for rendering the wave intro splash animation -Updated Kiosk mode to allow for the second player to join midgame -The second player gamepad needs to press the 'A' button to join -Added text to the HUD to reflect this -The joining player will start with the same number of lives the first player currently has -The joining player will be given the A3 ship as there is no opportunity for ship selection -This update does not apply to the standard game to prevent highscore exploits -Updated Kiosk mode to play a trailer video after idling for a while -Migrated to newer versions of a few 3rd party libraries -libPng v1.5.30; Used for loading textures -FreeType v2.9.1; Used for generating fonts -LibOgg v1.3.3; Used for music playback -LibVorbis v1.3.6; Used for music playback -cURL v7.61.0; Used for leaderboard uploading/downloading v1.29.0.0 - New level selection screen and new scriptable particle system -Redesigned the Level Selection screen -Changed the level selection menu to use a smaller font and a smaller window at the top of the screen -Reorganized the layout of the level and boss selections -Changes the background environment to match the level the cursor is pointing to -Added descriptions for each level and boss -Added a new scriptable particle system for Mission mode -This is a very powerful, completely customizable, and highly optimized particle system -Capable of up to millions of precisely designed particle patterns at high performance -Can be used for numerous effects, such as volumetric clouds -Particles can be attached to elements of the environment to improve immersiveness -Uses a texture atlas to increase variation between particles while maintaining compatibility with performance optimizations -Designed to work with files exported from powerful particle design software, such as Houdini -NOTE: This new particle system is not fully leveraged yet, content is being developed for it -Updated the "test_pack_1" mission level pack to include sample scriptable particles -Added a terrain positioning command to the scripting system -Updated enemy definitions to include an option for localized environment positioning instead of absolute positioning -Improved Steamworks multiplayer UDP netcode -Now strictly adheres to packet size and flow control standards for most internet routers -The server now sends all split packets as fast as possible instead of waiting for the next update tick to reduce latency -Improved packet error detection -Improved DirectIP(TCP) multiplayer netcode -Added the TCP_NODELAY parameter to reduce latency by eliminating Nagle buffering -Eliminated client-side wait timer to reduce latency; timing is now completely server-side controlled -Eliminated explicit server-side packet splitting to handle it through TCP without waiting for the next update tick -This improves the client side update rate when many objects are on screen -Enemy bullet detail is now proportional to the "Particle Detail" setting -Enemy bullet detail is determined by the maximum total number of "shadows" rendered on screen -Old static enemy bullet detail limit: 500 -New scalable enemy bullet detail limits: -Off: 0 -Low: 125 -Normal: 250 -High: 500 -VeryHigh: 1000 -Changed behavior when the game loses focus -Disables sound and music -Limits the framerate to 20fps -Fixed low precision client side positioning of foreground particle effects in online multiplayer -Fixed incorrect client side particle effect when holding a level 1 or level 2 charge in online multiplayer -Slight optimization for cloud plane rendering -Increased the foreground particle limit for all detail levels by 67% -Optimized rendering matrix calculations in many areas v1.28.4.0 - New background ship animations added to the scripting system -Added support for scripted background ship animations for Mission mode -Updated the "test_pack_1" mission level pack to include a sample background ship animation -Updated the custom level pack selection screen so the list is refreshed each time the menu is opened -This helps assist with rapid iteration when working on custom level packs -Fixed an intermittent crash issue with the custom level pack selection screen v1.28.3.1 - Maintenance release -Corrected the unlock info for Classic B and Blitz mode -Updated a few areas of the codebase to better manage enemy pattern loading in Mission mode -General codebase cleanup and maintenance in several areas v1.28.3.0 - Big gameplay balancing update across all game modes and Mission mode HUD improvements -Added new stat icons to the Mission mode hud to show which powerup affects which stat -Rebalanced all stat upgrades in Mission mode so stat management has a greater affect on gameplay -Reduced the baseline power of all stats for all ships in Mission mode (doesn't affect other game modes) -Reduced starting stats by 5% -Increased the potency of all stat powerups -Increased stat increase potency by 33% -Reduced the occurrence of stat powerup drops from enemies -Reduced proportional powerup drops from 60% to 40% -Increased proportional points drops from 10% to 30% -Increased the stat reduction penalty for losing a life -Training difficulty - 2 -> 3 -Pilot difficulty - 4 -> 5 -Verteran difficulty - 6 -> 7 -Tightened up enemy bullet hit boxes to make them easier to dodge -Cut enemy bullet hit box size by 50% -This makes a bigger difference for larger enemy bullets -Reduced the vertical hitbox size for player bullets and beams -The wide beam hitbox size has been reduced by 28% -The omega cannon hitbox size has been reduced by 19% -Bullet projectiles hitbox size has been reduced by 25% -Adjusted the proportional drop rates in Survival and Blitz modes for more points drops and fewer health drops -Increased proportional points drops from 50% to 60% -Reduced proportional health drops from 50% to 40% -Enemy bullets now stay the gameplay color for longer when passing through the gameplay plane in Z space -Enemy tracking bullets outside the gameplay plane now have an adjusted color to differentiate them better -Fixed shaking player ship bug during the wave outro animation -Updated the mission mode help screen v1.28.2.1 - Added burst fire to long range enemies in Survival/Blitz mode -Added burst fire shots to long range enemies in Survival/Blitz mode -Player targeted bullets are now fired in groups of 3 -Gives a distinct visual and sound signal for bullets fired directly at the player -Changes the way the bullet patterns need to be dodged -Scaled down the number of player targeted bullets fired by long range enemies in the Pilot and Training difficulty levels -Updated a few of the help screens -Brightened the game title image *Hotfix #1* -Disabled the Steam multiplayer menu option when not connected to Steam v1.28.2.0 - Improved long range enemy type for Survival/Blitz mode and more technical improvements -The long range enemy type now moves around the right side of the screen for a while, firing at the player -This only applies to the Survival and Blitz game modes -Increases the emphasis on bullet dodging in these modes, as there was previously too much emphasis on dodging enemy ships -These enemies eventually move toward the player to prevent too many from piling up on the right side of the screen -Clearing a wave in Survival or Blitz mode now clears all bullets from the screen to prevent dying between levels -Enemy bullets that are outside the gameplay plane are now colored differently to make it easier to track bullets in 3D space -All player ships are now always in memory, slightly reducing load times between scenes -Updated the custom enemy scripting system to allow for using any player ship model -Previously only allowed for using the current Player 1 ship -Updated Class #1 enemy scripting to add the following parameters -Stop X position -Stop Time -Enable AutoFire -Updated the Stress Test level packs to make it easier to test performance -Removed AutoFire from enemies -Starting stats are now maxed out -Increased starting lives for all difficulties to 5 -Improved performance when the player is not using Hyper Mode or beam weapons in the OpenGL 3.0 renderer -Eliminates extra lighting calculations when only a single light is active -General shader management optimizations for the OpenGL 3.0 renderer -Improved render matrix management performance and parallelism in a few areas -Includes enemy ships, enemy bullets, player bullets, and player booster -These improvements affect both the OpenGL 1.5 and 3.0 renderers -Fixed a rare multithreading crash bug at the end of the final player death animation -Tweaked screen wipe transitions v1.28.1.1 - Added support for multiple lights in the OpenGL 3.0 renderer -Added support for multiple simultaneous light sources in the OpenGL 3.0 renderer -The main areas this affects are on the cave background, enemies, bosses, and player ships -Additional light sources are used when Hyper mode is active, or when beams are fired -Updated the VertexLit shader to calculate lights per vertex instead of per pixel -This should have a minimal effect on image quality, while performing much faster -This offsets the additional calculations needed for processing multiple light sources -Fixed incorrect color used for Low detail alien planet clouds with the OpenGL 3.0 renderer v1.28.1.0 - Improvements to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer and shader improvements -Improved lighting for the water shader in the Home Planet environment -Updated a few shaders to improve efficiency -Updated fog calculations in a few shaders to use per-pixel accuracy to improve image quality -Added a few new shaders to improve efficiency for specific situations -Removed a few remnants of the old fixed function pipeline from the new OpenGL 3.0 renderer -Reduced the cloud layer triangle count to improve performance, but still above older versions to maintain fixes for edge case rendering issues -Completed the new OpenGL ES 2.0 compliant renderer (disabled on the PC version) v1.28.0.0 - New overhauled renderer entirely based on OpenGL 3.0 shaders -Upgraded the main renderer to be completely shader driven and target OpenGL 3.0 -Eliminated the old OpenGL 1.5/2.0 hybrid approach to be purely OpenGL 3.0 now -Maintains compatibility with OpenGL 2.0 -Created new shaders for every object type in the rendering pipeline -The entire rendering system has been overhauled to almost completely eliminate every aspect of the old fixed function pipeline -Only uses a single feature from the old pipeline that is required for optimizations that boost performance 40-50% -The new renderer otherwise targets newer versions of OpenGL, but usage of this one feature would require using a compatibility profile to function -There is another codepath that targets the OpenGL 4.1+ core profile, but this has been disabled because it cuts performance with no benefits -Optimized the existing NormalMap and Water shaders by removing unnecessary calculations -Slightly optimized the OpenGL 1.5 code path by reducing the number of API calls -Created a better API call management system to eliminate redundant calls -Updated sky clouds to render using a higher polygon count -Improves fog rendering when using the OpenGL 3.0 code path -Fixes potential rendering issues with some hardware/driver combinations -Replaced the "Shaders" option with a "Renderer" option -This applies to the in-game setting and configuration application setting -Allows for selecting the "OpenGL 2.0/3.0" or "OpenGL 1.5" renderer v1.27.1.0 - Overhauled backend processing and huge terrain optimizations -Overhauled the way 3D matrix calculations are performed in the game engine -Migrated to a forward looking, internalized method to perform matrix transforms to render 3D graphics -Provides direct low level access to a new area of the rendering pipeline, allowing for more optimization opportunities -Removed large swaths of old and deprecated OpenGL API calls to modernize the codebase -Huge optimizations for terrain rendering -Results in significant across the board performance boosts, especially when high quality terrain is used -Low terrain gains ~4-5% performance depending on system specs -Normal terrain gains ~18-38% performance depending on system specs -VeryHigh terrain gains ~50-200% performance depending on system specs -Extreme terrain gains ~60-250% performance depending on system specs -This was done without affecting image quality -This significantly reduces system requirements to use the new terrain DLC packs -Adjusted lighting for the outer space planet and moon v1.27.0.0 - Expanded gameplay area and migrated to completely widescreen focused gameplay and interface -Increased the playable area to fit the entire screen -Allows ship movement to all edges of the screen in Survival and Blitz mode -Removed old movement restrictions that disallowed movement to the far bottom, left, and right of the screen -Adjusted enemy ship spawning and movement in Survival and Blitz mode to take advantage of the expanded gameplay area -Mission mode only expands the horizontal movement area, as all the mission levels were designed for the restricted vertical space -Classic A/B modes allow for expanded vertical movement, but enemy spawning hasn't been changed so difficulty balancing isn't affected -The game always runs in 16:9 widescreen mode now -When running a 4:3, 5:4, or 16:10 resolution, the game runs in 16:9 widescreen letterboxed -This eliminates the FOV disadvantage that 4:3 and 5:4 monitors used to have -This ensures that all aspect ratios maintain the same gameplay experience -Changed the default resolution to 720p -This is now a primarily widescreen focused game, so this is a more fitting default resolution -Updated a few menus to take advantage of widescreen better -Single player ship selection -Local multiplayer ship selection -Online multiplayer lobby screen -Rebalanced enemy spawning patterns and behavior in Survival and Blitz modes to work better with the new play area -Updated the HUD to take advantage of a wider screen space -Added looping support to the enemy scripting system -Updated the Area 1, 3, 5, and 7 minibosses to infinitely loop and not fly off the screen on their own anymore -Fixed a bug that would flicker the lights in the cave background when switching ships in the single player ship selection screen -Adjusted the sun graphic position in the Outer Space background v1.26.1.3 - Added 4k textures -Added 4k versions of many textures in the game -Home planet sky -Home planet terrain -Alien planet sky -Alien planet terrain -Cave terrain -Space star background -Space planet -Space moon -Shifted the detail of all texture settings -VeryHigh - 2k -> 4k -High - 1k -> 2k -Medium - 512 -> 1k -Low - 256 -> 512 -The new High detail is the same as the old VeryHigh detail, etc -Improved lighting detail of the home planet terrain -Added a new texture design and improved lighting for the outer space planet -Improved lighting for the outer space moon -Moved the outer space sun to work better with the new planet lighting -Added a new sun graphic for the outer space environment -Added texture size detection; automatically downsizes textures for graphics hardware that don't support high res textures v1.26.1.2 - High quality terrain free DLC support -Added a new 'Low Quality' terrain detail option for low end machines -This uses terrain models from the mobile version of BlastZone 2 -Ideal for low end laptops or integrated graphics -Added support for the new 'Very High Quality' and 'Extreme Quality' terrain free DLC packs -These higher quality settings dramatically increase system requirements, so use them at your own risk! -'Very High Quality' requires a Radeon RX 460 or Geforce 1030 or above -'Extreme Quality' requires a Radeon RX 480 or Geforce 1060 or above -Graphics cards of similar performance from previous generations work as well -To access these new settings, the new DLC packs need to be downloaded -They aren't included in the default install to reduce filesize -These settings do not affect the 'Outer Space' environment, since it doesn't contain any terrain -Triangle count comparison for each detail level per block of terrain: -Low: ~5k tris -Standard/Default: ~65k tris -High Quality: ~650k tris -Extreme Quality: ~2.1mil tris -Updated the configuration application to adjust Terrain Detail -This is the only way to change this setting, not in game -Improved lighting and shadowing of the Home World terrain -Adjusted the screen fade transitions to ensure the new scene is fully loaded before showing it -Fixed the item pickup particle animation occasionally using the wrong colors v1.26.1.1 - Small maintenance release -Updated all the ship selection screens to ease ship transition movement -Changed the name of the standard Fire2 weapon of the A3 and AB1 ships to be "power burst" to maintain naming consistency -Added 2 new bullet colors to the level scripting system so they can be used in the background without interfering with gameplay -Adjusted the color of enemy bullets in online multiplayer games to match the color of local games v1.26.1.0 - Gameplay balancing tweaks, alt-fire update, and readied charge shot effect -Reduced damage of the edges of Wave Shot volleys for ships AB1 and AB2 -Wave Shot was overpowered in previous versions, so this brings it closer in line to other primary weapons -Slightly increases the skill needed for maximum damage by needing to hit enemies with the center of each shot volley -Reduces its effectiveness against large groups of enemies, which was the main area it was overpowered in -Alt-fire shots can now be fired by tapping the Fire2 button instead of holding it -When Fire2 is tapped, the weapon won't be fired until sufficient charge time has passed -Fire2 shots can no longer be canceled like previous versions -Charge1 and Charge2 shot behavior hasn't been affected by this update -This is especially helpful for B1 and B2 ships against big bosses, giving them an easier way to use their ranged attack -Added new particle effects when holding a readied charge shot -Changed the AB1 ship secondary fire weapon to Burst Shot -This better fits the close and far range style of the AB1 weapon loadout -Added secondary fire weapon listings in all ship selection screens -These weapons were always part of each ship's loadout, but now that information is readily available -Added descriptive slot assignments for each weapon in the loadout displays in each ship selection screen -Slightly increased the size of Boosted Bolts to distinguish them from regular bolts -Moved the Boosted Bolt muzzle flash further up on the ship v1.26.0.0 - New score multiplier system for Survival mode and many other improvements -Created a new score multiplier system for Survival mode -Use charge shots and points pickups to raise your multiplier -Hit enemies with regular shots to maintain your multiplier -Getting hit reduces your multiplier -Waiting too long without maintaining your multiplier gradually reduces it -Dying resets your multiplier -Updated the HUD and netcode to support the new Survival multiplier system -Reworked the score rank category thresholds for Survival mode to match the new scoring system -Added score rank categories for Blitz Mode and Classic B mode viewable in the gameover screen -Added particle effects when the player attains Charge Level 1 and Charge Level 2 -Added a particle effect when picking up item drops -Added a particle effect when firing a Barrage Shot using ship A1 -Added unlock info subtext when Classic B and Blitz mode, or Veteran and Turbo difficulty are locked -Increased the triangle density of the Outer Space star background sphere, improving texture mapping consistency -Eliminated Hyper power reduction and the use of Fire2 and Fire3 weapons when Hyper mode is activate during the Wave Splash Screen -The hyper charge up animation now only shows when hyper power is charging at an accelerated rate -Increased the opacity of the hyper charge up animation to make it easier to see -Updated a few game mode selection subtexts in the menus -Removed the charge up sound from hyper charging; now it is only used for regular charging -Fixed a bug when pressing enter on the "Motion Smoothing" option in the client online multiplayer lobby -Fixed cluster shots erroneously showing power bolt or super bolt dissipation animations -Fixed missing individual player scores in the gameover screen when playing Multiplayer Blitz mode v1.25.4.1 - Gamepad button mapping updates -Gamepad button mapping has been updated to prevent a single button from being mapped to multiple actions -This prevents game breaking bugs in the menu system and other areas -Updated the config program to prevent gamepad buttons from being bound to multiple actions, similar to the in-game update -Changed the color of the gamepad config column headers to separate them from selectable options -Migrated to the latest version of the Steam SDK (v1.42) v1.25.4.0 - Many new particle effects and Hyper mode activation adjustments -Added a new particle effect when activating hyper mode -Added a brief movement slowdown during the hyper mode activation animation -Now requires more strategic timing when activating hyper mode to account for this brief slowdown -Added new particle effects when firing power bolts, super bolts, cluster shots, burst shots, and more -Added new particle effects when enemies and bosses collide with player bolts, flurry bolts, power bolts, and super bolts -Improved the particle effect when enemies pass the player in Classic A or Classic B mode -Increased explosion position precision in online multiplayer games -Improved packet loss tolerance for player attributes in online multiplayer -Includes attributes such as lives, ammo, stats, score, hyper mode, etc. -Slightly reduced transmitted data when activating Hyper mode in online multiplayer by eliminating some redundant data v1.25.3.4 - Texture loading fixes and improvements -Fixed bugged textures when using texture detail below "High" -Reduced memory usage when using texture detail below "VeryHigh" -Converted a few more textures to the new precompressed S3TC format -Reduces memory usage and speeds up startup time -Reduced memory usage when Shaders are disabled -Fixed occasional model corruption when applying video settings multiple times *HotFix #1* - Improved game close procedure; closes the game window faster and prevents a potential config/save file corruption issue v1.25.3.3 - Critical crash bug fix -Fixed a bug that would occasionally cause a crash when closing the game -This also fixes occasional config, savegame, and highscore corruption *HotFix #1* - Fixed additional game close crash that wasn't covered by the first fix v1.25.3.2 - More optimizations and technical improvements -Optimized explosion particle rendering -Provides up to a 15% performance boost when many particles are on screen -Other recent optimizations focused on the CPU side, this optimization is on the rendering side and improves a wider range of system configurations -Changed the way uncompressed texture mipmaps are generated on startup to use GL_GENERATE_MIPMAP -This uses hardware acceleration to generate mipmaps, which speeds up game startup time -This requires support for OpenGL 1.4 and above -Any video cards in the hardware requirements and above should work fine with this -Eliminated all dependencies on the GLU32 library and removed it from the executable -Fixed a crash bug on boss or player death introduced in v1.25.3.1 -*HotFix #1* Fixed garbled text in the wave intermission screen when using level select to beat the final boss -*HotFix #2* Reduced Hyper power consumption when firing flurry shot while Hyper mode is active for the A1 and A2 ships -*HotFix #2* Slightly increased Hyper power consumption when using primary fire weapons for the B1, B2, AB1, and AB2 ships while Hyper mode is active v1.25.3.1 - Particle multithreading improvements -More explosion particle multithreading improvements -Eliminated redundant calculations between threads for CPUs with 4 cores or more -This has no effect on CPUs with 1, 2, or 3 cores -More redundant calculations have been eliminated for CPUs with more cores -This improves overall thread concurrency, but should only have minimal performance gains -Reduces overall CPU usage without any negative impact on performance -Optimized the CPU load per particle when updating particle data v1.25.3.0 - Native S3TC precompressed texture loading -Added support for loading precompressed S3TC textures instead of compressing them into memory on startup -Greatly improves startup loading time -Improves the quality of compressed textures -Replaced many textures in the game with offline compressed S3TC textures -Reduces game filesize footprint -Did not replace any HUD or sprite textures to maintain the highest quality for those -Removed the "Texture Compression" config option; now many textures are always compressed v1.25.2.0 - Startup loading improvements -Added a progress bar and loading spinner to the startup loading screen -Gives more information on loading progress -Signifies that the loader is still working -Added a new thread to the loading process, bringing the total to 6 -Scales very well up to 6 CPU cores to improve startup loading speed -Also reduces load times for systems with less than 6 cores by better maintaining higher core usage -Fixed the game occasionally becoming briefly unresponsive during startup -Lowered the priority of particle update threads to maintain responsive gameplay if other applications slow down the game v1.25.1.1 - Maintenance update -The particle system now automatically sets the optimal number of CPU threads -Eliminated the "particle threads" config option -Now always optimizes the particle system for best performance based on the number of present CPU cores -Converting to the new config format will disable Kiosk mode on first start, but it can be enabled again afterwards -Additional checks for model loading metadata -Better handles a few error cases -Better detects cases when metadata files need to be rebuilt -Converting to the new metadata format will force a rebuild of all metadata files on first start -More explosion particle system optimizations -Significant reduction in CPU load and higher performance at high particle counts -Up to 25% higher performance depending on the system and situation at very high particle counts -More commonly 5-10% performance gains for most situations -Slightly lower overhead when no particles are on screen -Changed the startup loading logo screen to say "Loading..." as well v1.25.1.0 - Externalized model data and improved Alien terrain detail -Moved much of the game model data to external files -This greatly reduces the executable file size (14mb -> 4mb) -Reduces the size of future updates by not having to redownload all the model data each time -Raises the 65k triangle limit per model of older versions to over 2 million, allowing for higher detailed assets in the future -The first game startup after updating will take longer to load from caching loading data, but subsequent startups will be significantly quicker -Greatly improved detail in the background mountains terrain in the Alien World environment (Mission Area 6) -Has a higher triangle count per block of terrain (42k -> 65k) -More intelligently uses triangles to increase perceived detail at equivalent triangle counts -Improved the Charge item model -Increased the color palette of all background terrain textures (Home world, Alien World, and Caves) -Improved multithreading for game startup loading -Takes full advantage of up to 5 CPU cores to reduce loading time -Improved parallelism to more consistently use all cpu cores -The startup loading screen now appears earlier in the startup process v1.25.0.0 - Level select improvements and new Kiosk mode -Made a few improvements and updates to mission mode level select -Only the indevidual level selected is played, then the game ends to select another level -Starting from later levels gives a starting boost to stats to better simulate what the later levels play like in regular mission mode -Fewer lives are given to better balance gameplay for playing a single level -A new "Kiosk Mode" has been added to the game -This is a hidden feature and is not intended for regular end users (can only be accessed by editing the config file manually) -This has been created for use in future conventions and other public showings -Removes many game features and allows the player to select between several areas of the game to play with intended 5 minute play sessions -Fixed incorrect cave background lighting when entering and leaving a ship selection screen without starting a new game v1.24.2.3 - Maintenance update -Particle thread count is now capped at the number of logical CPU cores, even if a higher value is selected -Fixed misaligned explosion flares for the later levels of Classic A/B game modes -Fixed a few rare crashes related to multithreading *Hotfix #1*-Fixed occasional hitchy behavior for explosion animations v1.24.2.2 - Improved multithreading concurrency -Improved multithreading concurrency in several areas -Thread concurrency was slightly reduced in v1.24.2.0 to fix a few crash issues, but the crash fixes have been improved so there is no concurrency sacrifice anymore v1.24.2.1 - Client motion smoothing improvements -Greatly reduced occasional object rubberbanding when using client "Interp/predict" motion smoothing with poor internet connections -Improved packet loss compensation for the "Interp/predict" motion smoothing -Improved multithreading for beam animations and hit detection -Fixed double beam animation for the client in online multiplayer -Fixed an occasional flicker for the player ship booster -Fixed player throwback at the start of the next area when completing the previous area with a power weapon v1.24.2.0 - Greatly improved particle system -Made big improvements to the particle system -Allows for 20x-30x more particles on screen for the same performance level of previous versions -Takes much better advantage of multithreading to achieve this -Now has a more even workload between threads -Can now scale up to any amount of cpu cores (previously capped at 2 cores) -Updated the configuration program to select the amount of threads dedicated to particles (This option is not available in game) -The minimum threads selectable is "2", which is 1 render thread and 1 update thread -Using a higher thread count keeps the 1 render thread, but splits the update workload between multiple threads -The new particle system is more Update heavy, so this will increase performance -However, very high thread counts has diminishing returns -Added a new client motion smoothing option for online multiplayer - "Interp Only" -This option fixes potential erratic object movement for poor internet connections, but introduces hitching instead -This is now the default option to accomodate the widest range of internet connection quality -Renamed the original smoothing option from "On" to "Interp/Predict" -Interp/Predict is the recommended option for mediocre and good internet connections -Added antialiasing to all HUD meter bars -Fixed several very rare crash scenarios from the recent multithreading updates -Fixed occasional oversized player ships in online multiplayer -Fixed the client player incorrectly showing a beam fire animation at the beginning of the next wave when finishing the previous wave with a beam weapon when playing online multiplayer v1.24.1.2 - Ship size hotfix -Fixed a bug that would occasionally show an oversized player ship when starting a new game v1.24.1.1 - More improvements to netcode -Added packet discarding for online multiplayer when packets are detected as out of order -Prevents old data from being displayed -Fixes erratic object movement as well -Object behavior from these removed packets are accounted for when using the recently added motion smoothing -Improved packet loss tolerance for object movement in online multiplayer -This is a generalized approach that improves many areas, previous packet loss improvements targeted specific situations -This works well for sudden movements and in tandem with the recent motion smoothing update -Fixed rapidly switching client player ship type when there is high packet loss for the online multiplayer lobby screen v1.24.1.0 - Added client-side motion smoothing for online multiplayer -Added client-side motion smoothing to online multiplayer -Smooths out animations for the client player, even when a low tickrate is used -Allows for much lower bandwidth usage with a similar or better experience as earlier versions -This uses a combination of interpolation and prediction to achieve smoother playback -However, this slightly increases latency (10-50ms depending on the situation) -Added an option to disable client-side motion smoothing -This eliminates the slightly higher latency of smoothing if this behavior is desired -Fixed enemies glowing on spawn for the client player in online multiplayer -Improved robustness of netcode v1.24.0.1 - Small tweak release -Fixed small graphic glitches and improved visibility for the player damage particle effect -Slightly optimized the player damage particle effect -Fixed potentially undefined behavior in the menu code v1.24.0.0 - Added BlastZone 1 to the game -Added a recreation of BlastZone 1 to the game as a free addon -Mimics the original TI-85 style presentation, but with higher resolution text and symbols -Gives a peek at the roots of where BlastZone 2 came from -This isn't an exact port of the TI-85 version, but it recreates a similar experience to the original game -Tweaked the menu border of the Credits and Help screens v1.23.1.0 - Further multithreading improvements -Added multithreading support for several areas left out of the v1.23.0.0 multithreading improvements, including: -All menus -Loading operations after the initial startup -Gamepad input -Console input -Leaderboard communication -Fixed brief discolored border of horizontal screen wipes -Fixed an internal error when uploading or downloading leaderboard data v1.23.0.0 - Improved online lobby screen and significant engine improvements, including frame rate cap selection, multithreading, and net code -Greatly improved the online multiplayer lobby screen -Now shows ship previews for each player -Reorganized the screen to present ship information better -Added stat bars similar to other ship selection screens -Updated framerate cap selection to allow for any value of the range 20-240 or unlimited -Previously only allowed for 4 fixed values of 20, 30, 60, and unlimited -Allows for increments of 1 fps for the highest precision of desired framerates -This improves support for high refresh rate and adaptive-sync displays -Allows for high refresh rate displays to take advantage of the power saving and heat reducing properties of frame rate caps without resorting to using uncapped framerates -This can also be used on standard 60hz displays with vsync off to reduce control response times without increasing heat and power consumption much -Multithreading improvements; Split the main game update and rendering operations into separate threads -Can now take advantage of up to 6 CPU cores/threads if available -Improves parallelism and core usage for dual core and quad core systems -Improves performance for multicore systems (up to 10% depending on the system and situation) -Doesn't adversely affect performance for single core systems -This doesn't increase control latency, which often occurs in other implementations -This is ideal for better maintaining high frame rates for high refresh rate displays or maintaining a smooth experience for lower end multicore systems -Improved frame pacing consistency to reduce hitching when using framerate caps -Can now maintain constant frame times with occasional variance down to 0.02ms or lower -Greatly improved robustness of the online multiplayer netcode -Improved packet loss tolerance in many areas, including bosses, object spawning, wave progression, and cutscene skipping -The netcode can now tolerate up to 75% constant packet loss without causing bugs and can occasionally allow for spikes up to 80% packet loss or higher -Added the ability for gamepads to hold the left or right direction in menus to quickly scroll left or right (previously only had this behavior for up and down) -Fixed a bug when pressing Escape to leave the online multiplayer lobby screen that would internally keep the game in online mode, causing a number of other bugs -Fixed occasional model corruption after applying new video settings in game or pressing Alt+Enter -Adjusted positioning of leaderboard submission text in the game over screen -Updated the mouse cursor draw order so it doesn't appear on top of text messages or dialog boxes -Screen wipes now render behind dialog boxes so they aren't obscured during cutscenes -Fixed slight player booster misalignment during wave/area intros and outros -Eliminated all Classic A/B weapon firing during wave intermissions to prevent accidental chain resets or wasting ammo -Updated the config program to be compatible with the new Framerate options and disabled manual value entry for most options to limit them to dropdown values -Upgraded to the latest Steam SDK (v1.40) v1.22.6.2 - Bug fixes and improvements -Fixed greyed out back arrow when it is available for leaderboard score listings -Page flipping improvements to the Steam friends list and addon pack list -Added new "Press 'T' to chat" note in the online multiplayer lobby -Online multiplayer chat messages now use the leaderboard name unless unspecified -Adjusted description text positioning for a few menus -Fixed a crash when attempting to start a Steamworks multiplayer game when in offline mode -Improved Steamworks friends list handling when the list is blank v1.22.6.1 - HUD bugfix -Fixed broken HUD when pressing Alt+Enter during gameplay v1.22.6.0 - Leaderboard fix, Enemy scripting changes, and particle limits -Changed the way leaderboard communication works to prevent issues with some antivirus software -Now communicates natively with the leaderboard server without the need for external executables -The old behavior launched a hidden CMD window to execute a cURL command to upload/download data to the leaderboard -This was deemed suspicious behavior by some antivirus software and would blacklist BlastZone 2 -Enemy definitions now can define item drops **NOTE: This update breaks compatibility with enemy definitions made for older versions of BlastZone 2 -All officially released missions and addon packs have been updated to work with the new spec -A new property has been added to the end of all enemy definitions in the "enemydefs.dat" files -Item drop values include: -Forcing no drop -The old random drop chance behavior -Specifying which item drops from this enemy, including points, health, and stat upgrades -For more information, the level editing and addon pack documentation has been updated to reflect this -Explosion particle counts have now been capped to improve performance in extreme situations -This cap limits the total amount of particles that can be displayed on screen and doesn't affect indevidual explosions when this cap isn't reached -The cap value is proportional to the particle detail level specified in the game options -The "very high" particle detail level maintains the old uncapped behavior if no cap is desired -Added "Press Pause/Escape to skip" text to all cutscenes -When first starting the game and viewing highscores, the gamemode category now defaults to Mission mode -Fixed items not being dropped from enemies while one player is respawning in multiplayer v1.22.5.1 - New pipeline timing debug info display -Fixed a wave progression bug for the client in online survival multiplayer games -Improved packet loss tolerance for a few key events for online multiplayer -Added the ability to show extra timing debug info -Press F1 multiple times to cycle between: -No debug info -Only framerate -Framerate with update/render/particle/framePrep/frameFlip timings -Framerate with update/render/particle/framePrep/frameFlip and sound/steam/directIp timings v1.22.5.0 - Bug fixes, code maintenance, and multithreading improvements -Numerous general code improvements across many areas of the game; prevents many potential issues -Greatly improved thread timing and synchronization for multithreaded particles -Improves overall parallelism and performance when many particles are onscreen -Reduces overall cpu usage by up to 25% -Improves visual smoothness of particle animations -Allows particle updates to scale beyond 60hz for high refresh rate displays -Improves efficiency even more when running on a slow machine that is unable to maintain 60fps -Tweaked the enemy explosion start frame to transition from an unexploded ship better -Fixed broken client side communication for Direct IP online multiplayer games -Fixed incorrect rendering for client side powerup items for online multiplayer games -Small tweaks to the frame pacing algorithm -Adjusted description text positioning for game mode and difficulty selection screens to have less overlap with menus v1.22.4.8 - Addon pack support update -Removed level addon pack dependency on PackRegistry.dat; addon packs are now automatically detected -Settings and highscores are now saved to disk at a few key points in game instead of only saving on shutdown, prevents data loss if the game closes improperly v1.22.4.7 - Updated libraries; Includes numerous bugfixes, optimizations, improvements, and security fixes -Migrated to libPng v1.5.28; Used for loading textures -Migrated to FreeType v2.7.1; Used for generating fonts -Migrated to zLib v1.2.11; Used for compression/decompression -Updated to cURL v7.53.1; Used for leaderboard uploading/downloading v1.22.4.6 - Addon pack bug fixes and new stress test level packs -Fixed a crash when attempting to spawn a scripted enemy that isn't defined -Fixed fallback wave intro animation when one isn't defined for level addon packs -Fixed quick charge not activating for the A1 ship for level 1 and 2 of addon level packs if specified to be unlocked -Fixed quick charge downgrade not working for addon level packs if specified to do so -Added 2 new level packs to stress test the BZ2 game engine and PC hardware -Press F1 to bring up framerate display -"stress_test" is a moderate stress test -"stress_test_2" is an extreme stress test -Small modifications to the existing "test_pack_1" -Makes use of an additional enemy type to demonstrate behavior v1.22.4.5 - Fixed a bug introduced in 1.22.4.4 that locked out some ships in local multiplayer v1.22.4.4 - Bugfix release -Fixed veteran difficulty being locked out for addon packs if veteran difficulty hasn't been unlocked for regular mission mode -Fixed an occasional startup crash -Fixed a small startup memory leak -Optimized the startup loading screen rendering v1.22.4.3 - All exploder and cluster bomb weapons can now explode on impact, greatly improving the effectiveness of these weapons v1.22.4.2 - Fixed missing ship type column for the local Blitz high scores screen v1.22.4.1 - Fixed command prompt popup when uploading or downloading leaderboard data v1.22.4.0 - New local multiplayer ship selection screen -Added a new multiplayer ship selection screen so both players can select a ship simultaneously -Added missing escape/back functionality for the gamepad config menu -Doubled the bonus life points requirements for Blitz mode -Fixed charge particles occasionally being displayed for a dead player in multiplayer -A few minor optimizations to the ship selection screen and extra lives detection routine during gameplay -Migrated to the latest Steam SDK (v1.39) v1.22.3.6 - Maintenance release -Fixed a ubyte value wrapping issue for final player explosion particles -Fixed an additional single frame ubyte value wrapping issue for final player explosion particles -Migrated to the latest Steam SDK (v1.37) v1.22.3.5 - Achievements Fixes -Made adjustments to the title screen title image rendering -Fixed Blitz Turbo games not unlocking Wave Progression achievements -Fixed Turbo difficulty games not unlocking Wave Progression achievements for pilot games automatically -Fixed a Veteran Mission complete achievement unlock exploit v1.22.3.4 - Online multiplayer improvements -Fixed a bug in Steamworks Multiplayer Mission mode that bosses don't appear for the client player -Improved packet loss tolerance for Steamworks Multiplayer games v1.22.3.3 - Sound compatibility fix -Fixed sound compatibility issues for specific sound hardware, such as the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi v1.22.3.2a - Added a sonic boom sound to mission mode Area 5 v1.22.3.2 - Sound system tweaks -Additional sound system error detection fixes and tweaks v1.22.3.1a - Script updates -Lengthened the last enemy barrage of Mission Area 4 -Added sonic boom sounds when activating afterburners in Mission Area 2 v1.22.3.1 - Several sound system improvements and fixes -Fixed some rare or system-specific crash issues related to the sound system -Fixed a music playback stopping issue for systems that are very slow or have a single-core cpu -Increased the music playback buffers to 3 to prevent music hitching on slower systems -Upgraded to the latest libVorbis library; includes fixes and improvements to music playback -Other general sound system tweaks and robustness improvements v1.22.3.0 - Gameplay balancing -Cut laser damage in half against bosses -Reduced player hitbox size for bullet collisions to make it easier to dodge bullets X dimension - 2.0 -> 1.6 units Y dimension - 1.2 -> 0.8 units -Slightly reduced the enemy hull collision X dimension when colliding with the player -Greatly increased the health of all bosses -Area 2 Boss - 200 -> 300 -Area 4 Boss - 400 -> 600 -Area 6 Boss - 400 -> 700 -Area 8 Boss - 600 -> 1000 -Slight optimization for enemy hit glow rendering v1.22.2.0 - Survival/Blitz mode wave scaling balance updates -Increased the enemy density and speed scaling for waves 9+ for Survival/Blitz Mode using Pilot or Veteran difficulty -This will make the late game more difficult and fun to play -fixed a demo issue that Classic A mode would have a higher than normal difficulty v1.22.1.0 - Explosion particle improvements -Improved boss explosions -Improved player death explosions -Slightly improved regular enemy explosions -Changed the boss final explosion sound -Optimizations for explosion particle creation v1.22.0.0 - Level Addon Pack Support -Added the ability to play downloadable and user created Level Addon Packs -Enabled the "Custom" Mission mode menu option to select level packs -Included a short example level pack -Updated all screen fades and wipes to use a different blending method and a less intense color -Updated Wave splash screens so they are never presented during screen wipes or fades -Fixed a fullscreen display glitch during the Mission Area 3 intro cutscene -Fixed the normal player bolts having a small hitbox v1.21.0.2 - Bullet fade tweaks -Adjusted burst shot bullets fade out -Added a fadeout to player bullets leaving the screen so they don't abruptly disappear v1.21.0.1 - Texture Hotfix -Fixed several broken UI textures when using a texture detail setting below "high" v1.21.0.0 - HUD Overhaul -Completely rebuilt the HUD for all game modes -uses a more intuitive design -added icons and realtime availability feedback for all weapons -converted lives display to icons -reorganized and stylized displays for score, charge, hyper, health, ammo, etc. -Added a new graphical border to all menus -Added a menu border to the GameOver screen -Improved the wave splash screen display for waves above 9 -Fixed turning off Sound or Music from the config program not correctly saving for the game -Fixed the hyper meters pulsing twice as fast in multiplayer when both players have a fully charged hyper meter -Fixed the mouse not being able to press Fire1+Fire2 to give the other player a life in multiplayer -Added the ability for the mouse to hold-release a Fire2 charge while holding Fire1 v1.20.2.1 - HotFix: Fixed broken mouse firing v1.20.2.0 - Updated HUD stats -Updated the mission mode HUD stat upgrades to use visual blocks instead of text -Fixed a rare crash caused by the recent particles multithreading update -Slightly improved the initial game load time and applying graphics settings by eliminating an extra environment rebuild -Migrated to the latest Steam API (v1.33b) v1.20.1.0 - Optimizations and balancing -Explosion particles are now multithreaded, greatly improving performance on multicore systems -Explosion creation has been greatly optimized, vastly reducing hitching on slower systems -Reduced the hyper energy consumption of Power Bolts and Cluster Shots from 50 to 40 units -Added the ability to accept Steamworks multiplayer invites using the gamepad -Press (Fire3 + Pause) to do this -This update makes BlastZone 2 full support gamepad compliant -Fixed vertical seeker enemies in Survival and Blitz mode attempting to seek the player ship during the respawn flyin animation v1.20.0.0b - Added mission storyline dialog boxes for all cutscenes between Areas v1.20.0.0a - Greatly improved the Mission Area 3 intro cutscene v1.20.0.0 - Huge weapons overhaul -Created 9 new weapons for a total of 15 in game -Includes Burst Shot, Flurry Shot, Wave Shot, Exploder Shot, Cluster Shot, Force Field, and others -Updated weapon loadouts for all ships to have much greater differentiation in gameplay -Updated the ship selection screen to display the full loadout for each ship -Greatly optimized player bullet rendering to offset the higher object count of new weapons -The A2 and B1 ships are now available in the Demo -All ships can be looked at in the ship selection screen in the Demo -The Demo version now includes the full Classic A mode -Classic A mode point chains are now calculated the same way as Classic B mode -Maxes out at chain 16 instead of 8 and points bonuses scale up with the current wave -Updated the stats of a few selectable ships -Fixed a gamepad bug that prevented the d-pad from working for all gamepads except #1 -fixed the A1 ship quick charge not being applied for wave 1 and 2 of blitz mode v1.12.7.5 - SteamCloud Improvements -SteamCloud now only tracks local highscores and gamemode/difficuly unlock status -All machine-specific settings such as resolution, detail, and controls are no longer saved on SteamCloud v1.12.7.4 - Reorganized game modes -Eliminated the separate "survival" mode selection screen; all modes are in the same menu now -Changed the name of the "Enhanced" game mode to "Survival" v1.12.7.3 - Steamworks multiplayer improvements -Added multithreading to the Steamworks multiplayer code; improves performance and reduces latency v1.12.7.2 - Fixes and improvements to music playback -Fixed an issue that would cutoff the end of a music track before looping it -Fixed an issue that would occasionally stop music playback when reaching the end of the track -Fixed the gamepad controls config being grayed out when one controller is enabled v1.12.7.1 - Improved packet compression for Steamworks Multiplayer -Greatly reduced bandwidth usage for Steamworks Multiplayer games, now on par with Direct IP multiplayer v1.12.7.0 - Added Steamworks Multiplayer Support -The game can now be played over Steamworks Multiplayer! Easily find and connect with your friends online! v1.12.6.2 - Fixed simple model set -Simple models now work; they are alternative low poly stylized models for the player and enemies -Fixed a memory allocation issue with the model manager under specific circumstances v1.12.6.1 - Achievements fixes -Fixed some achievements from working depending on progress made before the achievements update was released -Fixed the "Below the Surface" achievement -Updated training achievements so they are automatically unlocked when requirements are met for higher difficulties v1.12.6.0 - Steam Achievements support -Added 55 Steam achievements -Fixed quick command prompt window popup when accessing the world leaderboard -Updated the sun image in the space background to look better and not have borders v1.12.5.3 - New resolutions added -Added support for new resolutions 1440p and 4k v1.12.5.2 - Bugfix release -Fixed a small startup memory allocation bug -Changed PC versioning to match the Android version -The framerate limit now defaults to 60fps to prevent some machines from overheating v1.12i - Additional Bullet optimizations -General performance boost for all enemy bullets (30%-50% less processing needed per bullet with the same quality) -Enemy bullets now maintain higher detail levels for higher quantities on screen -Optimized a few elements of the outer space background -Fixed edge clipping of the outer space sun graphic v1.12h - Bullet optimization -Greatly optimized performance when large quantities of enemy bullets are on screen -Slight optimization for all enemy bullets -Fixed the wrong help message showing up when playing mission mode for the first time -Removed outdated requirement text for playing local multiplayer v1.12g - Classic A survival mode fully unlocked for demo players! -Unlocked all waves and weapons for Classic A survival mode for the demo version -Play the remade, upgraded version of BlastZone 1 for free! -Fixed an issue that delays fire after respawn if the player dies shortly after firing a beam or power bolt -Updated codebase with the latest tweaks from mobile development -Fixed text centering for the "Double Chain!" display in Classic Survival mode -Fixed an occasional multiplayer bug that would spawn a new object with incorrect properties on the client -Fixed wrong wave intermission text in some cases v1.12f - Maintenance release -Fixed an online multiplayer bug that didn't tell the client that a Blitz survival game was being played -Optimized the final player death animation -Improved zbuffer precision for distant objects -Optimized script command reading v1.12e - Blitz mode score fix and game mode info hotkey -Fixed a bug in Blitz mode that would subtract points for using beam weapons -Added a hotkey to view the detailed info page for each game mode during mode selection -Adjusted game mode text descriptions in a few areas -Fixed the second player lives display not animating during Multiplayer Blitz Survival mode -Fixed a bug that would highlight the Blitz mode menu selection before it was actually available v1.12d - Maintenance update and added leaderboard support to the demo -Optimized the loading and rendering time for most models in the game with an improved model management system -Disabled autofire when using mouse controls for Classic survival modes -Added a 'View Leaderboard' option to the gameover menu for convenience -Added world leaderboard support to the demo version v1.12c - Multiplayer survival scaling -Increased the kills needed per wave for all multiplayer survival modes by 50% v1.12b - Difficulty balancing -Rebalanced the difficulty of Area 1, 2, 3, and 4 of mission mode to make the game more fun to play v1.12a - Highscore Fix -Fixed a bug with the wave number and ship type when recording local highscores v1.12 - New game mode and mouse controls -Added a new game mode - Blitz Survival -starts the player with a fully powered ship and fast charging hyper mode -enemy quantity is greatly increased to require the higher powered ship to survive -can only be unlocked if wave 9 of Pilot difficulty Enhanced Survival is reached -Added a mouse control option to the game -allows local multiplayer without the need for a gamepad -gives precise positioning controls using the mouse -auto-fire is always used for mouse controls (other control schemes are unaffected) -uses touchscreen logic ported from mobile versions -updated survival mode enemy quantity scaling for multiplayer to have 50% more enemies (was 30%) -tweaked the content of a few help pages -fixed an issue that beating some waves with a special weapon would cause a delay in the ability to fire in the next wave -fixed a charging exploit -fixed a potential scoring bug while using beam weapons with a very high frame rate -updated the engine model manager to reduce memory usage and work more predictably across a wider range of systems and platforms -fixed a controller binding exploit v1.11a - Fixed multiplayer local highscores and nonshader water -Fixed a bug that applied local multiplayer highscores to the wrong category on game startup -Added a new water effect while shaders are disabled for the home planet environment -Slightly optimized the water shader effect for the home planet environment v1.11 - New font, text system updates, and new texture format -Replaced the main game font and made lots of text tweaks through the whole game -Replaced the outer space planet texture with a new one -Updated texture loading in the game engine to support png format files -Replaced all textures in the game with png files to reduce file size -Updated text centering to be more accurate for a wider variety of situations -Upgraded the text system to use the latest FreeType 2.4.8 library -Eliminated the dependency on Zlib1.dll and Freetype6.dll and removed them from the game -Added a new code path to the text system for prerendered fonts (mobile only) -Fixed a graphic glitch during the ship selection transition -increased possible timing precision for scripted events -Doubled the ogg music playback buffer size to prevent music from stopping on slower single core machines -Tweaked the firing angle of one enemy in Area 3 of mission mode v1.10a - Updated credits info -Updated the licensing information in the credits screen to be more specific -Fixed an issue that entering no address when connecting to a multiplayer server will falsely show a successful connection -Fixed a rendering bug in the wave splash screen for any wave above 9 in survival modes -Replaced the icon with the new iOS icon v1.10 - Numerous engine improvements from iOS version -Updated frustum culling to fix bugs with the OpenGL ES code path -This update also provides a minor speed improvement for the standard code path -Executable is now built using the new Visual Studio 2010 SP1 IDE -Updated several areas of the codebase to improve compatibility with OpenGL ES -Significantly reduced system ram usage during startup (20-30% less) -Reworked all menu borders to render in a single pass, cutting fillrate usage in half for them -Optimized rendering of several HUD objects -Updated the text display system to have an OpenGL ES code path -Optimized the standard text system code path -Cut video memory usage in half for the text system for both code paths -Reduced video memory usage by 30% for all HUD objects without reducing quality -Updated text positioning to be more accurate for resolutions that aren't exactly 4:3, 16:9, or 16:10 -Optimized background rendering for mission mode Area 5 v1.09b - Tweaks and optimizations -Tweaked the specularity of enemy ships and bosses -Fixed a water reflection bug on Geforce graphics cards during the main menu -Optimized and unified the render state setup between enemies and bosses -Reduced video memory usage while texture compression is enabled -Fixed issue that using the level select to fight a boss would play the previous level's background animations -Optimized the level progression code -Tweaked the ammo distribution of a few of levels during Classic A survival mode -Fixed a background rendering bug when getting to a wave above 8 in survival mode and going in and out of the quit game or name selection screen before turning to the main menu v1.09a - Minor updates and optimizations -Optimized cpu usage of the new rippling water shader for the home planet environment -fixed enemy model pop-in and pop-out for specific enemy types in enhanced survival mode and autoplay demo when running a 16:9 resolution v1.09 - New shader effects and other improvements -added a rippling water shader to the home planet environment -fixed shaders not working on the client side for enemy ships during online multiplayer games -slightly optimized enemy ship rendering for online multiplayer games v1.08 - OpenGL 2.0 support and new graphics effects! -Upgraded the graphics engine to support OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 2.0 -uses various new effects such as Normal Mapping, Specular Mapping, and per-pixel fog -added an option in the config menu to turn off the new shader effects and fall back to the previous OpenGL 1.5 code path -updated the OpenGL 1.5 code path to use per-pixel fog -updated the configuration program to handle the new shader option and tweaked the detail presets -Fixed a small menu selector positioning bug in the config menu -tweaked player bullet particle effect so that it never appears in front of the bullet and spreads the particles more evenly v1.07b - Minor tweaks -Fixed a small menu selector bug when returning to the main config menu from the controls setup -Normal bolts can no longer hit multiple enemies in some situations in Mission and Enhanced survival modes v1.07a - New texture compression config option -Texture compression is now configurable -It is on by default, turning it off gives a minor improvement to texture quality and speeds up startup time, but uses much more video memory -It is not recommended to turn off texture compression for video cards with 128mb or less video memory v1.07 - New cave background -Upgraded the cave background to match the quality of the new terrain backgrounds -S3TC texture compression is used in a few more areas now to reduce memory usage v1.06b - minor tweaks -fixed the loading splash screen when starting the game with antialiasing and fullscreen mode enabled -fixed an occasional issue that starting the game from the configuration program opens the game behind other windows or doesn't display the startup logo -changed the default texture detail to "very high" v1.06a - Added a loading splash screen -Added a game logo splash screen during startup -Reduced polygon breakup for the alien planet background terrain v1.06 - Vastly improved terrain backgrounds -Replaced the terrain backgrounds for the homeworld and alien planet environments with much higher quality versions -terrain now has a much greater degree of variation than before -this increases memory requirements somewhat, but shouldn't be an issue for modern systems -Greatly optimized triangle throughput for background terrain -Increased the view distance for all distance settings -Adjusted the fog levels for all backgrounds -Reworked and optimized several areas of the terrain handling backend -S3TC texture compression is now used for several areas of the game, including the new terrain v1.05 - difficulty balancing and improved leaderboard security -reduced the armor bonus during hyper mode -getting hit and firing the rapid fire bolt during hyper mode now consumes a small amount of energy -increased the amount of stats reduced on death in veteran mission mode -updated leaderboard score uploads to be much more secure -updated leaderboard upload feedback to show when security validation fails (shows a generic error in this case) -improved hit detection accuracy for large normal enemies and bosses -fixed a bug that doing a level select to area 3 or above doesn't give the A1 and A2 ships quick charge -fixed a bug that the ship A1 and A2 quick charge upgrade isn't applied until wave 7 (should be wave 3) -optimizations for the hyper charge routine, wave progress check, collision routines, and player bullet particles v1.04 - stat powerup tweaks and filler enemies in mission mode -stat powerups now boost stats 50% more per pickup -more stats are reduced on death for training and pilot difficulties -filler enemies are now generated in mission mode if the player defeats all enemies in a section before more enemies are scripted to appear -tweaked the first two enemies firing patterns for Area 5 in mission mode -added a "Hz" label to the network tickrate in the server setup menu -increased the amount of points needed to gain extra lives in mission mode for pilot and veteran difficulties -fixed intermittent issues with sections of skies not rendering correctly -minor optimizations in a few areas -improved internal texture handling v1.03a - Minor fixes -removed erroneous gameover menu options for the multiplayer client to upload to the leaderboard -minor optimization to the gameover screen after uploading a score to the leaderboard v1.03 - Improved world leaderboard handling -Now meaningful feedback is given after submitting a new score from the gameover screen -Now limits to a single score submission if it was successful -The world leaderboard can now be viewed in the game (accessed in the highscores section from the main menu) -Optimized CPU usage of explosion particles -Several other general optimizations -fixed bug that doesn't detect getting a local highscore after the first play through v1.02c - minor tweaks and optimizations -cleaned up and optimized a few areas of code -fixed issues caused when binding controls to the shift key while using the shift key in the command console -added the ability to type question marks in the command console -removed the leaderboard message in the gameover screen for the demo -reorganized and updated the credits page -fixed occasional box glitch with the player damage animation v1.02b - other quick fixes -fixed the player ship booster particles occasionally appearing as squares -fixed the final player death particles becoming squares -added a small note at the bottom of the gameover screen to visit BlastZone2.com to view the leaderboard v1.02a - Boss bug hotfix -fixed invisible boss bug v1.02 - updated drop rates and other fixes/optimizations -updated the drop rates of powerups *old ratios: *new ratios: health - 25% health - 30% points - 15% points - 10% speed - 12% speed - 12% refire - 10% refire - 12% power - 12% power - 12% charge - 10% charge - 12% shield - 16% shield - 12% -optimized the drop calculation routine and a few rendering routines -added a line in the credits for 3drt.com -fixed blurry text at specific resolutions when displaying custom controls and the highscore username -improved internal handling of highscore usernames v1.01 - Minor tweaks and fixes -fixed the spelling of "reach" in the mission mode help page (was missing the 'r') -updated the way increased survival enemy count works for multiplayer (boosts enemy count by exactly 30% now) -the command console can now be used to enter a world leaderboard name during the name entry screen (press 't' to activate) -added the ability to type capital and lower case letters when typing into the console (used to be all lower case) v1.0 - Initial Release