Overview
After nearly a year, we've almost reached the point where I'd consider our codebase to be stable. This means less development time spent working on core features like a functional ban database, and more time spent adding new content like fun rounds, weapon skins, and maps. This update contains the majority of the work that will take us to this stable point. After that, we'll be working on the flashy stuff and focusing on keeping Garry's Mod TTT alive until S&box (Garry's Mod 2) releases somewhere in the next 6-12 months.The ETA for this update is soon™. It's by far the most time-intensive update we've undertaken since AHG released, and I want to make sure it's done right.
Gameplay/Meta Changes
Extra Prop RemovalMany AHG-edited maps introduced additional props to maps. This broke the order of things we had before the new year, where playing on popular maps such as ttt_innocentmotel and ttt_hotline_miami provided a natural break from prop killing for a few rounds. Accordingly, @optimal will remove all props that were edited in to these maps.
Increasing Player Count Threshold for Mic Batteries
Currently, the server is set to enable voice drain when there are 8 or more active players in the server. This was a somewhat arbitrary number, and I don't think it needs to stay that low. Accordingly, mic batteries will only be enabled when there are 20 or more active players in the server.
Removing Prop Punch Upgrade
There isn't really any legitimate gameplay use for this perk, and it causes more headaches than it's worth from an administration perspective. As such, the perk will be removed and all players will be refunded the full amount of points they spent on this perk's progression.
Fixing Prop Kill Tracking
We'll be looking into fixing cases where prop kills give no kill credit, or give kill credit to the wrong person. This will make sure that all prop kills can be reported, if the victim desires.
Stats Tracking
After a year, we'll finally be implementing stats tracking for players.
Mapvote 2.0
UI ImprovementsThe current mapvote UI is a bit cluttered, so we're implementing some changes to fix that.
- Reducing the starting number of maps shown from 27 to 25.
- Rearranging the map options to always display in a 5 x 5 grid.
- Removing AHG version numbers from the displayed map names.
- Implementing font size scaling for each map name, so that the full map name is always visible.
- Fixing an issue where player avatars would become really big if one option had many players voting for it.
We're making some changes to hopefully reduce the amount of flocking to 1 or 2 maps during mapvote:
- Placing the "random map" option in the center of the listed maps.
- For the first ten seconds, all votes will be hidden. This is done to avoid people from crowding their votes to the map with the most votes.
- After the first 10 seconds, all votes will be revealed, and the bottom 16 choices will be removed. If a user's map vote has been eliminated, they will be notified to revote.
- The random map option will be immune from elimination.
- The mapvote will continue for 10 seconds, after which point the choice with the most votes will be selected.
Map cooldowns will take how often a map is selected into consideration. If a map is being chosen each time it's made available, it will have a progressively lower chance of showing up as an option. This is being done to prevent the same 8 or so maps from being chosen all the time.
Map Pool Improvements
We will be looking at removing or otherwise fixing maps that are unpopular with the community. There will be a map popularity survey as a condition for entering into this week's giveaway to help us achieve this. It's going to be a long survey, but your responses will be immensely helpful to us as we look to improve or remove unpopular maps.
Content Optimization
Weapon OptimizationsI'm going through every single weapon material and reducing its size, if possible. This means lower download sizes and less intensive rendering. Several weapons will be replaced with their CS:S equivalents to further lower our total download size, and some rarely-used weapons will be removed entirely.
Player Model Optimizations
I'm going through every single player model material and reducing its size, if possible. This means, you guessed it, lower download sizes and less intensive rendering. I've also gone through the hitboxes of each model to make sure hit registration is consistent across models.
Code Optimizations
We've been analyzing the runtimes of our serverside and clientside code, and working on reducing bottlenecks. This will mean better FPS and connectivity to our server.
New Contributors
DesertWe're bringing on @Desert as a contributor focusing on Garry's Mod development. So far, he's been working with us on implementing Mapvote 2.0, which will be explained further later on in the post.
Bonks
We're bringing on @Bonks as a contributor focusing on weapon skins. Bonks has made many of the most recent weapon skins, including all of the ones used in the Summer Event so far.
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