0.3.5.1491: Big changes after a long development period

Improvements since release 0.3.3.797:

General Game Improvements

• MIDI tension music is now supported using the WildMIDI software MIDI library
• Player configuration preferences are now saved along with game saves. These work based on the login name the player chooses, and will preserve the menu settings between game sessions. Therefore the game will remember settings such as custom control bindings, high resolution/low resolution, Deep Radar and MIDI tension/CD track between sessions as long as the same login name is used, and they no longer have to be set again each time on game load.
• As a corollary to the above, the login name can now be set at the command line using the switch -u (username). e.g. "swars.exe -u James" will load the preferences set for the user James. This way it's possible to start levels from the command line and have options such as Deep Radar and custom key controls already set.
• Campaigns have now been separated out into discrete files, instead of using the original ALL000.MIS file. This means there can now be per-campaign settings, and all three game campaigns no longer have to exist within the cramped 120 mission limit the original game had. Players should notice no difference, but mission objectives and campaign level orders can now be modified by altering the corresponding .ini file in the config directory in a text editor. Eurocorp campaign: miss000.ini, Church of the New Epoch campaign: miss001.ini, Unguided Campaign: miss002.ini. There is also a fourth campaign miss003.ini that contains all other cut levels for the game.
• As a result of the above, loading levels from the command line now uses a different syntax: -m (campaign number),(mission index number). For example, to play the first mission of the Church of the New Epoch campaign, you would use "swars.exe -m 1,48". To play the last level of the Eurocorp campaign, "swars.exe -m 0,101" would be used.
• City data has now been moved to cities.ini in the config directory. This allows modification of existing cities and new cities to be defined on the map screen
• Cybernetic Modification data has been moved to cybmods.ini in the config directory. This allows modification of e.g. research cost/time, and purchase costs.
• Weapon data has been moved to weapons.ini in the config directory. This allows modification of weapon stats, including weapon damage, accuracy, research cost/time and purchase cost.
• People data has been moved to people.ini in the config directory. This allows modification of baseline stats of game characters, including Health, speed, and Persuaderton cost/power. Note that many people stats are set explicitly per-level Thing and will override what is set here.
• Pre-alpha level file formats are now natively supported. This means old cut levels using level formats 9 - 12 that previously could not be loaded without being first converted by a third-party tool can now be played. Examples are Unguided Missions 67 and 70
• In-game text now uses per-campaign alltext.wad/idx files. They are also now separated by language, meaning it's possible to change between game language by changing the language set in the config.ini file (note, sound and FMV files would also need to be changed to match). Text is now stored in PO files in the source, making it easier to create translations of all text.

Unguided Campaign Changes

• Unguided Campaign now available from the Login screen. Note this is a first draft and unfinished and simply presents the cut levels as-is when Bullfrog last touched them, so many cannot be completed and are unbalanced, etc
• Placeholder mission briefings created for all Unguided campaign missions outlining what to do on each mission
• Unguided campaign missions missing in-game objectives now have objectives to complete
• Mission 65 - Massive Assault now uses the ALL000.BEN objectives rather than the final game ones. This fixes the incorrect group set for the first objective and also requires a weapon be recovered from the Eurocorp base to succeed.

Bug Fixes

• Item objective handling has been re-written. The original game code had many bugs in how items were handled and would fail on several of the cut Unguided levels as a result. These changes fix item collection objectives on those levels making it possible to complete them (e.g. Unguided Mission 67: Talks Ambush now works correctly)
• Issue 16: Item dupe by restarting missions fixed. This is the notorious bug in item handling that meant the player could end up with invisible explosives (and other so called "four pack" items) in their inventories that could not be dropped when collected in a level and the level was restarted. This would make the penultimate Eurocorp level impossible to complete
• Issue 52: While it is possible to choose between two different Tension music tunes, only one ever plays fixed. The second MIDI tension song can now be chosen for the first time in-game. This was broken in the original DOS release of the game and only played the first track still when set
• Issue 46: Tank plays sound at map coords (0,0) when firing fixed. This was an original game bug that meant the sound intended to play when a tank turret rotated was only heard at one specific corner of the map, even when the tank was elsewhere in the level
• Issue 18: Number of scientist deaths is always double of the reported value fixed. This was an original game bug that meant research scientists death counts after completing a mission were wrong
• Text fixes: Mission 43 is now correctly named "Deadly Harvest" in the English text files. The capital city of Bahrain is now called Al Manamah instead of Bahrain, as per the demos of the game.

Installer

• Installer has been drastically overhauled and is new for this release
• Installer now supports all known Western versions of the game, including new support for the GoG download version and the German DOS CD
• Installer now supports the Japanese Windows version of the game. Note that only English and French language from this release work currently, Japanese language is not supported yet. The Taiwanese and Korean releases of the game aren't supported yet, if you own these, please get in touch!
• Installer now supports German language - GoG version includes these language files, otherwise you will need the specific German DOS CD release of the game. German language files were not included on the main European/USA disc.
• Note that ripping CD music is not supported and will error if you install from a mounted CD image of the game. You will either need a real CD of the game, or choose NOT to install the music in the installer, and instead rip the tracks manually yourself to a folder called "music" in the main game directory with the files names track_1.ogg, track_2.ogg and track_3.ogg.

0.3.3.797: Release after savegame fix

When rewriting save function, arguments were omitted. This causes issues mostly on Linux.

This release also has the remade bflibrary, and bfsound on which rewriting effort barely started.

swars-0_3_3_797-ubuntu-patch.zip
swars-0_3_3_797-win32-patch.zip

0.3.2.201: History tagging

This old version was built again to help in tracking regressions - in case a bug is found, it can be tested to confirm whether the bug was introduced before or after this tag.

0.3.1.137: History tagging

This old version was built again to help in tracking regressions - in case a bug is found, it can be tested to confirm whether the bug was introduced before or after this tag.

0.3.1.107: History tagging

This old version was built again in 2022, with small fixes.
It is here to help in tracking regressions - in case a bug is found, it can be tested to confirm whether the bug was introduced before or after this tag.

0.3.1.16: Release after tank crash fix

This version has fixes of to targeting missiles from tanks causing game crash when tank gets damage, or when exiting tank, or when two tanks fight each other.

The code also has a lot of readability modifications.

This patch from ZIP file should be applied by overwriting files in a previously installed swars port 0.3.

The complete installer is included - BUT IT IS UNTESTED AND HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL. It is recommended to use the patch instead.

Patch release with speed fix

This version has game speed fixed with a patch published by Unavowed.

The code has a lot of other modifications, but these shouldn't affect functionality.

This patch from ZIP file should be applied by overwriting files in a previously installed swars port 0.3.

The complete installer is included - BUT IT IS UNTESTED AND HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL. It is recommended to use the patch instead.