Matrix Games Forums

Hi everyone,

We've got a new public beta update to share with you. This one includes both data changes as well as a code fix for the vanishing squad bug. You can download it through our Members Club (the Members link in the top navigation bar on the site). Make sure you register your copy of Hired Guns, then go to Registered Downloads to get access to the public beta installer.

Here's the change list. Please keep in mind this is a beta, but we're currently planning to release it as official tomorrow as long as we don't see anything that would hold it up based on your commments. Please post your feedback on this beta update in this thread. Thanks!

12/15/2008 – 1.07.001 Public Beta 2

Fixes

• Vanishing squad bug fixed.

Features and Enhancements

• Changed camera settings – Tweaked camera for more zoom and angle freedom. Note that the additional "system-free.cfg" can be used to replace the default system.cfg if you want complete camera freedom. However, this can cause unusual camera behavior on some maps and in some situations.
• Change grenade range – Decreased strength of enemies on medium and easy
• Decreased the number of grenades most enemies carry to 2 or 3 on medium and easy
• Decreased stamina cost of shooting, increased strength of all mercs on medium and easy
• Increased marksmanship for all mercs on medium and easy
• Mercs are now less expensive at the medium level, which should make the play balance on this level more reasonable.
• Slightly increased the armor piercing chance for shotgun ammo and some small caliber and hollow point ammo types.
• Increased shotgun accuracy.
• All mercs will now come with at least some ammo for their starting weapon and starting ammo has generally been increased.
• Increased the availability of ammo and some weapons at Dickie Jay's, including making some weapons and ammo appear earlier in the game.
• Armor now appears more frequently at Dickie Jay's.
• Increased accuracy for all weapons on easy and medium
• Significantly increased sniper rifle accuracy
• Reduced enemy armor levels on easy and medium, which should hopefully reduce the confusing non-penetrating damage hits on NPCs that appear to have no armor

We have also setup the link below for people to download the public beta patch if they are having trouble dowloading from the members area.

ftp://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/HiredGuns ... 1Beta2.zip

This is fantastic Erik! Many thanks to you and the team for this quick and fairly comprehensive update. I can't wait to get home tonight and give it a try.

Makes me wonder why the game was released the way it was, as all these tweaks are essential to making the game playable in my opinion.

Thanks again!
-=Jeff

• Vanishing squad bug fixed.
• Increased accuracy for all weapons on easy and medium
• Significantly increased sniper rifle accuracy
• Reduced enemy armor levels on easy and medium, which should hopefully reduce the confusing non-penetrating damage hits on NPCs that appear to have no armor

Do these take effect in a game that's already in progress?

shodo does it work? If yes i would continue my game rather than starting all over. I started this game with the earlier patch so it makes sense for me not to restart as the enemies are nerfed already and I think i am progressing well.

ORIGINAL: ShadoWarrior
• Vanishing squad bug fixed.
Do these take effect in a game that's already in progress?

Don't know if it prevents the squad from vanishing again, but it doesn't make the squad appear on ruined savegames where the squad vanished...
My entire squad vanished after crashing when exiting the costal city. Installed the patch, loaded all the ruined savegames and the squad did not appear in any of the saves

ORIGINAL: RinoaHeartily

shodo does it work? If yes i would continue my game rather than starting all over. I started this game with the earlier patch so it makes sense for me not to restart as the enemies are nerfed already and I think i am progressing well.

have you run into any Guardsmen yet ?

oh my

The game I'm currently playing was started with the first beta patch. I just finished the Detour Road sector. I have not encountered Guardsmen yet (and never have, due to restarts). Since applying patch beta 2 I've noticed that the ranges for most of my rifles has significantly increased. And I'm getting somewhat higher damage yields against torsos, arms, and legs. I've also not gotten the squad vanished bug, despite doing what should have triggered it. (yay!)

• Increased accuracy for all weapons on easy and medium

 
That only effect the player? Or the NPCs as well?
 
Much Love,
Reinforce

Everyone.

ORIGINAL: ShadoWarrior

The game I'm currently playing was started with the first beta patch. I just finished the Detour Road sector. I have not encountered Guardsmen yet (and never have, due to restarts). Since applying patch beta 2 I've noticed that the ranges for most of my rifles has significantly increased. And I'm getting somewhat higher damage yields against torsos, arms, and legs. I've also not gotten the squad vanished bug, despite doing what should have triggered it. (yay!)

Great on the Yay Part

I just ran into some of them (with the 1st beta patch) did get a 2 shot clean kill on one of them (a 2 point head shot followed by a 40 point head shot) but the others, these are the guys you want to be nailing with burst fire, but that is really only effective, close up

RPG 7s, Nades, Bloopers, dyomite, tac nukes



end of day, was going to see about buying another squad, so may wait for this battle

Guardsmen may be based on day also, I just went to the north base and it got a ton of Guardsmen there

The camera is better now then at first, but not as free as the beta 1 patch was. It is ok now, but I was really liking being able to put the camera behind the merc and see what he saw, made choosing targets much easier. Perhaps as a future enhancement you can make the target snap to the current mercs head, that would be awesome.

The shotgun shells are still backwards, bullets are buckshot and buckshot are bullets. After doing a small amount of research on this I believe it is a really easy fix. I think you just need to swap the names of the ammunition. Because buckshot is cheaper than slugs and in game the buckshot is the more expensive of the two. So I think the Russians just didn't know the correct names and got them backwards.

After the version two patch you can no longer have the squad window open and start time moving, not sure if this was necessary to fix vanishing squads or something, but it seems kind of weird to loose functionality with a patch. It was nice to be able to watch your mercs health go up and so know when they are almost done.

Just some observations I figured I would pass along. Is there a repository where we should be posting bugs and such?

JSG