Hello everyone! It’s the new year, and we have quite the new update for Momentum!
New Year, New Update, New Rocket Jump Assets
Since we’ve implemented rocket jump in the last version, this version aims to improve upon that initial implementation, including some fresh and new assets related to the game mode.
The rocket launcher has been given a giant facelift, thanks to Lucifer, Bonjorno, and Vortex. Lucifer created the initial model, Bonjorno converted it over to a workable game model, and Vortex did the awesome work of texturing it:
The rocket launcher’s texture style is going to be making an appearance on the sticky launcher, as well as eventually getting to our current weapons to bring the entire arsenal under the same Momentum Style.
The rocket model itself also got a facelift, modelled and textured by Bonjorno:
We noticed a lot of players were irritated by the HL2 rocket explosion particles and weapon sounds. Luckily we have Aux, one of the rare breeds of Source engine particle wizards, to help make our rocket launcher fit better, starting with the two different trail types (and TF2’s):
We also have a variety of explosion particles, all customizable through mom_rj_particles:
Lastly, the rocket launcher’s sounds have been improved by Monolith, to help ease the pain from repeatedly exploding at point blank, and Vortex improved the decal of the explosion “scorch” effect:
It should be noted that we are currently allowing players to toggle between TF2 and momentum particles, models, sounds and so on, all through the `mom_rj_` commands. Keep in mind that this requires having TF2 installed and mounted, otherwise you may see some purple and black. They are convars for now but will eventually be removed in favor of using a custom override VPK file for all things TF2.
In a similar vein of asset improvement, the shotgun had its draw and pump animations touched up by Bonjorno and Cabbage:
When the U hits your I~
There have been some new UI features added in this update as well, starting with the damage indicator similar to the one from TF2, added by benjl:
This element is customizable through the mom_hud_damageindicator commands, allowing you to change things like color or thickness.
And with the addition of gun-specific gamemodes comes the need for a way for players to see when weapons are being fired, so Hat Kid added the M1 and M2 indicators for your +attack and +attack2 binds, respectively:
Mantas implemented a small QoL feature, HUD chat timestamps for messages, toggleable with `mom_chat_timestamps_enable`:
And another honorable mention is the work done by kevinhquach which allows for further customization over your crosshair, all under the cl_crosshair_ commands:
There are more UI tweaks and minor improvements listed below in the Full Changelog, and also more coming in 0.8.5, so stay tuned!
Full Changelog
I’m going to start including the PR links in this section so you can see all the hard work that went into each bullet point on the list, if you’re curious about it.
Added
- Added the ability to toggle between official momentum and TF2 sounds, models and particles (#508)
- Added a new rocket model, launcher model, scorch decal, explosion particle and sound effect for rocket jumping (#541)
- Added support for custom explosion effects and sound in the rocket launcher weapon script (#508)
- Added sv_ground_trigger_fix to toggle bounces and jumpbugs (#498)
- Added sv_duck_collision_fix to toggle on and off the headbug fix (#492)
- Added further customization options for the game crosshair such as cl_crosshairstyle and cl_crosshaircolor with RGB values (#484)
- Added timestamps to chat messages in the console as well as mom_chat_timestamps_enable to toggle timestamps in chat (#479)
- Added support for tf_generic_bomb entities (renamed to momentum_generic_bomb) (#478)
- Added damage indicators to the hud along with mom_hud_damageindicator customization settings (#470)
- Added indicators for mouse1 and mouse2 on the keypress display (#466)
- Added support for gamemode specific config files (surf/bhop/jump.cfg) (#457)
- Added networking for rockets fired in online lobbies (#437)
- Added a few entities by backporting them from Alien Swarm (#537)
- Added a new RJ settings panel to the Momentum Settings dialog (#530)
Fixed
- Removed the ability to toggle mom_rj_centerfire and cl_righthand while in a run (#523)
- Refactored the ammo and weapon script system so that weapon scripts can only be used for cosmetic customization (#523)
- Blocked players from doing damage to buttons while in practice mode (#509)
- Fixed mom_spectate_stop teleporting players even when not spectating (#501)
- Fixed lobby members panel being emptied upon changing resolution or using hud_reloadcontrols. (#493)
- Fixed the player being able to fire directly after entering and leaving practice mode regardless of what the cooldown was prior (#491)
- Fixed error causing runs to display as unix epoch (#490)
- Fixed ghosts doing damage to things like buttons in the local player’s game (#488)
- Fixed start zones not resetting player gravity from savelocs (#487)
- Fixed “Enable Overlapping Keys” breaking limitmovement triggers (#480 & #472)
- Fixed visual errors when the sync bar went below 5% (#473)
- Fixed the deploy time and fire rate of weapons varying depending on the animations (#456)
- Fixed the bhop slopeboost fix giving negative speed uphill (#455)
- Fixed issues with smooth ducking transitions (#450)
- Fixed bug that let the player stay in the air when considered walking (#449)
- Fixed mom_start_mark commands not working for tracks with multiple start zones (#443)
- Fixed paint not being applied to surfaces covered by water (#440)
- Fixed resetting in a start zone attempting to stop the timer even when it isn’t running (#438)
- Fixed zones breaking if they were made with a negative height value (#436)
- Removed the ability to use “give” commands while spectating (#435)
- Fixed the AllowingJump property of slide triggers to work properly (#434)
- Prevented the timer from starting when teleporting to someone from a start zone in a lobby (#433)
- Fixed the player outline for the leaderboard not resetting on map change (#432)
- Removed some leftover test commands and placed many potential cheat commands behind -mapping (#431)
- Set the default interp to 0.1 as 0 was causing model animations to lag (#424)
- Fixed doors being locked on RJ maps (#424)
- Removed ladder movement from RJ maps (#424)
- Fixed shotgun not firing underwater for RJ maps (#424)
- Fixed game crash on resolution change with the momentum settings dialog open (#535)
- Added validation on paint decal radius (#540)
- Fixed arrows on the map image gallery not changing position upon window resize (#546)
Improved
- Simplified the process of reading appearance data in lobbies and removed duplicated code related to appearance (#525)
- Cleaned up memory leaks and processes in the replay system (#490)
- Made shotgun spread fixed and consistent to remove RNG (#485)
- Improved the ruler tool (showRuler) to account for distance on multiple axis (#460)
- Improved the layout, scaling and coloring in the Map Selector UI (#459)
- Improved the font size and bounding areas of the Momentum Settings UI (#454)
- Improved the player stats region of the leaderboards to better format the information (#453)
- Changed map selector’s initial size and position to take up empty space instead of covering the menu buttons (#452)
- Improved the Spectator UI layout (#451)
- Changed the shotgun fire range from 3000 units to 8192 units (#418)
- Online packets are now validated to ensure garbage/malicious packets do not affect the game negatively (#529)
- Improved the shotgun’s animations (#533)
- Refactored weapon script code to make more sense and limit script changes to visual modifications (#544)
A Bit of Roadmapping
I’ve taken some time to outline the next versions Momentum will have over at our GitHub organization projects page. While it’s not fully complete and some of the later versions are just stubbed out, this should give a rough idea of what we’re going to work on up to 1.0.0. This can also be an entry point for new contributors, as they can see potential work to try to do well before we make it to the version in question. It’s also nice to have a spot to send people to say “this is what’s needed to be done” instead of saying “it’s coming soon”.
Speaking of “Coming Soon”
The next version (0.8.4) will bring Hat Kid’s initial implementation of the sticky launcher, along with some overdue codebase cleanup and, of course, fixes for things found wrong in 0.8.3.
I’d also like to take some time to thank the jump community for extending their efforts and expertise towards implementing the two jump game modes, and going as far as to help port maps and prepare them for use in Momentum. It’s extremely inspiring, and makes me happy in my choice to have this project be open source. I could have never expected it, but I am very grateful for it.
Until next time,
Nick (Gocnak) K.
Momentum Mod Project Lead