Ok Beta 037 should be out in a couple days. It'll include some community requested features like a map grid, custom map editor, dropping live nades on death, and some more server-side cheat prevention.

Also, with the amount of custom weapons being made, I'm thinking about allowing the pngs (ironsights) to be modded too.

Aaaaand, expect mapping competitions in the future with cash prizes. So start thinking of cool map ideas.

awesome, rock on

Shit just got real

+1 for map editor.

Good job man. But do you think editing the ironsights will be a good idea? Sure anyone could edit them, but maybe not everyone would know that they could, leading to some players having an advantage. I'm not sure how to feel about it, there's pros and cons to both concepts.

For the map editor can you add the choice to make some blocks invincible (like when you dig too deep)? It could allow for more abstract map idea's to be made without people nuking core map locations.

For example, if you have a staircase to a floating island, you won't be able to mine out the staircase and completely destroy the floating island when the map is put on the server.

Map editor.

Life is good.

Sounds awesome, looking forward to it all.

Yay, great news!
But I think I gotta agree with StackOverflow: Changing the ironsights could really give players an advantage. It's much harder to aim with the ironsights atm because you need to move down the crossair after every shot to see enemies far away. This feels great and increases the pressure on you. Modding it to just a small circle would be really unfair to other players I think.

please dont make the ironsights modifiable.

edit: actually ironsight modding would be fair if it came from the server.

I agree with all except the iron sights. Like they said, different sights give different players distinct advantages, and iron sights create a lot of tension in battles and, most importantly, require SKILL to get used to, unlike traditional sniper scopes. No offense, but I think most of the people who want to change the sights are people who got headshotted all the time in sniper duels and blamed the game rather than themselves.

dude i dont want a scope i want to take the bolt off of the iron sights its annoying as fuck i do fine in sniper duels they just look awkward

We could have that as an option in a game pause menu or something.

Domzori: The bolt is the main point. Removing that would destroy the whole ironsight idea. Just get used to it.

But yes, it would be fine as an server-side option (allow/disallow custom ironsights).

So ben ol' boy, are you planning on putting back the 100 block max?

Cool! I really wanted a grid

I like that solution green_beret

As for the png editing, how much will we be able to edit it? Because currently the PNG seems to stretch and fill the bottom half of the screen with the center of the iron sights nearer the top...would we be able to heighten the area of the png? so that it could be made into a crosshair design? because with the current dimensions it would be impossible to make a crosshair design and aim properly with it...

Yes, .png editing! These upcoming features sound great!

Yes that sounds good!

Does the "Custom map editor" mean, that this is a enduser tool to create the maps ?
Or is it the serverside feature to use those maps and not the generated one ?

In case its not a tool, please share some good vxl editors =)

thanks and hF

Can you code a way to invert mouse man. Serious.. It's such a crucial feature. Just allow us to edit it in the config file.

add giant robots plz

Ironsights editing. THANK GOD. There should be a competition for the best user created alternative to the current ironsights. Ben could pick the winner himself if he had the time.

Also great to see the grid is coming. Lets hope it has column and row titles.

Can't wait for this, because 0.36 never loads more than a tenth of a map for me anymore. And no, I have never hacked or any of that other baloney.

I'd enter such a competition.

need fore infos about that "custom map editor" :-P

1. will be be able to create "bigger" maps ? more than the 512x512x64? we got now
2. only heightmaps or more complexe stuff for premade tunners etc ?
3. enduser tool ? VOXED wont open lastmap.vxl for me and the CnC-TS editors use a different vxl-format

+1 for map editor.

I would suggest, upon adding new guns, creating different 'iron sights' for each of them. The rifle's one can stay as is, and the new guns could have altered sights, giving different advantages/disadvantages.

I have outlined stuff about weapons here: http://www.aceofspadeswiki.com/index.php?title=User:TheGrandmaster#Weapons

(Along with a load of other suggestions. Feel free to discuss on my wiki talk page, or on the IRC channel #AoS @ Quakenet).

Love the map editor idea.

but this..
"dropping live nades on death"
I've got enough of that shit in Call of Duty... Only noobs would like that.

Fuck yeah @ map editor. Finally I get a chance to earn something from my creativity and mapping experience.

Why not check the PNG's degree of visibility?

So the game would require the "ironsight" PNG to obscure at least as much vision as the original iron sight. Semi-transparent pixels would be accounted for. For example, if the original iron sight PNG consists of 1200 solid pixels, a modified PNG where all visible pixels have 50% pixel transparency would require 2400 of those.

So, if you wants to remove the iron sight from the center of the screen, you will have to compensate by obscuring vision elsewhere on the screen.

This will allow users to customize the iron sights without bringing too much of an unfair advantage. I don't know how hard it would be to accomplish, though.

"dropping live nades on death" ????

@Beefeater: Because an operation like that is incredibly CPU intensive. It would slow down the loading of the game by so much, it would also be a pain in the ass if you wanted to make custom iron sights, as you'd have to constantly test and edit, test and edit until there were enough obscured pixels.

@OP: No inverted mouse - I don't use it, but it seems important and a very VERY easy edit.
Custom ironsights - I concur with the majority here, it's a worrying thing.
Dropping live grenades - I don't know, it could work if you had a grenade ready to throw but otherwise stupid.

Everything else is cool.