Worms Armageddon ReadMe (English)/v3.5 Beta 1 Update

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v3.5 Beta 1 Update (2002.08.09)

General

• Worms Armageddon now runs under the majority of Windows 2000 and XP Platforms.
• It is now possible to successfully minimise W:A in all areas, within the front end and in-game.

Front End

• Double mouse clicks are now treated as single clicks where convenient, for example when paging through a list box of schemes or maps.
• Game schemes can now include super weapons, as long as the host has “Full Wormage”.

Game

• Resolution modes up to 1920×1440 are now supported (dependent on video driver / hardware capability).
• It is now possible to scroll the viewport all the way to the left and right of a cavern map. Previously, 2 pixels were clipped from each side. This makes bungeeing off the edge of a 3-layer cavern map much easier, because it is now possible to see the bungee cord and worm. [What I didn't realize when making this change was, it modifies the game logic; it allows a worm to move 2 pixels farther from the edge without losing its Rope, Bungee, Parachute or Jet Pack.]
• Fixed – Clicking the mouse wheel or browser button during a game would lock out all keyboard input from then on.
• Fixed – Crates sometimes wouldn't fall in a crowded terrain (even at 100% probability). This happened because the game previously used an algorithm that tried up to 75 random positions blindly and then gave up looking; the new algorithm scans every pixel of the map. [There is just a tiny flaw in the new algorithm; a crate's collision mask has single-pixel bevels in its corners, but the new algorithm assumes the mask to be rectangular. Known at the time of design, this was deemed acceptable.]
• Fixed – Graves hit from below could absorb Longbow shots. [This was not a complete fix; see v3.6.19.12 for the complete fix.]
• Fixed – Thinning of some terrain types, occasionally creating openings in solid ground [Note: This created blockages in some Battle Race maps designed before the release of this Beta.]
• Fixed – Parachuting Worm could be hit by a falling worm causing loss of parachute and control. Now your Worm still loses the parachute, but control is retained. [Note: This fix inadvertently stopped enemy worms from knocking the attacking worm. This was later fixed in v3.6.19.14.]
• Fixed – Bungee could fail to activate when walking off a cliff with a crate located directly below, possibly incurring fall damage and loss of turn.
• Worms can now change direction and jump in the same instant. When time is critical, and your Worm is limited to ground movement only, it is beneficial to initiate each jump as soon as your Worm has landed and is ready to move. However, upon landing and turning to jump in the opposite direction, it was previously possible to have your direction-change ignored, in the worst-case scenario causing you to jump to death instead of safety.
• Cow-doubling glitch is currently disabled. In the future this may be turned into an option.
• Crates now automatically fall down at full speed in offline games, instead of parachuting until the player presses Space. Previously, this was the case online but not offline.
• The kind of Sheep that jumps out of an exploding crate is now based on the power setting of the Sheep in the current scheme, whereas previously it was hard-coded to a power setting resembling (but not matching) a Sheep set to 3 stars of power.
• Select Worm is now disabled for teams that have been reduced to 1 Worm.

Select Utilities	Tilde ( ~ )
Display thought-bubble above Worm	T

Map Editor

Fixes

• The Import function is much faster now (ironically, the pie-shaped progress indicator was hogging lots of CPU time)
• The Import wraparound bug will no longer happen in the majority of cases. The only case in which it may still happen is when importing a 24-bit colour BMP or TGA.
• The displayed water level now closely matches what it will look like in-game.
• Terrain settings (object / bridge count, border, water level, terrain type) are now retained.
• Custom terrains no longer get their object count reset to a very low number.
• Removed duplicate reference of "Tribal" terrain.
• The mouse cursor is now hidden while drawing, so that only the brush cursor will be visible.
• Brush sizes now match what is actually drawn.

Features

• Settings changes in preview mode are now effected immediately. You can instantly see the effects of adding/subtracting objects or bridges, or changing the terrain type.

New Drawing Functions

• Addition of a tiny brush – 1 pixel in the zoomed-out view, 4 pixels thick on the map
• Drawing Lines – Click a point with the brush, hold down Shift and click an end point. This can be used to draw many connecting lines if Shift is held down the whole time.

Toggle through available brush sizes	Mouse wheel
Constrain / limit drawing movement to x or y axis	Ctrl (hold down)
Move brush at 1/4 speed, improving drawing precision	Alt (hold down)

Network Lobby Chatting

• Much improved quick-messaging of people in the lobby, host/join and in-game chats.
• Current message typed is retained, while the recipient of the message can be changed. In host/join, the right mouse button now achieves this.
• An /ignore command function is now available for the WormNET lobby which will highlight a name in red and is useful to combat spammers. Typing /ignore alone will clear all ignores.
• It is now possible to scroll through message chat lists via a mouse wheel; the list must be initially clicked upon and the scrolling is set at one line per wheel bump.
• People to whom you've spoken privately and the messages typed can now be recalled:

Scroll through messages	Up and Down
Scroll through people	PageUp and PageDown

Chatting Clipboard Operations Clipboard operations (text selection, cut, copy, paste) are now possible in the front end, including the line editor and scrolling message lists:

Select text	Hold Shift; press Arrows or click and drag mouse
Operate on whole words	Hold Ctrl; press Arrows, double click mouse or click and drag mouse.
Select entire line	Ctrl+A
Copy text to clipboard	Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Insert
Cut text to clipboard	Ctrl+X or Shift+Delete
Paste text from clipboard	Ctrl+V or Shift+Insert

Fixes

• A space is no longer inserted in front of every outgoing host/join chat message.

Network In-Game Chatting

• Message line editing is now possible, using the cursor keys (Left, Right, Home, End). During other players' turns this is enabled by default. During your own turn, Scroll Lock must be enabled, otherwise the chat will be cancelled and your Worm will be moved instead. [Note: This is no longer the case in the latest version. See the entry for v3.6.26.4.]
• There is now an Allied Chat function, to share battle strategies with your teammates. This can be achieved either by the /colour command function or by pressing the appropriate F-key (which will always be F9 unless there are two people playing on the same machine but in different allied groups).

Cheating Loophole Prevention

• It is no longer possible to evade being kicked from a game at the host/join stage.

The following in-game loopholes could previously be exploited online by a utility that directly injected messages into W:A's message stream:

• Placing a girder anywhere, even intersecting with worms and other objects (and terrain, using a different method) [Note: In fixing this, another worse loophole was inadvertently created, allowing a girder to be placed anywhere from Rope, Bungee, Parachute or Jet Pack. This was later rectified with the release of v3.6.19.7.]
• Teleporting on top of the roof in a cavern
• Pausing the timer
• Triggering Sudden Death
• Forcing the game to end or draw
• Making all Worms invincible
• Turning on Blood and/or Sheep Heaven
• Using Parachute or Bungee during a retreat
• Selection of weapons during Worm placement (when enabled) at the beginning of a game. If a Girder was chosen, the Worm would be located way up in the sky and untouchable during turns. If anything else was chosen besides Teleport, the game would hang.
• Using a Fuse/Herd of 0 or above 5 (a Herd of 0 allowed a player to unleash an unlimited number of Mad Cows, even if only one was possessed)
• Tweaked angles could be used with Strike weapons; this could hang the game with a straight-down angle, as the plane never flew away.