Version History - Show all notes

X-Bomber Special Weapon #9; Laser Sabre - Complete
- Beams reflect off targets more reliably

X-Bomber Special Weapons - Logic¹ and graphics² updates
- #3; Rotator Spread Gun¹
- #4; Plasma Cannon
- #5; Scalar Mass Driver²
- #7; Converging Laser Torpedos¹

Dai-X Special Weapons - Logic and graphics updates
- #2; WingBlade
- #3; Rapid-fire Spread Gun
- #4; Plasma Grenade
- #8; Quantum Blaster

Player Ships
- Issues with The Skull player ship fixed
- WingBlade afterburners added
- WingBlade shield/HUD logic improved

Enemies
- Added laser torpedoes and pulse guns to Attacker astrofighters
- Added dual and alternating fire cycles to enemy turrets
- Adjusted rotation logic on space mines
- Early-in-game Boss ships - health doubled

System
- Screengrab feature improved
- Mission 8 shutdown glitch fixed
- Fixed control mapping bug on options screen
- Update feature fixed

More
- X-Bomber turret logic improved
- Added more character dialogue
- Mission 08 volcanoes improved

Dai-X Weapons
- Split into primary and secondary categories, giving you more control over what to fire and when:
- Primary: Pulse guns, Lasers, Special (Fire: Z, Select: Shift)
- Secondary: Mega missiles, X-Tracer, Micro missiles (Fire: X, Select: Ctrl)
- Heads-up-display expanded accordingly
- Dai-X secondary weapons; esp. X-Tracer, improved

Gameplay
- Dai-X Fighter shields improved
- X-Bomber blocking shield added - Press C to activate.
- Asteroid spawn logic improved - increases randomisation of asteroid fields
- Energy swarm (in Missions 7 and 10) improved - makes both levels fairer
- Players' guided missile / homing laser logic updated
- EDF Astrofighter firing-points updated

Graphics
- Heat haze effect and linear shadows improved for Mission 10
- Muzzle flashes for Dai-X pulse gun improved, CIWS-fire alpha-blend randomised

System
- In-game Dialogue 2 - Cleverer crew with more helpful things to say
- Power transfer logic improved
- Rotator SpreadGun and Dai-X Fighter special weapon logic simplified
- Object-selection glitch on Hive Runner laser torpedo launcher fixed

Overlay 2
- improves lightning effect
- Provides 'Night mode' feature, which activates 25% of the time on planetary missions.

High score screen improved and simplified
- Uploading high score names with spaces is now supported.
- Mouse selection for uploading high scores

More
- PPA's Mission 07 dialogue from earlier versions recovered
- LegTrax afterburner fixed
- Hotkey access (keys 1-7) added to menu

Enemies
- Hive Runner Carrier and Striker Astrofighter - (designed by Brad Smith)
(Spawn probability is double the final, intended level so that players come across the Hive Runners more easily).

System
- Game creates screenshots of itself at random intervals, converts them into JPG format and displays these in the Mission Select Menu to give a preview of each mission.
- 'fix' to circumvent Apache server firewall for uploading scores to website
- A few small bugs fixed, including 'x^y' ammo-display glitch on ADEN cannon

Graphics
- Enemy Spread-bomb sprite and post-processing improved
- Environment clouds in a range of missions improved
- X-Bomber bullets improved
- Foliage added to Mission 08

Gameplay
- Restriction placed on use of Skull player ship's Azuris mode; allows only sparing use of Azuris in earlier missions

Graphics
- Explosion animations greatly expanded and improved
- Space Environment System - Randomly creates and processes environment objects in space missions.

Soft Shadows 2
- Variable altitude
- Ground objects cast shadows on terrain
- Unified group

Damage Indication 2
- Simplified with unified group

Graphics and User Interface
- Shield bubble and Enemy lightning weapon sprites improved
- Options Menu: Keyboard Mapping and layout improved

General
- Mission 08 Boss: Logic, object-management and graphics improved
- Enemy guided missiles merged and improved
- Mission 03 and 09: Minor improvements

Unity Engine - Unifies all 17 Mission modules into a single, reorganised, dynamic module

Dynamic Damage Indication with 50%, 75% (and 90% for bosses) steps ^05.30

System
- Dai-X Fighter Shields: Flash green on impact, Shield bubble appears when invincible ^03.07
- Preference-loading at mission start improved ^03.07
- Power transfer and shield logic improved - applies to all ships ^03.15
- Mission frame totally rebuilt at object/event-level in new MMF2 application ^07.13

Weapons
- X-Bomber Specials: Positron Blaster (replaces Converging Laser Torpedoes in Chapter III) ^01.23 and Laser Sabre prototype ^01.13
- Dai-X Fighter Specials: Power levels and functions comprehensively revised ^08.18
- Booster/THOR Special Weapons Powerup changed from Black to Lime ^02.15
- Dai-X Fighters: Rear-firing weapons added ^04.28 and LegTrax weapons improved

Graphics
- Full-screen damage glow
- New Shield bubbles ^06.07

Gameplay
- Asteroid speed randomised ^05.30
- Dai-X Junction and Fighter-switching improved and simplified ^04.21
- Fixed bugs in Player Ship Power Management and Dai-X Fighter Weapons ^03.19
- Dai-X Fighters: Afterburners added ^03.07, Shields revised (filter damage and recharge over time) ^05.10

General
- Missions 02, 03, 04, 07, 09 and 10 substantially improved, re: object consolidation and environment graphics

User Interface
- Options Menu extensively revised: Scrolling improved ^04.16 and draggable volume controls ^04.28
- Fixed glitch with resuming Mission after displaying High Scores Menu.
- Scores displayed by default in In-Game menu ^04.16
- "Check for Updates" moved from the Options to Main Menu - (Click the version number at lower-right).
- Fixed keyboard-control glitch in Missions and Scores Menus.

Support
- Documentation comprehensively upgraded ^06.07
- Updater downloads newer versions automatically. ^09.26

User Interface
- Completely new, modular Menu System; XBMS v2.0
- Embedded fonts improved ^04.05

General
- Mountain engine rendering improved ^03.10
- Difficulty levels revised from 5 to 3 ^11.21
- F-01/Lamia effect balanced; becomes more powerful as game progresses ^03.10
- Mission 16 mid-way Boss Preview - Death-X - Variable Type ^05.13

Mission 14: The Last Stand Preview - Minus Boss
- 'Missile Train' and Defence Platforms ^11.30
- Heavy Bomber and Attack Cruiser (Blue) ^12.15

Special Weapons
- Dai-X: Buster Cannon ^10.04
- X-Bomber Special Weapons ^12.31 and Dai-X: ^01.31 Boosters
- Improved Dai-X DRAGOON Pack logic ^09.23

Engine:
- Consolidation of allied craft, enemy bullets, target markers 08.20 escape pods, laser sights 09.20
- Sound system reworked ^11.25
- Improved enemies and allies, including Unified Alliance Astrofighter ^10.13 and new AI
- X-Bomber Rear Lasers fire automatically when enemy detected behind ship ^01.23
- Some Missions updated to work with new engine changes; especially Mission 00 ^10.04
- Airstrike system streamlined and integrated into engine ^08.20
- Player mission and config data stored in unified database 08.20

Graphics:
- Smoke and radiation clouds improved with Photoshop, alpha channel+blend and randomisation ^12.31
- Improved explosion debris ^12.29
- New explosion animations and variable transparency ^01.23
- GunBoy animations upgraded. 08.20
- Shockwaves added to large explosions, Special Weapon Powerup upgraded 09.20
- WingBlade Lightning sprites upgraded 09.23

HUD / User Interface:
- Notification object handles all "Game Paused", "Game Over" overlay messages
- Special Weapon Indicator and Ammo Counter colour-coded to Weapon 09.20
- User interface improvements, including menus and in-game notifications 08.20

Extensively 3rd-party tested under Win 7 x64

Mission 13: Outpost and Mission 15: Battle Cruiser including ...
- Death-X - Space Type Boss
- 'Protect the base' Mission objective
- Time-limited 'full-screen' Boss with destructible individual shield generators

X-Bomber Special Weapon 8: GunBoys ^03.14

Graphics
- New impact and fire particles, new effects on explosions, X-Impulse, shields and Dai-X Black Hole Weapon
- Weapons improved with muzzle flashes, smoother bullets etc. 05.02

Engine
- Dai-X (Combined / Fighter) and WingBlade bullets condensed into fewer objects
- Vapour trails and Plasma Cannon weapon made more efficient 03.11
- Special Weapon ammo-handling streamlined 03.14
- Performance issue with explosion shrapnel fixed 04.15

Options Menu
- Missile Trail Length (1 - 100) and Debris Particle Limit (0 - 10,000) options
- Code cleanup.
- Key Assigning accessible by mouse 07.24

Mission 12: The Cloud
- Colour-randomising nebula environment 12.04
- New, non-Alliance enemies
- Multi-segment, multi-stage, transforming robot Boss 02.10

System:
- Dai-X system improved
- Lock-on boxes unified ^02.10 plus lots of optimisations and fixes

General
- Player Ships repair and reload slowly when not in use. New read-out displays repair status and hides when repairs complete. ^{- Press D to cycle; Auto | Show | Hide}
- Typewriter effect and other touches added to Briefings

Mission 11: Icy Reception ^12.04 including ...
- 2-phase (arctic and underwater) scrolling planetary environment
- Dynamically-generated ice canyon ^09.05
- New enemies including Snow Crawler, GoalKeeper AstroFighter and HoverFly ^09.08
- New underwater enemies and Death-X - Deep-submergence Type Boss ^10.25

Graphics
- Improved graphics and logic for explosions and smoke trails
- Vapour trails improved with Photoshop, alpha-channel, fading and randomisation ^12.05
- Dual-layer, scrolling space backdrops and denser, randomising starfield ^12.21
- New backgrounds and upgraded Mission 03 environment ^12.04

Engine
- Camera Shake
- Player and Ally collision code and Player collision masks unified
- New, more realistic Player shield logic
- New Dai-X Fighter AI movement uses fewer objects ^12.03
- Background scrolling logic improved
- Background textures stored externally to reduce executable filesize ^10.08
- Clickteam's Hardware Acceleration (Final)
- Mission 10 performance optimised ^09.05

User Interface
- Improved Menu System with 2 performance/effects options
- Game prompts to save High Score on exit.

Weapons
- New set of weapons for X-Bomber (features all weapons shown in Star Fleet)

Missions 09: Sanctuary and 10: Into the Fire

General
- WingBlade Player Ship available in Mission 09
- Online High Score filter-by-user improved ^07.15

System
- Engine made much more stable with several major improvements
- Return to the Main Menu during play with CheckPoint / Auto-Save System and other revisions to Menu
- Explosion frag bug fixed, rebalanced as appropriate

Mission 08: EDF Vesuvia including ...
- Volcanic planetary environment
- New Alliance enemies, including DeathBall II ^04.11 and 'AstroWing' separating AstroFighter
- Captured EDF vehicles, including Astrofighters, Destroyer ^04.11, T901 'Rhino' MBT, Bradbury MLRS,
- Reprogrammed EDF 'Mammoth' Mobile Fortress / Land Battleship Boss
- Further enemies, including hovercraft, missile batteries and drop-pods

General
- Graphics, Engine, Weapons, Gameplay and Menus improved
- Updater and Online High Score systems rebuilt ^06.06
- Latest Clickteam Hardware Acceleration Beta

Missions 06: Smoke and Mirrors and 07: Sargasso, including ...
- FG Device ^11.27 and Ultra-heavy Bomber ^01.21 Bosses

General
- 2-Player available in missions 01 - 07
- End-of-chapter cut-scene
- Weapons updated, including charge particle effect for Scalar Mass Driver

User Interface
- Dynamic Crew Chatter
- New startup screen
- Mission 5 briefing images added
- Online High Scores filterable by player ^03.01

System
- Hardware Acceleration with Windowed and Full-Screen w/ FSAA modes - Click "Maximise" to access full screen - ADEN Cannon fire collision detection improved - General improvements and fixes
- Tested on Windows XP, Vista and 7

Mission 05: Transport Fleet, including ...
- Prototype Co-operative 2-Player
- Checkpoint
- Death-X Combining Type Boss 10.01
- New Alliance Cargo Ships 01.20

Prototype Secret Mission
with 'Original X-Bomber' set in Earth's solar system, follows Mission 05 03.15

System
- First version with MMF2's Beta DirectX 9 Hardware Acceleration with 'Semi-Full Screen' 09.17
- 360� fast bullets and smooth missile turns 09.17
- Stability fixes, File system re-organised, Gameplay improved 02.07 Rebalanced 01.20
- Fairer ship-ship collisions, Reduced Boss aggression (M1, 3 and 4) 12.16
- Extensive testing on a wide range of hardware and OSes, including Windows 7, by Mantice, Matt Darcy and LafOutLoud 11.16

New X-Bomber Special Weapons
- Scalar Mass Driver
- EM. Napalm
- Converging Laser Torpedo 12.16
New Dai-X Special Weapons
- Dragoon Pack
- Plasma Bombs 01.05
- Black Hole Bomb 06.09

Performance lag, particularly affecting Mission 3, when run on single-core CPU systems, resolved ^10.26
- Issue related to runtime differences between MMF1.5 and MMF2 relating to overlay object
- Thanks to Clickteam's Francois Lionet for finding the issue

This version was known as v0.4 beta at the time.

Notes
- Internal beta for v0.37 - no installer - contains config and save files for access to all levels
- Press [T] in most levels to skip to Boss
- Thanks to the testers; Nyxs, LafOutLoud and Peter ^{(@ gibbering.net)}

Mission 04: Minefield and Briefing ^10.19

Runtime
- First version compiled under Multimedia Fusion 2
- Performance: Application fully-rebuilt from object and event level
- Mission 00 re-assembled, High Scores Menu rebuilt to remove corrupt string ^10.09
- Hundreds of fixes, improvements and performance optimisations

User Interface
- No 'mouse grab' in Menus ^05.24
- Menu systems updated ^10.19

Audio
- Sound Effects Improvements
- 32-Channel Sound Mixing
- Internal Volume control

Support
- Online High Scores ^05.24
- Documentation updated ^10.09

Beam weapons collision effects fixed ^10.19

Mission 03: Simetra VI
- DeathBall and Attack Carrier enemies 10.24
- Rain, clouds, variable fog and lighting, scrolling terrain 12.08

New Modular Engine with several fixes 02.24

Collision Detection
- Hit-point system for Fighters and Dai-X
- Collision detection for individual bullets 12.08
- Collision logic comprehensively revised 11.21

Gameplay
- Dai-X Fighter weapons simplified
- Dai-X shield upgraded 11.21 and operable simultaneously with weapons 10.24
- Many weapons upgraded and balanced.
- Power-up functions revised

Graphics
- Smoother beam collisions
- New shield sprites etc.
- HUD updated

General
- Options and User Interface updated ^12.08
- Fixed issues with Dai-X System and HUD, relating to display resolution change ^09.20-29
- Sound improved ^03.10
- Documentation updated ^10.24

Display Resolution change from 1024x768 to 800x600 ^08.29
- Briefing redesigned accordingly

Dai-X Weapons
- Vulcan guns added ^{- Fill ammo gauge to use.}
- Homing Laser guidance improved

General
- Improvements to engine, missions and UI
- Fixed all bugs reported in v0.3 ^08.12

Mission 00: Training and Mission 02: Asteroid Field including:
- Crawler Tank Boss 02.13
- New Space Pirate and Alliance ships with new features and weapons
- New hazards
- Simetra Defence Directorate Airstrike 01.10

Special Weapons
- Plasma Cannons (X-Bomber)
- Homing Lasers (Dai-X) 01.10

Graphics
- Moving full-screen backgrounds and HUD hazard indicators for training mission 06.01
- Dai-X shield animated02.02

System
- Fix for option- and mission-saving 02.13
- All reported issues from v0.2 fixed 01.10
- Variable-handling issues fixed 01.30
- Sound issues fixed, including mixing issue relating to in-game menu 01.30
- Start-up audio plays only when MIDI enabled in Options.02.02
- Airstrike indicator locks to HUD position.

Gameplay
- Balancing 01.30
- Revisions to Dai-X Fighter Upgrade Weapon, Mega-Bomb and Hyper-jump systems 02.02

Gameplay
- Airstrike - Press A to activate. 01.08
- Hyperjump feature for Dai-X Fighters 01.18

Augmentative X-Impulse
- 3 X-Impulse Power-Ups combine into more powerful X-Impulse Blasts.
- 10x Power-Ups combine into Super X-Impulse blast.
- Press X to fire.01.05

System
- Fully-customisable controls
- Player data stored in one database, rather than separate .INI files
- Improvements to ship mouse control, engine and audio 04.13
- Engine optimisation

User Interface
- In-Game Menu v2 01.18
- Start-up self-test and Menu upgrades 02.01
- Opening Cutscene 01.30
- Options Menu redesigned 01.30

Mission 01: Recon. Fleet with new enemies, including Alliance Recon cruiser and Attacker 09.27

Dai-X System (begun 2004.08) - Press Tab to access. 10.05

Weapons
 - First 3 special weapons for X-Bomber (Press 1-3 to access) 07.07: 
	. ADEN cannons
	. Homing missiles
	. Rotator spreadgun
 - New weapons 04.28:
	. Heavy pulse guns
	. Rear lasers
	. Main lasers (Press Z and X together to access main laser mode)
 - X-Bomber turrets: auto-aim improved with target-leading 11.08, mouse-aim added 07.07

Gameplay
 - Enemy count doubled and enemy aggression and weapons power increased
 - Ship-to-ship collisions with collision physics
 - 10-second invincibility/afterburner Effects when shield/weapons gauges full 04.28
 - Splash damage, debris and particles added to explosions 05.06
 - Balancing:
	. Shields	 100 => 500
	. Weapons	1000 => 2000
	. Armour	  50 => 200
 - X-Bomber�s movement becomes sluggish and smoke is released from engines when Armour < 25% 05.06
 - Boss weapons expanded with homing missiles 05.12

HUD
 - Status messages and character dialogue
 - Translucent status bars with percentages
 - Distance and frame-rate indicators 04.28

Graphics
 - Randomising 4-level star-field 04.28
 - X-Bomber ship sprite updated 05.12

Menu System
 - Remembers all preferences and mission reached in database
 - Mouse control in all menus
 - New intro, cut-scenes and briefing
 - 3D starfield improved 04.28
 - Menu appearance upgraded
 - In-game menu with volume controls06.25
 - High Score Menu improved 07.07

Controls
 - Dedicated X-Impulse trigger; X
 - All ship functions operable via 8-button joystick/game controller 04.28
 - Mouse control for player movement and weapons firing 06.25

System
 - Windows XP compatibility upgrade 07.07
 - External file structure for MIDI files and sub-apps - fixes stutter on music change 09.12

Audio
 - Music change 09.16
 - Upgraded sound (rear and main lasers, enemy weapons) 05.12