Greetings to the globe

Just wanted to say hello to all the countries of the world with visitors to this site. I just checked my analytics and I see people visiting from Japan to Norway to South Africa, 63 different countries in fact. Apparently I have the most fans from Germany, but also a visitor from Iran and even someone from the Isle of Man. Salutations and peaceful wishes to you all.

In honor of this I've added a Translate button to the web page. I'm sure it will be entertaining sometimes in its misinterpretation, but I think it's overdue.

Forums

Okay, supposedly, all my databases have been repaired. I won't be convinced of this until a few days have gone by with people posting and registering. Please check it out and let me know (somehow) if you see any errors.

Oh, and don't worry about this slowing down any dev progress. I've continued working and should have something new for everyone in a couple weeks. And hey, in the mean time, there's that "donate" button over there on the right...

Forum Maintenance

Hey everyone,

My web server was upgraded recently, and while they claimed my databases would not be affected, they definitely have been. I'll have to work on this today and see what's going on. Hopefully I haven't lost too much data and can get things running again soon.

EDIT: Everything "should" be fine now (and incidentally should be much more responsive after the upgrade). Feel free to resume normal forum activity.

EDIT AGAIN: This is really starting to piss me off. Found out people couldn't register due to database problems, tried to fix it, and now everything's hosed again. Getting real sick of my web hoster right now.

1.61 Win32 release

Linux version will be up after I get some library issues resolved.

This is a standard update with some bugfixes and some new features. In my latest testing, network sync has been perfect (knock on wood). Please leave a note in the forums if you see any out-of-sync situation in the future. No improvements to networking speed yet.

• Added Sandstorms. They occur rarely (more often in the Deep Desert) but they reset all visibility for all players. This is likely to remain a permanent new feature
• Selecting units and scrolling the mousewheel now allows immediate issue of orders. Scrolling the mouse up chooses Move orders, and scrolling down chooses Attack orders (defaulting to Protect and Guard orders respectively as normal)
• Foot Soldiers now receive a +2 range bonus while in Crags, but Crags no longer stop low bullets
• Devastators now fire twice as slowly, but with 250% damage. This makes them even better against large targets and even worse against infantry. Plus dammit, they're devastators. They should wreck what they're designed to wreck
• Split pickup lists for Carryalls into two separate ones for Harvesters and all other units (improves Carryall prioritizing of targets)
• Starting Units now provides a Flak Trike
• Allied units will share vision
• Re-added spice field voice call for first discovered spice
• Refineries will now drop the first harvester upon completion automatically
• Fixed a sync issue with IX and other building bonuses
• In-game Exit button works again (like the Back button now)
• Switched to OpenGL rendering
• Fixed music bug with "back" button
• Disabled Z-menu for HTF
• Fixed bug with detonating units not causing much damage
• Fixed bug with HTFs not counting flyers properly
• Fixed bug with selecting buildings to Demolish
• Merc purchases now ensure unit cap adherence
• Alliance units now have tiny amount of player coloring
• Fixed several other small bugs