v2.0.0 (Jupiter Edition)

Red Eclipse 2 brings massive changes to all facets of the game, and the numerous improvements and changes are too numerous to list individually. The broad brush changes to the game are instead enumerated below:

Tesseract Engine

The modern, deferred pipeline Tesseract engine replaces the elderly Cube 2 engine used in all prior versions of Red Eclipse. Tesseract brings myriad improvements to the visuals, including the following:

• Realtime dynamic lighting and shadow
• Ambient occlusion and global illumination
• Vastly improved mapmodel lighting
• HDR, bloom, and tonemapping.
• Dynamic, procedural vertex colour animation
• Volumetric lighting
• Water screenspace reflection
• Glass and water refraction

Significant work has been exhausted in making the Tesseract engine accessible to lower end computers. This is done by changing the lighting and model population on lower map effects levels, allowing high end rigs to use all of the engine's eye candy while still being playable on Intel integrated chips (HD 4600 and newer).

New UI system

The new new new extended UI system (nnnxui) brings significant improvements to the menu system as well as increased modularity to the heads-up display. With this system, it is easy to design customizable HUDs to suit particular players. The menu system also benefits from a significant performance increase from the rewrite.

Focused Gameplay

Unlike prior versions of the game with huge quantities of maps, Red Eclipse 2 focuses on providing the best possible levels to play on, at the expense of map volume. There are seven main deathmatch maps included with Red Eclipse 2 and one race map; this is multiple times fewer maps than RE 1.x has shipped.

There is also a focus on making the core gameplay more accessible to new players, with a tutorial level and interactive setup menu to get players to understand the interfaces of the game better. In addition to this, the user interface has been simplified to get players to quickly be able to play standard modes without having to know too much about the sausage making behind the scenes.

The weapons in Red Eclipse 2 have also been significantly revamped compared to 1.6. While the same number of weapons remain with similar names, the weapons have all been retuned to better suit the changes in physics and the addition of pickups. The inclusion of pickups allows for more potent weapons that can be put at a disadvantage by their ammo dependence.

Steam Integration

Red Eclipse 2 launches from Steam, a platform few open source games manage to launch on (and no prior Red Eclipse game, for that matter). In doing so, Red Eclipse 2 is easier to install than ever and reaches a broader base than the Linux-heavy community that Red Eclipse 1.x drew upon. With Red Eclipse's permissive licensing scheme, the GPL conflicts with proprietary integration do not exist and it is possible to provide a well integrated game with the Steam ecosystem.

v1.6.0 (Sunset Edition)

Red Eclipse v1.6.0 (Sunset Edition) has been released!

We apologise to everyone who downloaded v1.5.9 and had to deal with it's broken state. This release fixes those issues, and is dubbed "Sunset Edition", as this will be the final release with the old Cube Engine 2 rendering pipeline that we have used for the past 10 years. In v2.0 we will have an all new rendering system from Tesseract, featuring dynamic lighting and other modern rendering techniques that are sure to impress everyone. Here's to another 10 years! 😄

• Fixed broken release packages. Oops.
• Fixed memory leaks.
• Cleaned up some in-game messages.
• Created AppImage builds.
• Disabled sound when SDL 2.0.6 is detected as it is broken.
• Fix the random weapon selection code.
• Attempt to fix incorrect client state during desync.
• Limited the length of server descriptions to 80 characters.
• New maps, mapmodels, and vanity items have been added.
• Improved team balancing mechanics, including using statistics if available.
• Improved behaviour of reset-to-floor for flags/bombs/etc.

v1.5.8 (Elysium Edition) Patch 2

Red Eclipse v1.5.8 (Elysium Edition) has been released!

• New maps, mapmodels, and vanity items have been added.
• Grenade now transitions from green to red based on the fuse timer.
• Added the ability to make bots perform specific actions (stand, dance, crouch).
• IP addresses are now private and shown only to moderators.
• Optimised game variable resets to reduce network flooding.
• Added basic support for CMake.
• Improved team balancing mechanics, including using statistics if available.
• Improved behaviour of reset-to-floor for flags/bombs/etc.
• Improved some visual aspects of the HUD and text rendering.
• Improved edit mode prefabs, pasting, and undo/redo in multiplayer.
• Fixed instances where multi-GPU setups were not switching to the high performance processor.
• Fixed edit mode when editing entities in multiplayer.
• Fixed wire particle entity rendering.
• Fixed stereoscopic view types.

v1.5.6 (Elysium Edition) Patch 1

Red Eclipse v1.5.6 (Elysium Edition) has been released!

• Contains important fixes and updates for the Red Eclipse v1.5.x series.

v1.5.5 (Elysium Edition)

Red Eclipse v1.5.5 (Elysium Edition) has been released!

• Statistics recording: http://play.redeclipse.net:28700/
• New spawn weapon: Claws!
• New deathmatch mutators:
  • Gladiator: Use the claws to push the enemy out of the arena.
  • Old school: Only frags counts for the team score.
• New vanity items: witch hat, staff, pumpkin, glasses, cap and headphones
• Rule improvements:
  • Lost flags will reset right where the carrier left solid ground.
  • The rifle can now stay again in zoom mode.
  • Game votes can be for random maps.
• Engine improvements:
  • Upgraded to SDL 2.
  • Multiplayer undo/redo and vslot (texture variations).
  • Better customization options for abilities and properties of bots.
  • Some new editing features, such as mapmodel spin and prefab previews.
• User interface:
  • Improvements to the skin system
  • Complete overhaul of the editing menus with plenty of new mapping utilities.
  • Expansion of the options menus to conveniently customise the client.
  • Favourites menu - save your favorite game selections for quick voting.
  • Many small improvements, such as bitfield support in the vars menu.

v1.5.3 (Aurora Edition) Patch 3

• Updater improvements, OS X support.
• AI improvements.
• Map CRC checks and enforcement.
• Other bugs and tweaks addressed.

Release announcement for this version is here.

Downloads:

• Windows: http://redeclipse.net/download/windows
• Linux: http://redeclipse.net/download/linux
• OS X: http://redeclipse.net/download/osx
• Other/All: http://redeclipse.net/download/all

v1.5.2 (Aurora Edition) Patch 2

Bug fixes and various improvements. Release announcement for this version is here.

Downloads:

• Windows: http://redeclipse.net/download/windows
• Linux: http://redeclipse.net/download/linux
• OS X: http://redeclipse.net/download/osx
• Other/All: http://redeclipse.net/download/all

v1.5.1 (Aurora Edition) Patch 1

Bug fixes and various improvements. Release announcement for this version is here.

Downloads:

• Windows: http://redeclipse.net/download/windows
• Linux: http://redeclipse.net/download/linux
• OS X: http://redeclipse.net/download/osx
• Other/All: http://redeclipse.net/download/all

v1.5.0 (Aurora Edition)

Two years in the making, Red Eclipse is back for the biggest release yet; v1.5 "Aurora Edition".

We've been working hard on all areas of the game, improving weapon balance, refining the user interface, and helping new players learn the game. Included in this release is our new auto-updating mechanism, designed to keep you running the latest improvements and freshest maps.

This release is also our first release as a true community built game. With a recent move to GitHub, the project is now openly developed, allowing everyone to contribute to the game we all love in a format where everyone gets a say (and learns how to contribute at the same time). If you feel like you'd have something to contribute, come see us in action!

Downloads:

• Windows: http://redeclipse.net/download/windows
• Linux: http://redeclipse.net/download/linux
• OS X: http://redeclipse.net/download/osx
• Other/All: http://redeclipse.net/download/all

Here's some interesting things that have changed:

• Support for giving AI orders ("defend", "attack", "base", "goal", "flag", "ball", "forget").
• Better physics and bounce sounds for affinities (flags/points/bombs).
• Footstep sounds, hear people approaching!
• Auto team balancing, so you're never stuck with uneven team counts.
• Rebalanced all weapons, making for a fairer game.
• New weapon, the "zapper". Electrify your friends and foes!
• Increased weapon spread when in air / impulsing
• Rebranded Defend-The-Flag to Defend-And-Control, with a new look.
• Increased buffing timeout tolerances when defending affinities.
• Slicker menus, tips and rollover help text.
• Scoreboard redesign and better colouring.
• Ability to send a message to a specific player with "whisper".

Map changes:

• Race
  • Absorption - new race map by Unnamed
  • Decomposition - new race map by Unnamed
  • Escape - new race map by Goku
  • Relax - new race map by Bonifarz
  • Steel Rat - new race map by D.a.M.i.E.n. and TristamK
  • Tonatiuh - new race map by Bonifarz
  • War Depot - new race map by TristamK
• Other game modes
  • Abuse - new map by ballist1c
  • Affluence - new map by Greaserpirate
  • Campgrounds - new map by ballist1c and Greaserpirate
  • Canyon - new map by restcoser
  • Castle - new map by FaTony
  • Condensation - new map by Unnamed
  • Convolution - new map by Unnamed
  • Decay - new map by Unixfreak
  • Echo2k - remix of Echo by Ulukai
  • Enyo - new map by Ulukai
  • Fortitude - new map by Max Payne
  • Octavus - new map by Unixfreak
  • Rooftop - new map by FaTony

Data Assets:

• New vanity items!
  • Blade
  • Boots
  • Chestplate
  • Crown
  • Disc
  • Fox Ears
  • Guitar
  • Mask
  • Microeye
  • Panda
  • Prongs
  • Shoulder armour
• New wakawaka sound.
• New model for control points used in Defend-and-Control and Bomber-Ball.
• New Rocket projectile by Unnamed.
• Added texture set by Unnamed.
• Added lava texture by Nobiax, applied in maps Hinder, Nova, Tower

As always, have fun playing Red Eclipse!