Release of Boson 0.8, a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game for the K Desktop Environment.

Since our last release we have mainly been focussing on improving speed and the addition of 3d-terrain. Beside that, we ported the savegame format to XML which enables us to support this format in future boson releases, too.

Unfortunately we had to disable sound for this release. You can re-enable it by starting boson from the command line with the --sound switch. This limitation was necessary, because arts causes major performance problems on runtime, making the game hardly playable. We hope that we will be able to re-enable sound for the next release.

On the compilation front we are happy to announce two things:
First of all the prefix problem that many users experienced (data files were missing, although installed) has been resolved.
Second we are proud to report that boson also compiles and runs under FreeBSD. We would be happy to hear from a user who has hardware-accelerated drivers installed, as our FreeBSD addict uses software rendering only, which means that boson runs very slowly for him.

List of major new features since 0.7:
- Height map for 3d-terrain
- New map file format (.tar.gz instead of .gz)
- Preload map information on startup
- Big performance improvements
- New save game format
- Smoke support for power plant, oil refinery, mineral refinery etc (see our screenshots)
- Unit model improvements
- Editor: Buildings are placed in constructed mode
- Editor: Better support for big maps
- of course a big list of smaller features/fixes

To compile and install Boson, you will need the following:
- Gcc, Gnu make (http://www.gnu.org)
- Perl (http://www.perl.org)
- Qt 3.0.x (http://www.trolltech.com)
- KDE 3.x (http://www.kde.org)
- OpenGL (should be included in your XFree Server or graphics card driver)
- lib3ds (http://lib3ds.sourceforge.net)
- wml (http://www.thewml.org)
- See also our info page
Even though Qt/KDE 3.0 are supported, we recommend Qt/KDE 3.1

Note: You need at minimum arts, kdelibs, and kdegames. If you are using precompiled packages (such as rpms and debs), make sure you have the -devel packages for each.

Installing Boson: There are two methods of installing Boson from tarballs. The easier way is to grab boson-all-0.8.tar.bz2. However, that file is very big, and if you are on a slow connection, you may wish to simply get the code and data packages. The required packages can be found at: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=15087&release_id=149745

Let me say that again: download either boson-all or both boson-code and boson-data. Do not waste your time downloading all three!

If you decided to grab the individual packages, you can optionally download the music files (however note that sound is disabled by default in this version of boson!).

The installation itself:
Decompress the package(s):

% tar xjvf <package name>

cd into each directory and:

% ./configure
% make

As root:

# make install

Tarball checksums and sizes for the paranoid:

File name               Size   MD5 Checksum
boson-all-0.8.tar.bz2   31MB   0b0b090993e215941abd37f08ce3b781
boson-code-0.8.tar.bz2  808kB  5ea18f832ded8eddb28c3fc6d9168c87
boson-data-0.8.tar.bz2  15MB   e4a821c4550d92d9d3094ee163407a03
boson-music-0.8.tar.bz2 16MB   afc341cf89bff25b52979eef3547dd65

note: To get the checksum of a file, type:

% md5sum <file>

The Boson Team
http://boson.eu.org

The scene: Timo and Rivo are sitting in the war room discussing the seemingly endless war effort. Andi walks in..
Andi: Moin, how is everything today?
Rivo: Re! Other than a few minor problems with the artillery and the planes, everything is going good
Andi: problems?
Rivo: yes.. our tanks arent used to hills and the planes are turning out to be a one shot deal.

Rivo shudders, suddenly recalling the events of the day before in the Air Control Tower..
Felix, piloting one of the new planes: Sir! We are in trouble!
Rivo: What do you mean.. trouble?
Felix: Sir, we are under attack and my plane refuses to land!
* The sound of gunfire is heard over the radio
Rivo: Well shoot back at them!
Felix: I can't! I am completely out of ammo
Rivo, to Thomas: What does he mean, he can't land?
Thomas: Well, the planes don't have that ability yet.
Rivo: What!? What's the point of flying them yet?
Thomas: Ah, good question.
Felix: Help! A missile is coming right at me!

Andi: I see.. any word from CINCPROP?
Timo: No sir, the Commander In Chief of Propaganda is still missing
Andi: Hasn't it been like 4 months now?
Timo: Yes sir

Andi: So you are saying that the tanks keep crashing, the planes are useless, CINCPROP is missing and, as if that wasn't enough, my Lieutentant isn't even paying attention to me?
* Rivo snaps out of his daydream and blushes
Rivo: Yes sir.
Andi: I see. Is there any good news at all?
Rivo: Well, our best pilot was saved from imminent doom because of a small glitch in the enemie's missiles