Its been quite some time since any news was posted on LU so i thought i'd break the silence.

As some of you keen-eyed people may have noticed, the progress bar on the left of the homepage now says the progress on the next version of LU (0.1.1.0). This next version features a lot of changes and new things which we have been working on for a while.

Some of the new features in 0.1.1.0 are as follows:
For starters, LU now allows you to import your own object models to use in your server. We felt this was a necessity as GTA3 has some fairly bad objects normally and custom objects helps to make your server more unique. Objects that can be imported can be made for either GTA3 or Vice City since there aren't many models made for GTA3, so we added a few patches to allow VC models
All that is required to import new models into LU is a dff, txd and a col file. You then simply do CreateObject in your script as normal but specify the name of the dff instead of the model ID. More information on using custom objects will be added to the forum or wiki when the next version is released.

Another thing that we have added in the next version is NPCs. Currently the NPCs are fairly basic and can't do as much as we want them to but we are planning to expand on them in future versions. NPCs are going to be mainly script controlled, with handling how they handle being shot and ran over being processed in your own scripts. This will allow server owners to give greater control over their NPCs and give a more unique feel to the server.
Currently you can set the NPCs position, angle, health, armour, alpha, weapon and place them in vehicles in either the driver or passenger seat. There are also events for when NPCs get shot or hit by a vehicle. As i said we will be expanding on these in future versions so they can follow preset paths and eventually be able to 'break free' of the paths as well as shoot at a specific location as dictated by a script. The reason why they can't currently do that is because its a lot of work.

Something else that has been added which was originally planned for LU is control of the timecyc.dat file in GTA. For those of you that don't know, the timecyc.dat contains information on the colour of the sky, cloud data and light intensity of the sun/moon/stars. This means that server owners will be able to create some strange looking environments inside GTA to better fit their game modes. For example, if you run a zombie-style server then you could change the sky to blood red
Timecyc stuff will be controlled either by adding a custom timecyc.dat file in the server or by using script functions, enabling them to be changed in real time.

Some news that will make some server owners cheer now. Over the past week or so we have been working on a new ban system which doesn't just depend on the IP of the player. We have been forced to add this new ban system by idiots who persist in cheating, abusing bugs and then ban evading. This spoils the game for everybody and ruins the mod as a whole as the player base is still rather small.
Currently the new method generates a unique identifier for each player which cannot be changed making it very hard for a player to evade their ban. We are also looking into other methods just in case somebody does manage to get around the UID as you can never be too careful.
When the system is finished you will be able to choose in your scripts which ban type to add. This could be a simple name ban, IP, UID or any other ways we may add before the release.

That is just a few of the new features we have added in the new version, we may add some more before we release it depending on how much work is required.
Aside from the features, we have also been working on making the mod more stable and optimising it better for lower end machines. Quite a few of the most common crashes have now been fixed, and it seems like we have finally fixed the 'invisible car' issue which caused a few crashes.

As a reminder, please report any bugs you encounter to http://mantis.liberty-unleashed.co.uk so it is easier for us to track them.

We hope you will like the new things in LU and are looking forward to the next release. We can't give any estimations on when it will be released but are aiming to release it soon as some of the fixes are important.

Just looked this up in the lu code, seems the error message is misleading because somebody forgot to throw a return afer an if.
It should say that the type passed to it is not a vector (which once again, makes no sense). Try loading the vector into a local, printing that then setting it. See what happens

I was certain this was already implemented but seems not, i must've dreamt it (often happens).

Will look into adding this

Chat built into the browser was actually considered when i created it. I thought of a few ways to do it, one was to have a server say if it had an IRC channel then connect to that from within the browser. Another way was to have a fully functioning chat client complete with rooms for each server but also global chat to talk to anybody else running the browser.

In the end the idea was scrapped due to it not being required and would probably just end up being spammed. No point spending a lot of time implementing something that will be abused and rarely used for its intended purpose.

First of all sorry for not following the format i am just too lazy now back to the topic

Bug no1: I want you guys to disable /reconnect in the next lu update because it causes many bugs and client side scripts to not work sometimes.

1. Objects will disappear next time when a player /reconnects while standing near to it.
2. Gui functions won't work if a player /reconnects 2 times.
3. Stuck on class selection if /reconnects.
4. Many more bugs due to /reconnect..

Reconnect has always been a bit dodgy, before release it didn't even work properly but as it started to work we just left it in. Will look into fixing these anyway.

Bug no2: Everytime i get in a rc vehicle it automaticaly jumps 20 feet high, also the driveby on rc kinda sucks caz it fires the bullets before pointing the gun outside.

The reason it jumps is because it forces the player in, we know how to fix this and may do it in the next update.
With the driveby, you realise it does that in every vehicle right? Its just how GTA3 does drivebys.

Suggestions

1. The weapon damages on lu are pretty high and annoying especially M16 and AK47. it would be better if there was a function to set the weapon damage like weapon.SetDamager(damage);
2. Complete the damn wiki 
3. I would love to see npc bots on lu.

Weapon damage can already be changed either via script or adding your own weapon.dat file in the server.
I agree the wiki needs finishing, we keep slapping the testers to contribute Last i looked it was coming along well though.
NPCs are being worked on atm, i have some nice ideas for them but they may take a while to complete. More information on these will come when they have been worked on some more.

Heres an image of 50 of them anyway:

Looking good! Hope to see this finished I like RP servers so i'm always looking out for new ones

A new section has been setup on the forum to allow for specific server chat. I meant to set this up a long time ago but forgot.

I have set up separate boards for the most popular servers and i am open to adding more. If you would like your server to have its own board, please PM me but remember it must be popular and on 24/7 (no home-hosts please)

This section should cut down on the posts made in other sections about specific servers

GTA - Completed
GTA London - May have completed, can't remember
GTA 2 - Completed
GTA III - Completed many times
GTA VC - Completed many times
GTA SA - Done a few missions and got extremely bored
GTA IV - Played about 25% of the storyline, got bored

I remember years ago when i had an MSN bot made in perl, the protocol isn't as easy as you'd think.

Heres a site that explains it all though: http://www.hypothetic.org/docs/msn/notification/authentication.php

Good luck trying to get it working with squirrel though, a module would most likely be required due to how the data is processed. If you just want an msn echo bot, why not do it the normal way using bitlbee?

We have identified the issue regarding these and it has been fixed in the next version.

Scripts are verified by the checksums, but there is a way around it which i won't go into too much detail for obvious reasons.

The anti-cheat in LU is rather good when compared to mods such as VC-MP, its just this small problem with client scripts that is letting it down.

There may be a very small chance that you updated within 5 minutes of us releasing it, since it was christmas, i uploaded the wrong client with a bad checksum.

Try downloading the installer from the home page and see if that fixes it

From all of us who work on Liberty Unleashed, We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

P.s. Santa left you a present in your LU Browser, so go open it (Pst, Its an update )

Liberty Unleashed 0.1 Update

Updates to Liberty Unleashed 0.1 have been released, they will be automatically applied the next time you restart your server browser, the following changes include:

• Increased the amount of key binds allowed in a client
• Added a packet for when the player crashes. Includes an ID passed to scripts
• Added missing characters to the GUI
• Added sorting to the browser
• Fixed a timer crash
• Fixed a server crash with client side elements
• Added ReloadScripts to Squirrel
• Changed markers for players so that an arrow can be placed over any player
• Added blips (and blips with arrows) to vehicles as a script option
• Fixed being unable to join passworded servers via the jumplist on windows 7
• Fixed a crash in the client (and display driver) when a large message was typed with the chatback off
• Fixed logging not working on linux servers
• Increased the radar blip limit from 127 (originally 32) to 254
• Fixed a rare crash where a player would be entering a vehicle as it got streamed out
• Fixed IsNum not recognising minus numbers
• Fixed objects being able to get blown up and fall through the map
• Added detection for when a vehicle is drowned. Before it would stay in the water until the idle respawner kicked in.
• Added -appendname to the server launch arguments to force a string on the end of the server name
• A complete list of new and modified scripting functions in 0.1.0.12 hereWill be created within the next few days, sorry

The update requires the new client (which the browser should download) and a new server for any server hosters.

This has been fixed in the next update. This was a pretty major crash since it caused a buffer overflow in the graphics memory...

This has now been added for the next update. As well as changing the marker type of both players and vehicles to either blips, blips with arrows, arrows only or none.