Well this has been a pretty busy week so far. So I’ll list the highlights.

• Over 50 new features added to featureplacer bringing the total map features available to nearly 540
• New featureplacer randomizers
• New EMP blast weapon added to the commander (press d to activate while the commander is selected, costs 50 energy and has a 10 second recharge)
• Added new LUPS effects

I realize that many of you probably don’t have any idea what LUPS is. Quite simply, it stands for Lua Particle System. It allows for many more dynamic effects like pretty shields, epic jet flame trails and much more. So far the only LUPS effects that have been added are jet trails. You can see them for yourself by grabbing the latest revision via Spring Downloader.

However, with every new advance comes some caveats. In particular, LUPS requires a newer video card (7 series nvidia or equivalent ATI Video card) to be seen. The graphics requirements for Evolution RTS are already quite low, but LUPS is a much needed graphical advancement. If LUPS is not available to you, first try getting the latest video drivers for your video card. If that doesn’t help, then you simply won’t see them, it will not effect gameplay at all.

Hope everyone enjoys all the new stuff! More coming next week, so stay tuned!