Picture of the Month
Born To Die taking aim with his M82A1 as the last survivor on his team (Image by DysPatch)
Key Features
Wondering what some of the key features of our mod are? Firearms: Source is a fast-paced, quasi-realistic, action-oriented, warfare-centric modification for Valve's Source engine. FAS doesn't keep you waiting around to respawn or running forever to get into the action; our whole focus is on keeping you in the midst of the most brutal and violent firefights you've ever seen in Half-Life 2, period.
Four brutal gameplay modes
Push your enemies from one side of the combat zone to the other, slaughtering everything in your path; search and destroy their supplies; capture their intelligence; or dominate them by controlling more territory.Thirty-One Weapons
Use over 31 kinds of pistols, melee weapons, shotguns, SMGs, assault rifles, sniper rifles, machineguns, grenade launchers, and hand grenades to kill, maim, humilate, and slaughter your opponents - with more added each release.Eight Maps
FAS includes eight professionally made maps, with settings ranging from the wintery urban landscapes of Mother Russia to the pretty island jungles of the South Pacific.Incredible Artwork
Top artists from around the Source modding community have come together to help us complete our art requirements. Weapon models by Schmung and SiD, weapon skins by Racer445 and The Expert.Professional Soundtrack
Firearms is set to the thumping tunes by musician Richard Douglas.Tried and True
Our mod has been through almost two years of internal alpha testing. We've spent countless hours murdering bugs, both in our maps and in our code, and gone over our combat model with a fine tooth comb.Dedicated Team
It means a lot to the community to know that their development team stands behind their work. Most of us have been pouring our hearts into bringing Firearms to Source since 2004, and we're all still here today, four years later. We're not going anywhere!Years of Support
Our first release won't be our last. We have tons of new weapons and maps in the works, which will be making their way to your hands on a regular basis during FAS's lifespan. Expect at least one or two new guns per month, on average.Unique and Diverse Weapons
Tired of playing with the same old M4A1 in every modern shooter? Then help us "Celebrate Diversity" by playing FAS! We have lots of new and interesting weapons we guarantee you've never heard of, like the OTs-33, Vollmer, Chang Feng, Becker Patrol, and Sako Rk.95.
FA:S Facebook Updates
Community Sites
Do you run a community site? Do you run a FAS clan? Please e-mail us and ask to have your link put here! (We'll need a decent looking 220x70 pixel image.)
FA:S 1.0e Coming Soon
Wednesday, August 25th
Hey folks, I think you will be happy to learn that 1.0e will be coming out very soon. We have just finished wrapping up the issue that causes mass amounts of ragdolls to spawn in the level upon server join. The problem came about since we moved to the Orange Box engine with its server side predicted ragdolls. Now that we have marked that off our list, we are just testing linux stability and can release 1.0e. This is where you come in! We will be hosting a Public Stress Testing event on our forums, where we give our community members the chance to check out 1.0e and stress test it on our official Linux testing server. From now on, before every release, we will be hosting public stress testing so that we can make sure the build is stable before releasing it to Server hosts and the general public. Information on the first Public Stress Test will be available on our forums. If you are wondering what makes 1.0e different from 1.0d, here is a list of features you can expect:
- Increased Weapon Accuracy
An increase in the base weapon accuracy across all weapons allows for more distant engagements. The problem before this was that most engagements were happening face to face due to the general inaccuracy of the weapons. If you fired at someone at a distance, most of your shots would miss, and those that did connect were limb shots more often than not. Increasing accuracy allows you to properly aim and take down targets with precision, and a greater influence from fire modes gives players a better reason to swap at different ranges. - Decreased Armor Absorption Levels
With the decrease in armor absorption, players are generally taken down much faster under fire but their armor lasts much longer overall. The problem before was that with full heavy, we saw quite a bit of tanking, and players simply weren't being taken down quick enough. Fire fights would often last multiple magazines. We have since dropped the absorption by half of its previous value, with more decisive and exciting firefights as a result. - New Server Options
1.0e is our last planned patch before the big 1.1 release, so we want to make sure the server admins have the tools they need to run a successful server. These new server options allow server owners to limit weapons where they see fit, restricting weapons for scrimmaging or competitive games. While we encourage all play styles in FAS, we understand that others may want to tailor the experience. - Over 60 Resolved bugs
We are fixing bugs daily, and trying to remove all critical bugs so that we can allow our player base to grow. Unfortunately, there was some oversight to how extreme a number bugs were, particularly in the case of the ragdoll issue mentioned above. In its worst form, this all but prevented players with lower end specifications from joining servers in progress. In 1.0e you will notice a much more stable game, both as the client and server.
Thanks to all of your constructive feedback on our input forums and in-game we have geared this patch to address all of the most important topics of debate within the community, and going forward we will continue to do so. With all of our weapons rebalanced, base accuracy increased, and armor absorption decreased, ranged combat has featured much more prominently on our testing servers, and multi-kills are a more common sight. We will be releasing 1.0e as a patch if you have 1.0d, as well as in the form of a full installer for those of you who are new to FAS or only tried 1.0 since our first release. For you competitive types, we have also started to put together an official league for Firearms Source that will begin after the clans become comfortable with 1.0e's new gameplay. I encourage those who originally felt that the damage values of 1.0 and 1.0d were off base to give 1.0e a shot and let us know how we are doing. We are listening to your input, and we are doing our best to bring a successful product to the table.
Thank you for supporting Firearms Source, and happy fragging.
Firearms Source Patch 1.0d Release
Sunday, August 1st
Hey guys, we noticed an error with our removal of ragdolls on map join, so we had to revert it in order for players to get a steady FPS throughout the gameplay. You will still spawn ragdolls at the beginning of the map now, but that will be the only time your computer will suffer the FPS drop. We will have a more concrete solution with our 1.1 release.
This update is both for Clients and Servers, and please make sure you download and install 1.0c BEFORE downloading and installing 1.0d.
Firearms Source Patch 1.0c Release
Saturday, July 31th
It's finally time to release 1.0c, a patch that will focuses on tackling some bugs and balancing our weapons and damages. We have also made some new design decisions, so I will lay out the major changes for you in an orderly fashion.
Design Changes
New Scoring Values
We have decided to change scoring to make promotions less frequent, while still awarding fair points. Objectives now give you 3 points, frags give you 2 points, and assists give you 1 point. Thus, promotions have been moved to every 10 points to accommodate for these changes.
Push Reinforcement Drains
Due to rushing teams often getting out gunned by the more defensive players, we wanted to reward those rushers by draining reinforcements from the opposing team based on how many forward control points they own. For each control point they grab from the middle point onward, the reinforcements are drained by 3 reinforcements every 60 seconds. So on maps like Crossfire, you will drain 6 reinforcements every 60 seconds if you own the middle and fourth control point. If you are playing on Sand and you capture the third control point, you will drain the enemies reinforcements by 3 every 60 seconds.
Rewarding Aiming
We have increased the head hitbox multiplier to 2.5 from 2 and the chest hitbox multiplier to 1.3 from 1.0. This will reward players who keep their crosshair on the enemies' head, as opposed to those who just spray as many bullets as they can at the enemy. We have also increased the accuracy bonus of semi auto weapons and burst weapons, so that you can get headshots at distances.
Those have been the major design changes in 1.0c, the rest of the changelog in detail is below. I hope you all enjoy the fixes, and those that may have been turned off from FAS, I encourage you to give it another shot with these fixes. Our next update will be a major release and that will likely happen at the beginning of the Fall, unless there are any crucial bugs that need to be fixed before then.
Changelog 1.0 to 1.0c
- Heavy weapon moving view model effect changed to a more suitable one.
- Heavy weapons with scopes can be unscoped while moving now (right click will unscope rather than going to the next zoom level on the M82 while moving)
- Hitbox damage multipliers buffed (head: 2.5x, chest: 1.3x, stomach: 1.0x, arms: 0.7x, legs: 0.5x), no longer using cvars
- Forced M24 unscope on reload
- Fixed scoped recoil modifiers
- Bleeding players will spurt blood when they go through a bleed cycle
- Push and Territorial Control areas will show in the screen overlay (just like the S&D entities do)
- Claymore damaged has been amplified - I screwed this one up right before release by accident when I was trying to chop out some unnecessary effect code that was causing spikes in net traffic. This is just the un-screwup. -cjd
- Fixed ammo caches not giving ammo
- Added randomization to the player model appearance
- Bandage key doesn't set IFAK as last weapon
- M3 reload animations should be smoother
- Interruptible M3 reload (either +attack or +attack2 will do it)
- Transition for aiming down the sight shouldn't jitter as much
- Hospice flag placement now uses Valve's progress bar code
- Added Hints for Hospice Flag deploying and upon entering an area
- Healing target HUD element now stays on the player you're healing as you're healing them
- M24 no longer takes ages to cock after shooting
- Weapons don't play the idle animation as much - this is most noticeable on the G36C
- Within the radius of a hospice flag, medics heal twice as much as they would do normally, rather than just adding 10 onto the healed HP
- AK-47 bayonet's damage now matches the Machete's, slight range buff.
- Stamina drain for sprinting reduced, low stamina penalty now waits until you're on 5% stamina rather than 15%
- Fixed instance where last player on 0 reins team disconnects and doesn't end the game
- View model bob cycle tweaked, should give off a less "floating" feel
- G36C has half the recoil when scoped now
- Drop primed grenades on death
- Added radio and voice command menus
- Added hints relating to IFAK
- Mappers: fas_game_logic_reins now checks to see if the new reins value dipped below the threshold when the previous value was above it
- fas_rein_notification entity being present on a map won't cause it to not work (aliased to fas_game_logic_reins for backwards compat).
- You can change the alpha of the objective/player icon overlay (cl_overlay_icons_alpha, value is between 0 and 1)
- If you change the maximum distance of the obj/player overlay to a value < 0, icons will not fade out at distance (cl_overlay_fade_distance)
- Pressing your jump key while prone will make you unprone (same as when you press the normal prone key)
- You can no longer prone in mid-air
- Client-side ragdolls will only spawn after the player has joined the game and started playing, this should prevent ragdolls from spawning immediately when a player joins the server causing severe lag.
- Added client-side dynamic lighting to NVG's to simulate light amplification in the world. Can be turned off if FPS is an issue (cl_nvg_dlight)
- Changed tracer effect on the machine guns to use a red particle tracer instead of the old yellow non-particle version
- Improved semi-automatic assault rifle accuracy, bullet cone is 75% - down from 90%
- Improved semi-automatic SMG accuracy, bullet cone is 85% - down from 95%
- Improved burst fire on SMGs and ARs to 90% original cone.
- Increase assault rifle recoil
- Better player hitboxes on model
- M82 recoil increased, rate of fire decreased (you have to wait longer for the weapon to re-fire)
- You now start bleeding after taking 30 damage rather than 20
- You can no longer jump while deployed
- Fixed exploits on Iwojima and Dragovo
- Brightened darker maps and pitch black areas
- Added proper control point entity for HUD flag placement
- Lowered damages of high ROF weapons
INX Gaming 50% Off FAS Servers
Saturday, July 24th
Looking for Europe based servers? Don't have a whole lot of cash in your wallet? Worry no more! INX Gaming is giving away their servers at 50% off! All you have to do is enter the word FIREARMS in the order form. This deal is good for ALL server sizes, and will make their Basic package, a 10 slot server, only 3 pounds!
They have servers in UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, Portgual, France, and Italy. So order your European Server while this offer lasts!
Linux Server Patch 1.0b
Saturday, July 24th
As the day begins to wind down, I am glad to see servers still full and people enjoying the game. Please feel free to report bugs and feedback on our forums. Within the next week we will be working on some of the major crashes and bugs that we would like to take care of before we begin to put our heads back down and focus on 1.1. With that being said, here is the Linux build I promised you all that has the crash fix for large capacity servers.
Keep fragging and feel free to join us on irc at #firearms-source @ irc.gamesurge.net.
Windows Server Patch 1.0b
Friday, July 23nd
Thanks to the persistant and determined work of SteveUK, we were able to crush the Server Crash that was causing servers to go down when the servers reached a certain player limit. Unfortunately, we only have the Windows server fixed at the moment, and have been unable to build the linux server at this time. If you run a windows server, the fix is in the download below. If you run a Linux server, we will have the fix up later tonight. Thank you for your patience.
We hope that you take this as an example of our dedication to our modification, and realize we plan to continue to support this modification in a similar manner. Some problems will be more complicated than others, but you can be sure that we are doing our best to make Firearms Source an enjoyable experience for all users. If you run a Linux server, please come back later tonight.
Expected Instablity
Friday, July 23nd
Hey guys, I hope you are enjoying your Firearms Source fragging! However, you will notice that once you get around half way through the game, you will be disconnected from the server. This is a server crash, and unfortunately they seem quite frequent. I assure you all that we are working on this and hope to remedy this issue this weekend. If you are operate a server and are experiencing crashes or any other instability, please report it in our Bug Reports forum. We appreciate any and all feedback. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Happy Fraggin,
Dan
Firearms Source 1.0 Released!
Friday, July 23nd
Clients (Players): Go to our downloads page and download either the executable if you like to have an installer do the work for you, or if you are an advanced user, you can choose to download the ZIP and install it yourself.
Servers: Go to our downloads page and download the FAS Server 1.0, if you haven't already. However, if you have, all you need to download is the FAS Server 1.0a Patch.
So report in Freshmeat! Now's the time you choose your arsenal and get ready for battle.
Server Builds, Reviews, and a Trailer!
Thursday, July 22nd
Hi Folks, we finally have hit our first release. People who plan to host dedicated servers for Firearms Source can now begin to set up them up in anticipation for release day. Just got to our Downloads page and you can download Server build of Firearms Source 1.0 which will include everything except the client.dll. So upon release of the client, we will have a Server patch that includes any server fixes and the client.dll which is needed to allow players on the server.
If you are a die hard community member, or someone who is on the fence, please take a look at the game reviews that Planet Half-Life's Eulogy wrote, as well as HalfLife2.net's Hectic Glenn. Both were recently published, allowing you to see exclusive media as well as learn about the dynamics of Firearms Source that make the game stand above all others. On Planet Half-Life you can also read an interview given by Eulogy, which includes thoughts and opinions about the development from multiple developers of Firearms Source. And if that is not enough, check out our new Gameplay Trailer below.
If you have any questions about setting up a Server for Firearms Source, please post your query in our Server forum. You can get help from the community, as well as Firearms Source developers. If you are also looking for hosting, Nuclear Fallout has sponsored and hosted the Firearms Source official testing server as well as our Ventrilo server.