2015
01.29

1,000,000 Map Downloads

Having just hit the milestone of serving 1,000,000 maps via HAC’s in-game downloader and serving well over 100,000 maps/month, it seems like a fitting time for a rundown of the most popular maps.

  1. Bigass v2,104
  2. Coldsnap
  3. Ambush
  4. Yoyorast Island
  5. Delta Ruins
  6. H2 Ascension
  7. Hugeass
  8. H3 Bloodgulch* (see note)
  9. CMT Snow Grove
  10. Extinction
  11. Immure
  12. ZTeam’s Sanctuary H2 PB2
  13. [HSP] The Pit
  14. H3 Valhalla
  15. H3 Foundry
  16. Corrupted
  17. Helix Canyon
  18. Garden CE
  19. The Floods
  20. Haloball

*Bigass v2,072 is ranked #8 if you included maps which have had multiple test versions released.

2014
11.10

Halo 3 & 4 Medals Update

The Halo 4 medal pack has had slight adjustments to its animations and the audio files have been replaced with the high-quality originals rather than lower quality recordings than were previously used.

The Halo 3 medal pack received a small change to its script to correct an oversight (perfection can no longer be attained after a suicide or a betrayal) and a single sound file replacement.

You can download the Halo 4 medal pack here and the Halo 3 pack here. See this post if you need instructions on installing the packs.

2014
10.29

HAC 2.2.0.6 Update

  • Increased the default number of visible objects from 256 to 1024.
  • Added a command, visible_objects <number>‘, that can be used to control the number of objects drawn. Most users will have no need for this command.

Thanks to 002 for gathering the information required for this change.

2014
09.15

HAC 2.2.0.5 Update

  • Fixed a custom chat issue that could cause the game to crash when using alt + tab.
2014
08.04

HAC 2.2.0.4 Update

  • Fixed a medals related bug some users were experiencing that would cause the game’s process to remain open after exiting.
  • Fixed a custom chat rendering issue on Vista.
  • Fixed a small typo that causes the Halo Reach medals script to fail when awarded the ‘Unfriggenbelievable’ medal. Download the updated script here.
2014
07.27

HAC 2.2.0.3 Update

Just a minor update to redirect all 1.09 clients (update to 1.10 already) to the new master server now that Gamespy has pulled the plug.

2014
06.01

HAC 2.2.0.2 Update

Changes:

  • Fixed an OpenSauce compatibility issue that crashed the game on launch.
  • Fixed a bug with 1.10 where the draw distance wasn’t automatically being increased for certain custom maps.

For those using WINE, if you could post your distro and whether you’re using HPC or HCE in the comments, that’d be helpful.

2014
05.28

Fixes:

  • Windows XP users will now be able to see the custom chat, although it’ll use an installed typeface rather than the featured one.  This bug is caused by Windows XP itself and there isn’t a suitable workaround (apart from getting a newer OS), although you’ll be able to select your own typeface at some point in the future.
  • Some maps could cause the game to crash after downloading. This was a regression (plain English: it worked, then I broke it) introduced in the January update.
  • Forgetting to use an option (0/1/true/false) with custom_chat will no longer cause a crash.

Additions:

  • Medals.

Medals:

 

This update introduces a Lua scriptable medal system. To get the ball rolling, I’ve provided three example medal packs (click to download); Halo 3, Halo Reach and Halo 4. To install a medal pack, simply download it to your HAC folder under the ‘packs’ directory (create it if it doesn’t exist) but do not extract it. For example:

Halo PC: C:\Users\Your_Username\Documents\My Games\Halo\hac\packs
Halo CE: C:\Users\Your_Username\Documents\My Games\Halo CE\hac\packs

If we installed the Halo Reach pack to our CE HAC folder, it’d look like this:

C:\Users\Your_Username\Documents\My Games\Halo CE\hac\packs\haloreach.zip

You can then use the following commands:

  • optic – display all available medal packs.
  • optic load <pack name> – load a medal pack. For example, optic load halo4.
  • optic unload - stop the medal system. You do not need to use unload to simply load another pack.

The optic load command only needs to be used once. HAC will remember your preference for the next time you start the game.

Creating your own medal packs:

Although you’re welcome to open the provided medal packs to see how I’ve done things, documentation will be forthcoming (next week, ideally).

Troubleshooting:

If you encounter any problems with using Optic, please see the troubleshooting page.

Enjoy!

2014
05.21

HAC 2.1.3.2 Update

Changes:

  • HAC and OpenSauce are once again compatible.
  • Fixed an error that could prevent custom_chat 1 from working (“Unable to load font!”).
  • Fixed a HUD issue where the game type icon wasn’t being scaled correctly on extremely wide resolutions.
  • Added a new command, font_size, that can be used to control the custom chat size. Example: font_size 30.

Known issues:

  • HAC no longer loads on WINE. I’m still looking into this.
  • Corrupt chat text on low-end graphics hardware. May not be able to solve this without access to a machine experiencing the problem.
2014
05.19

HAC 2.1.3.1 Update

Changes:

  • Fixed a bug in HAC’s crash handler that was causing some crashes to be falsely attributed to HAC.
  • Added more detailed error feedback for the custom_chat 1 command.
  • Fixed a bug that could potentially cause a crash when launching/maximising the game.

Compatibility notes:

  • OpenSauce and HAC 2 are currently incompatible. A solution is being worked on, so hold tight.
  • Optic may have compatibility issues on some systems. A solution is being worked on.
  • Halo Chat V2 won’t work if custom_chat 1 is being used (and vice versa). This isn’t considered to be a bug, so there are no plans to fix this.