New features
Host larger multiplayer games
Multiplayer lobbies now support up to 128 players, with up to 127 players on a dedicated server. Campaign keeps its 16-player limit. All players need a compatible client version. Large-game rosters, scoreboards and statistics support the expanded player count. The engine's network memory pool has twice the room of the 64-player release to accommodate larger sessions.
Turn off game chat or voice chat
Settings → Audio has two new switches, both on by default. Game chat off closes text chat in the lobby and in games, clears its history and hides incoming lines, server messages included. Voice chat off stops your microphone and the voices of other players. Both apply with Apply changes and affect only your own game, even when you host.
Move Forge objects to typed coordinates
The Forge menu's Properties tab now shows where the object stands as Position X, Y and Z. Type new coordinates (or nudge the focused one with Left/Right), then press Enter or select Move to put the object exactly there, turned as it is. A held object is let go of and lands on them; frozen objects move too. Here fills in where it stands now. It works for the host and for players who joined, and Ctrl+Z undoes it.
Forge selection distance and focus outlines
Adjust Select distance in Forge's Tools tab to choose how far away you can target objects. A white outline marks the object the grab or select button will act on. Your distance preference is saved between sessions.
Matchmaking variants and your MCC saves in Host Game
Host Game now lists the map and game variants of Halo 3's matchmaking playlists that come with MCC, marked MATCHMAKING: hundreds of community Forge maps such as Chimera, Actuality-Break and Cryptic Fate (pick their base map, such as Sandbox or Foundry, under Map) and the matchmaking game types under Game Type.
The .mvar maps and .bin game types you saved in MCC itself, or downloaded from its file share, are listed too, marked MCC: there is no need to copy them into the Maps or Game Modes folder any more. Click Refresh in either selector after saving new ones in MCC.
Minimum players for dedicated servers
Dedicated servers can wait in the lobby until enough players have joined: set min_players in [defaults] or for one server (1 through max_players, default 1), or RECLAIMER_DEDICATED_MIN_PLAYERS in Docker. Until then no vote or automatic start begins, and a countdown stops if players leave. Split-screen players count, and games already under way carry on.
Sprint in custom games and playlists
Hosts can turn sprint on under Edit Game Options → World & Forge → Sprint: Unlimited, or Stamina, each with its own speed (150% unless changed) and, with stamina, how long a full meter lasts (5 seconds unless changed). Hold Left Shift while running forward to sprint; on a controller, click the left stick while running (a click while standing still still crouches). Firing, melee, grenades, equipment and crouching stop a sprint. Sprinting players lower their weapon, in first person and for everyone watching. A continuous bar above the radar shows the stamina left and fades once it is full. Sprint is off by default, including for each playlist entry. Playlist games choose their sprint with the new Sprint choice in the playlist editor, or with "world": { "sprint": "stamina" } in a playlist file.
Team voice chat
Hold B to talk only to your teammates, while V still talks to everyone. With Settings → Audio → Talk mode set to Toggle, press either key once to start talking and again to stop; pressing the other key switches who hears you. Team voice works only in team games, and never falls back to everyone. Change the key under Settings → Keyboard & mouse, or give it a button under Settings → Controller (it has none by default).
Compressed voice chat
Voice chat now sends compressed audio: about 16 kbit/s per player talking instead of 256 kbit/s, so it is far lighter on everyone's connection, and on servers where many players talk at once.
Nothing changes for players: hold V (or your rebound key) to talk, and Settings → Audio → Voice chat volume and Microphone work as before.
Thanks to Maximumgame for adding the compression.
Changes
-
Choose a mod's campaign from a dropdown. The Campaign page's title row now has a single campaign dropdown instead of a tab per campaign. It shows the campaign on the page; click it to open a list of Halo 3 and every campaign your mods add, each with its art, mission count and how many missions you finished. The list scrolls when you have more campaigns than fit, so none hide behind a MORE tab anymore. The co-op lobby's Select Mission page has the same dropdown.
-
Use equipment's default key is now Z. Left Shift sprints in games with sprint. Players who chose their own equipment key keep it; change it in Settings → Keyboard & mouse.
-
Keep large games readable in listings, statistics and scoreboards. Server listings and match statistics can represent games of up to 128 players. Joining still requires a compatible client and server. Crowded scoreboards can spread across up to four columns, with narrow columns prioritizing the score so player names have more room.
-
Everyone in a game needs 0.9.6. Servers admit only players on exactly their own version, so players and servers on 0.9.6 can't play with those on 0.9.5 or older. The server browser's Version column shows a server on another version in red, and a refused join says which side needs to update. Update dedicated servers and players together.
-
Use Steam subscriptions for Workshop mods. With Settings → Mods → Prefer Steam Workshop enabled, downloading a missing Workshop mod subscribes to it so Steam keeps it updated. Matching mods in MCC's Steam library are used directly, without another copy in the Downloaded folder.
All files a server requires are verified after launcher updates and before joining, including shared caches and metadata. Missing or mismatched files block joining; if Steam changes files during verification, try again once the update finishes.
Bug fixes
-
Busy servers no longer drop every player at once. On servers with many players, players joining (often several close together) could make the server drop everyone in the same moment, each seeing "The host left the game". Big games' messages now fit, with room to spare for 128 players.
Servers and players need this version to play together: older games can't join a server running it, and it can't join older servers.
-
Campaign with your own Spartans and Elites no longer turns objects black. With Your Spartans & Elites chosen, some of a mission's objects could draw black, and the frame rate dropped while they were in view. Every armor piece has to be loaded for your characters, which left the game too little memory for the mission's own textures. The game now sets aside twice as much memory for maps, so the mission's textures fit beside the armor.
The armor's high-resolution textures were also read from the wrong part of the game's files. They are now read from their own.
-
Saved Forge maps on Workshop maps can be picked in Host Game again. Picking a saved Forge map made on a Workshop map could fail in Host Game while servers played it fine:
- A map that uses objects from other maps, as maps saved on Workshop maps before 0.9.3 can, was refused in Forge with "This map uses objects that are not installed", although they were. It now opens in Forge with those objects.
- A map saved while the Workshop map had another map number, such as one saved while playing on someone else's server, went straight back to the previous map with "Custom map GUID does not match the installed base map". It now plays on your copy of the map.
-
Expanded Forge maps load reliably. Expanded Forge maps could fail to load partway through a game, when the game opened their map files again.
-
Forge teleport coordinates are back at the top of the Map tab. In 0.9.5 the Map tab's new rows (sky height, gravity, look, exposure and fog) pushed the monitor's position and the X, Y and Z teleport fields out of sight below them, so they looked removed. They are first in the Map tab again, and its scroll bar now shows when there is more below.
-
Forge monitors can fly through walls again. The host's Tools > Fly through walls switch now lets monitors pass through walls, floors and objects. Switching it off restores normal collision for every editor.
-
Less network traffic on maps with weapons and vehicles. Servers sent every player the whole map's object settings several times a second whenever a weapon was picked up or a vehicle respawned. They now send them when a setting changes and when a player joins, so busy servers use far less of their upload.
-
Grab and move Forge spawn points again. Fixed spawn points refusing to be grabbed or moved in Forge, including markers already on the map and newly placed ones.
-
Weapons, skies and friendly markers in large games. In crowded games, your weapon and arms could disappear and the sky could glitch as more players came into view. The game now has room to draw these alongside the players. Friendly player markers also have room for a full 128-player game, so teammates no longer lose their markers just because the small shared marker list filled up. These problems could already occur in games with around 60 players.
-
Votes to end the round or the game work on players' own servers. On a server hosted from a player's game, a passed vote to end the round or the game was announced but the game went on. It now ends, as on dedicated servers.
-
Joining a Workshop map game on the same PC. Joining a game hosted on the same PC on a large Workshop map could time out after two seconds. The join now waits until the map is ready.
-
Ranked results in large games. Ranked free-for-all games with more than 64 players now save their results and update every player's skill. Large team games in which many players leave early keep their results too, and skill in large free-for-all games now follows the finishing order.
-
Servers no longer freeze between games. A server with split-screen players could stop between two games: no vote opened, nobody could join and everyone was stuck until it was restarted. It keeps running now, and a server that does stop answering restarts itself after five minutes as intended.
-
Lobbies keep responding when split-screen players join. A split-screen player's appearance update could freeze the host's lobby and eventually disconnect the other players. The lobby now keeps responding while those updates arrive.
-
Sharper game image with Windows display scaling. Fixed Windows display scaling making the game look pixelated or blurry at settings such as 125%, 150%, or 200%.
Install
The game client requires Halo: The Master Chief Collection with Halo 3 installed; no game files are included.
Double-click project-reclaimer-v0.9.6.exe to start the game. It finds Halo 3 in any Steam library and opens without a console window; its log is Documents\My Games\Project Reclaimer\Logs\client.log.
For remote server administration, double-click reclaimer-rcon-v0.9.6.exe, enter the host, RCON port and password, and connect. The RCON client needs no game installation. See the attached RCON.md for setup and commands.