A new version of Project Wingman is now live on the beta-branch!
Join the beta branch on Steam to participate in the beta testing of this version!
How ya doing? It’s been a while since we’ve put together an update, so let’s just get right to it.
It’s been three years since Project Wingman was released, and we are by no means done with it. So here’s what’s been going on:
After a work sabbatical to far-off skies, the dev team is now back home to roost. We’re returning to Project Wingman and its base experience, as available broadly to everyone who enjoys Project Wingman. We’re releasing an opt-in Beta update today on Steam for PC with a lot of underlying changes we’ve learned in the time since release, as well as general fixes and improvements that we’ve stored up for a while, perhaps the most notable of this is our new cloud system, which fixes some complaints that we’ve had with our original implementation that caused graphic artifacting and bugs, while also adding a certain amount of reactivity to certain… calamitous events. As of now then, Project Wingman is now in what we consider a 2.0 state; we’ve passed some internal milestones that have put us past what we would consider other, incremental versions like 1.5 (we add a .1 after adding a major feature under the hood or something tangible to the player), and this is just where we’ve landed:
The game’s rendering system has been totally redone, with new lighting effects and new VFX across the board such as new flares and smoke trails. These changes and fixes are gonna let us start working on Project Wingman as a continuing effort, while also allowing us to experiment, either under the hood or behind the scenes, for other projects. The game is going to look and run better and smoother than it has before.
As for why we’re opting for a beta test first, we’d like to test it out with a larger testing base than our internal roster before pushing it out generally to make sure we’re not taking steps backward or blocking out people who could previously play the game. In an upcoming beta update soon after this initial one, we’ll also be adding XeSS, FSR, and DLSS options as well.
As far as what this continuing effort will look like content-wise for PW:
We will be revamping the Conquest Gamemode and the Mercenary difficulty mode to what we consider a 2.0 state. For Conquest we will be investigating and taking time to fully form it from less of a horde mode island hopping slog to something more thought out; the introduction of a meaningful “perk” or part system allowing for more arcadey or powerful gameplay and making it less about unit spam and instead higher difficulty enemies at higher levels, along with balance changes. We believe that within Conquest is a rather interesting take on a rougelite or bullet heaven, and we hope to give it some time for it to bear fruit and come into its own.
As for Mercenary mode’s 2.0. It’s inherently going to be a completely ridiculous difficulty. As of now, the Merc mode is, for most missions, a flat difficulty increase with the AI and not much else unless you manually apply modifiers. We intend to complete a Merc mode version of every mission to create a true Mercenary playthrough, based on the assumption that the player is in the Project Wingman Mark I (otherwise good luck). New units spawning, harder AI, and some surprises that we hope will bring you to the very limits of this anime-esque action that Project Wingman sometimes dips into. Add on top of this the integration of some more difficulty and gameplay modifiers and I’m sure you’ll find a new way to throw back into the game (and subsequently have the game throw stuff back at you).
Another element of our renewed focus is going to be a return to the stars of the show: The planes.
We’re overdue some new inclusions to the lineup, and I’m sure Prez will be happy to get some new metal in the hanger and perhaps a second seat to fill in, so expect some new planes from time to time.
Along the way, we intend to open up Project Wingman to a more streamlined, accessible pathway to integrating UGC, user-generated content, if the player wishes to do so, with our attention falling first on user-made skins and paintjobs for aircraft, and then open slots for entirely custom aircraft instead of replacements as it is now for some pre-existing mods. UGC and our accommodation of them will be highly variable based on what we can actually do, but we are making efforts to fulfill our internal wishlist of things in regards to UGC such as Steam Workshop integration and having early prototypes of a mission editor running. No promises, but we’d like to state these things just because we too are still gamers and that UGC is always neat to see worked on.
Project Wingman is continuing, but I’d like to make a few things clear to that effect. Project Wingman is not a game as a service or a living thing; when the dev team set out to create Project Wingman in the mid-2010s, we had a pretty concrete vision of its scope, and that was as a game like in yesteryear and the expectations thereof. We wanted to make a game that could be released, that did not need any particular tweaking or further development because in itself was a simple, Point A to Point B experience that grew out of our love of a genre that, at the time, seemed unattended. Me (FlyAwayNow), and RB-D2, and Jose could leave Project Wingman at any time forever, and if it lay there as it is, it would still be a game we’d be proud of. Not a perfect game, of course, but one that we know is fun and dramatic and cheesy and all the things that are the bread and butter of its genre.
Now obviously we’re not gonna leave it as it lay, because we do live in a time where we are able to keep working on Project Wingman, a great base that we are familiar with and people still very much enjoy and would love to see expanded on, but we just ask for some patience in return, and we apologize for the last few years of silence on our end as we were concentrated on other efforts and the results of the original release.
Within PW, work is being done, and we’ll let you in on the Deal as soon as we can.
We’re glad you’re with us on this project, wingman!
Full Patchnotes;
PROJECT WINGMAN 1.0.4D -> 2.0.11 CHANGELOG
WEAPONS:
-UGB-L blast radius doubled from 90m -> 180m.
-UGB-L ammo count doubled.
-UGB-S blast radius doubled from 45m -> 90m.
-GBS blast radius doubled from 45m -> 90m.
-CBU16 blast radius doubled from 45m -> 90m.
-BML-U projectile count has been reduced by 1 (this was not a balance decision this was a bug)
-BML-U should now launch correctily with the orientation of the player aircraft.
-Railgun rounds now penetrate through most objects.
-Bombs now have a 10m activation detection radius.
-Bomb behavior has been significantly altered.
-Reworked bomb drop behavior.
-Gunpods are now classified as a dumbfire multi purpose weapon in the weapon selection screen.
-ASM is now classified as a multi-purpose weapon in the weapon selection screen.
-Fixed an issue where bombs would occasionally spawn misaligned to their hardpoint.
-Fixed an issue where missile and bomb racks would appear in virtual HUD view.
GAMEPLAY:
-Added Camera Padlock tracking speed switch. Users can now switch between a faster camera speed or the standard camera speed the game shipped with when holding the targetting button to track an enemy.
-Adjusted the interpolation speed post AoA maneouver in "unlocked" camera mode. Should result in a smoother transition after the maneouver.
-Significantly increased combat effectiveness of both Diplomat/Hitman 2 and Comic/Hitman 3
-Player death sequence has been updated.
-Added controller force feedback when in clouds.
-Slightly adjusted afterburner force feedback effects.
-Added NEXT indicator for the next targettable unit in the target list sequence.
-Reduced the update rate of target list so it can select new targets more often rather than going back and forth between 2 targets.
-Slightly adjusted where "center" is for the next target system. It should now more reliably target what's currently the perceived center of the screen. (Which is actually slightly lower than true center of the screen.)
RENDERING:
Clouds 2.0
-The cloud and sky system has been completely overhauled! Allowing us to have much more control over the artistic direction of the skyscape and drive our skies further. It's still a largely work in progress so feedback is appreciated!
-Added an additional cloud resolution setting labelled [EXTREME] resolution. (Caution, potentially slow on some machines)
-Cloud resolution setting has been slightly overhauled. The following settings now correspond to the following resolution. Due to the change of the default scaling, you may notice a reduction in performance due to the setting going up a tier.
-Low
-High
-Very High
-Extreme
-Adjusted overall brightness of the game.
VISUAL FX:
-Adjusted rain opacity on the canopy. Greatly improving visibility in cockpit view while its raining.
-Improved snow weather effects.
-Improved missile smoke particle effects.
-Improved aircraft destruction smoke particle effects.
-Adjusted and optimized several explosion particle effects.
-Debris mesh has been fixed for both Airships and Air units.
-Debris particle orientation for airships has been fixed.
-Particle orientation for gun impacts now align correctly.
-Improved water splash particles.
-Added a special afterburner category for the VX-23 which conforms with the nozzle shape of the VX-23.
-Fixed F/C-16 engine size smaller than the nozzle opening.
-Gun firing smoke no longer appears in virtual cockpit.
-Afterburners no longer appear in virtual cockpit.
-Landing gears no longer appear in virtual cockpit.
-Lightning strikes now should consistently appear under cloud cover.
-Gun impacts now should work properlty when hitting ship hull and airship hull.
-Railgun and railgun trails now emit light.
-Improved rain particles.
-PW-Mk.I Monarch uses no longer have mini cordium inerter built into the engine.
-Adjusted gun impact particles.
-Reduced falling wreckage material glow.
-Adjusted rain effects on player aircraft.
-Adjusted default values of lightning spawners.
-Adjusted lightning particles to have supporting lightning step leader.
-Improved Countermeasure flare VFX and behavior.
-Transport/AWACS now can use flares as a visual effect. Although just like regular fighters, it's only there as visual flair(heh).
-Aircraft destruction effects has been slightly adjusted.
-Aircraft destruction effects now has a more gradual onset.
-Improved ships fire effects.
-Adjusted ship sinking rate upon destruction.
-Improved aircraft fire effects.
-Fixed an issue where weapon racks would receive decals.
-Fixed an issue where Motion Blur would occasionally distort during world origin shift.
-Fixed an issue with EUFB particle orientation when viewed from above.
-Fixed an issue with the Cordium explosion in Mission 1 being see through.
-Improved radar visibility.
-Missile smoke no longer follows head rotation.
VIRTUAL REALITY:
-Separated video settings between when the user plays in VR or on regular screen. Saving the settings depending which display option is used.
-Rain canopy effects has been slightly reduced in VR for improved visibilty.
-VR now defaults to Round Robin occlusion.
-Subtitles in VR now only rotate on one axis instead of second. This will prevent users from constantly "chasing" the UI element they want to see.
-Subtitles now adjust to size with the HUD size options in the Interface settings.
UI:
MENU INPUT OVERHAUL
-Menu input has been overhauled. A new set of "Menu" bindings has been added to the game and should provide a much more tactile and responsive menu interactions.
-Gamepad mouse style navigation has been permanently disabled.
-Upon startup, the game will reinitialize several default menu bindings. It shouldn't conflict with any of your other bindings.
-Fixed an issue where certain aspect ratio would fail to display the Debrief screen properly.
-Fixed an issue where certain aspect ratio would fail to display the Briefing screen properly.
-Added reconnaisance data to the hangar screen for better loadout decision making incentive.
-Added an indicator whether an aircraft has a WSO available or not.
-Legacy UI element sizes made more consistent with the New UI element sizes.
-Legacy UI now should scale correctly depending on the UI scale setting.
-More elements in Legacy UI now uses the screen space projection as opposed to the world space projection which now includes
-Gun reticle
-Horizon Indicator
-Velocity Indicator
-Cockpit UI
-Files/Codex primary info section font has been changed for something more readable in general.
-Mission images has been added to the mission select screen.
-Bomb prediction widget now turns red when it detects a target.
-Fixed an issue where lock on elements will get stuck on screen upon firing missiles.
-Lock on indicator size is now much more consistent with the target size UI element.
-Made UI transitions much more consistent with the rest of the game.
CAMPAIGN LEVEL ADJUSTMENTS:
FRONTIERS:
-Adjusted weather sequence.
-Adjusted level lighting.
-Fixed an issue where a skin is applied incorrectly to some aircraft in the level.
HOMESTEAD:
-Fixed landscape casting oddly lit lighting.
UPHILL:
-Landscape has been overhauled to use a new experimental workflow.
SIRENS OF DEFEAT:
-Fixed an issue where the environment would have inconsistent lighting between Low and High Post Processing setting.
EMINENT DOMAIN:
-Fixed cloud illumination under cloud cover.
CLEAR SKIES
-Adjusted cloud sequence.
-Adjusted level lighting.
-Reduced the brightness of the landscape.
-Landscape layering has been adjusted.
PILLARS OF COMMUNICATIONS
-Landscape layering has been adjusted.
COLD WAR:
-Fixed cloud illumination under cloud cover.
MIDNIGHT LIGHT:
-Adjusted cloud sequence.
-Adjusted moon appearance.
WAYBACK:
-Galaxy no longer follows you since it's not consistent with the dialog he says. Now he flies directly to Rowsdower.
NO RESPITE:
-Greatly increased ground visibility by reducing contrast and increasing sun intensity.
RED SEA:
-Adjusted overall mood to be closer to a twilight sunset.
-Adjusted the speed of the friendly and enemy vessels in the area to emphasize the chaotic and desperate nature of the engagement.
-Adjusted player spawn position.
-Adjusted lighting.
-Fixed an issue where mission would end earlier than intended because airships would not be included in the target pool.
TRACKIR:
-Added TrackIR support. (Thank you Nicholas Chalkley!)
CONQUEST:
-Reunified Conquest implementation with the main game. Now it's no longer a separate instance.
-Fixed a critical issue where modifiers would not load when continuing a save file.
-Fixed a critical issue where airships would occasionally fly outside the map boundaries.
-Fixed an issue where player skin doesn't load upon loading a game.
-Fixed an issue where bloom would display incorrect values during Conquest runs.
ADDITIONAL FIXES:
-Updated Credits Text.
-Fixed a coordinate mismatch for Presidia.
-Fixed an issue where not having the window on focus upon startup would crash the game.
-Fixed an issue where the intro sequence would not skip properly causing rare cases where the player stays on a black screen.
-Fixed a location mismatch for Briggs range in the briefing for mission Clear Skies.
-Fixed lava field glow showing through clouds on some levels.
-Restored Vibration/Force Feedback on Afterburner input from early demos.
-Fixed an issue where colliding with turrets or ground units defies laws of physics and stops the aircraft on the spot. Player aircraft will now correctly destroy itself as nature intended.
-Fixed an issue where Ship units do not report their velocity to attached units thus throwing off missile and gun prediction paths.
-Adjusted the amount of time airship destruction cracks to appear.
-Airships will now crash into the landscape in a more graceful manner.
-Fixed an issue where airship smokes do not align with the falling trajectory.
-Fixed an issue where cloud shadows on some level do not dissapear.
-Reduced the amount of cloud flicker in VR. However the issue is not fully fixed yet.
-Increased the brightness and frequency of building signal lights.
-Cannon projectile hit radius now compensate to see whether the object is destroyed or not. Doing a strafe run now should no longer result in bullets being "caught" on already destroyed objects due to their hitbox. That being said, it is only a hitbox reduction so it still will hit if the projectile is close enough.
-Adjusted Hangar camera field of view.
-Adjusted nozzle material in the hangar screen.
-Fixed an issue where some landing gear models are still visible despite the gear being extended.
-Fixed an issue where a highway element would not have its collision properties applied.
-Missiles no longer phase through airships when the airship is destroyed.
-Improved NPC Carrier textures.
-Various particles and sound effects should now correctly die out when the player dies.
-Slightly improved cockpit visibility during rain.
-Fixed F/C-15 misaligned flaps.
-Telemetry check interface should correctly fade out in the game settings page.
-Fixed an issue where hangar models would sometimes use a higher LOD on lower settings.
-Disabled Screen Space Reflections due to HUD occasionally being reflected in SSR.
-Adjusted "blue" HUD color for better visibility.
-Fixed audio concurrency issues where music and UI elements wouldn't play properly.
-Motion blur should no longer activate while changing camera.
-Fixed an issue where certain weapons would fly sideways from the hardpoint.
-Adjusted Cockpit HUD bloom intensity.
-Adjusted Velocity HUD bloom intensity.
-Adjusted Horizon HUD bloom intensity.
-Adjusted Enemey Indicator HUD bloom intensity.
-Increased the volume of Lock on sounds.
-Fixed an issue where crawling text would occasionally flash the completed state.
-Fixed an issue where crawling text would fall back with the timings of the text fade in and fade outs.
-Smoothed out mouse controll rolls.
-Smoothed out AI aircraft rolls. Should prevent wobbles while fighting the player.
-Dialog sequence should no longer interrupt each other when a new sequence is starting.
-Adjusted pitch ladder behavior.
-Cockpit HUD altitude and speed notches should now correspond to the correct selected measurement values.
-Overhauled weapon selection appearance in cockpit mode.
-Removed random "turbulence" in mouse flight and in AI flight. Made it look glitchy rather than aerodynamic.
-Fixed an issue where some thunder sounds ignored volume sliders
-Fixed several instances where the pilot models were clipping into the instrument panels.
-Fixed shadow banding on the player missile lights.
-Improved sharpness of cockpit instruments.
-Reduced the brightness of MFDs to not take focus away from gameplay UI.
-Reduced the brightness of some colored instrument panels to not take focus away from gameplay UI.
-Fixed an issue where Airships do not properly loop their waypoints.
-Fixed an issue where railgun circular booms do not appear on lower settings.
-Generally improved visibility at high altitudes.
-Reduced altitude limit to 10000m
-Optimized various shaders that had a high cost.
-Optimized various particles that had a high transluscency cost.
-Optimized various UI elements overdraw.
-Removed any unecessary GPU calculations for some particles.
-Switched over the overall post processing tonemapper to use a film tonemapper.
-Fixed an issue where players can "speedrun" the game by pressing the SKIP button during end of mission sequences.
-The player now may only unpause the game using the main pause key in the main pause menu.
-Fixed an issue where the Railgun particles would detach itself from it's parent too quickly causing shifts in its appearance during origin rebasing.
-Adjusted button colors in Telemetry Check.
-Enabled Temporal Anti Aliasing for higher Anti Aliasing settings. (You can still use FXAA via Anti Aliasing Low)
-Improved the appearance of shadows on lower settings.
-Significantly improved targeting systems.
-Mouse cursor will no longer center itself upon the start of the game.
-Fixed strange loading behavior where sometimes audio would play before loading is finished.
-Fixed Kings fade screen sometimes not reaching full whiteout stage before fading out.
-Improved several water related particle effects.
-Fixed an issue where hangar actor would occasionally dissapear when viewed at certain angles.
-Flares are now disabled while landing gear is out.
-You can now change angle of the VR hangar by pressing the change camera button.
-Increased the render resolution of VR cutscenes.
-Adjusted camera sway configuration.
-Updated english localization to reduce the amount of typos present in the game.
-Fixed a few scaling issues with the primary UI in the game.
-Fixed an issue where the user can perform actions while the game is paused in VR.
-Fixed a green dot appearing in several menus in VR (leftover from Gaze menu controller)
-Fixed an issue where Conquest items would appear outside of the map..
-Fixed debriefing UI from crawling over towards the score screen.
-Fixed an issue where HUD appears before the completion of a startup sequence.
-Fixed mission completion state not turning green once mission is completed at a specific difficulty.
-Fixed debriefing text from crawling over to the score card.
-Fixed an issue where conquest UI was still ticking even when not focused.
-Fixed an issue where interface setting do not reflect the new settings when the default key is pressed.
-Fixed an issue where ground and air assets appear outside of map boundaries.
-Fixed an issue where conquest modifiers do not appear as a list in Conquest.
-Fixed an issue where hangar is still selecting aircraft via an invisible cursor in VR.
-Highlighted Decline by default for the Data Processing screen.
-Fixed an issue where aircraft pitching at -90 or 90 degrees would completely break the camera and force it onto a gimbal lock.
-Brought CQ_Vineyard map to parity with the new ENV_Vineyard material in M04.
-Removed all holes in CQ_SteppingStones
-Fixed CQ_PGF altitude not adjusting properly to the new origin rebasing system.
-Brought CQ_Coul_1 map to parity with the new ENV_Vineyard material in M04.
-Potentially fixed an issue where dev mode and shipping dialog would differ in execution by interrupting each other.
-Fixed broken subtitles.
-Fixed several typos in Mission 21.
-Several QA localization corrections.
-Fixed an issue where you could override the number of CQ allies.
-Fixed an issue where enemy units could spawn outside of the boundaries in Conquest mode..
-Fixed an issue where bomb camera loses tracking completely if it followed a weapon until end of life.
-Migrated mission completion flags onto a new system. Should not require any intervention from the user and does not make the player lose progress.
-Fixed an issue where chainlink fence does not have collision.
-Fixed an issue where the return button on difficulty screen wasn't selectable on gamepad for PC version.
-Fixed several issues where several entities were still moving despite the game being paused in VR. This was due to the limitation of the pause system in VR not being able to do a "real" pause.
-Reduced the flash intensity of "nuke" defined explosion to reduce strain on the eyes for VR users.
-Fixed an issue where a Conquest area was not accessible from its neighbors.
-Fixed several trees appearing inside the highway take off tunnel for the main campaign during the takeoff sequence.
-Fixed conquest territory not being accessible from certain neighboring territory.
-Fixed an issue HELMET RADAR IN COCKPIT setting does not restore the previous state of radar visibility. It should now refresh itself properly depending on which setting is selected
-Fixed the language tab missing in the settings menu
-Fixed an issue where hiring den could provide players with more than intended allies.
-Fixed an issue where missile cam would completely bug out when following a weapon until its end of life.
-Fixed an issue where localization menus did not have gamepad support.
-Exit button should no longer be selectable in the main menu of the base game.
-Fixed an issue where language apply and back buttons are the wrong way around.
-Removed spoken language tab in the language section.
-Fixed skip button appearing in Conquest
-Fixed a strange mission appearing when skip button is pressed in Conquest.
-Fixed Conquest hiring den being able to access a hidden button.
-Adjusted default VR interface size values based on playtesting.
-Attachment spawning in Airships and Ships are now staggered to reduce stutter.
-Fixed UI appearing and dissapearing with an animation on pause.
-Reduced instances where the sun is visible through the cloud.
-Reduced the amount of contrast on iced water to make it easier on the eyes.
-Reduced all performance overhead in the game in general.
-Updated some localization files.
-Fixed an issue where the enemy spawner keeps spawning.
