In keeping with the promise of curating Frontiers Reach, I have an announcement to make in this regard.
Currently, sitting up on the experimental branch, a version of Frontiers Reach is running in Unity 6.
The performance increase from migrating to Unity 6 is noticeable but there is some work to do before I can finally deploy the Unity 6 version to the main branch. Additionally there will be some balance changes and... a new uncharted world to explore for those of you who have gotten to the uncharted worlds content. Trailer for that to come later.
For now I want to share with you a vision I've had for almost 10 years finally made manifest in limited form.
This is Frontiers Reach : Mercenaries
This is all footage from the tech demo that I've been putting together for FR:M and this isn't even everything that is in the tech demo. This 9 minute and 19 second sizzle reel only covers about 65% of what is in the current iteration of the tech demo.
Below is a list explaining what you can expect to find.
A new large map with several biomes and unique land features as well as points of interest to visit. This whole new setup has the current iteration of the tech demo feeling a bit like an extraction shooter. It will not stay this way though.
- Biomes have been tweaked to be as visually unique as possible given some limitations with the current toolset, however a new update to my terrain shader plugin from the dev working on it has made greater variety in biomes possible for future updates. Expect to see a regeneration of the map in the future.
- Unimproved roadways have been added to some areas i.e. dirt roads.
Story elements have been pulled for the time being. Will make it back in when the scenario manager is finally tied into the project.
- For those who don't know there were light story telling elements in the first few iterations of the tech demo, those have been removed for the time being. I want to focus on getting the foundational mechanics in first.
There is now a Map of the entire sector complete with player position and icons showing the currently available points of interest.
- This in combination with the compass have proven to be a big help in navigating the level and having the points of interest labeled on the map is especially a big help in finding them. This is actually a critical piece of infrastructure that is scalable for the future.
There is a total of 12 points of interest to visit. 3 hostile, 2 friendly, and 7 creature.
- Hostile points of interest have destructible buildings that you can earn currency for destroying. Destroying all destructible buildings will force the point of interest into cooldown and then reset.
- Friendly points of interest also have destructible buildings but will cause you to lose currency if you blow them up.
- Creature based points of interest will enter cooldown when they have no more spawns to put out, they also have a chance to spawn raiders.
- One of the points of interest is a cave system built to test out cave exploration and combat along with free-climbing.
Item and Weapon shops have been added along with loot drops which can be sold for currency.
- The towns of Sedonia and Vicker's Refuge both have item and weapon shops you can visit.
3 new weapons have been added to the game for players to use while on foot.
- OA AP-30 : An auto pistol made by Oshiro Armaments.
- Radiant Star Cannon : An old mining laser retro-fitted during the Frontier War for use as a weapon. Can destroy buildings in a single shot.
- Lazerov Longreach Sniper Rifle : A sniper rifle capable of taking down soft targets in a single shot.
VTOL rig with engineering art is now available for use and you will likely want to use it as it can land just about anywhere.
- This is a very basic implementation and the artwork is very rough on the eyes. Will update it later when I have artwork to slot in there.
Day/Night Cycle
- There is now a day/night cycle that will progress over time using a real time lighting setup, this includes a night time lighting setup that calculates bounce lighting from the gas giant.
If you would like to be a part of the development of Frontiers Reach : Mercenaries I highly recommend joining the Discord.