This weekends update marks a significant leap forward for Frontiers Reach.
This leap comes in the form of the WARMAP.
The WARMAP takes almost two years of planning, work, experimentation, and feedback from friends and team members past and present, and incorporates it all into what I am hoping is a cohesive vision of an infantile, but galactic civilization at war with itself.
Currently the warmap will be available at the HOLOTABLE from the moment you start the game. This will break some things with the story if you're starting a new character but allows you to completely skip the story altogether for the sake of expedient testing. It will get locked behind a mission in a future update.
I also saved the data separately so you wont have to make a new character to play the WARMAP. You can dive right in with an existing one. I do however recommend a fresh install as this most recent updates adds a lot and changed some under the hood things (MAJOR lighting update). Save your character file in another folder before doing so if wish to use the same character.
Now on the WARMAP there is a total of 37 playable nodes each with either a space map or planet map. Each node gives off passive influence when owned by a faction (Republic or Confederacy).
These factions are represented by 2 bots.
The 2 bots fight each other using different strategies. And deploy commanders to all the nodes to either defend or attack.
Republic Bot:
- Has lots of commanders who can hit really hard, but often fail to achieve significant victories.
- Uses multiple thin supply chains in support of commanders. Each adjacent node boosts the logistics support commanders can receive when they succeed in defending/attacking a node.
- Very heavy on the defense. Does not give up worlds easy.
- Commanders are buffed by the total number of worlds the Republic has in its ownership.
Confederacy Bot:
- Has few commanders who command high tech fleets that achieve small decisive victories in a systematic approach.
- Uses a thick supply chain. A single adjacent node is enough to get the full supply chain bonus but this means they don't stack supply chains.
- Holdfast. Offensive and defensive capabilities ensure the Sol Confederacy does not yield ground often.
- Sol Confederacy Commanders can affect independent nodes.
Playing the WARMAP
- To play the WARMAP you must travel to a node that is in DefCon level 1 or higher. As you complete missions on the node, a portion of your salvage score is calculated towards the influence levels of the node. If you complete a mission with 10,000 salvage score, then you will score 2500 influence towards the current node when you revisit the WARMAP and it finishes its initialization. This process is manual right now but will likely be automated in the future to ensure you return to the WARMAP after every WARMAP mission.
As you complete missions and tip the scales towards the favor of the Republic, the DefCon level of the node increases. This increases passively over time if one side or the other is influencing the node. Faster if both the Republic and Confederacy are directly connecting to the node. Right now all missions are unlocked. In the future, the list of available missions will change based upon the DefCon level.
WARMAP missions
- There are 9 standard templates in the game now. These 9 templates range in difficulty and scope but are playable on every single level/map. There is also 1 template that is currently available only on planets. More on the in the list below. Also, there is no dialogue voice over for these new missions yet. There will be in the future.
Standard Templates
Patrol Sector - Move from waypoint to waypoint and engage any enemies you encounter.
Gather Intel - Operatives friendly to the Republic have set intel drops in the area. Collect as many as you can find before you run out of fuel.
Extraction - A Republic operative has been made and is requesting extraction. Locate them and protect the transport sent to retrieve them.
Escort VIP - A cargo vessel is transporting supplies to the next sector over. Provide escort for them as they move.
Hunt VIP - A vessel carrying assets of strategic importance is moving through this sector. Intercept and eliminate them.
Furball - Assist the Republic in a major air battle involving only fighters.
Sector Battle - Assist the Republic in a major battle in the sector involving fighters and capital ships. Will eventually accomodate ground and naval warfare where applicable.
Bomber Intercept - Mercenaries have been hired to bomb targets in the next sector over. We've been asked to intercept at this location.
Bomber Escort - The Republic is using modified cargo vessels as bombers and will be moving a small contingent through this Sector. Escort them and keep them safe.
Planet Only Template
Defend Survivors - A vessel has crash landed in this sector. Locate it and provide air cover to the survivors.
Radar Updates
- The radar has recieved several improvements. Better lock on behavior when launching guided munitions. Friendlies and loot drops are also now visible on the radar.
Ground Warfare
- This past week I was able to make a lot of great progress on ground warfare units. A small snippet of this progress is visibile in the Defend Survivors mission and I'm working on compiling a video montage for later.
The Scoreboard
- I'll admit. This is going to be broken for a couple of weeks. I need to rebalance the entire thing with consideration to the WARMAP. Just a heads up here.
New Paint Patterns
- New patterns for paint schemes have been added. I also plan to add the ability to change color layout masks in the future.
New Fighters
- The last 3 fighters I have made something of an independent creative effort and have not done the usual community voting. I may do this again in the future if I feel like the designs are getting too similar, or in this case, we hit 6 fighters in Gen1 and that is about all I'm willing to tolerate at max for a single generation of playable fighters so I decided it was time to step up to Gen2 and start taking design inspiration from the mid 1950s to mid 1960s. Some very interesting designs were made during this period. I highly recommend looking at the experimental research platforms.
1) Lochland & Masters F-67 Hoplite
- A dedicated dogfighter with extreme maneuverability and two powerful engines. Has four cannon hardpoints in the nose.
2) AgGuerAero AT-15 Shepherd
- An agricultural platform converted for combat duties. Great for scouting and ground support.
Sky and Lighting Overhaul
- The cloud and atmosphere rendering plugin I've been using got a major update recently and has since been updated in the game. This has led to a number of optimizations but on the plugin side, and on the project side that should speed things up and give better frame rates across the board on planetary levels. More optimizations to come.
MORE levels, LOTS more levels
- The WARMAP saw the expansion of the games environment from 20 story missions across a handful of worlds to over 40 new locations in the game. Many of these new levels are pretty bare bones, but all of them accommodate the new missions for the WARMAP.
