It's been a while since the last update so I thought it appropriate to do a blog.
First and foremost I would like to say that the third and final act of the main story for Frontiers Reach is now in production. Voice actors are recording their lines, and once those lines are in I will proceed to begin scripting the missions into the game. If all goes well, Act 3 should launch some time in June. But getting voice actors recorded is just the tip of the iceberg for what's coming in Act 3.
Since signing the publishing agreement for Frontiers Reach, work has admittedly slowed down on the third act, however this is not because there was no work to do. Quite the contrary. The past few months have actually been very productive as the publisher has facilitated access to a small group of testers who have provided critical feedback for Frontiers Reach that has influenced the games accessibility and quality.
If you've kept up with playing the game since February then you likely have experienced some of these changes, but know that more are coming and in this blog I will detail some of those changes.
New Player Experience
One of the most important changes coming to Frontiers Reach is a revamped new player experience. It took quite a bit of time and multiple play sessions to gather the feedback that went into this and there may be more tweaks that need to be made but this new intro to the Frontiers Reach universe is designed to get you better acquainted with the game mechanics and universe.
While the original tutorial mission will remain, 3 additional tutorial missions are being added and Instant Action is has been split into Planet and Space modes.
The two of the three new missions are hyper focused on a set of mechanics.
Basic Flight Training is for introduction to flight and the starfighter instrument panel.
Basic Combat Training is for familiarizing the player with the concepts of aerial combat.
Combat Scenario #1 is a new scenario focused on fighter combat.
Combat Scenario #2 is the original tutorial mission on Tom Uul with some tweaks to streamline things a bit.
In each of these missions you will fly a different starfighter in a different environment with different weapon loadouts. The goal here is get players acquainted with the idea of flying different starfighters for different missions.
New Capital Ship Damage Models
Damage models for capital ships have always been either bare minimum or non-existent. When Act 3 launches those days are over. Every capital ship in the game will have a new damage model all new effects.
Major Performance Changes
Numerous fixes and tweaks to performance have yielded a significant increase in performance across the entire game. Getting this increase took a lot of trial and error and analysis of the game as it was running. One of the biggest problems was the sheer amount of particle effects being used in the game in ways that were supposed to be performant but proved otherwise. The biggest performance hit of which was engine plumes, especially for large capital ships with lots of engines. By changing out the old engine plumes which were run by Unity's Shadergraph for VFX with a simpler customized solution using some old school tricks I was able to get back about 40 FPS and finally achieve something in Frontiers Reach I have wanted since the start.
Flying a starfighter in large fleet battles.
Branched Ending
While Act 3 is set to be significantly shorter than the previous 2 Acts of the game, Act 3 differs in more ways than just length. In this third and final act, players will be presented with 3 choices for how to end the story in Frontiers Reach.
Option #1 - Survival :
Rally the fleet of survivors for one last battle to break through a blockade to reach the designated departure point to begin your journey outbound and start a new colony elsewhere in the galaxy.
Option #2 - Victory :
Give the order to the fleet to prepare for combat and assault an asteroid base where the Sol Confederacy has setup a base to continuously pump out warships.
Option #3 - Revenge :
Lead the fleet in a desperate bid bring down officer responsible for killing one of your crewmates and exact revenge.
That's it for now. Till next time pilots!