The Home Stretch is here!
Hello! It's been a while.
If you've been following along with the changes to the experimental branch or have peaked in on the Playtest that went live last week then you may already know some of this stuff. By the way, if you haven't already I'd like to invite you all to join the Discord server where you can get access to the experimental branch if you already own the game.
All of the story content is currently in Frontiers Reach. The most recent build went out to the experimental branch this morning. This includes a bunch of new cutscenes that will play upon completion of certain missions. With that, Frontiers Reach is now story complete and the game will go into service mode where the story content additions to the core game will stop, but bug fixes, performance tweaks, and balance changes will be made as they are needed. Any additional content and features will be added on an "as demand for them increases" basis.
Below is a list of all the changes coming in the very near future.
Story Additions
The last act of Frontiers Reach adds 4 new missions. 3 of which you must choose from as the final ending for your journey through the Frontiers Reach universe. Each of these endings is unique and has a different set of consequences for your crew and your character. Assuming there is enough demand I could see adding stand alone DLC that continues the story along each branch of FR1's ending.
New Player Experience
The new player experience is done and functioning as expected. However I expect there may be tweaks or additions as more people get their hands on it. Frontiers Reach is a pretty complex game and there are some things I've deliberately left for the player to explore on their own so they can develop their own skill set with those mechanics, like the RCS system.
New Engine Version
The version of Unity that Frontiers Reach is built on has been update to Unity 2023. I was going to wait a bit longer to do this but in the pursuit of trying to get as much performance out of the physics engine as possible I discovered that Unity 2023 increased support for multi-threaded physics. Additionally the previously highlighted issue of Unity 2022 not supporting Wayland on Linux should now be fixed. Wayland support was added in a much earlier version of Unity 2023 but was still experimental at that time. The version I chose for this update is a more recent version of Unity and should have all the issues hammered out. If you experiencing something on Linux that seems like it may be Wayland related, please don't hesitate to let me know as soon as possible.
Bug Fixes & Tweaks
- Joysticks of all types should now work with Frontiers Reach.
- Increased the number of options for setting up throttles to the players liking.
- Added inverse options for look controls.
- It is now possible to change the time of day through the scenario script.
- Hooked up city lights to day time controller.
- Altitude warning has been lowered again.
- Ladder and compass UI when in first person mode has been trimmed back to be less obtrusive.
- Added sound effects for lock on.
- Added sound effects for weapon switching.
- Added new Radar Warning sound effects.
- Adjusted fog on Frontiers Reach to be less intense.
- Moved cave waypoint in Mission 1.
- Added fighter spawns to mission 3.
- Adjust spawn time for mission 5.
- Modified AI on Mission 11 set piece to ensure it works properly on initialization.
- Updated waypointer positions on Mission 13.
- Tweaks to fighter AI to keep them from getting stuck underground.
- Fixed ground vehicles going off trail on the New Karachi map.
- Increased lift factor for all fighters to make flying at lower speeds easier.
- Fix for missile lock angle allowing missiles to do 180 degree turns to hit targets.
- Fixed AI losing track on player when assigned through script at long ranges.
- Fix damage VFX on mercenary carriers.
- Added hit SFX on some destructibles on the Utsukushi Ringu map that did not have them.
- Fixed character interactions in the galley (improvements coming)
- Fixed the cursor not working when gamepad was used on the warmap.
- Fighters should no longer get stuck under the terrain on planetary missions.
- Modified cooldowns on some tertiary weapons to keep some fighters from deploying their entire payload.
- Modified tutorial message UI elements to keep them from overlapping other UI elements
- Toggled off idle thrusters in Bleakers Folly Station.
- Fixed Ajagar ace fighters SFX.
- Fixed some vehicles moving around maps during warmap scenarios when they should have been immobile.
- Fixed some destructibles in warmap scenarios not registering hits.
- Fixed some destructibles in warmap scenarios not registering damage.
- Tweaks to the warmap to change how is updates the visuals as the warmap data updates.
- Fixed an instance where the warmap would not properly display the defcon level of a node, or would go into "Stand Down" status before it was intended to do so.
- Fixed a bug that could cause the end of the game to not load properly.
- Fixed a bug that could cause dialogue for characters in the galley to not load properly.
- Fixed several instances of destructibles on some warmap scenarios not registering hits and/or damage.
- Fixed an instance of double loading of dialogue for the main story elements in the CIC.
- Fixed Land to Reload not working when using Mouse and Keyboard.