A note: welcome to all the new OVRLRD operators who found us in Steam VR Fest! You can join our community on Discord to chat about OVRLRD or get some pointers if you've been having trouble piloting your mech.
OVRLRD is not out in Early Access just yet, but the demo will remain live permanently. This is kind of a preview of what the EA campaign will be like. OVRLRD is a complex game that will take a lot of tweaking to get right, and the demo will be updated alongside the main game build to field-test these tweaks and make sure it's fully operational by the time EA lands.
Early Access will be just that - a chance to help fine-tune the broader mechanics and content of the game a while ahead of release. So, tell your friends to try it out, because the demo's free and always will be!
Hello operators! It's been a while, because I've been hammering away at a huge infrastructure overhaul that has cleared the path towards Early Access. It's taken literally months, but the codebase is cleaner, performance is better, cross-platform support is much improved and I've built foundations for a bunch of exciting new features I can't wait to release.
The changelog is pretty big, but the most significant changes are:
- Better performance and improved visuals in many situations
- Randomly-generated skirmish maps for 4v4 botmatches
- Jump-jets for fun navigation around this possibly-challenging scenery
- Squadmate command and outfitting system
- Improved NPC AI
- New MFD UI system with 16 buttons per display
- New midgame menu for changing settings and recentering - press X on the controller
This update paves the way for more unlockable mechs and cockpits, a 'freelancer' mode in addition to the main campaign, more advanced systems interaction inside the mech, and support for very large outdoor maps.
Another important note: WMR and Oculus users no longer need to use separate beta branches, simply select your preferred runtime as a game launch option when starting OVRLRD. The relevant command line arguments are: -steamvr, -oculus, -wmr, and -novr. However, for Quest users I strongly recommend using the new free Steam Link app for Quest and launching OVRLRD as a SteamVR app. (This will be the default behaviour if you just launch OVRLRD through the SteamVR UI.) Please post on the community page or in the discord if you experience any issues with this, and I'll do my best to help!
I'm hoping that it will also make the demo much more replayable (and streamable!) since you can now order squadmates around a randomly generated environment to evade, detect and defeat an aggressive enemy OVRLRD squad who will switch up their tactics each game. The demo may seem similar to old versions on the surface, but these new systems add a new tactical layer to combat that should emerge as players become more experienced.
So, without further ado, the changelog!
CHANGELOG 9 DECEMBER 2023
ADDITIONS
- Added new skirmish mode with randomly-generated terrain, buildings, foliage and weather.
- Added new weather effects for fog, rain and snow. Currently only affects visibility.
- Added procedural road system to add more detail and nuance to maps, demonstrated in skirmish mode.
- Added jump-jets. Fire these with the trigger on the left joystick to traverse difficult terrain.
- Added target analysis display for detailed damage and status condition info on enemy mechs.
- Added a comms display which shows detailed information about any squadmates you may have.
- You can also use the comms display to give basic 'follow', 'wait', 'move' and 'roam' orders.
- You can also cycle through Rules of Engagement (ROE) using this screen, to prevent your units opening fire immediately.
- Added a radio to the cockpit. While the radio is grabbed, press a button to cycle through squadmates.
- While holding the radio, squeeze the trigger to enter command mode.
- Point somewhere with your off hand and release the trigger to give a move order.
- Squadmates can be outfitted with liveries and weapons along with the player, allowing them to use missiles, beams and more.
- WARNING: squadmates are not very good at averting friendly fire yet so... be careful giving them howitzers.
- Added first-pass NPC bark system, allowing your squadmates to announce their status and respond to orders.
- Added radar modules. Standard will tag targets automatically within range. Ground-penetrating will tag targets without line-of-sight.
- Modularised weapon system allowing NPC mechs to use multiple weapons.
- Added proper mid-game menu with general control rebinding support for keyboard and HOTAS (very experimental!)
- New midgame menu has proper UI and access to ingame options, so you can tweak your preferences while playing.
- Added toggles for tree rendering and physics. Disable these for an extra FPS boost if your rig is struggling.
- Overhauled water shader and visual effects so that you can actually tell if you're underwater.
- Destroyed mechs now ragdoll realistically with the correct meshes, and their limbs may blow apart.
- Replaced the old mech destruction effect with a much better one.
- You now have a chance to blast legs completely off a mech, ragdolling and disabling it instantly.
- Added shockwave effects for significant explosions - these flatten trees and level buildings as they expand.
- Added a loading screen to prevent motion sickness when changing scenes.
- Added basic event logging to the Message Log MFD channel, useful for debugging or figuring out what just happened.
- Added visual and audio effects for walking across ground and water. Deep water now affects movement speed.
CHANGES
- Added buttons to each MFD, allowing for direct interaction with the monitor UI.
- Removed the concept of 'channels'. MFDs now have a button to access a data feed selection menu.
- Added zoom functionality to sensor display, allowing you to zoom the map.
- Sensor display now uses the 'cartography' shader option instead of just showing an aerial snapshot.
- Sensor display now shows a dynamic atlas grid to aid navigation.
- Sensor display allows you to add a 'ping' waypoint to the map, which will show up on your holohud.
- 'MOVE' orders given to squadmates will send them to the latest ping.
- Completely re-engineered and modularised the input system, finally making additional mech types possible.
- Improved NPC mech accuracy when firing at other mechs - reduced instances of shots going between legs.
- Joysticks now have a proper default deadzone, making it much easier to aim and move precisely.
- Mechs now bump into each other instead of phasing right through.
- NPC mechs will now cycle through their available weapons in combat, making use of everything they have available.
- Improved tutorial segments in Boot Camp, making it a proper introduction to game systems.
- Significantly improved mech UI rendering performance.
- Improved performance relating to extra sub-camera rendering.
- Integrated chunked falloff maps into terrain system, reducing incidences of players falling off the edge of the map.
- Improved performance of cockpit rendering.
- Optimised rendering and physics for tree objects.
- Improved performance of terrain decal system, fixing a GC-related micro-stutter issue.
- Improved label rendering - text labels inside the cockpit are now lit and shadowed correctly.
- Button visuals improved with normal mapping and shader-based text labels.
- Weapon info readout now indicates reloading progress with a fill effect.
- Improved visibility of HUD elements on low bitrate displays.
- Improved legibility of rangefinder on weapon display.
- Improved visuals on a number of VFX.
- Improved smoke column FX, allowing you to spot smoking wreckage from very long distances.
FIXES
- Fixed an issue where the edges of terrain chunks had incorrect normal values, causing a lighting 'seam'.
- Fixed rendering issue that caused odd lighting and reflection visuals at steep viewing angles.
- Fixed an issue where NPC mechs in 'follow' mode would all cluster around the follow target instead of moving in formation.
- Fixed an issue where many visual effects such as flashes and dust clouds weren't rendering at all.
- Fixed an issue where trees were not correctly billboarding at range, improving performance.
- Fixed an issue where mech legs would float in the air on spawn.
- Fixed an issue where damage to NPC mech sensors would not restrict their FOV.
- Fixed an issue where weapons would lock-on to a point between a mech's feet, rather than center mass.
- Fixed an issue where NPC mech legs would rotate on the spot while standing still.
- Fixed an issue where NPC mechs would struggle to rotate to face their movetarget (probably caused a lot of AI issues).
- Fixed an issue where NPC mechs were not being physically 'kicked' by weapon impacts.
- Fixed an issue where NPC mechs would continue firing at nothing after a battle ended.
- Fixed an issue where NPCs would fail to pathfind across terrain chunk boundaries and would sprint off the map edge to their death.
- Fixed an issue where helicopter rotors would not render.
- Fixed an issue where volume changes would not persist between sessions.
- Fixed an issue where VR buttons would not register touch and press actions reliably.
- Fixed many, many, many other bugs.
KNOWN ISSUES (Working on it!)
- Having a gamepad plugged in may suppress VR controller input. Unplug your gamepad if you get stuck in the menus!
- Some transparent particle effects like rising smoke look a bit ugly. Bear with me while I figure out a good solution for a sort order bug.
- Knuckles controllers can only pinch-grip controls when the hand is otherwise fully open.
- Grouped weapons must all be aimed independently before activating group-fire.
- Vive controllers may not allow you to change weapons.
- Resupply helicopters will sometimes drop crates just out of reach of immobilised mechs, to taunt them
- If you die, the post-death spectator mode places your hands slightly too far away from your IRL wrists.
That's all for now, operators. Enjoy the update, and tell your friends to wishlist OVRLRD!