0.5.2

Changes:

• Updates to PlayFab menus to allow bypassing if errors are encountered. The previous version would hang if it received any other error message besides “account not found”. Other errors will be handled in more detail later.

• Updated the Medal display on the Statistics menu to show one medal at a time. This now uses a mesh actor attached to the menu camera instead of the previous attempt at using SceneCapture2D objects. Performance was taking a serious hit, and the textures just would not load properly.

• Updated ShipDisplay in the Customization menu to also be a mesh actor attached to the camera for the same reasons listed above. This has netted better results.

• Reenabled the “Start” and “Escape” buttons for pausing gameplay on gamepad and KBM, respectively. In development, the “P” key was used, as ESC closes the Play-in-Editor window.

• Fixed and issue with several of the paint jobs not becoming visible as expected.

• Made a pass on ship speed and fire rate, and their respective upgrades.

• Implemented controller vibration for most functions

  • UI Feedback

  • Lazer Firing

  • Ship collision

  • Future updates will include some sort of distance-based feedback for destroyed objects, based on how their distance from the ship when they are destroyed.

• In the settings menu, the player can toggle between platform ID and PlayFab ID, even if they aren’t logged into PlayFab. This will be fixed in future updates.

Development Notes:

• The Main Menu will have a mesh actor of the Space Station rotating around the planet. This will come in a future build.

• Unsolved issue where the planet slowly adjusts it’s rotation in the wrong direction, giving it the appearance that the camera has moved. This also makes it seem that the asteroids are no-longer floating through it’s rings. Fix for this is forthcoming, and the issue is only noticeable if the player spends a long time sitting in the same instance of the menu.

• Main Menu FPS on platforms is lower than desired (50-55 fps on PS5). I think this is related to the rotation of the asteroid ring, but I will have to make some optimizations at a later date to correct this.

• The background nebulas aren’t scaled correctly and often look blotchy in the Gameplay Scene. Optimizations to fix this, as well as add more variations to shape and color will come in a future update.

• PlayFab works for account linking on Steam and PS5 at the moment. Once the player links their PlayFab account, the system will attempt to log the player in automatically with the current platform ID on subsequent startups. If no account is detected or an error occurs, the player should be able to proceed to the login/sign up screens, or skip altogether to the main menu.

  • In future updates, I am going to get cross-save working, provided the player opts in.

• Hidden Thruster Colors may not become visible correctly in the current build. Just like Paint Jobs, they should become visible after certain conditions are met. This will be fixed in a future build.

• CommonUI is used, which allows intelligent switching between KBM and Gamepad on PC. Based on the currently detected platform and input type, action glyphs are automatically updated accordingly. On PS5 (and potential other consoles), this will show the platform’s glyphs as required.