The past two months have been a busy few. We've added cockpits for all of the 2280 ships, continued to work on the new UI and along the way have had the game Steam Deck verified.
If you're playing on a Steam Deck, make sure you hop into the development branch for the best experience!
Playing on development builds
- Right click BallisticNG in your steam library and go to Properties
- Go to the betas tab on the window that opens
- From the dropdown select development. If the update doesn't automatically queue for download, restart Steam
- Once you have opened the game, the version at the bottom right of the menu will read 1.4-d60
Overview
2280 Cockpits
Finishing off development of the 2280 ships, every 2280 ship now has a cockpit and are ready for VR. Thanks to community member Kabelsalat who helped design the majority of these!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80_kBnr0tVc
UI Updates
We've continued to work on the UI, addressing feedback from both the community and Valve through the Steam Deck verification process.
Standardized Input Prompt Positions
Input prompts now have a standardized position along the underside of the menus bottom bar. This frees up space in the menu which has allowed us to better balance UI layouts.
Campaign Info Tabs
The campaign info pages are now presented as tabs, making it much easier to keep track of what you're looking at. These are also intractable with a mouse, allowing for much faster switching if you're clicking around at a desktop.
Controller Events
The game now reports controller events! Tying into the Input Improvements mentioned below, the following events are now reported to you at the top of the screen:
- Controller connected
- Controller disconnected
- Controller assigned to a player
- The player navigating the menu has changed
Input Improvements
Controller Assignment
Two controllers can now be automatically assigned to players by default. This fixes a conflict issue on the Steam Deck between the built-in controller and any external controllers.
Unassigned controllers will now be automatically assigned to a player when pressing a button on them (this can be disabled in the Input Options menu). Controllers are assigned to the player who currently has menu navigation control.
Finally, splitscreen is now inaccessible until Player Two has a controller assigned. The game will let you pick a controller in the menu before navigating forward, using the same selection interface as the Input Options menu.
Note: enabling debug mode bypasses the player two controller check.
Improved Controller Saves
Controller data is now saved by device ID instead of a hardware ID.
The device ID is a way to uniquely identify a specific controller instead of just bundling everything under the controllers generic hardware ID, which finally allows two controllers of the same type to have unique binds and calibrations saved for them. Note that for Xbox controllers, the XInput player is the unique identifier, so binds and calibrations are stored and recalled in the order that the controllers are plugged in.
Changelog
Ships
- Added G-Tek 2280 cockpit
- Added Wyvern 2280 cockpit
- Added Hyperion 2280 cockpit
- Added Scorpio 2280 cockpit
- Added Omnicom 2280 cockpit
- Added Diavolt 2280 cockpit
- Added Nexus 2280 cockpit
- Added Tenrai 2280 cockpit
- Added Caliburn 2280 cockpit
- Added 2280 Barracuda Model A, 2280 Barracuda Model B, 2280 Barracuda Model C and 2280 Barracuda Model 0 cockpit
- Added 2280 Barracuda Model S cockpit
- Added 2280 Orbitronix cockpit
- Added 2280 Protonic cockpit
- Added 2280 MTech cockpit
- Added 2280 Precision Delta cockpit
- Added NX3000 cockpit
- Increased camera height for the Barracuda Model B in 2280
- Fixed wobble when entering maglocks at an angle in 2280
- Fixed 2280 Barracuda Model S not being delectable from the Survival ship category before Rank 24
Custom Race
- Added Force Weapons option
- Added Weapon Pad Time option
Multiplayer
- Added Force Weapons option
- Added Weapon Pad Time option
User Interface
- Increased event details font size in the results screen (Steam Deck compatibility)
- Increased tooltip font size (Steam Deck compatibility)
- Increased font size in advanced selectors (Steam Deck compatibility)
- Increased font size of the details and description pages in the campaign menu (Steam Deck compatibility)
- Restructured practice mode guide descriptions to provide space for larger input glyphs (Steam Deck compatibility)
- Campaign event info pages now have a tab header which can now be interacted with using a mouse.
- Moved the game version text and expansion list to thee bottom edge of the screen
- Moved input bind displays below the menu's bottom content divider. Menus such as the campaign menu, multiplayer menu and option menu now take advantage of the additional space
- Device connect and disconnect events are now logged on screen
- Player two must now have a device assigned before entering menus for splitscreen. An overlay for assigning a device will now be displayed if no device is assigned. Enabling debug mode bypasses this
- Fixed softlock in options menu after switching from exclusive fullscreen to another screen mode if there's multiple refresh rates available
- Fixed incorrect values for refresh rate being reported in the options menu save review list
- Gamemode settings in the custom race menu and lobby config tab now use an adaptable grouping system to eliminate stray option listings
- The device assigned message is now shown after assigning a device to player two in the player count select menu
- A global message is now displayed when the player providing menu navigation control changes
- Fixed input binds not being assignable when there isn't an input already assigned
Options
- Added option to toggle automatic device assignment (input options -> devices -> auto assign devices)
- Increased max value of frame limiter to 360fps
- Fixed Survival Palette option not saving
Gamemodes
- 2280 angular velocity is now reset when teleporting to the start line on point to point tracks in Speed Lap
Engine
- Players can now have two devices automatically assigned to them (fix for Steam Deck compatibility - allow the built in controller to be assigned alongside an external controller by default)
- Automatic controller assignment is no longer evenly distributed. Player one will need to have two controllers assigned before player two receives any. Controllers can be assigned as needed in the input options menu.
- Pressing a button on an unassigned device now assigns it automatically to the player that currently has UI navigation control
- Decreased the cockpit camera near clipping plane distance
- Saved controller data is now identified by device ID instead of hardware ID. New config files with device specific IDs will replace the old files when input settings are saved.
- The hardware ID is an identifier for a general make of controller and is shared between units. The device ID is a unique identifier for the specific unit.
- There may be cases where a unique ID can't be determined based on the controller itself and the operating system. The hardware ID is still saved and can be used in case a unique device ID is unavailable.
- Controller settings are now saved on game exit (allow automatic assignments to be remembered and consistent across sessions without a user triggered save)
- Fixed known unassigned devices being auto assigned to players on the next game boot
- Fixed softlock when loading custom tracks with zero-g sections
- Fixed the 2280 chase camera being reset to the world origin for a single frame when being switched to
- Fixed controllers being unassigned when entering the input options menu if they had been automatically assigned when the game started
- Dedicated Server
- An attempt to determine if the terminal has a cursor is now made. If a cursor isn't found, the server is now ran in an output only mode.
- DedicatedServerExample.cfg updated with default setting entries for ForceWeapons and WeaponPadTime
Campaign
- Fixed precision run entries not being visible unless the previous run had an associated save file