Keeping with the 4-6 week release cadence, Version 0.8.4 is out now with some pretty large changes to some noticable and not so noticable parts of the game. The bulk of changes and work is mostly under the hood to help support future updates, but there are still a number of visual and performance improvements along with a number of bug fixes.
Racing Teams and Lore
As you may notice, there's some added visual improvemnts and flow to the Ship Editor. Most ship components are now associated with a Racing Team or Sponsor such as 'Firefly Racing' and 'Skyline Extra Solar Research Group.' These teams are represented with new Holo-Banners available in the Track Editor as well.
Along with this the Ship Hanger has had a substantial UI update and refresh to visually communicate the ship parts stats in a clearer way. There's lore available as well by right clicking on Ship Editor components.
Track Editor Jam
Virtex Edge is hosting a Track Editor Jam the weekend of July 23rd-25th to see what the Metric community can create! Join us on Twitch and Discord to discuss and share what you come up with! When you're happy with it you can upload it to Steam Workshop to share it with everyone!
In lead up to the event, a HOW TO Tutorial video will be coming out on the Virtex Edge Youtube channel walking through all of the different features in the Sandbox Track Editor, so give the Virtex Channel a subscribe to stay in the loop!
Soundtrack
A collection of tracks from Metric Racer are being released as a standalone soundtrack through Steam.
As a thank you to all those who tested out Metric Racer during the beta check your inbox for a steam key for access to the soundtrack when it releases soon!
Engine Overhaul
A complete overhaul of the rendering system, an upgrade to Monogame 3.8 and a full migration of the game from .Net Framework to .Net Core has given way to a huge number of changes and reworks under the hood of Metric Racer.
These updates have resulted in loading times upwards of 3 times faster then 0.8.3, a new standalone binary in Linux (not requireing mono any longer), along with better visuals through out the game. This should also solve a number of rendering issues that some players have been encountering.
Upcoming 0.8.5 Release
I'm aiming for a late July early August release of 0.8.5 which will finally bring out Tournaments and 'The Rocks' region. You can always try out the latest and greatest in the Experimental Branch of Metric Racer. Join us on Discord or Twitter! to stay in the loop of what's the latest.