Free Company VR News

Last beta update before releasing on the main branch. To access the beta, right click Free Company in your library, select "Properties...", select the "BETAS" tab and opt into the beta branch.

• Holstered weapons are now always be grabbed by the handle
  
• Made it less likely to accidentally damage friendly NPCs
  
• Made it easier to remove axes and the spiked mace from flesh
  
• Disabled snap and smooth turning when commanding units
  
• Slightly increased NPC blocking frequency
  
• Increased pose damage done by player
  

• Fixed AI Armies charging too early, causing them to trickle in instead of as a group
  
• Fixed renaming units in camp and sandbox mode
  
• Fixed cases where bow users would hit teammates
  
• Fixed bow users having perfect accuracy regardless of archery skill
  
• Fixed cases where NPCs would play the fallen struggle animation before fully on the ground
  
• Fixed dead NPCs not dropping weapons properly
  
• Fixed issues with picking up some dropped weapons
  
• Fixed floating arrows when hitting NPCs in certain states
  
• Fixed grabbing quivers from holsters
  

The latest update is now available on the beta branch. To access the beta, right click Free Company in your library, select "Properties...", select the "BETAS" tab and opt into the beta branch.

[h3]Physics/Combat[/h3]

• Completely remade the player movement system, allowing for sprinting and physics-based jumping/ climbing
  
• Significant improvements to the interaction system. Grab positioning is much more reliable and problems with miss-aligned grab points have been fixed
  
• Weapons now have a greater sense of weight and drag. Added the new option "Weapon Physics" in settings, allowing switching between "Default" (new physics) and "Arcade" (old physics)
  
• New hand physics
  
• Bow has been remade to be fully physics-based. Held arrows now have collision
  
• Doors are now physics-based
  
• Many adjustments to NPC physics
  
• Improved colliders in all maps
  
• NPC damage reduced by 75% when attacking another NPC, lengthening battles and increasing the impact the player can make in battles
  
• Adjusted NPC HP and attack scaling. HP has been reduced overall for high level NPCs.
  
• Weapons now apply bleed damaged while enemy is stabbed
  
• Removed movement speed variation based on hand height
  

[h3]General[/h3]

• Added a main menu. Sandbox Mode and Free Battle have been moved to the main menu.
  
• Game can now be closed from the main menu
  
• Changed default player skin. Options to change skin is not yet available in the beta.
  
• Added equipment options and god mode toggle to Free Battle
  
• Fixed floating ragdolls
  
• Added a grip angle setting
  
• Performance improvements. Some more work needs to be done before increasing max battle size
  
• Minor UI changes
  
• Bug fixes
  

Just a quick update on the state of the physics rework. The major hurdles have been cleared and I'm expecting the update to be hitting the beta branch in less than a month. Below is a list of changes you can expect:

Points marked with an asterisk are still in development*

• Completely remade the player movement system, allowing for sprinting and physics-based jumping/ climbing
  
• Significant improvements to the interaction system. Grab positioning is much more reliable and problems with miss-aligned grab points have been fixed
  
• Weapons now have a greater sense of weight and drag. An option will be available to choose between the new weighty weapon physics and the old "arcadey" snappy physics*
  
• Improved hand physics
  
• Player can now set own skin to any of the existing soldier skins
  
• Removed movement speed variation based on hand height
  
• Option to adjust grip angle*
  
• Improved performance and increased max battle size*
  
• Remade NPC physics to respond better to collisions and be less wobbly overall (Not shown in the video)*
  

Below is a video of some of the changes. I'm still tweaking the stab friction and weapon drag so the final handling of weapons will probably look pretty different on release.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Below is an overview of what can be expected in future updates, in order of priority.

[h3]Physics-Based Player Movement[/h3]
A fully physics-based player locomotion system in currently in development that will allow for expanded movement options, including jumping, climbing/hanging, and properly responding to other physics objects. Work on this is about 50% done.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Interaction Improvements[/h3]
The locomotion changes will also come with a combat redesign. Weapon gripping will be more intuitive and will swing with an appropriate sense of weight. Enemies will respond to being hit and grabbed more appropriately.

[h3]Performance Improvements[/h3]
After the core experience is in a state I am happy with, I will do another round of optimization adding better LODs and improving AI performance. This should also allow for larger battle sizes.

[h3]Audio Improvements[/h3]
Voices will be added to NPCs along with more ambient sounds to make larger engagements more believable.

[h3]New Maps[/h3]
The currently available maps were not designed with physics-based movement in mind and will be receiving some changes. Additionally, new maps will be added to take full advantage of these features.

[h3]Sandbox Features and Demo[/h3]
More content for sandbox mode, including more spawnable objects, bug fixes, and in-game workshop map rating. To encourage more user-generated content, a demo with access to sandbox mode will be released.

[h3]Full Release[/h3]
Free Company VR will leave early access after these changes. Development will continue as usual based on player feedback.

[h3]Sandbox[/h3]

• Added build options for placing walls and other structures
  
• Added a new spawn window UI
  
• Added flight mode
  
• Added new options for spawned units
  
• Added unit spawners
  
• Added patrol path editor
  
• Bug fixes
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]