Frontiers Reach News

Happy April 1st!


If you celebrate the Day of Fools, then happy fooling.

I however do not celebrate this holiday or very many others for that matter. So today I am releasing patch notes for what is probably the biggest and most complete change to the game in some time.
For those who might be seeing this update as their first notification in a while, I am indeed back to working on the game alone and have decided that it really is better if I keep it this way for the most part. I will hire people to fill the gaps on an as needed basis.

Additionally, I've decided to return to the original plan of gearing the project as a story driven live service type of game that players will only ever be required to pay 20 dollars for. No other fees or costs will be charged to you for this game throughout it's life span. However, I should make it clear that other titles are planned so this games content releases will eventually slow down before coming to a halt and shifting towards community created content.

There is no doubt in my head that this can be done. In fact, it's not only been possible the entire past year but the system that I started building back in late 2020 is now more capable and robust than ever before.

But you'll get to dive into it on your end if you go digging in the games files so for the time being, let's get into the patch notes.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]- Overhauled Flight/Combat System[/h2]
The entire system for flight and combat, as well as many subsequent systems has been overhauled. Much of it from the ground up. The enemy fighter AI has been a key component of this. Capital ships not so much but there are some big changes planned for capital ships and their behavior in combat. The highlight of all of this, of which has also been the primary focus, was getting the cockpit instrumentation into an acceptable state. There is now an abundance of feedback coming from the cockpit instrumentation and if at first you feel a little overwhelmed, then I did my job. The original inspiration for the cockpits comes from Cold War fighter jets which are rich with instrumentation. But the audio cues you will recieve from that instrumentation will help ensure your eyes are not glued on it.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]- NPC Chatter and Character Dialogue[/h2]
There is now a system to assign a voice to NPCs as they are spawned. The number of voices is extremely limited right now but will be expanded over time. If you're interested in participating you can join the Discord for more information.



[h2]- New Game Modes[/h2]
There are now two new game modes available to play with more on the way. These new game modes are replayable missions that can be engaged with at any time and will help you net salvage points.
Scavenge Missions - Find cargo crates hidden in various places throughout a level.
Swarm Missions - Fight wave after wave of enemies on a level. (currently supports only 4 waves for testing purposes)



[h2]- Complete Rebalance of Weapons[/h2]
Weapons have been completely rebalanced with cannons now doing the damage they should be doing. Additionally the weapon slots have been reorganized some. The internal weapons bay now supports a large number of missiles or rockets, ensuring you have plenty for each missions. However, a limitation on the light hardpoints, and heavy hardpoints has been imposed. Not only will they no longer reload outside of you landing to reload, but bombs will be relegated to heavy weapons only with smaller versions of bombs being mounted in larger quantities.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]- The Story[/h2]
I've been a fan of story driven games since I was young. In fact, a game without a story is quite difficult for me to enjoy. There's something about having an adventure that I love and have since my days of messing around with a certain role playing game maker software that was released in 2003. As such the entire story has been overhauled. This time the story is a bit closer to what I had in mind originally. I've done as much as I can to expand this new universe through text but you should know that I am planning to do animated shorts in the future and currently have some character work under way to make these shorts a reality.



[h2]- The Plan Moving Forward[/h2]
It is my intention that Frontiers Reach will recieve regularly scheduled story driven missions as weekly updates. That was the original plan when I first started and it will be the plan I am to assume now. This will of course require some constraints to ensure it can be done without a lot of crazy load lifting, but I've done as much as possible to make my tools as flexible as possible so that I can do an array of interesting things. For those who may have concerns over this part of the game, I can assure you it is already working and that the biggest hurdle is actually coming up with content to script into the game. It is my hope that much of this content will be in the pipeline and/or in the engine waiting to be deployed ahead of schedule to allow for wiggle room if needed.



[h2]- Concluding Notes[/h2]
I want to say thank you to everyone who has stuck with this thing through thick and thin. I know it probably hasn't always been good, and it probably hasn't always been something you like. But this is the risk developers take when making a game, especially when that game doesn't exactly fall into the mainstream appeal. So my metric for success has to be different out of necessity. And what is that metric?

1) Was the game completed?

2) Did the game evoke the experience that was intended?

3) Was new knowledge obtained?

Those three, and especially the last one, are of greater value and importance to me right now than anything else. Without those three things right there, even if you get all the money you could ever want, you don't really have a game and no room for future growth.

This release is for public testing. Feedback will be gathered with another release and official patch notes the following weekend.

Hello. It's been a while. If you've been following the other platforms I post on then you've gotten a glimpse of what I've been working on. Nothing is quite ready for release just yet, but I'm posting today to share with you everything I've worked on. What you're about to see is no doubt a LOT of work in a short time, but it highlights an important aspect of brand of development. Which is that I can get a lot more done when I'm not trying to manage a team on top of everything else AND a day job. That said, let's get into the details of what's on the horizon for Frontiers Reach and why the heck I'm not ready to release an update yet.


[h2]Flight Mechanic Overhaul:[/h2]
The flight mechanic has been completely overhauled. This should eliminate some of the crazy spinning that could be experienced in the previous one. The most important feature of this overhaul is on the developer side. It's been drastically simplified to make it easier on my end to create and publish new starfighters. This new flight mechanic however feels a bit more like a traditional space game however, and less like an arcade aerial combat simulator though elements of that still survive. Below is some earlier test footage from a scene specifically setup to test the new flight mechanic in a combat environment.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Weapons System Overhaul:[/h2]
Stripped down and streamlined for ease of development was the goal on this one. Not much has changed aside from how it works on the developer side. These changes will make it easier to introduce new and interesting weapon types into the game. The biggest change of which is the ability to swap out warheads to allow for interesting weapon types but we'll get to that in future updates. Another significant change is the elimination of cannon ammo. From now on players will have unlimited cannon ammo but will have to balance that with thermal load on the craft.


[h2]Cockpit View Overhaul:[/h2]
Believe it or not, I still have more I want to add and some tweaks I would like to make to indicator behaviors before I'm ready to call this done but it is in a state that is pretty darn close to completion. Below is an image and a breakdown of the different gauges and indicators.

1 - Boresight Scope : Not much has changed here. I'm researching some methods of increasing overall rendering efficiency. Eventually this will be setup with drift and lead so when the player puts the crosshair on something the rounds are hitting it, if it's in range.

2 - Fuel gauge : The resources have been simplified. You will use fuel as you play and the use will increase when you engage afterburner or RCS. This is something of a soft time limit as it can be refilled if you request a reload from the Heliosiren. Eventually the fuel icon will flash as fuel gets low.

3 - Thermals Gauge : Anything you do outside of normal operation of the craft will generate additional heat. Eventually the thermal icon will flash as the craft runs hotter.

4 - Throttle & Speed Gauges : This pair of gauges will show you the current throttle position and speed in meters per second. The blue light on the throttle readout indicates the afterburner state. The blue light on the speed gauge is a low speed warning indicator.

5 - Health & Damage Indicator : Indicates the health state of the player. Right now there is a red bar that indicates health percentage. The starfighter graphic doesn't do anything currently but I'm thinking either of changing the color to better communicate the current state or to show off damage hot spots. Right now the players health is unified. Meaning getting shot anywhere deals damage to the craft as a whole rather than to individual components. I am as yet undecided as to how granular I want to get with player health.

6 - Ammo Gauge Cluster : One of the more complex gauges on the instrument panel to read. This shows current weapon selection, current weapon ammo, current weapon state, and the reload time if it has one. Right now all reload times are the same but that will be changing.

7 - Wayfinding Arrow : This arrow indicator tracks the current target. However in the future it will also be used to indicate direction to waypoints and change color based upon what it is tracking.

8 - Angle of Attack & Gravitational Orientation Indicator : This gauge is one of my own design but is actually quite simple to read. The inner circle will drift showing the crafts true direction of travel with the arrow accentuating it. The blue arrows indicate the direction of gravitational pull.

9 - Mission Information Panel : Displays information relevant to the current mission objective.

10 - Radar : The radar has been completely rebuilt and now supports a true refresh rate and is affected by the module system in terms of range.

11 - Countermeasures Indicator : Indicates the current state of the countermeasure module that is current equipped.

12 - Rotation Control System Indicator : Indicates whether or not the rotation control system is currently active.




[h2]Starfighter Shading Overhaul:[/h2]
Starfighter coloring is now fixed and will blend the way it is supposed to. Most of the strange coloring issues are now gone though there are still some here and there that need to be addressed. The biggest change is in general cleanup of how the paint layers blend with one another and how wear and tear is blended into the paint layers. This overhaul also includes the addition of rain effects on the hull of the fighters which is tied into the starfighters rigid body physics to help simulate some semblance of relative velocity. This effect is achieved through blending normal maps and adjusting the clear coat value on HDRP materials.

Pristine Paint


Worn Paint


Rain FX

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Scale Overhaul:[/h2]
Environments and other assets have been touched up for scale across the board. While most things are supposed to have a larger than life appeal to them, various assets and environment pieces have been rescaled. This was partly done to get the game back to operating within the range of scale that Unity's lighting engine prefers. This should yield overall better looking shadows in most instances as well as a bit of a performance boost.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Environments/Levels Overhaul:[/h2]
One of the goals behind environments/levels in Frontiers Reach is to create spaces that are rich with interactivity and interest, and it is certainly a challenge when your resources for interesting environment pieces are limited. After all what kind of things do you put on a remote world with little in the way of human civil infrastructure? Well, I've got some ideas and the content below isn't even scratching the surface. Most of this is still work in progress so I don't have much to show outside of the one level as this method of level design inherently takes more time and thought for the layout. Some things are also dictated by the needs of the story.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Module System Overhaul:[/h2]
The module system is now integrated into each starfighter and will have real affects on the performance characteristics of your fighter. This overhaul also includes the addition of the new Q-Field Emitter animation. This will play a small animation on the Q-Field Emitters when the player is boosting. The intention behind the module system is NOT to give you more powerful modules and climb a power ladder, but rather it is to give you different capabilities. In this way each module, even when of the same type, affects the craft differently.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Camera System Overhaul:[/h2]
This new camera system is stripped down and simplified from the previous version. The mouse control for camera look has been simplified somewhat too. The biggest change is mostly in just how it works and is a change that is best experienced. It will be ready in the next update. For the time being, camera locking to horizon is not an option. This is partly because I'm sticking with the space game feel and locking the camera to player rotation with smoothing and dampening.

[h2]Scenario Management Overhaul:[/h2]
Oh boy, this is the big one. Previously I built something called the Mission Manager that drove all of the missions through a very simple and rigid data oriented system. That system has since been refactored and the data model along with it. This new system and data model will be expanded over time as it is based more on rules established for the environment, or level, rather than trigger zones and events; though those things do exist in the levels but are leveraged in other ways. The biggest advantage of this new system is just the depth to which it both interacts with the level and analyzes the level for conditionals.

A great example of this is a new component I call the Town Controller which works as a subordinate component of the Scenario Manager. This is a simple bit of code that keeps track of all of the destructible pieces of a town each time an event is thrown. And when the Scenario Manager wants to know if a town has suffered damage to it's fuel tanks then it simply asks the Town Controller for that information.

This change of course requires that all levels be rebuilt and all missions be rewritten/scripted in the new data model.


[h2]The Story Overhaul:[/h2]
Last but not least there is the story telling overhaul. I've actually begun working on the official story. The story that will actually be released. The next update should include a small selection of missions, likely the first 5 or 6. But this isn't just a story rewrite. There is more to this than just a rewrite. The Galley is also in the process of being overhauled and I'm trying to get more character artwork done through a contractor on Fiverr before I can fully realize the system I have in mind for character interaction. I'm not sure how long this will take so I'm hesitant to say when exactly the next update will be available. I need at least 2 to 3 more characters for the Galley to make it really come together as a system that can be experienced before releasing anything else. I do however have a test image below. Still working on lighting.



Last but not least, Frontiers Reach is essentially funded from here on out. I can't go into the details of exactly why this is because it involves my personal health but the end result is one in which the financial future of Frontiers Reach is irrelevant as to whether or not it makes money.

As much as I tried, I couldn't help myself and proceeded to get some work done on levels and art. Happy holidays and see you in the new year.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hello, my name is Scarlett Toney.

We’ve recently had a shake up in the team. One for which I assume full responsibility.

When I started Frontiers Reach, I was alone. It was well into the pandemic lock downs, and I was renting a room in my bosses basement after having lost my apartment because I simply couldn’t afford it and did not want to sit around racking up debt under the eviction moratorium.

Much of the core infrastructure you play with in FR was actually built by myself in the 1st three months of development. The AI, while not perfect and definitely in need more work, did the job I needed it to do and a recent tweak has made it even better. I wasn’t too concerned initial as the game was being built for portfolio purposes since my real work is all under NDA.

The initial intention behind Frontiers Reach was to create a story driven sandbox experience that would be near infinitely scale-able. To achieve this I chose a data driven solution that would define simple conditions for a player to achieve within a data model. The system would then check every other frame to see if the player was within or had achieved the conditions defined by the data model. When the condition was met, the objective would be considered complete and the system would then load the next objective in sequence contained within the data model.

This data model is simple enough that it can even be constructed with a 2D interface built right into the game and I plan to eventually build one. And for the record, that kind of work is precisely what I do in the real world. Connect external data to runtime applications and make it do real meaningful things for people on the digital side and vice versa. I’m attempting to take those lessons learned in the corporate world and apply them to Frontiers Reach.

Aside from the story I wanted to tell within it, it would be a completely player driven and expanded retro science fiction sandbox. A library of voice over, music, sandbox style levels, and starships of all classes would be at your finger tips. But this would all have to be built up slowly over time. Especially voice over and my plan originally was to use an AI generated voice over and possibly tie it into the game so players could generate their VO for missions if they wanted(profanity filters applied of course). This AI would be the main narrator and drive you through missions. Almost like the AI was telling the story to someone else.

The biggest reason I chose this structure is because as much as I love a certain science fiction intellectual property now owned by a certain mega media conglomerate, I wish they would approach fan created content differently. And so Frontiers Reach was also born out of a desire to set a different precedent than those who came before. Rather than smacking the fans on the wrist, I want to give them the tools to tell their own stories right in the game.

The team however did not want to do this. They wanted to create a very cinematic experience, with lots of heavily scripted sequences. And the programmer I was working with wanted to abandon the data model I built all together and re-engineer the whole thing to use Unity Editor side tools to setup the missions. Even if we could save the data out to the file format we needed, this would have required we build two sets of tools. One for ourselves, and one for the players, and would have extended our development time and scope well beyond our ability to manage things. We started missing deadlines, voice actors weren’t showing up when we needed, we had a writer just quit all of a sudden. It was already falling apart as we became a chaotic concerto with no conductor.

And this is where my responsibilities as a leader overtook me.

I simply don’t have the experience or the time and focus to manage a team of 10, that should be more like 20, and a project being over taken by scope creep. 3 weeks from what was supposed to be our kickstarter launch and we were adding completely new features and re-engineering existing systems.
So I decided that before we got ourselves into a really sticky situation and owe a whole bunch of people a whole lot of money, that I’d just pull the plug on it as a team venture more or less and go back to my very clearly defined scope where I’m pretty much a dictator about the scope and direction. It was manageable for one person and would have been great if I had been able to get the team on board in the manner I had envisioned with each member being responsible for a section i.e gameplay, creatures, characters. This would have been similar to the “art-house” environment that the founders and I fostered when we were in college together only in a Discord server. And I was paying for a lot of things just to host this space for us to create without having to worry about things like deadlines and investors.

The team will still work together in various capacities but I think the time has come for me to take the reigns again and start unifying and solidifying the experience a bit before adding anything new. I’ve also got a major infrastructure change I’ve been meaning to work on for scenario management that should yield some interesting results and a couple of starfighters that have been neglected. We’ll see what comes in the days/weeks ahead.

Till next time pilots, stay safe and I’ll see you out on the frontier! We'll be back to work on Frontiers Reach after Jan 1st. I've got an apartment to get moved into and would like to spend some time this Holiday with friends and family as much as can remotely.