Frontiers Reach News

Fixed
- Rockets not firing from primary hardpoint.
- Rockets and bombs not exploding when they should.

This update is more of a patch to fix up some bugs that appeared in the midst of all of the work getting the WARMAP up and running. However, it does add something new. A single planet only scenario template that is only available on Sol Confederacy owned nodes. More below.

Physics & Ballistics Tweaks
- Modifed the accuracy of the physics settings in engine and increased the accuracy of bullets and improved the behavior of missiles. More of your cannon rounds should hit now.

Level Tweaks
- All planets are now marked as planet in the engine, resulting in appropriate behavior for managing gravity. Space missions no longer have gravity.

New Scenario Template - Brigade Carrier Assault
- Any node that is a planet owned by the Sol Confederacy will have a this new scenario template. This scenario is an assault on a Sol Confederacy Brigade Carrier. A large landing craft capable of holding an entire Brigade Combat Team with full support assets and support them in the field for an indefinite amount of time so long as logistics are not cut off.

Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug that caused some scenario templates to not be turned off by the scenario manager.
- Fixed a bug that would cause missiles launched by the player to detonate early.
- Fixed a bug that would cause some levels to break as a result of duplicated infrastructure left over from testing.

This weekends update marks a significant leap forward for Frontiers Reach.

This leap comes in the form of the WARMAP.



The WARMAP takes almost two years of planning, work, experimentation, and feedback from friends and team members past and present, and incorporates it all into what I am hoping is a cohesive vision of an infantile, but galactic civilization at war with itself.

Currently the warmap will be available at the HOLOTABLE from the moment you start the game. This will break some things with the story if you're starting a new character but allows you to completely skip the story altogether for the sake of expedient testing. It will get locked behind a mission in a future update.

I also saved the data separately so you wont have to make a new character to play the WARMAP. You can dive right in with an existing one. I do however recommend a fresh install as this most recent updates adds a lot and changed some under the hood things (MAJOR lighting update). Save your character file in another folder before doing so if wish to use the same character.

Now on the WARMAP there is a total of 37 playable nodes each with either a space map or planet map. Each node gives off passive influence when owned by a faction (Republic or Confederacy).

These factions are represented by 2 bots.

The 2 bots fight each other using different strategies. And deploy commanders to all the nodes to either defend or attack.

Republic Bot:
- Has lots of commanders who can hit really hard, but often fail to achieve significant victories.
- Uses multiple thin supply chains in support of commanders. Each adjacent node boosts the logistics support commanders can receive when they succeed in defending/attacking a node.
- Very heavy on the defense. Does not give up worlds easy.
- Commanders are buffed by the total number of worlds the Republic has in its ownership.

Confederacy Bot:
- Has few commanders who command high tech fleets that achieve small decisive victories in a systematic approach.
- Uses a thick supply chain. A single adjacent node is enough to get the full supply chain bonus but this means they don't stack supply chains.
- Holdfast. Offensive and defensive capabilities ensure the Sol Confederacy does not yield ground often.
- Sol Confederacy Commanders can affect independent nodes.


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- To play the WARMAP you must travel to a node that is in DefCon level 1 or higher. As you complete missions on the node, a portion of your salvage score is calculated towards the influence levels of the node. If you complete a mission with 10,000 salvage score, then you will score 2500 influence towards the current node when you revisit the WARMAP and it finishes its initialization. This process is manual right now but will likely be automated in the future to ensure you return to the WARMAP after every WARMAP mission.
As you complete missions and tip the scales towards the favor of the Republic, the DefCon level of the node increases. This increases passively over time if one side or the other is influencing the node. Faster if both the Republic and Confederacy are directly connecting to the node. Right now all missions are unlocked. In the future, the list of available missions will change based upon the DefCon level.




- There are 9 standard templates in the game now. These 9 templates range in difficulty and scope but are playable on every single level/map. There is also 1 template that is currently available only on planets. More on the in the list below. Also, there is no dialogue voice over for these new missions yet. There will be in the future.

[h2]Standard Templates[/h2]

Patrol Sector - Move from waypoint to waypoint and engage any enemies you encounter.
Gather Intel - Operatives friendly to the Republic have set intel drops in the area. Collect as many as you can find before you run out of fuel.
Extraction - A Republic operative has been made and is requesting extraction. Locate them and protect the transport sent to retrieve them.
Escort VIP - A cargo vessel is transporting supplies to the next sector over. Provide escort for them as they move.
Hunt VIP - A vessel carrying assets of strategic importance is moving through this sector. Intercept and eliminate them.
Furball - Assist the Republic in a major air battle involving only fighters.
Sector Battle - Assist the Republic in a major battle in the sector involving fighters and capital ships. Will eventually accomodate ground and naval warfare where applicable.
Bomber Intercept - Mercenaries have been hired to bomb targets in the next sector over. We've been asked to intercept at this location.
Bomber Escort - The Republic is using modified cargo vessels as bombers and will be moving a small contingent through this Sector. Escort them and keep them safe.

[h2]Planet Only Template[/h2]

Defend Survivors - A vessel has crash landed in this sector. Locate it and provide air cover to the survivors.




- The radar has recieved several improvements. Better lock on behavior when launching guided munitions. Friendlies and loot drops are also now visible on the radar.


- This past week I was able to make a lot of great progress on ground warfare units. A small snippet of this progress is visibile in the Defend Survivors mission and I'm working on compiling a video montage for later.


- I'll admit. This is going to be broken for a couple of weeks. I need to rebalance the entire thing with consideration to the WARMAP. Just a heads up here.


- New patterns for paint schemes have been added. I also plan to add the ability to change color layout masks in the future.


- The last 3 fighters I have made something of an independent creative effort and have not done the usual community voting. I may do this again in the future if I feel like the designs are getting too similar, or in this case, we hit 6 fighters in Gen1 and that is about all I'm willing to tolerate at max for a single generation of playable fighters so I decided it was time to step up to Gen2 and start taking design inspiration from the mid 1950s to mid 1960s. Some very interesting designs were made during this period. I highly recommend looking at the experimental research platforms.

[h2]1) Lochland & Masters F-67 Hoplite[/h2]
- A dedicated dogfighter with extreme maneuverability and two powerful engines. Has four cannon hardpoints in the nose.





[h2]2) AgGuerAero AT-15 Shepherd[/h2]
- An agricultural platform converted for combat duties. Great for scouting and ground support.






- The cloud and atmosphere rendering plugin I've been using got a major update recently and has since been updated in the game. This has led to a number of optimizations but on the plugin side, and on the project side that should speed things up and give better frame rates across the board on planetary levels. More optimizations to come.



- The WARMAP saw the expansion of the games environment from 20 story missions across a handful of worlds to over 40 new locations in the game. Many of these new levels are pretty bare bones, but all of them accommodate the new missions for the WARMAP.

The past few updates I've kind of slapped things together and kicked it out the door and didn't really spend much time on patch notes. This time is different.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



- The first campaign is a linear story. It is intended to introduce you, the player, to the Frontiers Reach Universe, some of its characters, and get you familiar with concepts in the universe.
There will no doubt be some changes to it before the finalized campaign goes live with official release.





- Blitz and Izzy will join you at certain points in the story as you progress through the campaign. In the future, Blitz and Izzy will accompany you on story missions while you'll have the option to take wingmen on non-story missions. These wingmen will be available to recruit in the BERTH aboard the Heliosiren when that room is finally made available in game.





- Every starfighters cockpit has been completely reworked. The artwork for the individual instrumentation has also been updated.





- The aimscope will now track locked targets or when using bombs it will track the bomb sight instead. In the case of the bomb sight, this should make using bombs in cockpit mode easier. I will try to work on visbility of the aimscope visual in a future update.



- Significantly improved the reliability of the feedback from the radar concerning incoming missiles. Now only those missiles that are locked on to you will trigger an incoming alert.





- Frontiers Reach has been without a proper target lead marker since this whole thing began. That has now changed. Though there are some instances where it seems to be off i.e extreme vertical intercepts where you and the enemy are facing each other.
To get the lead marker to show up, you need only to lock onto an enemy. That will let the targeting computer know you want to track lead on a target.





- Control schemes have been added for Mouse & Keyboard, HOTAS, Gamepad, and Keyboard only. I highly recommend unplugging any device you do not wish to actively use while playing to avoid conflicts. Highly recommend calibrating any joystick/HOTAS setup before going into the game.



- Another pass on weapon balance has been made and should yield a noticeable difference in how each weapon functions. Expect further changes in the future.



- Various tweaks and adjustments to the pathfinding/collision avoidance technique have been made to achieve a more consistent and sensible navigational behavior pattern. Randomness is still a thing though.



- Not quite a total rebalance, but various parameters of the AI have been changed with the aim to achieve better behavior in the heat of combat. Let me know what you think.





- The cost of your starfighter will once again be deducted from your salvage pool when you get shot down. This will require you to manage your salvage input/output and may require you to take on missions or use cheaper loadouts if you run low.



- Each starfighter has damage decals and fiery particles effects to better indicate damage state in 3rd person. Additionally, all starfighters have simplified destruction models.





- Where 1st Gen is inspired by the post-war/inter-war period of 1945-54, 2nd Gen fighters are inspired by those fighters from 1955-65. These fighters are intended to be better than 1st Gen fighters in their roles. This should be expressed in the balance.










- Added text indicating when to use the ESC key to skip sequences or messages.
- Tweaks to 3rd person camera for something slightly more drifty.
- Small tweaks to UI elements.
- A lot of little things have changed to affect better performance and visuals all over the place.
- Tweaks to how some buttons function on the loadout screen.
- Data for pilot homeworld and prior profession is now stored in json.


I had a good month this past month. I got a lot of artwork done in a crucial area that had desperately been needing an update and some key features added that have been left out of of the game till now. So it begs the question...



Over the next month or two I aim to get the following in to the game :
- Wingman management for non-main story missions.
- Wingman orders i.e. follow, weapons free.
- Reload and Re-arm mechanic for some mission types.
- Additional scenario rules for more mission types.
- Lots more missions.
- More characters in the GALLEY.
- Foundational work for a dynamic campaign.
- TrackIR support.


I'll see you around pilots!

This update contains more quality of life tweaks, some balance changes, and our first seasonal event! In a similar fashion to the last update, this one encompasses changes where I focused on getting more of the story done. However, I'm on the home stretch and wanted to get an update out this weekend.

My reasoning for this is simple. The next update will be official beta. The game will still remain in Early Access but I'll be moving into the beta stage.

This beta will include the ENTIRE first campaign. That is 20 missions in all ready to be played from start to finish. Changes pending of course. There will be tweaks and adjustments and maybe even additions and removal before official launch but the beta is a pretty important stage for testing and review.

Another thing that will be happening is that I'll begin work on Campaign 2.

Campaign 2 is significant because campaign 2 will affect a major change in how the game is played. Where C1 is focused on a linear story that aims to introduce the player to the Frontiers Reach Universe, C2 is intended to be a revenge story that takes place across a dynamic campaign played out across the war for frontier worlds on a galactic map aboard the Heliosiren. I've already started initial design work and have some ideas but it will be some time before this is ready.

For now I leave with you more imagery as I enjoy a holiday on my side of the globe and then head back to work.

Stay safe out there pilots!












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