Frontiers Reach News

This weeks update sees a host of art and performance changes as well as some tweaks to enemies to speed up the pace of the game a bit. We're still working on custom key and axis bindings and hope to be getting our hands on some new terrain tech to reduce how much we're spending on it in terms of hardware resources. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Reddit to get the news on what's going on with game throughout the week.

- Enabled Texture Streaming.

- Player Callsign that is created on character creation will now show up when the player is addressed in conversations instead of just "pilot".

- Removed mushroom tree model from Frontiers Reach map to increase performance until a better solution for tree rendering is found.

- Implemented dual camera system to address issues with flickering shadows.

- Reworked a number of story dialogue entries and added two new characters to interact with.

- Fixed opening cutscene starfighter model missing.

- Fixed minor bug that disrupted story flow when loading a new profile.

- Added more detail and some lighting to Volkov Heavy Industries Mining Vessel NPC as well as fuel tanks to kill requirement.

- A number of skyboxes have been changed to improve visual quality.

- Improved visual appeal and quality of clouds and nebula on a number of levels.

- Rework of Post Effects for better overall visuals.

- Adjusted health levels on enemies to lower over all time to kill.

- Rework of Starliner capital ships to match gameplay complexity of other capital ships.

- Minor touchup to hangar bay artwork to prepare it for new launch sequence.

- Fixes on the Mar De Sangre campaign mission to address issues with patrol paths.

- Minor tweaks to both menu and mission User Interfaces to facilitate functional use on ultrawide monitors.

Hotfix addresses some performance issues and a couple of bugs.

- Removed instance of multiple non-functional buttons on the Observation Deck.

- Removed instance of audio replaying when cycle camera views.

-Removed mushroom trees from Frontiers Reach map to improve performance. We will replace this in the future.

This weeks patch notes contain a slew of minor adjustments and a couple of new features. The RFV Heliosiren is now equipped with an Observation Deck and is the hangout spot for NPCs that are key figures to talk to when not on mission. It isn't always in use so be sure to check it out every mission. Missing a conversation with a character could mean missing out on getting a new Sortie mission.

Additionally there is a new camera system that has been added. While it needs a bit of work still we look forward to seeing the pictures you all take with it.

In the background we have prioritized custom key bindings so that each player can configure their controllers and joysticks. Not sure how long exactly it will take to get done as I'm still getting a sense for how quickly team members are working and everyone's availability is spotty. Some of us are still working other day jobs, but we'll get done!

It's important that I mention you will absolutely need a new player profile for this update. A number of changes and additions were made to the player profile structure and what information gets saved. I apologize for the inconvenience.

- New UI background graphics to increase visibility of the interface.

- Font change on the interface and across other UI elements.

- Adjusted terrain quality settings to allow for lower quality to be selected on lower end hardware.

- Added new alert graphics to UI.

- Added new camera rig for camera swapping on the fly during missions using the F1 key.

- Adjusted scroll boxes to allow for faster less tedious navigation with the mouse wheel.

- Updated intro cinematic text.

- Added ability to select a character image in the new player creation screen.

- Added a new NPC social space where the player can visit to talk to NPC characters that are aboard the RFV Heliosiren. These interactions with NPC's can potentially give the player access to new sorties which will eventually have unique rewards in some cases.

- Every turret in the game has been touched upon and the turret behavior has been refactored.

This weeks update is a significant change in the games architecture as it sees the expansion of levels completed and the beginning of major moves in terms of level design. Additionally more refinements have been made to the Mission Manager to increase it's robustness and prep it for custom missions. This is yet another big step in the proper direction and it opens the game up by a significant margin.

- All map locations have been restructured into different locations and scaled up for implementation into the new level and mission management system.

- Multiple maps are now available for patrol missions. These maps will unlock as players progress through the campaign.

- Each planetary location now has multiple deployment zones at varying altitudes. For the time being these are used by the dev team only, but will be exposed on the custom mission editor.

- Each mission now has a time limit that the mission must be completed in with a timer on the 3rd person UI. Additionally there are 5 and 1 minute audio warnings to let the player know when time is getting critical.

- The F-135 Solarhawk is now flyable on any map once it is unlocked.

- Changed UI color for 3rd person mode to white for better visibility.

- Terrain resolution is now adjustable with the general quality dropdown in the config menu. This is best reserved for machines that absolutely need to reduce poly count.

- Massive over haul to the Longreach Class of Frigates making them much more difficult to take down.

- Fixed a bug in the terrain quality controls that kept the auto-quality controller from doing it's job appropriately.