Frontiers Reach News

- Another pass at fixing node flips on the WARMAP.
- Fixed a bug that could cause the Fleet Fights to not behave properly.
- Fixed a bug that could cause both Fleet Fight and Sector Battle Scenarios to become incompletable.
- Fixed a bug with the UI on the Alhaju Al Akir map.

- Fixed a dialogue timing issue in the first tutorial mission.
- First pass at a potential fix for a bug on the WARMAP that was stopping nodes from flipping when the player had finished a mission on the node.

I’m probably going to get into trouble for this. But I’m going to say it anyway. And I’m going to say it because I want newcomers to understand what Frontiers Reach is, and what it is not.


Steve Jobs once said “people don’t know what they want until we show them”, but I would prefer to say it another way.

Most people, only want more of the things they already know that they love.


Frontiers Reach is not a traditional space game. It is not an Ace Combat or Project Wingman fan game. It does not care to even try to compete with a game like Star Citizen. In fact, I’ve actually made jokes that most of the missions in Frontiers Reach are quick and intense enough that you could play them while on downtime waiting for your friends to group up in Star Citizen.


(insert “I heard you like space games so I made space game you could play while you play space games” meme)


I’ll be 40 years old in the next few years. Making games has been my passion since I was kid, even when they didn’t make any money. And I grew up in a family that believed games, especially computer games and console games, were a waste of time and money and as an adult now myself I can kind of see their point. But working on games has opened doors for me that would have otherwise been closed. So even when they didn’t make money directly, other opportunities came along.


When I started Frontiers Reach I was definitely inspired by past games. But I also had reached a point of exhaustion. At that time I had played Elite Dangerous, No Man’s Sky, Freelancer, Darkstar One, and dabbled around with games like the X series, Battlecruiser, Everspace 2, EVE Online, and I:war2, and I watched long plays of all the Wing Commander games. And I’m sick and tired of looking at the same design aesthetic and playing with the same game mechanics in the space game genre.


In the past 30 years the most innovative thing anyone has to offer is No Man’s Sky with some awesome procedural generation tech to fill out an entire universe. Yeah I’ll give Star Citizen some props for doing large planets with a massive city or 2 but as far as I’m concerned, NMS beat everyone to the dream game and they did it with a studio that was a fraction of the size of most. And that’s despite the rocky start. And I’m still not convinced that procedurally generating a whole universe is necessary or worth it. But Sean Murray and his team deserve props for being the absolute mad lads and lasses that they are for both taking the risk to make it happen and actually pulling it off.


But I’m still tired of playing what are essentially re-skins of the same game. Whether they be a survival space game, a looter shooter space game, or a traditional space sim.


So if you want more of what Everspace 2 has, I recommend playing Everspace 2 and giving your support to those devs, they work very hard on that game and they deserve every ounce of loyalty their fan base gives them.


And if you want more Ace Combat or Project Wingman, go give your support to those teams. They also work very hard on their games. I’ve played both of them, but as an older person I just can’t get into them like younger people do. And then there is Project Red Sun, I’ve given some small advice to the dev on that game and we’ve worked together in the past. That project should be your next target if you’re looking for more Arcade Shooter games.


If you’re looking for something more like No Man’s Sky, I would recommend either sticking with No Man’s Sky because they are still updating the game, or checking out Terrene; it’s basically NMS in 2D and very fun and accessible if want a universe in your pocket.


If you want the traditional space trucker experience I highly recommend tuning into some tracks from the band Deep Purple and downloading Star Trucker. It’s literally just that. Like, from the videos I’ve seen it may as well be American Truck Simulator, Space Edition.


And if you want 2nd life in space, well, I guess they’re supposed to release Star Citizen at some point.


Reality is Frontiers Reach is none of those games. And maybe it’s a game that nobody asked for, but I am indeed nobody, and yes I did ask for this game. I asked for a military retro-scifi space and atmospheric combat sim with game mechanics and an art style inspired by the early to mid Cold War fighter jets and aerial conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union. I tried something that leaned more towards the arcade side of things with a different team early on, but when things didn’t work out, I went my own way and leaned more towards simulation.


But this isn’t just a simulation in respect to having a lot of physics interactions going on. Nor is it a pure aerodynamic simulation because that would actually make some of the fighters I designed literally unflyable. Part of the simulation is that you’re one of the underdogs in an asymmetrical conflict where your goal isn’t really to win the war, but to get out of it. And you won’t have the luxury of an entire military behind you either. You’ll need to do your own recon, strategize on the fly, and learn to identify friend from foe on a battlefield where civilians and military alike are struggling for control and stability. And you’ll have to do it all in a world you don’t really understand and will have to learn.


If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. Frontiers Reach is a space/flight sim made by me and I’m the type of person who has a pretty long history of playing space/flight games and sims. So it’s not really made for the casual gamer, and if your heart isn’t really in it, then I recommend playing something else. You won’t hurt my feelings by doing so.


With that aside, those of you who are here for it can rest assured that updates to Frontiers Reach are still coming. The Uncharted Worlds exploration themed content will be getting a revamp here soon and I’ll be looking to begin work on multiplayer.

Yes, that’s right. We’re looking to add multiplayer to Frontiers Reach. I say we, because I met someone last year who was kind enough to take time out of their day to put together a simplified multiplayer setup for Frontiers Reach where you will play WARMAP missions as a singular player and when you complete missions you’re completion data will be calculated across the network so every player connected to the internet will see your progress affect their maps and vice-versa. There is still a lot of work to do on that front but we’ve already gotten it working in the test environment.


Till next time pilots, happy hooning!

- Fixed a bug that stopped the camera from zooming in on the bounty board in the galley.

- First pass at an attempted fix for ultra wide aspect ratio monitors and UI scaling.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


This is it, this is everything for the story and the game mechanics. Nothing else will be added unless there is demand enough for it.

It has been almost 4 years since I started development. It's been pretty crazy all throughout and what's awesome most of all is that it's finished. This is by far the largest project I have ever taken on and have completed and I'm pretty excited just to be able to say it's done.

While this update is the last major update it should be noted that smaller updates with bug fixes and balance changes will be released. I'm not abandoning the game but I will be moving on to working on other projects. If you would like to follow those please feel free to hop in the Discord and hang out with the team and the community to stay up on what's going on behind the scenes.



Now for the patch notes.





One of the most important changes coming to Frontiers Reach is a revamped new player
experience. It took quite a bit of time and multiple play sessions to gather the feedback
that went into this and there may be more tweaks that need to be made but this new intro
to the Frontiers Reach universe is designed to get you better acquainted with the game
mechanics and universe.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

While the original tutorial mission will remain, 3 additional tutorial missions are being
added and Instant Action is has been split into Planet and Space modes. Two of the three new missions are hyper focused on a set of mechanics.

Basic Flight Training is for introduction to flight and the starfighter instrument panel.

Basic Combat Training is for familiarizing the player with the concepts of aerial combat.

Combat Scenario #1 is a new scenario focused on fighter combat.

Combat Scenario #2 is the original tutorial mission on Tom Uul with some tweaks to
streamline things a bit.

In each of these missions you will fly a different starfighter in a different environment with
different weapon loadouts. The goal here is get players acquainted with the idea of flying
different starfighters for different missions.





Damage models for capital ships have always been either bare minimum or non-existent.
When Act 3 launches those days are over. Every capital ship in the game will have a new
damage model all new effects.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]





Numerous fixes and tweaks to performance have yielded a significant increase in
performance across the entire game. Getting this increase took a lot of trial and error and
analysis of the game as it was running. One of the biggest problems was the sheer
amount of particle effects being used in the game in ways that were supposed to be
performant but proved otherwise. The biggest performance hit of which was engine
plumes, especially for large capital ships with lots of engines. By changing out the old
engine plumes which were run by Unity's Shadergraph for VFX with a simpler customized
solution using some old school tricks I was able to get back about 40 FPS and finally
achieve something in Frontiers Reach I have wanted since the start.
Flying a starfighter in large fleet battles.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]





The version of Unity that Frontiers Reach is built on has been update to Unity 2023. I was
going to wait a bit longer to do this but in the pursuit of trying to get as much performance
out of the physics engine as possible I discovered that Unity 2023 increased support for
multi-threaded physics. Additionally the previously highlighted issue of Unity 2022 not
supporting Wayland on Linux should now be fixed. Wayland support was added in a much
earlier version of Unity 2023 but was still experimental at that time. The version I chose for
this update is a more recent version of Unity and should have all the issues hammered
out. If you experiencing something on Linux that seems like it may be Wayland related,
please don't hesitate to let me know as soon as possible.





- Joysticks of all types should now work with Frontiers Reach.
- Increased the number of options for setting up throttles to the players liking.
- Added inverse options for look controls.
- It is now possible to change the time of day through the scenario script.
- Hooked up city lights to day time controller.
- Altitude warning has been lowered again.
- Ladder and compass UI when in first person mode has been trimmed back to be less
obtrusive.
- Added sound effects for lock on.
- Added sound effects for weapon switching.
- Added new Radar Warning sound effects.
- Adjusted fog on Frontiers Reach to be less intense.
- Moved cave waypoint in Mission 1.
- Added fighter spawns to mission 3.
- Adjust spawn time for mission 5.
- Modified AI on Mission 11 set piece to ensure it works properly on initialization.
- Updated waypointer positions on Mission 13.
- Tweaks to fighter AI to keep them from getting stuck underground.
- Fixed ground vehicles going off trail on the New Karachi map.
- Increased lift factor for all fighters to make flying at lower speeds easier.
- Fix for missile lock angle allowing missiles to do 180 degree turns to hit targets.
- Fixed AI losing track on player when assigned through script at long ranges.
- Fix damage VFX on mercenary carriers.
- Added hit SFX on some destructibles on the Utsukushi Ringu map that did not have
them.
- Fixed character interactions in the galley (improvements coming)
- Fixed the cursor not working when gamepad was used on the warmap.
- Fighters should no longer get stuck under the terrain on planetary missions.
- Modified cooldowns on some tertiary weapons to keep some fighters from deploying their
entire payload.
- Modified tutorial message UI elements to keep them from overlapping other UI elements
- Toggled off idle thrusters in Bleakers Folly Station.
- Fixed Ajagar ace fighters SFX.
- Fixed some vehicles moving around maps during warmap scenarios when they should
have been immobile.
- Fixed some destructibles in warmap scenarios not registering hits.
- Fixed some destructibles in warmap scenarios not registering damage.
- Tweaks to the warmap to change how is updates the visuals as the warmap data
updates.
- Fixed an instance where the warmap would not properly display the defcon level of a
node, or would go into "Stand Down" status before it was intended to do so.
- Fixed a bug that could cause the end of the game to not load properly.
- Fixed a bug that could cause dialogue for characters in the galley to not load properly.
- Fixed several instances of destructibles on some warmap scenarios not registering hits
and/or damage.
- Fixed an instance of double loading of dialogue for the main story elements in the CIC.
- Fixed Land to Reload not working when using Mouse and Keyboard.
- Added the ability to cycle through potential targets.
- Added the ability to camera track a locked target.
- Added 2 flight modes to the game, Tight and Loose. Tight feels more like flying a
simulator, and Loose feels more like playing a game.
- Fixed a bug that could cause the NPCs to rapidly repeat their dialogue.
- Changed Unity Splash screen to dark mode
- Fixed boundary mesh not rendering.
- Fixed missing collider on commsat dish.
- Adjusted bomb sight range.
- Normalized wingman audio.
- Added a welcome screen for new players.
- Fixed Caldero landing cutscene.
- Fixed a bug that could cause the menu system to break when completing a mission if
that mission was completed using a player madeloadout.
- Fixed waypoint marker in tutorial mission #1.
- Added fighter select for instant action.
- Added the ability to skip dialogue in tutorial mission #1
- Spaced out rings in tutorial mission #1.
- New voice over for tutorial mission #2
- Updated galley conversations.
- Changed selection indicator for Galley characters.
- Touched up cannon VFX.
- Touched up destructible explosions.
- Refactored some target acquisition code for better performance.
- Increased base resolution for clouds in all levels that have them.
- Reset all primary light sources in levels.
- Tweaks to clouds on nebula levels.
- Updated graphics settings to use newer HDRP pipeline assets.