Frontiers Reach News

This weeks patch notes are small. Mostly because there was a lot of focus put towards getting some artwork squared away for a major back end update coming in the months ahead. The biggest portion of this update is part one of a major overhaul of the artwork for the Heliosiren and it’s interior. This overhaul will continue into next week and possibly into the following week as there are a lot of changes going on in the back end to accommodate a much more robust scenario management architecture and level design tools. These tools will be vital on the road ahead and must be thoroughly fleshed out before we can really start to scale up.

- Part one of the Heliosiren artwork overhaul.

- Fixed an issue that caused missiles to continue playing their sound effect for thrusters even after they had exploded.

- Various tweaks to shader parameters to effect over all rendering.

- There is now a pilot posed in the cockpit of each fighter. This pilot is not currently animated but it is planned that there will be an IK rig integrated with arms and legs responding to player input accordingly.

- Fixed bomb reticle.

- Added currently selected cannon name to label text.

- Added currently selected starfighter name to label text.

- Updated starfighter cannon names to include slightly more information.

- Fixed the bombing reticle so that is no longer egg shaped.

This week’s update focuses on bug fixing, quality of life adjustments and additions, as well as a few visual tweaks. Though some bugs still remain, we have gotten a lot fixed and polished up. Still a lot of work to do though.
We're working on a complete refactoring of the AI which includes various new module systems, like a more robust counter measure system that gives the player more control over how they use countermeasures, and the type they can take into combat. Additionally we working on a complete overhaul of the reload/repair sequence and how it functions within moment- to-moment gameplay.

- Reworked the character creation screen.

- Fixed lighting issues with character portraits on the bridge.

- Made Heliosiren waypoint marker pop up when requesting a reload.

- Fixed issues with warp mechanic not showing the correct skybox on the bridge.

- Fixed an issue that caused to the ship to warp even though it was already at the target location.

- Fixed warp animation still showing ever so slightly in the background.

- Minor tweak to mouse sensitivity.

- Swapped out several skyboxes that used the new sky system for the older skyboxes as the quality of the new sky system when it comes to some space missions isn't quite where it needs to be.

- More artwork optimization tweaks. Disabled texture LOD on various textures throughout the game to claw back some performance.

- More tweaks to cloud performance and rendering.

- Added sphere indicator to bomb reticle.

- Adjusted camera shake on warp.

- Fixed ammo counts when no light or heavy weapons are equipped.

- Weapon labels will now change when the weapon is changed to show what is in that slot.

- Cloud settings slider has been reimplemented into the settings menu.

- Fixed engine trails continuing to play when game is paused.

- Mission time tracking has been fixed and will now account for the time spent paused. It will also countdown instead of counting up.

- Adjusted internal weapons bay weapons costs so that they are free.

- Fixed button in load-out panel that did not cycle backwards through the internal weapons bay list.

- Removed numerous older assets that were no longer needed in various scenes.

- Added more foliage to the Frontiers Reach Sector 17 map.

- Missile warning IFF fixed.

- Control sensitivity has been re-implemented with mouse sensitivity increased for pitch and yaw.
Looking to add more to the list before the night is out.

- minor adjustments to HF-22 turret to help facilitate more appropriate function.

- Fixed audio issue with HF-22 engines.

- Fixed render order issue that caused crystal formations in asteroids to not render in cockpit mode.

- Added some set dressing to the Bleakers Folly Asteroid Station.