Frontiers Reach News

It's been a while since the last update so I thought it appropriate to do a blog.

First and foremost I would like to say that the third and final act of the main story for Frontiers Reach is now in production. Voice actors are recording their lines, and once those lines are in I will proceed to begin scripting the missions into the game. If all goes well, Act 3 should launch some time in June. But getting voice actors recorded is just the tip of the iceberg for what's coming in Act 3.

Since signing the publishing agreement for Frontiers Reach, work has admittedly slowed down on the third act, however this is not because there was no work to do. Quite the contrary. The past few months have actually been very productive as the publisher has facilitated access to a small group of testers who have provided critical feedback for Frontiers Reach that has influenced the games accessibility and quality.

If you've kept up with playing the game since February then you likely have experienced some of these changes, but know that more are coming and in this blog I will detail some of those changes.



[h2]New Player Experience[/h2]

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.

The 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.



[h2]New Capital Ship Damage Models[/h2]

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]



[h2]Major Performance Changes[/h2]

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]



[h2]Branched Ending[/h2]

While Act 3 is set to be significantly shorter than the previous 2 Acts of the game, Act 3 differs in more ways than just length. In this third and final act, players will be presented with 3 choices for how to end the story in Frontiers Reach.

[h3]Option #1 - Survival :[/h3] Rally the fleet of survivors for one last battle to break through a blockade to reach the designated departure point to begin your journey outbound and start a new colony elsewhere in the galaxy.





[h3]Option #2 - Victory :[/h3] Give the order to the fleet to prepare for combat and assault an asteroid base where the Sol Confederacy has setup a base to continuously pump out warships.





[h3]Option #3 - Revenge :[/h3] Lead the fleet in a desperate bid bring down officer responsible for killing one of your crewmates and exact revenge.





That's it for now. Till next time pilots!

- Fix for pause menu breaking.
- Fix for cinematic screen rendering behind some UI elements.

- Fixed issue with mouse not being entirely accurate when clicking.
- Added a quit button to the main menu tutorial.
- Lowered altitude threshold for the Altitude warning.
- HUD colors now save on a per mission basis, resetting when you load into a different mission.
- Added support for multiple different types of color blindness filters.
- Modified how third person target indicators work for better accuracy.
- Fixed an issue with the camera not resetting after an ejection.

Today is an important day!

Given everything that the games industry has endured the past couple of years, and of which seems will continue well into 2024, I am fortunate enough that I get to make this announcement.

Frontiers Reach has officially been picked up for publishing by TheGamePublisher.



When I first started work on FR back in late 2020, I was renting a room in a friends basement in North Carolina after my college roommates packed up to move out of state to be with their families. I would eventually join my family in Arkansas but I was still working out some things before making the move. Eventually I ended up in Colorado to help a friend, and then out to Illinois to help another friend before moving back to Arkansas in mid 2023. And I continued to develop the game throughout.

I've learned a lot since 2020. A lot about making games, working on code, doing artwork, networking with people across the globe, the list goes on. Additionally I've gotten the opportunity to work on projects of varying scale and importance as during this time I've kept up working a day job.

With all that said it has been my aim to establish Blind Alien Productions as a studio creating games with a unique visual flare and gameplay concepts not often explored; if at all. Between the Frontiers Reach series of games that I've been planning for the better part of a decade and those titles not yet announced to the public, the future is bright so long as I and the other BAP team members keep the ship upright and moving forward. And with this new relationship in place I've been able to get some much needed feedback from a small group of testers and have a path forward in getting this game and future titles out to a wider audience.

Now for the patch notes!





[h2]REWIRED Input System[/h2] - A completely new system for managing control inputs has been added to the game with the previous system being completely removed. This new system is much more robust and even allows for setting up custom controllers like toggle switch boxes. The goal here is to give the player greater control over how they setup their inputs.




[h2]New Cockpit Art[/h2] - All existing starfighters have been updated to include the latest and greatest artwork with special attention given to bolts and riveting.

[h2]New Glass Shader[/h2] - A new glass shader has been added to the cockpit for each fighter that includes smudging and scratches on the glass. This new rendering method also includes overhauled rain effects on the glass which will change direction relative to the motion of the player's starfighter. Some additional work will be done on this before it's where I'd like it to be.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Tweaks to Targeting Algorithms[/h2] - Both target leading and gun trailing targeting methods have been updated and are now deadly accurate. The Aim Assist difficulty feature has benefitted from this greatly and should now help less skilled players to complete missions when turned on alongside target leading.

[h2]Major Performance Improvement[/h2] - Refactoring of code and tweaks to the physics engine have yielded a nearly 30% increase in overall framerate on my hardware as well as greater consistency in frame rates. Still unsure how exactly this will pan out on other machines.

[h2]Mission Tutorial Additions[/h2] - A number of additions have been made to in-mission tutorial hints that should help to better explain how the user is expected to interact with the game. This includes a tighter integration with the REWIRED Input System to display key and controller bindings when appropriate. Additionally there is now a tutorial message log in the pause menu that will store tutorial messages that were previously displayed on the screen. This will allow players to pause the action and review tutorial steps whenever they choose.

[h2]Main Menu Tutorial[/h2] - The main menu now has a tutorial that is available when the player creates a new character. This is initiated with a button in the bottom left hand of the screen and will walk the player through the basics of navigating and interacting with the Heliosiren.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]Main Menu Cleanup and Formatting[/h2] - Modified numerous UI elements to affect better readability. Everything from coloration to sizing has been tweaked in some way to make the entire thing easier on the eyes.

[h2]Mission Briefing Formatting and Editing[/h2] - All main story mission and side mission briefings have undergone formatting and editing for better readability. Voice over performance to be added later when capital enough is secured for recording.





- Fixed a bug that was causing enemy ground vehicles to drive in the wrong direction during the tutorial mission.
- Added a new sound effect to simulate debris hitting the hull of the player's starfighter when flying through the explosion of another fighter.
- Fixed the EM Field countermeasure behavior so that it will function properly.
- Fixed a bug that could cause cutscenes to not play when triggered.
- Fixed a bug where the loading screen would not trigger at the end of a mission.
- Modified how the pause game functionality was working to ensure it would not interfere with some processes of the game.
- Simplified and cleaned up distance readout on target tags.
- Cleaned up wording and backend for general controls settings.
- Added the ability to swap roll and yaw control on mouse flight.
- Fixed some RCS thrusters not firing when roll functionality was engaged.
- Changed loading screen images.
- Removed Screen Space Global Illumination (was too grainy).
- Changed sound effects for 20mm and 30mm cannons.
- Fixed aliasing on some textures.
- Instant Action mode no longer has a respawn limit.
- Fixed damage decal placement on F-42 Mermidon
- Modified hull damage sound effects for better audibility.
- Updated TrackIR integration.
- Added a toggle to the config menu for TrackIR look control.
- Fixed camera shake not working (must disable TrackIR in the settings).
- Removed time limits from missions since player has fuel and respawn limits.
- Fixed a bug that could cause some control settings to not be applied on respawn.
- Fixed a bug where the player could get stuck in the hangar when they should have had a mission ending.
- Countermeasures type is now accurately displayed on the cockpit instrument panel.
- Fixed a bug that caused the killboard to be resized improperly.
- Tweaks to how lift is calculated for movement at lower throttle and speeds.
- Tweaks to AT-15 Shepherd to affect better handling.
- Tweaks to engines and how they are affected by the selected engines equipped.
- Added 4 new paint patterns.
- Adjusted sizes on paint pattern textures to reduce their memory footprint.
- Refactored code for faster performance during key points i.e. respawn and loading.
- Finishing a WARMAP mission will now send you back to the WARMAP after closing the killboard.





There are 2 key areas that I aim to get a better handle of for the game as I begin prepping for the home stretch on Frontiers Reach. First and foremost is that of terrain. In the past year I've learned that Unity's terrain tools are horribly inefficient for use during runtime and that in general developers are encouraged to convert their Unity terrain into regular old mesh objects. As such I've been able to hunt down a means of doing this so that not only will the game get a much needed performance boost, but also a nice bump in detail and quality of the terrain mesh. Below are two images comparing the current terrain to the target terrain.


Current terrain in its arguably low poly glory.


The target for the new terrain.




The second major change is going to be particle effects. This is another area that if executed properly should increase both visual fidelity while also increasing performance as it will involve moving away from the old CPU reliant particle system in Unity to a more robust GPU reliant particle system that Unity has provided with their new VFX Shader Graph.




While it's back to work to finish out the third and final chapter of the game before moving onto workshop features I should like to hint that there is a new feature that is being worked on behind closed doors. Something I've had on my mind for the better part of year that a recent release in the games industry has encouraged me to go ahead and move forward with. And this is something that I've had someone volunteer to work on.

If you remember when Frontiers Reach was just a large portfolio project, then you'll remember my original goal. While that goal was more or less sidelined, I've continued to find people who are interested in pushing their limits and who are willing to contribute.

I will dispense with the details in the future.

For now, I'll see you on the frontier!

Fixed a bug that could cause the mouse to flicker in and out of view when trying to do keybindings for Joystick and HOTAS setups.