Golfing In Aether News

This update is the transition from the previous alpha demo to a beta playtest. Feature wise the game was complete at time of the removal of the demo but you will find several quality of life improvements and just general bug-fixes from the last couple weeks in the notes below. Please note that stats, achivements, leaderboards etc. will NOT be carried over to the release version of the game.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Starting today and up till release on the 23rd there will be an open playtest for Golfing In Aether. All those of you who have already taken the time to request access as well as anyone this point onward should now be able to play.

This is the second open test period for the game. The first was June till end of August. This beta’s focus is to look for any outstanding issues not caught.

Please report any issues you encounter, however minor, be it a gameplay problem, a crash, or maybe a bit of the world that doesn’t look right like a floating rock, or even if you find a game menu with incorrect text formatting or padding, don’t worry about sounding critical, its all-important, please report it.

You can report on the beta discussion forums here, the official discord here, and if you do not wish to report issues publicly you may also send an email to [email protected]. Turn-around for fixing issues will be quick and updates will be posted potentially multiple times daily. Do not worry about making duplicate reports, or not reporting the right way, what’s important is any issues found get fixed.

If you have suggestions or ideas then feel free to make them also.

Please also don't forget to add the game to your wishlist :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

[h2]General[/h2]

• Added system to one-time reset to progression if you have an existing save game. A lot of the systems are handled differently to the demo so even for the bits that would still work this does just reduce the risk of issue starting fresh.
  
• Added changes to ghost leaderboard structure to fully make use of compression.
  
• Added improvements to session join behaviour in regard to handling of player counts and join checks.
  
• Added 12 achievements. Progress will not carry over to release.
  
• Added improvements to the hotseat inactive state in regard to being able to open the game menu. You can now open the pause menu when it isn’t your turn, however local players (players other than player 1) will have to wait for their turn.
  
• Fixed replay strokes not being reset during a new hole.
  
• Fixed an instance where it was possible to earn 25 XP while sitting inactive till time runs out.
  
• Fixed 0 XP leaderboards being recorded.
  
• Fixed instances where local profile settings were not properly being recalled when editing local profiles.
  
• Fixed instances where local profile settings for camera movement was being overwritten.
  
• Fixed various instances where local profile settings were getting lost or not being recalled correctly when editing profiles.
  
• Fixed an issue with the hotseat play order, where if a player were to hole out the next player in queue would appear to skip a turn. This was due to an issue with the order of which player was removed from the start order and next player being picked.
  
• Fixed power accuracy meter appearing slightly incorrect when in local play and hotseat. You shouldn’t see the ‘accuracy’ part when you have no power selected, this has been fixed. This had no gameplay issue it was just untidy.
  
• Added a transparent white/grey arrow underneath the power arrow to help with orientation based on feedback. The size of the arrow is exact to the maximum power value. The arrow fades in over a second except upon a reset.
  
• Added setting for power overall sensitivity. This can be found under gamepad, keyboard and mouse, and local settings menu.
  
• Fixed an issue with sensitivity values greater than 200% not being set or recalled correctly.
  
• Added an improved late join state for when everyone has already holed out. In this state you’ll be shown the scoreboard immediately with correct timings till next round.
  
• Added late join state for when at least one player has holed out, but not all, or the round has already been going for longer than a minute. When this happens the player will become a spectator only for the duration of the round. Hotseat games behave slightly different in that once the round has started a player will join the next round and spectate for the duration.
  
• Added ‘Spin City’ late game level.
  
• Added ‘All Tee’d Up’ early game level.
  
• Added changes to level pools with more unique variety given to early game including notably first level.
  
• Fixed an instance where the focus flag could become locked on if you mashed buttons while resetting.
  
• Added ‘Around the Bend’ mid game level.
  
• Added change to random level loading by saving the previous level selection to the primary profile during hosting or joining. All of these levels will be excluded from the next pick of levels chosen when hosting so you are guaranteed to have a completely different game to your last. This is to address some ‘random’ selections that didn’t feel very random.
  
• Added ‘Now Where Do I Go?’ late game level.
  
• Added a first launch accessibility settings menu. This contains purely the basic settings to be sure you can actually read the screen and see the HUD. Full settings as usual found under the settings menu. You can re-open this accessibility menu by pressing Y on the main menu with gamepad.
  
• Added ‘Whirly Fun’ mid game level.
  
• Fixed an issue where the gamepad camera could behave weird at over 200 fps.
  
• Added ‘Rock Bottom’ late game level.
  
• Added ‘Water Hole’ late game Level.
  
• Added ‘Speed Bump’ early game level.
  
• Added change to end of round behaviour by opening a new level instead of reusing the existing. This means all data is reset besides a few specifically marked elements which will help with error prevention and mean each game is starting from a fresh slate essentially. Normal procedure would be to either just unload / load levels or do a seamless travel. However, I found a nasty performance bug when doing this for successive rounds thus this works instead by opening a new level and having clients reconnect. It will take a few seconds for everyone to reconnect, and thus I have the ‘waiting for players’ menu at the start of the next round.
  
• Fixed a chain of states that could lead to holeout not working correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue where toggling ‘Other Islands’ for a second time e.g. disable and then re-enable wasn’t doing anything until the next round was loaded.
  
• Fixed an issue where joining quickly after server creation was putting you as a late join spectator.
  
• Added change to scalability so anisotropic filtering is increased for lower settings. Also disabled other islands for ‘medium’ scalability by default.
  

[h2]Customization[/h2]

• Added improvements to the backend system handling materials for balls and reduced the number of unique files.
  
• Added improvement to ball applying process to reduce the number of operations required.
  
• Added Battenberg ball, which comes in all colors.
  
• Added changes to ‘Beach’ by adding purple instead of the white. Coloured versions of the ball will use the two tone color rather than their color and white (the exception being the black and white ball option).
  
• Added change to Stripe ball by renaming it ‘Zebra’.
  
• Added change to Swirl by changing its default thumbnail to be red.
  
• Added ‘Stripe’ ball which is a 3 tone vertical stripe ball which comes in all colors.
  
• Added changes to the ball selection order.
  
• Added Weevil ball.
  
• Added Snail ball.
  
• Added Stinger ball.
  
• Added reorder of texture maps and indexes to reduce file sizes where possible.
  

[h2]Progression[/h2]

• Added Burger, Beach and Snail to Level 2 unlocks.
  
• Added Zebra, Split and Monarch to Level 3 unlocks.
  
• Added Swirl, Battenberg and Weevil to Level 4 Unlocks.
  
• Added Melon, Stripe and Stinger to Level 5 Unlocks.
  
• Added level cap of 5. This will increase over the lifetime of the game with new seasons and meaningful content additions.

[h2]Environment[/h2]

• Fixed all levels that didn’t have their bounds cantered correctly.
  
• Added improvements to hit sounds when impacting some stone walls so even at the lowest of speeds there is a slight sound.
  
• Added improvements to the mesh of the hole in one route in ‘go for it’.
  
• Fixed behaviour of falling into water on ‘Spin Cycle’. Water was quite deep and view from camera wasn’t pretty.
  
• Added improvements to sequence on levels “Mind the Gap”, “Pick A Hole”, “What Goes Around…”, and “Bogey Town”. This fixes behaviour where the path wasn’t starting exactly on the tee.
  
• Fixed an issue relating to tree collisions that could cause the power arrow to behave erratic on very specific spots if very close.
  
• Fixed a minor collision issue in Crazy Golf’s hard variation.
  
• Fixed collision on one of the corner wall meshes that was beyond the visible bounds.
  
• Added change to how environment sounds are spawned for rotators such as windmills and water wheels. These sounds are now part of the actor rather than in the level similar to the behaviour of movers.
  
• Added performance optimization to planar water reflections.
  
• Added visual improvements to level ‘Law Of Reflection’ plus set new thumbnail.
  
• Fixed some ground to wall gaps on various meshes.
  
• Fixed some floating blossom petals on ‘Curve It!’.
  
• Fixed some bamboo pieces causing camera collisions.
  
• Added improvements to ‘Goofy Golf’ and ‘Behind The Tee’ levels by placing more environment assets.
  
• Fixed some wall gaps on ‘Stroke Of Luck’.
  
• Added more detail to the back portion of ‘Tee Time’.
  
• Fixed a misplaced wall piece on the ramp on ‘Go For It’.
  
• Added several draw performance optimizations to various wall meshes.
  
• Added improvements to water reflections by reducing render cost by half.
  
• Added performance optimization to shaders by disabling a number of unused feature instructions.
  
• Added a triangle reduction of 50% to all distant islands.
  
• Added LOD meshes to replace distant island tracks reducing draw calls by >90%.
  
• Added improvements to performance from water/pond foliage.
  

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• Added change to the ball customization menu so that when you have less than 7 items unlocked you will only see 5 buttons.
  
• Added background mechanics for handling unlocks.
  
• Added “LEVEL UP!” and “New Items Unlocked!” animation to the XP page of the scoreboard. This will show the items you’ve unlocked for your level up. This page has had its visibility extended by 1 second to fit in the animation.
  
• Added improvements to initial XP Screen setup by precaching some values so it appears more responsive.
  
• Fixed showing option for local players when joining as a spectator.
  
• Fixed clicking on a session in the session browser not working in similar behaviour to practice leaderboard.
  
• Fixed session info menu not appearing when accessing a session via the session browser.
  
• Added improvements to the state switching between join menu, session browser and session info. Back button will now work as you’d expect.
  
• Added improvements to the responsiveness of the quick join session feature and given the whole back-end system an overhaul to improve reliability.
  
• Added ‘Back’ button to the waiting for players menu. This gives a prompt if you really wish to return to the main menu and if hosting mentions it will end the session for other players.
  
• Added change to the button order on the stats menu. Session replays has been changed to X to be more consistent.
  
• Added ‘Unlocks’ menu accessible via a button on the stats menu. This menu just shows what items you have unlocked and what items you can unlock in future levels.
  
• Fixed an issue in the choose players menu where if player 1 changed their customization from their loaded values, then any other local player went and created a new profile and saved it, a chain of events would lead to player 1s customization being reset to their initial menu state.
  
• Fixed replays having incorrect coloured buttons when the interface theme is set to dark.
  
• Fixed an issue where the game settings menu would call the incorrect menu theme to active widgets when applying.
  
• Fixed inability to navigate left and right on camera and HUD settings when editing a local profile with gamepad.
  
• Fixed edit local profile button not appearing immediately if a player joins that last used a local profile.
  
• Fixed a handful of minor padding inconsistencies on the choose player menu when transitioning to the create profile page.
  
• Fixed instances where ‘its your turn’ wasn’t appearing for the 3rd local player in a row.
  
• Added more specific icons for public and invite only sessions. Previously a controller icon was used, but now a padlock being unlocked or locked is used. This carries over to the next menu page where you select session preset.
  
• Added slight dimming to background when in main menu depending on theme setting to help with contrast and focus.
  
• Added a gradient darkening behind the lower button text to improve readability.
  
• Fixed a potential issue with XP level display on scoreboard.

Be sure to check out the official discord server with channels for Golfing In Aether and my other various projects.

Todays update is just a handful of small fixes and tidyups to the interface. Please note as previously announced this weekend is the last chance to play the demo as it will be disabled on Wednesday 31st.

There may be a playtest before release so keep an eye out for that. If you enjoyed playing the demo then please add to your wishlist :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• Fixed description strings for Spectator options in both New Custom Session and Filter Session.
  
• Added reset buttons to game and sound settings menus.
  
• Fixed icons for some menu options not loaded correctly.
  
• Added icon for the spectate button.
  
• Fixed a small padding inconsistency between the primary settings menu and child menus.
  
• Fixed a small padding issue with the description box in the graphics, keyboard and gamepad settings menu.
  
• Fixed a small padding issue relating to a spacer in the New Game menu.
  
• Fixed some button to menu title naming inconsistencies on the main menu to child menus.

Be sure to check out the official discord server with channels for Golfing In Aether and my other various projects.

Today update is just a small one following on from yesterdays. I've added in the ability to join servers as spectators via an all-new session info menu as well as tidied up graphics settings a bit by adding in automated hardware benchmarking for your first launch of the game.


Something I saw requested a lot on the suggestion forums for other games is players wish to join sessions as a spectator. This can especially make sense if you are having a mini tournament or something and you want others to perhaps stream it in real time with more camera angles than just the ones you would have from a players perspective.

In case you are wondering why you can’t just have more players on your server instead of added spectators, the answer is simply spectators are not the same resource load as players. When you join as a spectator you are mostly only listening for data sent from the server and not sending very much back. Your camera isn’t visible, your position isn’t replicated, you aren’t scoring or part of the gameplay logic in any way, you won’t even show up on the scoreboard etc.

Features spectators do have is they will be able to save a session replay like any regular player would. They can also make use of the quick chat and communicate with the active players.


Spectating will be enabled by default when you quick create a session. The default value will be 2 spectators. You can pick on the custom session menu between 0 and 4 spectators. The process of joining as a spectator is picking from the new session info menu that you wish to be a spectator. This menu also has frequent updates to current session information, including current progress.


The ideal minimum framerate for this game is 60 fps, and when I state requirements on the store page, I’ve specified too at these frame rates. This game is exceptionally well optimized for performance and doesn’t even need a dedicated GPU to run it. For machines without a dedicated GPU, such as the AMD 3200G Vega APU I play Split Screen on the TV with, you will need to have the graphics settings set to medium. With this update these settings will be applied automatically on first time you load up the game. A value is saved to your system save-game file that the benchmark has been run once.

Note that if you play in four player splitscreen this will cost slightly more performance than it would just for singleplayer. If you have a regular Desktop from within the last few years with any common dedicated GPU then you’ll very easily max out the quality settings for this game. I haven’t yet got my hands on a Steam Deck or an equivalent RDNA APU but I’d imagine ‘High’ settings in most cases should work fine based on hardware alone.

There are a few other changes in the full patch notes below so please check those out. Please note as previously announced this weekend is the last chance to play the demo as it will be disabled on Wednesday 31st. If you enjoy playing the game then please add to your wishlist :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

[h2]General[/h2]

• Added ability to join sessions as just a spectator via new session info menu.
  
• Added a primitive hardware benchmark to run one-time on game startup. It will save to your system save game that it’s been run once. You can re-run this benchmark via the Graphics Settings menu. It takes less than a second to complete so you may not even notice it being run. This is a feature of the engine and not something specifically I’ve developed.
  
• Added a change to the level “One Hill Over” to make it not be one of the first levels in a session due to difficulty level.
  
• Added improvements to how some hotseat variables are replicated to reduce number of calls.
  
• Fixed an issue with gamepad camera deadzone values not being applied correctly.
  
• Added various backend improvements to the spectating system to especially make behavior more seamless.
  
• Added improvement to how player names are rendered, they are now more relative based on your current focus. This means for spectating the distances revolve around the player you are watching, not the position of your own ball.

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• Added Benchmark button to Graphics Settings menu. This runs the built in Unreal Benchmark took, which may take a second to complete and then will pick recommended settings in the menu. You will have to press apply to store them.
  
• Added reset button to Graphics Settings menu which will reload setting so the state you had them when you entered the menu.
  
• Added extra validation to scoreboard stats construction.
  
• Added a quality-of-life change hotseat HUD by fading in the spectating player widget and removing any overlap with level intro title. The “Its Players Turn” text still loads as normal.
  
• Fixed an issue where inputs weren’t blocked in the spectator HUD during end of round.
  
• Fixed an instance where some variables were not reset during a new level in relation to spectator HUD.
  
• Added extension to activity messages to add in reporting of “player is spectating” when they join a server instead of a regular join message.
  
• Added additional row of characters to name sessions with when using gamepad keyboard.
  
• Added filter to session filter menu to narrow down if a server has spectators or not.
  
• Added custom session option to set number of spectators.

Be sure to check out the official discord server with channels for Golfing In Aether and my other various projects.

This update introduces a complete replay system with full support for playback of 16 player matches. It also overhauls replication, and brings many other quality of live improvements.


The goal for this replay system was to develop something of not only high quality, but to actually make something functionally relevant. My intentions here are to use this system for producing trailers and other marketing materials, so it has to be good and not instead some after feature thrown in for the sake of it. If any of you make videos and can suggest additions or improvements to this system I'm happy to hear them.

Besides making videos, internally there is another use to which makes this system incredibly valuable; debugging, especially for things like replication. If while playing the game something seems visibly off or I have a hunch something isn't quite right I can bring the replay file to the editor and essentially recreate the game state as it was when playing. Essentially it reduces the time needed to recreate a bug if I have pretty decent record of how the match played out.


So the menu where you access all this, is what was previously called the session history menu, found under the stats menu. It is now renamed ‘session replay’. You'll also find improvements to the menu in general in that it now displays eight entries rather than the previous six. To achieve this, I just ditched the ‘WIN’ or ‘LOSS’ text and coloured the placement instead. No changes to font sizes were required.

In the picture above the yellow entries marked as "-" relate to incomplete sessions where you disconnected part way through. I have a lot of these in my menu from testing, and mere fact I don't have to play a complete 9 hole game to create a replay file is a huge time saving.


To keep file sizes small I’ve implemented a compression algorithm for storing ghosts which reduces file size by about a third. Previously a 35 second ghost would have been about 25 KB, but this has been reduced to

Session replays will be updated per hole. Essentially the save file is created as you start a game, and it’s filled out at the end of each hole. This means if you join on hole 2 and disconnect or quit on let’s say hole 7, you’ll have a partial session replay for the duration of the session you were present. From a performance standpoint this helps spread the load rather than handling all 9 holes worth of session replay data on the final scoreboard.

Average XP and Hole in One % will be saved to your stats at the end of each hole, and win-rate is factored at the end of the session. An session you left mid-way through will be marked in yellow as incomplete.


For replays to work well I had to improve the replication and timing. A significant change is you’ll see all obstacles synchronised, including being reset in practice mode as you reset. This means new leaderboard ghosts will be synchronised, meaning that windmill blade or mover will be in the exact position each time you start.


Other changes to replication involve the balls, which now have a much better rotating appearance, this is because the replicated balls are now simulated with interpolated angular velocity. All variables such as for impacts, power accuracy, and various states are also replicated.


The availability of the demo will end on the 31st, next Wednesday. My entire focus then will be on the launch build to come in September. I may do a closed playtest or something during next month before release once various systems are in place and the primary application running okay. There is improvements to leaderboards, saved-games and a few other things I have to do first though.

As always, please let me know if you find any issues in this update as I can quickly hotfix them. I would love to hear any feedback you have from playing the game over these last couple months, also don't forget to add the game to your wishlist as this really helps with how the game is ordered in the store and will help expose it to other players as-well :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

[h2]General[/h2]

• Added complete replay system with full support for playback of 16 player matches.
  
• Added further improvements to replication and replay playback, now factoring in power accuracy. A change to the rotation rate has also been added to better interpolate angular velocity.
  
• Added compression algorithm for storing ghosts which reduces file size. Previously a 35 second ghost would have been about 25 KB, but this has been reduced to
• Added better time handling to various obstacles including rotators and movers.
  
• Added improvements to practice reset behaviour by also resetting obstacles. This will mean newly recorded ghosts and replays will be in the same world conditions you are seeing.
  
• Added improved return to menu state handling with additional context for being in a replay or specific modes. If you return to main menu while in practice, you will return to the practice menu. If watching a standard game replay, you will return to the scoreboard for the session replay.
• Added a up to one second rotation function when your ball comes to a stop to remove pitch and roll. The purpose of this is to have your ball is visibly the right way up so you can see your customization. This behaviour will be replicated and featured in replays.
  
• Added mouse controls for replay playback. Thumb buttons will let you skip time back and forwards. Mouse wheel will adjust playback rate.
  
• Added various improvements to scoreboard background processes. Construction of initial stats and scoreboard will begin 3 seconds before changing page to help spread the load out a bit. This allows the construction of the second half of the session replay to complete during the podium page.
  
• Fixed an issue where there was a rare chance of getting stopped leaving the hole in one path on Gentle Swing due to incorrect surface type.
  
• Fixed a potential latency-based timing issue with player names during hotseat mode in an online session.
  
• Fixed an issue in hotseat mode where the active player wasn’t correctly visible at the start of the sequence on some clients.
  
• Added improvement to time tracking in hotseat mode.
  
• Added various improvements to functions behind undo in practice mode in relation to handling of replay file.
  
• Added additional rich presence for watching replays.
  
• Added an additional level of fallback for when even if rarely, something potentially goes wrong with entering a hole. For your next stroke it will reset the camera if by some rare chance you are treated as being in a hole.
  
• Added improvement to how ghosts are spawned and watched when in replays. Now only the active focus ghost will be visible on the tee mimicking the behaviour you would have if these were players.
  
• Added improvement to the return to main menu state when you are playing in split screen. Previously it would snap return to single immediately, however this has been pushed back until after the fade-to-white happens.
  
• Added replication of various hit, stroke and enter hole sounds. Each category is network rate capped to 0.05 seconds so some very high frequency events (such as with hits bouncing off a very narrow space) might not be 1:1 but very close.

[h2]Engine[/h2]

• Updated various engine plugins.

[h2]Environment[/h2]

• Fixed a tree placement on “Drop to the left…”.
  
• Fixed various minor collision issues on "Gentle Swing".
  
• Fixed an issue with fence shadows.
  
• Added tweaks to physical materials on bamboo wood pieces.
  
• Added improvements to the blending with ground on trees in relation to the proximity dithering.
  
• Fixed an issue where some tree's lacked shadows.
  
• Fixed a graphical quality issue relating to water reflections in high graphics settings appearing white in the distance.

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• Added improvements to the session replay menu so 8 items fit on a page instead of the previous 6. Some redundant information such as ‘WIN’ was removed and instead just the placement is put in same colors.
  
• Added various performance improvements to the session replay menus opening.
  
• Fixed an issue where you couldn’t always select previous in the spectating menu for players to spectate.
  
• Fixed an instance where the main menu music wouldn’t play. This could occur when returning to the main menu from an atypical state.
  
• Added ‘return to main menu’ description to end the replay on game menu.
  
• Added ability to hide the HUD watching a replay with the H key or B Button.
  
• Added changes to active HUDs during session replays, the ‘hole info’ menu at the top of the screen is no longer present. Information such as current time in the round is displayed in the replay timeline anyway.
  
• Added background work for future localization with string tables about half-way constructed.
  
• Added improvement to spectating HUD so that when you are in free camera specifically it will state 'Free Camera' instead of just hide the focus player widget.
  
• Added improvements to various text padding on the spectating text widget.
  
• Fixed an issue where the text 'Spectating' wouldn't appear during casual mode.
  
• Fixed a potential scoreboard scrollbox clipping issue.
  
• Added change to ‘Score breakdown’ text to instead be shortened to just “Details”.
  
• Added change to the keyboard input for Gamepad Button Y, typically used for Inspect / Leaderboard etc. The key has been changed from TAB to F to resolve a confliction.
  
• Added improvements to scrollbox behavior for scoreboard.
  
• Added ability to 'Inspect' players and bring up their steam profile page in the session replay scoreboad menu.
  

Be sure to check out the official discord server with channels for Golfing In Aether and my other various projects.

Todays update focuses on improving ghost recording, overall replication, and replay playback. Thanks to the replay mode in yesterdays update I was able to scrutinise the playback of ghosts and significantly improve them. Only new ghosts will contain added data required, but leaderboards will be reset before launch anyway.

In case you don’t happen to care about replays as a feature, how ghosts and replays are handled is basically using the same functions as what multiplayer replication uses, so improving one can also improve the other. Plus given it can also be a bit hard to see what some other player is doing as their ball wizzes past you in multiplayer, the ability to record and play this replication back over and over is very useful for debugging purposes as you can imagine.

If you want to see a replay with these improvements then I recommend playing one of recently added levels such as ‘Bogeytown’, ‘Spin Cycle’, ‘Drop to the left…’ etc. as its quite possible you haven’t played these yet and thus will be easy to set a new leaderboard entry. Also if you are enjoying playing the demo then please don't forget to add the game to your wishlist :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

[h2]General[/h2]

• Fixed up an issue with replicated rotation for newer method.
  
• Fixed resetting in replay not undoing a balls rotation.
  
• Fixed undoing in practice mode not completely undoing data destined for leaderboards.
  
• Added various performance optimizations via reducing calculations needed to replicated movement.
  
• Added change to how ghosts and replays are handled to have much greater rotation accuracy while at same time decreasing data size. All previous leaderboard ghosts will no longer work with rotation as a result of this change but they are due to be reset before launch anyway. Location replication still works fine.
  
• Added improvements to saved leaderboards data by moving to a more event driven array setup. What this means is only changes need to be stored per index reducing data needed considerably.
  
• Added power level at stroke to stored data in ghost. This allows for reproduction of sound.
  
• Added marker for holeout to stored data in ghost. This allows for more precise replay length. Additional changes have been made so the entering hole sound plays when entering the hole.
  
• Added markers for hit sounds to stored data in ghost. This allows for reproduction of a hit sound when a ball impacts a specific surface. A limit of 1 sound per 0.05 seconds is in place.
  
• Added additional stroke launch sound level.
  
• Added improvement to the spawning of practice levels so they inherit the expected location range as you would find in a standard session. This specifically may affect lighting and other environmental factors.
  

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• Added improvements to replay HUD timeline and skip time functions. The end time for newly recorded ghosts will be the holeout time and not end of recorded data. Also while the ball will ‘play’ naturally beyond the holeout time, if you skip backwards the skip will start at the hole entry time.

Be sure to check out the official discord server with channels for Golfing In Aether and my other various projects.