BallisticNG News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG43rcdEC6U

Coming close to two years of development, we are very pleased to bring you the BallisticNG 1.3 update! This monster update is packed with lots of new features, content, improvements and bug fixes. Thanks to many of the under the hood changes this update makes, we're also excited to bring you long standing feature requests!

A big thanks to the internal testing group who's helped test this update from start to finish, and another thanks to the community at large for trying out and providing feedback on the beta releases!

This time around our changelog is too powerful for Steam. A lot of the smaller changes won't be mentioned in this announcement which is a more general overview, so if you'd like to read the detailed list of changes you can do so on our website here: https://neognosis.games/2022/11/30/ballisticng-1-3-is-now-released/


[h3]Price Increase[/h3]
As we detailed in our release date announcement, the price of the game has now been increased to $15 or your regional equivalent. If you already own the game this change doesn't impact you.

For more information about this change, see:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/473770/view/2949283287708655708

[h3]Custom music[/h3]
When re-writing our music backend for 1.3 we fixed a bug where the game would read everything in the custom music folder. If custom music no longer works in 1.3, it's because you now need to store music in sub-folders (or use the new external.txt system).

[h3]Unity Tools[/h3]
The Unity Tools have been updated to Unity 2020.3.5 alongside the game. With changes to the packages structure and some engine changes that will corrupt track lighting in updated projects, please make sure you read through the upgrade guide thoroughly:

https://ballisticng-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/unity_tools/install_update.html#upgrading-to-1-3

[h3]Bling Pack[/h3]
We've now implemented a better way for us to handle the Bling Pack DLC. With this release the reliance on an initial launch through Steam is no longer required, making the DLC steamless like the track packs and base game.

[h3]Switch Version[/h3]
We've seen lots of comments and received plenty of emails asking about the Switch version of BallisticNG.

Since we're handling the port ourselves we're adjusting the game's code base to handle both the PC and Switch version with as little changes needed per platform as possible. A lot of work towards this is present in 1.3 and we'll be working on it much more exclusively for 1.4, which will be the initial Switch release version

Around a year ago we had test builds running on the system from a prototyping branch to determine what we needed to do. Some of the code and system changes from this has been ported back into 1.3 already and we'll be bringing the rest of it over as we develop 1.4.

In short it's still in the works and hasn't been forgotten/abandoned, but we're taking our time and doing it properly to make it as solid a port as possible while also being easily maintainable on our end. We don't have much more to talk about regarding it at the moment, but we'll update everybody once there is!


[h2]Unity Upgrade[/h2]
BallisticNG is now running on Unity 2020.3. This brings many improvements for us behind the scenes and you'll see some good general improvements to performance and frame pacing with the game running in this newer build of the engine.

If you're making custom tracks/ships and want to take advantage of the latest mod tools features, you'll need to update to Unity 2020.3.5. See the link in the above Unity Tools notice for upgrade instructions.

[h2]Small Vehicle Tracks[/h2]
Small Vehicles is a new set of content built around smaller pedestrian sized vehicles running pure races. 1.3 kickstarts this new vehicle class with 8 tracks and a campaign to accompany them. Atacama, Alice Mountain and Forgotten Coast were made by community member Brobama!

We've also provided our content templates with the modding tools. You can use these to get started with making your own small vehicle tracks! These templates include track tile textures, the holographic wall texture and material, a .blend file with the walls and a layout creator file with the default track width and speed modifier pre-configured.

[h3]Ribble Raceway[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXKQVv4kkv4



[h3]Brattelva Circuit[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcnxOODemGA



[h3]Atacama[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0wW3MBSMgA



[h3]Alice Mountain[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO85HkExeYU



[h3]Forgotten Coast[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJn3O-wDoSg



[h3]Skylight Gardens[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OVGmhyhno4



[h3]Maria Tide[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJn3O-wDoSg



[h3]Vega Waterway[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmSaFte4jBU



[h2]Track Updates/Reworks[/h2]
We've taken what we considered to be some of the weakest tracks from a visual standpoint and made improvements or rebuilt their scenery from scratch to bring them up to standards we see appropriate for 1.3.

[h3]Omega Harbour[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyYUmoi3Tro




[h3]Arrivon XI[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS7-QwnD7LQ



[h3]Metro[/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3D4Uv-4iGg



[h3]Arrivon Peak[/h3]


[h3]Kuiper Overturn[/h3]


[h2]New Ships[/h2]
Some of these new ships are hidden as cheat vehicles as they're intended to be fun extras. To unlock everything type nanomachines and then spacerace on the menu. If you'd like to keep everything unlocked across game sessions then you can then type funallowed. This also works for the devfunds cheat. We'll be looking at shifting extra ship unlocks to dedicated options on the interface in a future update.

[h3]Mako[/h3]
The AGLS new-comer from Maceno Island with a sturdy and agile ship that can hold its own in a firefight.





[h3]Aster LB221[/h3]
Aster's flagship vehicle. An AG bike fitted with AGL technologies to ensure the rider is safe while flying at speeds comparable to a regular ship.





[h3]Aster VB221[/h3]
A virtual version of the LB221 for use in Barracuda's Pilot Acclimatization Simulators, matching the Barracuda Model S's ship performance for consistency in training scenarios.






[h3]Aster KA10[/h3]
An experimental AG go-kart that shares components with the LB221. It has a higher top speed then the LB221 but its extra mass makes it slightly worse then accelerating and steering.






[h3]Scorplet[/h3]
Scorpio's Heavy Duty Hydraulic forklift with AG suspension.






[h3]Omnicom Cd-AG32[/h3]
A manually controlled Omnicom Camera Droid.






[h3]M-Tech RD-1[/h3]
A manually controlled MediTech Rescue Droid.






[h3]Barracuda MT Mini[/h3]
A race ship sized Barracuda Martian Transporter, the ship of choice for transportation for those involved in the Outer Reaches project.






[h3]Wyvern Scc Ares Mk 1[/h3]
A minature Wyvern Space Cargo Carrier, the main cargo ship being used to carry resources to Mars.







[h2]Ship stat updates[/h2]
Protonic AG4
Protonic has seen a pretty major update, making it a lot less twitchy and letting you carry its momentum a lot more while still being controllable. See the full changelog for the detailed stat change list.

Omnicom
Omnicom has had a slight buff to its steering speed and had its grip marginally increased. See the full changelog for the specific value changes.

Barracuda Model B
The Model B has had its hover rotation power reduce to make it more vertically stable at the speeds it travels. See the full changelog for the specific value changes.

Barracuda Model C
The Model C has had a few stat changes to improve the sensation of drifting while keeping it controllable. See the full changelog for the stat change list.

[h2]Barrcuda Model B/C Updates[/h2]
The Barracuda Model B and C ships have been merged into their own single ships, making all of the livery variants part of a single ship like every other ship in the game. Community member Vista has also worked on liveries for all of the game's additional teams to boost the number of liveries!

[h2]Custom Race Options[/h2]
[h3]Custom Ai Rosters[/h3]
It's now possible to manually control the AI roster in custom races. Enabling this new option will provide a list of all possible AI in the race and let you use the advanced ship selector to pick both the ship and the livery that will be used.

We've also implemented a preset system for this so you can save and easily recall your favourite roster of AI ships!

[h3]Cheat Options[/h3]
We've added more cheat options for custom races! You can now toggle barrel rolls and side shifts in 2159 and manually adjust every ships speed with a speed multiplier. We've also added a reset cheats button so you can quickly reset the game to a leaderboard enabled state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEe7LqHdEHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7kpi9WNML0

[h2]Stunt Mode[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1CKBeCq_3E&t=8s

Stunt is a new gamemode built around barrel rolls, with rolling being bound to a single button press instead of the usual steering movements. This mode is built around 2159 physics and does not work for floor hugger / 2280. The mode plays as follows:

• Your goal is to rack up as many points as possible before finishing all laps.
  
• Points are awarded for sucesfully barrel rolling. The less time between the roll and the landing, the higher the score. The score is split into 3 types; Perfect Roll, Good Roll and Roll.
  
• As you perform succesful rolls you build up a combo chain. The number of rolls you perform in a combo multiplies the scoring, so maintain long combos to quickly rack up points. Failing a roll or having a heavy impact with a wall cancels the chain.
  
• The ships afterburner is replaced with an uplift boost, allowing you to exchange shield energy for a jump, Uplift boosting also freezes your combo time, making it useful for freezing the combo on big jumps or as a general panic button.
  
• Your shield energy replenishes slowly over time, but performing good and perfect rolls refills it at a much quicker rate.
  
• Every 3rd roll in a combo gives you a turbo, allowing for lots of oppertunities to push the ship away from the ground even without an uplift boost.
  
• You enter overtime if you pass the finish line while still in a combo. Normal rolls do not reset the combo timer like normal, only good and perfect rolls do.
  

Stunt has leaderboards and can be played in splitscreen. Let us know what you think!

[h2]Multiplayer Updates[/h2]
Multiplayer has had a few updates. The first is more options, with the three new custom race cheat options getting added and an option to set the bot count when they're enabled. We've also implemented a lobby preset system, so you can save the lobby config and then quickly recall it later.

The host also now has control over the results screen time and how long people have to finish the race once somebody has passed the finish line. We've also rewritten how player ship selections are handled in the backend which will reduce host client connect lag spikes when lots of ships are registered into the game.

[h2]Physics Updates[/h2]
[h3]Hover Improvements[/h3]
Ship hovering behaviour has received an update to eliminate the twitchy behaviour when pitching up where the ship switches between being grounded and airborne. This is most noticeable at low speeds.

This change also makes it harder for ships at low speeds to leave the grounded state, this means constantly pitching up at low speeds will now slow you down as the ship will no longer be nose diving in the airborne state to level itself back out.

[h3]Better Collisions[/h3]
Collisions have had a massive update so walls no longer grab you and height lock the ship. Scraping your rear end against walls is now nice and smooth!

[h2]Major Campaign Updates[/h2]
Note: these change adds more events to the campaign. Your campaign rank will drop as a result of this.

We've taken the time to address many long running complaints with the game's campaign and implement changes to address them.

[h3]Aster League[/h3]
The Aster League is a new expansion campaign that takes you through the new small vehicles content. With 8 tracks with reverse variants, this campaign is a fairly lengthy one and will take some time to complete.

Complete the last event with a gold or platinum for an addition to your pilot licenses on the main menu!

[h3]Time Trial Updates[/h3]
All of the campaign time trials (including DLCs) have been updated with a new method of setting up the bronze and silver medal requirements. They are now based on a percentage of a lap in the gold run which now means they scale on a per track basis. This makes a huge difference in long tracks like the Omega Harbour Nexus event because of the tracks length, so those kind of events are no longer an endurance test to reach a bronze like before.

[h3]More Lenient DLC Livery Unlocks[/h3]
Instead of needing to get at least a gold in every campaign event you now just need to achieve 50% completion. This completion percentage can be achieved by getting any combination of medals in any event.

This change also applies to campaign unlocks for custom ship liveries.

[h3]Easier Progression[/h3]
All campaigns have been updated so you only need 4 points to unlock the next set instead of 6. This means you'll need 2 silvers, a bronze and a gold or a single platinum to progress to the next set of events.

The points of course follow through to further sets, so achieving a gold and platinum on every event will have you very quickly unlocking every event to play.

[h3]Event Updates[/h3]
Many events have been updated/added for various reasons:

• Utilizing the reverse tracks
  
• Changing up mode and track combinations that take a long time to complete
  
• Make use of the game modes added since the 1.0 release
  

[h3]Redesigned Model A / B sets[/h3]
The Barracuda A events have been cut back drastically. There are now 4 time trials on select tracks instead of one on every track. The Barracuda Challenge has also been given the same treatment, with the track list being cut to focus on a particular set of tracks.

The Barracuda B events have been split out into individual races so they're no longer endurance tournaments. The last two events in this group are veteran challenges which still test your endurance on the forward and reverse versions of the Model B tracks.

[h3]Refreshed UI[/h3]
We've updated the user interface to be a more stylised and provide much more information about selected events.

Here's a look at the updated event details panel:


[h2]Ship Loading Improvements[/h2]
We've rewritten ship loading to run in the background, meaning no more lag spikes for larger ships! Vanilla ships have also been split into individual files and run off the same asset management backend as the v3 custom ship format.

This change means you will see a brief loading period for the built in ships as their resources are no longer constantly loaded into memory, but this now gives us much more overhead to add more ships and ship liveries!


[h2]external.txt[/h2]
The game now allows mod content to be loaded from anywhere on your computer using external.txt files! This can be useful for things like custom music where you don't want to make duplicate of files just so they can show up in the game.

We've opted to do it this way since all three operating systems have different ways of handling shortcuts and this makes it easier for us to maintain and potentially implement user interfaces for in the future.

For more information about external.txt files, check out the documentation here.

[h2]Custom Liveries and the Ship Viewer[/h2]
The game now supports custom liveries! Check out the documentation here for how to set them up..

Any ship loaded into the game can have custom liveries, you'll just need the author to provide a template file for you to work off. For internal ships we've provided PSD and XCF files!

To help with making liveries we've also implemented a ship viewer, accessible from the main menu. This tools let's you load up any ship currently loaded into the game and orbit around it. You can reload the current livery to immediately see livery changes and control which texture maps are drawn and change the light level to test illumination and reflection maps!



[h2]Layout Creator 2.14[/h2]
The layout creator has seen some big updates for this release! See the full changelog or documentation what's new section for all the details, this is just a small overview.

Orthographic Camera
It's now possible to use the editor with orthographic side/top cameras! The different camera modes can be cycled through using the 1 through 4 keys.

More node tools
Node scaling and orbit tools have been added.

Holding S allows you to scale nodes away/towards the average position of all selected nodes.
Holding R allows you to orbit nodes around the average position of all selected nodes.

Junction Smoothing 2.0
The editor's junction smoothing has been rewritten and drastically improved. You can switch back to the original smoothing in the Route Tools window, and tracks saved in an older version of the editor will still use the original smoothing.

[h2]Ingame Campaign Editor[/h2]
You can now make custom campaigns in-game. Accessed from the campaigns menu, this new editor makes it much easier to setup custom campaigns with everything that you can do by manually writing an XML exposed to you. The updated base game campaign, upcoming maceno island campaign and the new Aster League campaigns were all made using this!



[h2]Custom Virtual Palettes[/h2]

It's now possible to override the game's color palettes for virtual environments using PNG images! Click the image below for a guide (we've also included this image with the game, in the modding folder).



[h2]Dust Zones / Surfaces[/h2]
Dust zones and surfaces are a new engine feature that allows you to define areas or hoverable surfaces that will kick up material using particle systems and play a sound. Dust surfaces in particular can also be used as proxy triggers for other triggerable areas, such as push zones or damage zones.

We're currently using these on the small vehicle tracks and in the upcoming Maceno Island expansion.

For more information, check out the documentation.

[h2]Animated Characters[/h2]
Please note that we currently don't have documentation up for animated characters, we'll get this written up in the future. If you're familiar with animating characters in Unity, the stand-in documentation page provides the information you need.

BallisticNG now supports animated characters! We're currently using this the pilots on the small vehicles and already have the system exposed for modding.

Characters use Unity's Mecanim system, allowing mods to take a set of variables and use them to blend between different animations however is seen fit.



[h2]Debug Hub[/h2]
The debug hub is a new overlay that can be accessed by pressing F9, it provides various tools and can be extended by code mods to add additional functionality!

Logger
The logger allows you to log information to the screen. This is hooked into Unity's logger, so you call Unity's logger to print into it.

Memory Profiler
The memory profiler provides information on how much memory is being used by the game and provides information on the amount of resources loaded.

Render Profiler
The render profiler provides information about what's currently being drawn. This is useful for track development so you can see what's causing rendering bottlenecks.

Fog Editor / Sun Ray Editor
If a track has fog / sun rays enabled, these editors let you configure them on the fly for you to copy back out into Unity. A useful tool for track developers!


We're now entering the 1.3 support cycle, where we'll be spending some time bringing more free content, features and bug fixes that build upon what we've been working on for this major update.

Refer to our roadmap for more information: https://trello.com/b/xf49tYpV/ballisticng-public-roadmap

We have 3 updates planned, each focuses on a new free track and an update to an existing track. The track updates were originally planned for 1.4 / Switch release, but we've decided to pull them back since we're already on a roll with major content updates and doing so brings the content to you sooner.

• 1.3.1 will bring a prototype for a post-1.4 virtual themed DLC and a scenery update to Harpstone.
  
• 1.3.2 will bring a prototype for a post-1.4 floor hugger DLC and a scenery update to Nova Split.
  
• 1.3.3 will bring a track set deeper in the Aciknovae reactor and a scenery update to Aciknovae.
  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mj_5Dj2hzc
It's been almost two years since we started development on 1.3 and the Maceno Island expansion. A lot has changed in that time and we're almost ready to release it into the wild!

BallisticNG 1.3 will be releasing on November 30th.
Maceno Island will be releasing on December 14th.

1.3 is a major content and feature update with lots to be excited about, such as the new small vehicles content, major campaign update, in-game campaign editor, custom liveries, and much more!

A major part of this update has involved rewrites and changes to a lot of the game's underlying sytems to make it much easier to develop for multiple platforms. This means development for the Switch port will be much smoother once we shift all of our focus over to it.


When 1.3 releases in two weeks we're going to be increasing the price of the game to $15 or your regional equivalent.

This increase has been in consideration for a while so we've given ourselves lots of time to create an update that brings even more value to the base game. We're putting out this announcement ahead of time so potential buyers are aware of our plans.

Why
BallisticNG started as a free game and left early access in 2018 at $8 after a paid transition. We chose a paid business model so we could focus on refining the game to release the 1.0 version, and in the long term it has provided us with a means to provide extended post-launch support. The original price was chosen to stay close to the original monetary accessibility the game had.

We're now about to push the game's 3rd post release update and still have a lot to come in the future (see the roadmap linked below). With four years of non stop post-release development and counting, and our recent on-boarding of community members into content development, it's important for us to keep on top of our bottom line so we can continue to confidently choose where to direct our attention and take our time with quality changes and additions that improve and build upon previous updates.

This new price is one that we believe is fair for players and beneficial to us for the rest of the game's ongoing development. It's been a fun 6 years so far, here's to another 6!

If you'd like to see what's on the table for BallisticNG you can check out our roadmap here: https://trello.com/b/xf49tYpV/ballisticng-public-roadmap

This roadmap is updated whenever we have something new that we will focus on for current and future updates, so be sure to keep an eye on it!

The rundown

• If you already own the game this change doesn't impact you.
  
• Starting November 30th 2022 the game will cost $15 for new players.
  
• DLC pricing will not be changed and future DLCs will be priced similarly.
  
• Free feature and content updates will continue as usual.
  

1.3 has a massive number of changes, so many that we're waiting for the release to highlight them all. Here's a recap of the upcoming content, updated content and some of the major feature additions:

[h2]Updated base game campaign[/h2]
The base game campaign has see a major update in 1.3, with many changed events, some added events and rebalanced time trials.

We've gone through the whole campaign and reconfigured events that wasted lots of time, such as knockout on Aciknovae. Our goal with campaigns is to provide a guided tour of content that works well together and this idea has been much more carefully followed with these changes. Later on in the campaign you will now also get to play on reverse versions of the tracks, something that wasn't in originally as the reverse tracks were last minute additions to the game.

Since release we've also added new gamemodes so we've also added a few extra events that make use of these.

Time trials have had their bronze and silver targets adjusted to scale with lap times instead of being a static offset across the board. This means events like the Omega Harbour trial where the track has longer lap times will now be much more lenient and less of an endurance test.

The Barracuda A events have been cut back drastically. There are now 4 time trials on select tracks instead of one on every track. The Barracuda Challenge has also been given the same treatment, with the track list being cut to focus on a particular set of tracks.

The Barracuda B events have been split out into individual races so they're no longer endurance tournaments. The last two events in this group are veteran challenges which still test your endurance on the forward and reverse versions of the Model B tracks.

[h2]Small Vehicle Content[/h2]
Small Vehicles is a new set of content built around smaller pedestrian sized vehicles running pure races. 1.3 kickstarts this new vehicle class with 8 tracks and a campaign to accompany them. Atacama, Alice Mountain and Forgotten Coast were made by community member Brobama!

We'll also be providing our content templates with the modding tools so people can get started with making their own small vehicle tracks by using the same starting point that we had when developing them. These templates include track tile textures, the holographic wall texture and material, a .blend file with the walls and a layout creator file with the default track width and speed modifier pre-configured.

The small vehicle tracks are part of the base game.

[h2]Ribble Raceway[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXKQVv4kkv4



[h2]Brattelva Circuit[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcnxOODemGA



[h2]Atacama[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0wW3MBSMgA



[h2]Alice Mountain[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO85HkExeYU



[h2]Forgotten Coast[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJn3O-wDoSg



[h2]Skylight Gardens[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OVGmhyhno4



[h2]Maria Tide[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJn3O-wDoSg



[h2]Vega Waterway[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmSaFte4jBU



[h2]Updated environments[/h2]
We've taken what we considered to be some of the weakest tracks from a visual standpoint and made improvements or rebuilt their scenery from scratch to bring them up to standards we see appropriate for 1.3.

[h2]Omega Harbour[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyYUmoi3Tro



[h2]Arrivon XI[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS7-QwnD7LQ



[h2]Metro[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3D4Uv-4iGg



[h2]Arrivon Peak[/h2]
When updating Arrivon Peak with virtual environment scripts we thought the terrain looked pretty ugly, so on top of the survival mode compatability Arrivon Peak has had a minor update to change its terrain to use one of our modern terrain shaders. We've also added in a few extra details.



[h2]Kuiper Overturn[/h2]
We saw a problem with Kuiper Overturn after releasing Outer Reaches; people couldn't navigate it cleanly without lots of practice.

This update is one of the more minor ones, but there's numerous changes all centered around readability. The lighting has been toned down to give the track a much darker and more ambient look. This helps the navigation lines stand out much more, which have also been given new colors that don't clash with existing elements on the track. The navigation lines now also bleed light into the surrounding scenery, helping the tracks path stand out more. Chevrons have also been moved to not only give a clearer indication of where you should go, but also hint at what the inputs you should be pressing are.

We've also added some debris particles!



[h2]Basin Optimized[/h2]
Basin has been a hardware benchmark for us as it's by far one of the least optimized tracks in the game. For 1.3 we've revisited it and optimized it to the standard of all of our most recent tracks.

Visually Basin is exactly the same, except now it'll run much more smoothly on older hardware, and in the future, the Switch!

[h2]More Ships[/h2]
We've rewritten our ship management backend so it's much, much easier for us to implement new ships. We went ham with adding more vehicles for this update.

Some of these are fun extras that are hidden by default and need a cheat code to activate.

[h3]Mako[/h3]
The AGLS new-comer from Maceno Island with a sturdy and agile ship that can hold its own in a firefight.





[h3]Aster LB221[/h3]
Aster's flagship vehicle. An AG bike fitted with AGL technologies to ensure the rider is safe while flying at speeds comparable to a regular ship.





[h3]Aster VB221[/h3]
A virtual version of the LB221 for use in Barracuda's Pilot Acclimatization Simulators, matching the Barracuda Model S's ship performance for consistency in training scenarios.






[h3]Aster KA10[/h3]
An experimental AG go-kart that shares components with the LB221. It has a higher top speed then the LB221 but its extra mass makes it slightly worse then accelerating and steering.






[h3]Scorplet[/h3]
Scorpio's Heavy Duty Hydraulic forklift with AG suspension.






[h3]Omnicom Cd-AG32[/h3]
A manually controlled Omnicom Camera Droid.






[h3]M-Tech RD-1[/h3]
A manually controlled MediTech Rescue Droid.






[h3]Barracuda MT Mini[/h3]
A race ship sized Barracuda Martian Transporter, the ship of choice for transportation for those involved in the Outer Reaches project.






[h3]Wyvern Scc Ares Mk 1[/h3]
A minature Wyvern Space Cargo Carrier, the main cargo ship being used to carry resources to Mars.






[h2]More liveries[/h2]
Not only have the Model B and Model C ships been merged into two single ships with liveries, but thanks to community member Vista they also now have liveries for more teams. Vista has also provided additional team liveries for the small vehicles!

Here's a small sample of the liveries:


[h2]Animated Characters[/h2]
BallisticNG now has support for animated characters! Internally we're using these for the pilots on the small vehicle ships, but of course mods can use them however they see fit.

We're using Unity's mecanim system to drive these so mods get a lot of freedom when determining how to animate.



[h2]Improved physics and cameras[/h2]
We've made massive changes to collisions and subtle changes to the hovering physics!

Collisions have always been a bit janky in BallisticNG because of the way we handle airbrake physics to keep the result of stat inputs consistent across ships. For 1.3 we've made significant improvements to them so you'll no longer find yourself getting stuck to walls when airbraking and will be much less likely to clip straight through them.

Hovering has also seen improvements so gliding at the top of the ships hover height no longer jitters around.

The track chase camera has been rewritten from scratch to make some fundamental changes that makes is feel much more satisfying to use. The 2159/floor hugger rear chase has also seen some big updates, improving its response to the ships physics. Both of these cameras now also have options to revert them back to their pre-1.3 versions, if you prefer them.

[h2]Custom Liveries (and the ship viewer)[/h2]
We've added support for custom liveries! Every ship loaded into the game can have a custom livery made for it if the ship author provides you with a template file to work off of.

The majority of internal ships have template files available for you in the modding folder, and you can use the new ship viewer feature to preview the livery in-game with an instant reload button and several options to adjust rendering settings such as lighting.



[h2]In-game campaign editor[/h2]
The game now has a built in campaign editor so you no longer need to write XMLs to get your custom campaigns going! We've been using this new tool internally for the past year now with the updated base game campaign, maceno island campaign and small vehicles campaign being built with it.

The editor gives you access to all of the same features manually writing the campaigns XML do, and as a bonus campaigns are reloaded when you back out of the editor so you can immediately playtest the changes you've just made! We've integrated the editor as part of the campaigns menu so it fits nicely with everything else.



[h2]Engine Upgrade[/h2]
We've updated to Unity 2020.3. The biggest benefit this provides to everybody is much better frame pacing, exposed profiling tools which we have implemented into our new debug hub for track creators to take advantage of, and lots of little additions which we're taking advantage of to build our own rendering optimisation solutions for the Switch version.


Maceno Island is the upcoming tropical themed DLC adding 6 new tracks, new liveries and a new campaign.

[h2]Maceno Bay[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_QYqV_9rAI



[h2]Therma Fumos[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuWm0rEiH9c



[h2]Maceno Interchange[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ3CbfuUND4



[h2]Freyr Falls[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsMOj0z7k-8



[h2]Alto Overseer[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO85HkExeYU



[h2]Maceno Peak[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgINhyfTcHs

We're now starting to wrap up the development of 1.3! All small vehicles tracks are now complete and we currently have the campaign for it in testing. It comes in at a total of 67 events!

Don't forget you can also track progress on our roadmap: https://trello.com/b/xf49tYpV/ballisticng-public-roadmap

[h2]Vega Waterway[/h2]
The final small vehicles track! Vega Waterway takes the race back to Vega City with a tight technical circuit that snakes through dense city back streets and drops into a canal where excess water from the nearby river Lyre is drained.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmSaFte4jBU&t=74s



[h2]Aster VB221[/h2]
The VB221 is Asters small vehicle spec ship for use in virtual training scenarios, it matches the Barracuda Model S in all stats and is treated the same way in regards to leaderboards.

We've introduced this ship so you can run Survival on small vehicle tracks with a ship that is designed for the scale. As with everything else, this will also be usable outside of survival as a regular ship and can be used for survival on regular tracks.



[h2]More Liveries[/h2]
The small vehicles and Model B / Model C ships now have more liveries.
A huge thanks to Vista for making and providing these!

There are too many new liveries to showcase here, but here's a handful of them:

Maceno Island
We've got the store page for Maceno Island up, be sure to go wishlist it and check out the new Maceno Island liveries!

The DLC will be coming shortly after 1.3s release and it will be a paid expansion. We haven't set a price yet.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1596120/BallisticNG__Maceno_Island/

1.3 Beta 8
1.3 Beta 8 is now available! We've still got a bunch of content to finish over the next few months before 1.3 is finished, but we've got plenty of new features to test beforehand.

This update doesn't include all of the new bike tracks. We're saving those for the full release.

Joining the beta

• Right click BallisticNG in your steam library and go to Properties
  
• Go to the betas tab on the window that opens
  
• From the dropdown select Beta. If the update doesn't automatically queue for download, restart Steam
  

What is the beta?
For 1.3 we're developing and implementing new modding tools and features, some of which will be part of the upcoming Switch version of the game. We're releasing beta builds for each new feature we add so the community gets to play around with them early.

Unity Tools Notice
While these beta builds ship with Unity 2020.3.5 ready builds of the Unity Tools, they are intended for our internal testing group only. If you want to import the Unity Tools, please make sure you're using Unity 2018.3.8 and import them from the public branch running version 1.2.5 of the game.

Mods built with the 1.3 Beta Unity Tools are not compatible with previous versions of the game and documentation will not be available until the final release of 1.3.

New Ships
Mako and the Aster KA10 are now playable!

Scanline effects now disabled in VR
We've had reports that people were getting motion sick in the menu and in survival mode because of the scanline effect. It's now disabled in VR.

New ship asset mangement system
All internal ships are now built into their own asset bundle files. This allows us to manage internals ships exactly like we have been with custom ships. There's now a slight loading time, but we no longer need to have all of the ships resources loaded into memory, which gives us much more room to cram in more ships and liveries for those ships without worrying about making the game eat more of your system resources.

Redesigned campaign details panel
We have a new campaign details panel! All of the events information is now displayed so you can see exactly what you're about to play.

More options
Custom race and multiplayer now have more options!

For both custom racea and multiplayer you can set custom speed multipliers to go as painstakingly slow or as blisteringly fast as you want. Multiplayer now also has options to control the end of race and return to lobby timers.

We've also added a new graphics option to set the displays refreshrate when using exclusive fullscreen and a new gameplay option that allows Orbitronix and Mako to be part of the game's standard ship roster when spawning AIs.

Game state added for speed runners
We've added an enumeration that speed runners creating LiveSplit Auto Splitter scripts can hook into. NgData.Player.PlayerState is the enumeration and it holds the following states:

• Menu (player is on the main menu)
  
• Pre Race (player is watching the race overview or the countdown hasn't finished yet)
  
• Racing (player is currently racing)
  
• Post Race (the race is finished, the player is looking at the results screen)
  

Bling Pack is now Steamless
Thanks to big changes we've made to our DLC system recently, we finally have a much better solution for the bling pack. The bling pack is now it's own DLC file to validate that you've bought it. As with all other DLC, once you have that file you no longer need to run the game through Steam for any reason.

[h2]Stunt[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShARRHlbngg

We've added a new high score game mode. In Stunt your goal is to perform as many barrel rolls as you can before completing all laps. The closer you barrel roll to the floor, the higher the score.

Our approach to this mode was to take barrel rolls and turn it into somewhat of a rhythm game, with the timing of the roll playing an important part in a positive feedback loop to sustain long roll chains.

In this mode barrel rolls are bound to a single button press, however you can still perform them normally if you really hate your controller ;)

The mode works as follows:

• Land a barrel roll to earn points and start a chain. Depending on when you barrel roll you'll earn points for regular rolls, good rolls and perfect rolls. Timing is key!
  
• When starting a chain you'll get 10 points for the 2nd roll, then each subsequent roll multiplies the score by the number of rolls in the chain. A chain is ended by letting the timer run out, failing a roll or hitting the track walls.
  
• Your ships shield energy can be exchanged for an uplift boost. An uplift boost accelerates your ship upwards to let you get airtime, while also freezing your chain and adding some additional time to it. This can be used as a tool to gain air where you would otherwise not get it, be timed on big jumps to keep a chain going through falling or just be used as a way to panic extend a chain.
  
  Straight away you have three uplift boosts in your reserve. Your energy recharges slowly over time, but landing good and perfect rolls give large amounts of the energy back immediately.
  
• If you finish the event while in a chain you enter overtime and keep going. As long as your chain is still going you can go indefinitely to rack up huge scores. Regular rolls however do not count towards resetting your chain in overtime.
  

Sticking as close to the track as possible is key as spending too long in the air is wasted chain time. Maintaining close proximity to the track is done by pitching down and braking over crests when going at high speeds. The mode is also playable on all speed classes and supports splitscreen!

Stunt will have leaderboards when 1.3 releases. They're currently disabled in the beta.



Ships

• Added Mako
  
• Added Aster KA10
  
• Added more chase camera sensitivity stats (coming to Unity Tools later)
  
• Added Idle Sway stat (coming to Unity Tools later)
  
• Barrel roll success threshold reduced to 180 degrees (from 200) to match with what's happening visually
  
• Reduced various sensitivity settings of the small vehicle chase cameras to improve their feel
  
• Fixed the Barracuda Model B not having an illum map setup
  

Music

• Added Vonsnake - Mako
  
• Added Vonsnake - Smooth Gliding
  

DLC

• Bling pack ownership is now verified using a content pack data file instead of a past Steam login validation check
  

Engine

• Added option to set the monitor refresh rate when using exclusive fullscreen
  
• Added Terrain Advanced Max shader, expanding Terrain Advanced Plus with illumination and reflection maps. This will be available in a future Unity Tools update
  
• Added gameplay option to allow AI to use the post release ships, disabled by default. Game -> General -> Ai Expanded Roster
  
• Player ship selections are now stored as a reference to a content manager entry instead of separate standalone data
  
• Removed a legacy custom ship load time notice message on track load transitions
  
• Small vehicles now have their own camera setting, set to rear chase by default.
  
• Exposed character input speeds to the F1 stats menu (now has a scroll bar)
  
• Implemented lens flare passthrough. Objects with collisions can now be flagged out with a script to not occlude lens flares for cases such as invisible walls and holographics. This will be available to mods in a future Unity Tools update. Some internal tracks will be updated to support this feature at a later time.
  
• Internal ships are now split into individual files and use the ship bundle manager, originally used for CSF custom ships. This adds a noticeable selection load time but reduces memory overhead as all ship resources are no longer loaded at all times.
  
• Fixed the airbrakes for the other splitscreen player rendering when in the internal view if the mesh renderer isn't attached to the transform object
  
• Ship airbrakes can now be configured to render in the cockpit view (coming to Unity Tools later)
  
• Ship characters can now be configured to use their own material and be rendered in the cockpit view
  
• Fixed soft locks that could occur when alt tabed while a track is loading
  
• Fixed survival continuing to think that a custom ship is being used in survival if using the change ship and track option on the pause menu and changing to the Barracuda Model S
  
• Fixed softlocks when alt tabbing on vanilla track loading
  
• Fixed splitscreen pushing a cheats enabled notification
  
• Fixed weather systems not being setup for player 2 in splitscreen
  
• Disabled log events for flare culling
  

VR

• The scanline effect on virtual skies is now disabled
  

User Interface

• Added a load overlay which pops up when a ship is being loaded
  
• Fixed menu ships disappearing when changing liveries after every 2nd switch
  

Tracks

• Fixed transparency orders on Omega Harbours underwater tunnel
  
• Various tracks given water material tweaks to adjust for UV scrolling fixes
  
• Fixed the survival anti-cheat erroneously kicking in on Hydrome Bed
  
• (Neon Nights) Fixed Metro Reverse using the night texture maps
  
• (Outer Reaches) The Project 9 suspension vehicles now use a double sided material
  

User Interface

• Redesigned the campaign event details panel
  
  
  
  • The interface is now laid out in a 2x2 grid
    
  • Event settings are now displayed in the same format that multiplayer lobby settings are. More settings are now listed.
    
  • If a tournament is selected, the track overview title now shows the track number as it cycles through the tracks
    
• Fixed softlock issue that could sometimes occur when backing out of the game options menu after switching mod tabs
  
• Fixed custom race sliders having their start value being set before the rounding mode is applied
  
• Selector elements now have their arrows faded when there's only a single option
  
• Custom race tournaments no longer have a track limit
  
• The tournament listing scroll view no longer has navigation and can scrolled with the menu scroll input bindings or the mouse
  
• Increased granularity of the audio mixing sliders
  
• The leaderboards menu now cancels previous leaderboard fetch requests before starting new ones
  
• Reorganised the Game -> Camera menu
  

Gamemode

• Added Stunt
  
• Drastically reduced airbrake slip falloff in Survival (1000 to 25). The intention is to make the airbrake response predictable and in-line with the Model S handling outside of the mode. Please let me know if it makes it too difficult to fly in the higher zones.
  

Weapons

• Reduced turbo drop chance weighting by 70%
  

Multiplayer

• Added speed multiplier setting. This stacks with hyper and drag mode
  
• Added setting to control the results screen time
  
• Added setting to control the event finish time
  
• Fixed the speed modifier not being saved into lobby presets
  
• Host handshake packets now pull the hosts ship selection directly from the new content manager reference value instead of running a database search. This should drastically improve host performance when new clients join and lots of custom ships are installed.
  

Campaign

• Fixed spelling mistakes in the base game time trial custom descriptions
  
• (Outer Reaches) Fixed finale drift and drag events allowing small vehicles
  
• Added support for the drag speed modifier
  

Custom Race

• Fixed spelling mistakes in the ai roster preset action dialogs
  
• Added a button to reset cheats
  
• Added speed multiplier setting. This stacks with hyper and drag mode
  

Modding

• Added Mako livery template PSD
  
• Added Aster KA10 livery template PSD
  
• uplift.wav and overtime.wav added for custom soundpacks
  
• The Aster LB221 livery template has been re-exported with no color profile setup. The note txt file explains a better workflow for gimp converted PSDs.