BallisticNG News

It's been a busy month and we have three tracks to showcase today!

Maceno Islands track roster is now complete and we can now move onto the ship liveries and campaign. We also have one more small vehicles track to finish. Once done those tracks will also be getting their own campaign!

After that the bulk of 1.3s work is done. We still have three additional tracks that are coming on top of all of this and we have a major optimization for Basin and some readability improvements for Kuiper Overturn coming too.

Once all of this content is wrapped up it'll be time for us to finish up feature implementations, get the Unity Tools updated with the new engine features, run one final beta and then we'll be good to set a release date and get this monster update out onto the public branch!

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

[h3]Smooth Gliding[/h3]
A new song has been added to the soundtrack! If you own the soundtrack DLC you'll find Smooth Gliding already in there. You can also stream it here:

https://soundcloud.com/vonsnake/ballisticng-smooth-gliding


[h2]Maceno Peak[/h2]
The sixth and final Maceno Island track! This one sits at the very top of the island and features tight corner series and lots of verticality to test your skills. This is a track you're going to want to pitch down over the hills on.

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





[h2]Skylight Gardens[/h2]
Running through glass pyramid gardens and a mall complementing them, Skylight Gardens is a tightly packed urban track set in Stockholm that demands a solid racing line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OVGmhyhno4





[h2]Atacama[/h2]
Brobama's back with another track. Atacama is a completely offroad circuit small vehicles track running through Chilean sand dunes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0wW3MBSMgA







[h3]Removed tournament track limit[/h3]
BallisticNG has an artificial limit of 12 tracks for tournaments, with exception to campaigns where you can add as many track as you like.

We've now removed this limit for custom races so you can easily go wild with extremely long tournaments! Multiplayer still has the 12 track limit however as we transfer the tracks display name to tell everybody which tracks to load and it can very quickly pile up into an unreasonable amount of data to send.

[h3]More granular audio mixing options[/h3]
We've updated the audio mixing sliders so they jump in increments of 0.05 instead of 0.1, giving you more fine control over the game's audio balance.

[h3]Game state exposed for speedruns[/h3]
After recieving a feature request, we've implemented an enumation that speed runners can hook into to check the players state to automate LiveSplit with auto splitters.

Once 1.3 is out, NgData.Player.State will provide 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)
  

Hey everyone. This month we've been focusing on more small vehicle tracks content, which is now getting close to being done.

With Brattelva Circuit finished there is now only 3 small vehicle tracks left to go. We're already working on these last tracks and we're aiming to have stuff to show next month.

We also only have 1 more track to go for Maceno Island: Maceno Peak. The layout for this track is already prototyped. Refinement and then eventually scenery will come once we've made some more progress with the small vehicles tracks.

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


[h2]Brattelva Circuit[/h2]
Brattelva Circuit is a somewhat technical track running through the Norwegian countryside, built on top of an old river. This secluded area is primarily used as a small wind farm, and with the track came a pub with open crowdstands to watch the races.

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











[h2]Expanded AI Roster[/h2]
There is now an option to allow post release ships to be included with the vanilla ship roster without needing to setup custom AI rosters in custom race.

Right now this includes Orbitronix and Mako. We've opted not to include the Barracuda Model 0 in this as it doesn't have weapons.

The option is off by default as keeping the vanilla roster to 8 teams is part of the game's original design. When turned on it applies to all aspects of the game (campaign, custom race and multiplayer bots).



[h2]Rebalanced turbo drops[/h2]
Turbos have been unbalanced for a while. Since they were originally for a cheat mode or used in Speed Lap where you're given one every lap, we hadn't really thought too much about their drop rate.

As turbos have been a toggle for custom races for a while now, 1.3 will have the turbo drop rate reduced by 70%. This is still enough to give you one per a 20-40 second lap on average, while before you'd easily be getting 3-4 per lap.

These changes aren't necessarily final and we'll gather some feedback regarding it when we run the final 1.3 beta.

[h2]Fixed alt tab soft locks[/h2]
It's possible to cause a soft lock if you alt tab out during track loading or rapidly spam the pause button, which is a particular problem for stuff like multiplayer where the person who soft locks would have to alt F4 to allow the rest of the lobby to start the race.

This is now fixed for 1.3!

[h2]Splitscreen weather[/h2]
We've had an issue since initial implementation where player 2 wouldn't have their own weather effects, but could still see the weather effects for player 1.

This is now fixed, with both players having their own weather effects that only they can see.

As a side note we also had an issue where playing in splitscreen would trigger the cheats enabled notification, which is also now fixed.

[h2]Multiplayer host performance improvements[/h2]
Whenever somebody connects to a server the host builds a list of ships that everybody is using. For other players this is fine as the host already knows the name of them and can just pass them on, but the host fetching it's own ship requires a database lookup every time. When you start reaching several hundreds of installed ships this can cause very noticeable frame hiccups.

When we first introduced our content database system during early access we had never updated player selections to directly reference it. This is finally addressed, and with a bunch of code updates later the host can finally just pass its ship information on without the costly database lookup.

Hey everyone. We're a little behind posting this one since we were finishing up the content to show off, but here's our 1.3 development progress through May 2022!

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

[h2]Alto Overseer[/h2]
Alto Overseer is the fifth Maceno Island track. Carving through the islands dormant volcano, this is a dark track with lots of twists and turns. You'll also get a great view of the entire island and its locations in the brief moment of sunlight along the mountains edge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO85HkExeYU









[h2]Aster KA10[/h2]
Aster now has an AG go-kart! Built from similar components used to make the LB221 bike, the KA10 is a fast and somewhat nimble vehicle.









[h2]Extra Stuff[/h2]
We've also been adding more features to custom races and multiplayer.

Speed Multiplier
Both custom races and multiplayer now have a speed multiplier option. It ranges from 0.2x to 2x speed and stacks with the hyper and drag speed options.

This is considered a cheat option and setting it to anything but 1x will disable saving and leaderboard functionality while active.

Custom race now also has a reset cheats option, which lets you disable all of the cheat options in a single button press.

Multiplayer Timers Control
Lobby hosts will now also be able to control the timers for finishing the race once somebody has passed the finish line and how long everybody needs to wait before going back to the lobby on the results screen.

The finish timer can be configured anywhere between 5 seconds to 2 minutes.
The results time can be configured anywhere between 5 seconds to 30 seconds.

Refresh rate in exclusive fullscreen
Based on feedback the game now also has an option to set the refresh rate of the monitor it's being display on if running in exclusive fullscreen. If you're running in a window or in borderless fullscreen this option will be disable and let you know your desktops refresh rate is being used.

Hey everyone! As we had mentioned in our 1.3 Beta 7 release announcement, we're now at a point with the update where the bulk of the work is now content so we're just cracking on with it.

Here's our first progress report. We hope to keep you updated monthly, though it may be more or less frequently dependiing on the progress that we make. Remember you can also keep track of our progress with our public roadmap, which is available here: https://trello.com/b/xf49tYpV/ballisticng-public-roadmap

1.3 is a massive update with a lot of new content and features, and as such we don't have a release date yet. As usual, it'll be done when it's done.

Fun fact: It's been just over a year since 1.3 Beta 1 released!

[hr][/hr]


A new team enters the AGL!

If you have the soundtrack, a new song for the team was released. You can also stream it here: https://soundcloud.com/vonsnake/vonsnake-mako

[h2]The Team[/h2]

MAKO, short for Maceno Anti-Gravity Kinetics Optimization, is a research firm founded in 2150 after its trillionaire founder, Manu Kanaloa, had developed an obsession with AG technology after the sports first race in 2144. Manu is extensively involved with the Manmade Landmass Project and numerous undersea mining operations across the pacific. The most notable of these ventures is Therma Fumos, the mineral mining project and geothermal powerplant situated off the shore of Maceno Island.

The company develops technology for the AGL, with its flagship contribution being the magnetic lock system integrated into the AGLs more recent circuits.

[h2]The Ship[/h2]
The MAKO SRK is an agile but sturdy ship inspired by the Mako shark. It isn't impressive in a straight line, but its smooth handling and robust combat systems make it a solid choice for those who want a nimble craft that does well in a firefight.






Freyr Falls is the fourth Maceno Island track. Situated along one of the Islands major rivers, this track tests pilots pitching abilities with numerous bumpy offroad sections and a steep incline above the upper river.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsMOj0z7k-8




The fith Maceno Island track currently in development. This dark cave track provides lots of smooth corners to coast through with the occasional break into the open. Sitting half way up Maceno's dormant volcano, this track boasts an expansive overview of the island with its prestine jungle vista.




We've updated the UI panel that shows a campaign events details. A common problem we've seen over the years is that the icons we used for certain settings didn't clearly communicate what they were for. People would eventually figure them out, but it's not immediately obvious what they were representing.

The new design takes inspiration from our multiplayer menu, where we show a list of every setting available and its value. The additional information we now display should also make it easier to understand how the event will play out when you start it.

The day has finally came for us to announce the most intense, the fastest, and the most graphically impressive racing game ever made in the history of video games.

Today we're unveiling and releasing a pre-release beta for our next game, BallisticHD. The final release will be available April 10th and will be in it's own engine, but for this pre-release we've made it a preview inside of BallisticNG as to not give hackers any way of reverse engineering our cutting edge developments ahead of time.

This demo is so advanced and next-gen that you'll need to be on the BallisticNG beta branch to play. You can do this by doing the following:

• 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
  

You can then access this preview by navigating to the BallisticHD Preview track category and picking the Future of AG Racing track.


BallisticHD is the next generation of AG racing, powered by the most cutting edge rendering engine ever conceived to achieve the fastest racing gameplay ever created.

This is the greatest, biggest and most visually impressive the BallisticNG franchise has ever been to date in the history of the racing genre.

[h2]Rendering[/h2]
For this new game we've reduced visual clutter so you can focus on the track without distraction. The decision was made to use a low-poly solid color aesthetic, and as it turns out, sometimes to make a minimilistic style you must first start off with something much more complex.

For this task we have developed a rendering engine capable of procedural texturing and texture stripping. We start off with material descriptors which describe the exact properties of a surface in the real world, like the physical makeup of concrete for instance. In most cases we use 3d scanning to sample the data we need for these descriptors. This information is then used to generate the relevant texture maps to feed into a PBR rendering pipeline. All of this takes place in the background as the game is running, and helps drastically reduce artist development time by up to 1000x. The system is completely dynamic and re-generates the textures every frame so we can modify their properties, which has allowed us to implement never before seen environment destruction technologies.

Now that we have all of this information, we discard it all so we can simply sample the base albedo color of the material, enabling us to achieve beautifully smooth surfaces never before seen in video game rendering history. We call this next generation technology Subtractive Minimalism™.



Remember how we mentioned you sometimes need to start with something much more complex to achieve a minimilistic style? This is also true with our geometry. We understand that gamers continue to demand more and more fidelity out of their experiences, so we have developed a rendering technique that lets us take meshes you'd typically see in movie VFX production and render them in realtime with no more overhead then a current generation mesh. We're pushing 100 trillion triangles per frame, and the results are simply stunning:



[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
BallisticHD is the fastest racing game ever made. Are you up to the challenge to become the fastest racer in the universe?

We aimed to streamline the BallisticNG experience and have spent years improving upon the formula. BallisticHD no longer features weapons or pitlanes. These features add unnecessary complexity to the gameplay which confuse players not acquainted with combat racers and conflict with our new core focus.

BallisticHD is an e-sports ready title. We have stripped all gamemodes but Time Trial from the game, now enforce a single ship and have removed speed pads, as these create a skill gap between players who have and haven't mastered a particular ships handling and its racing lines. The game is built around BalliisticNG's floor hugger physics, enforcing strict racing lines to further close the skill gap for fair, balanced races while also enabling brand new track designs never before seen in the history of racing video games.

We believe that BallisticHD will take the centre stage of e-sports, and with the support of its dedicated fanbase we will continue to provide the most epic moments and wholesome victory finishes captured in competitive video game history.

Racing Seasons
BallisticHD will launch with a single track and we're adding even more through exciting racing seasons which contain skill pushing challenges to further you as a pilot! Unlock shiny new ship liveries and complete your track scenery collection by converting your hard earned Race Points into NG Coins and spending them in the Ballistic Store, or by purchasing NG Coin packs directly to fast track your way to the elite ranks.

NG coins can be melted down into scrap gold and then later pressed into chassis credits, enabling the purchases of chassis part crates to obtain never before seen in the history of racing video games ship chassis designs. We've designed an intricate surprise system powered by the next generation of neural network AI technology to know exactly when to award you with rare and legendary chassis, based on your continued participation in the racing season.

We care deeply about ownership of the content you've purchased, and this is why we use NFTs to handle your game items so you truly own your digital purchases, even if the servers go down. This revolutionary approach to seasonal content provides you, the player, with unprecedented never before seen in the history of every video game ever made methods to economically brag about your play time to your friends and the sprawling BallisticHD community.

Racing Seasons will run for 2 months at a time with new free content dropping over the course of each one. Fill your afterburner gauge over the course of each season to unlock additional content and small offerings of Race Points to put behind your Ballistic Store investments. Our long term plan is to run a total of 60 seasons over the course of 10 years, and that's our promise!

Records will be offline only at launch, Online leaderboards and multiplayer lap boards will be available after Season One has begun.

Only the Zen speed class is available at launch to celebrate BallisticHD being the fastest racing game ever made. More speed classes will be coming as the seasons progress.

A constant internet connection is required to play.

[h2]Story[/h2]
The year is 5000. Aliens have descended on earth, taken over world governments and destroyed our infrastructure to severely cripple our ability to progress any further. Enslaved, we must now race to prove ourselves and reclaim our freedom.

Throughout the epic racing seasons we will see humanity rebuild as it continues to prove its worth and replace our infrastructure, with you and your racing squad at the helm to rebuild it. This is all possible thanks to our new innovative approach to lore mechanics which revolutionizes immersive racing experiences, combining co-op and surprise mechanics into a next generation dynamic experience which allows you and up to 3 friends to individually purchase scenery pieces and chassis designs at 5% off as you restore society to its former glory.

We're very excited to have unveiled our new game to you, and we look forward to seeing you on the track. Stay floating, pilots.