Project Wingman News

Hi All,

This is a very small update while we're working on our 1.0.5 update. We've pushed a highly requested feature to the Steam backend to enable cloud saves.

Backend Update December 21st
-Enabled Steam Cloud

Cheers,
RB

Hey all, this is a pretty small update in comparison to 1.0.4 and the upcoming 1.0.5 update. But it addresses some of the critical issues some of you might be having.

1.0.4D Patch Notes
General:
-Optimized ground vehicle spawning function to prevent jitters/stutters while ground vehicles spawn.
-Once again fixed tanks spawning underground in Open Season.
-Removed several testing maps from the game to reduce package bloat.
-Fixed F/C-16 STDM floating off to the side.
-Fixed numerous English subtitle mismatch.
-Restored head sway values to default.

HOTAS:
-Fixed a critical issue where joystick axis constantly jitter. Making joystick input somewhat unstable.
-Potentially fixed an issue where Joysticks with "_" in their names would no longer be detected upon bootup.

Conquest:
-Fixed a critical issue where the final fight would occasionally not finish.
-Fixed an issue in Conquest where enemies would stop spawning
-During reinforcement phase. Regular enemy units will no longer continuously spawn.

Boss Fight: (!!! May Contain Spoilers !!! )
-Kings
    Overall:
        -Fixed railgun orbs showing the same grey telegraphing orb as the damage orbs. It has been changed to a smaller bright blue orb as a separate warning to the player.

Hello everyone!

We're rolling out our first patch for Project Wingman after a somewhat extensive beta testing with users that opted into the beta to hopefully fix some of the critical bugs in the Campaign and Conquest mode of the game. While we're not at the capacity to respond to all the bug reports. We are definitely noting them down and listening! So please keep them coming in!

Without further ado, here are the patch notes!

Project Wingman Patch 1.0.3 -> 1.0.4c

General:
-Fixed Cruise Missiles spawning in Return
-Fixed repeating take off sequence in No Respite.
-Fixed Red Sea Ending too quickly causing some endgame transmission to be cut off.
-Fixed Conquest specific weapons appearing in the Campaign loadout summary.
-Fixed a bad radio take in Presidia.
-Reduced the amount of camera sway in cockpit view.
-Fixed an issue where after playing either free flight or free mission. Starting a new campaign and completing the first mission would kick players out of the campaign and into the mission select menu.
-Fixed the clouds in Black Flag looking splotchy and scribbly.
-Fixed the clouds in Clear Skies looking blocky and visibly tiling.
-Adjusted water roughness value in Black Flag to look more reflective.
-Updated Credits Text
-Fixed an issue where the CR.105 would appear distorted and triangulated for users on lower settings.
-Freetrack option that was in the 2018 demo now available again. (Not highly supported but it's there)
-Reduced the amount of head sway in cockpit view and made transitions to be smoother as well.
-Fixed random bolts of lightning in Mission 21.
-Fixed an issue where some priority targets would attempt to go out of bounds in Mission 5.
-Fixed an issue where the MG-31 escorts for the missiles would behave like the missiles (ignoring the player) and be marked Priority as well.
-Airliner in Clear Skies now properly says CIVILIAN rather than designation consistent with the civilian Airships.
-Fixed canister gunpod not having the proper shooting sound.
-Fixed an issue where enemy aircraft would spawn on free flight of Prospero.
-Fixed an issue where a truck would spawn underground in Open Season.
-Fixed an issue where a Priority tank would spawn underground in Open Season.
-Fixed an issue where a Priority fighter would escape outside the map in Open Season.
-Slightly changed the targeting priority algorithm.


UI:
-Shortened the amount of time Boss Announce UI takes during gameplay.
-Fixed where boss names would clip into the health bar of the boss UI.
-Boss announce UI now no longer hides off screen target indicator.
-Boss announce UI now no longer hides Active Lock on elements on screen.
-Boss announce UI now no longer hides missile warnings on screen.
-Boss announce UI now no longer hides bomb widgets.
-Fixed an issue where your HULL status would show 0. (You're not that cool... yet.)
-Fixed an issue where HUD would reappear despite user turning it off through user settings. (Specifically during boss announcements)

Aircraft:
-AOA Module now available for the MG-29, F/E-18, and Sk.27

Weapons:
-Reduced range of SAA from 13000m to 12000m

Level Adjustments:
Mission 6:
	-Hazawa now only spawns in Mercenary Mode
	
Level Lighting Adjustments:
	Dev Notes:
		A lot of users have noticed the heavy usage of certain colors and high contrast in some missions. Particularly ones that involve a lot of orange tone. And in some cases, we used incorrect gamma values while adjusting the lighting of some missions. We wont be addressing all the levels yet as we plan to tackle this issue step by step and garner feedback on each adjustment.

	Mission 1 Black Flag:
		-Adjusted Time of Day from dawn to early morning.
	
	Mission 6:
		-Reduced the amount of contrast in the areas before the player gets to the Apodock Fracture.
		-Adjusted the orange tone before the player gets to the Apodock Fracture.
		-Significantly reduced the amount of glow lava "beaches" emit.
		
	MIssion 14:
		-Slightly reduced contrast.
		
	Mission 21:
		-Reduced the amount of orange tint in the level.
		
		

VR
-Fixed an issue where Reset Orientation in VR would not properly apply and causes user to face a different direction.
-Game start should reset view before initializing the game.
-Fixed an issue where objective text would not fade out properly and stay in front of the player.

Conquest:
-Fixed a critical issue where players would occasionally spawn in front of a mountain and immediately crash into said mountain before the screen fades out. (For now player is guaranteed to spawn high up in the skies until we find a more elegant solution)
-Added most of the soundtrack to the Conquest music lineup.
-Made Conquest allies significantly more durable.
-Added Sky Sequence Names and Time of Day indicator in Conquest Pause Menu to help track down which sequences are too bright or too dark in Conquest.		
-Disabled Conquest progress reset when versions are different as some users were having troubles with it constantly resetting progress.



Boss Fight: (!!! May Contain Spoilers !!! )
-Kings Rework
	Dev Notes: 
		We realize that the final phase of the fight it was extremely unclear and somewhat whether you could down the boss or not. This was not the intention. And also how terrible idea was removing the radar without a properly telegraphed AoE attacks from C1. 
		Hopefully, without changing too much of the boss fight. These changes can help maintain our original vision of the boss fight without changing it too drasticly.
	OVERALL:
		Crimson's AoE attack will now show a warning radius in grey before fully expanding.
                The Final phase now shows both unit's health bar except in Mercenary mode.
	EASY:
		Crimson will no longer use AoE and Railgun Cluster Bombs in 4th stage.
		Crimson will only restore to 50% of his health in the 4th phase.
	NORMAL:
		Crimson will no longer use AoE and Railgun Cluster Bombs in 4th stage.
		4th Stage will give player extra 50 health instead of 40.
		Crimson will only restore to 50% of his original phase health in the 4th phase.
	HARD:
		Crimson will only restore to 75% of his original phase health in the 4th phase.
	MERCENARY:
		No change.

Forgive any lack of eloquence in this report but we started writing this on our D-Day, launch day of Project Wingman. As of us writing this it is currently over 24 hours since launch, and boy, has it been a launch.

Not smooth, definitely bumpy, with cracks we’re looking to patch up as soon as possible, and we’re not gonna say this is a straight victory yet having launched, however it is a milestone on the way to a full realization of Project Wingman. We think it’s too early to start celebrating, however, there is something to be said that, upon launch, we are currently 2nd best selling globally on the Steam charts, and for that, how could we not thank you all? If it wasn’t for the fact we’re in overdrive right now, I’d be crying.



But there’s no time to cry and only time to report to you, our long time backers:

Project Wingman’s 1.0 is named as such because it has all the elements we wanted for a 1.0 release. It is the complete experience. That being said that does not mean it is the perfect experience as it has clearly been put together. Now this is of course a consequence of immediately widening out the user pool. Naturally things have broken, and things are being fixed as we speak, however everything is there for us to set up and build upon as we go on. Beneath any of the mistakes we have made is something we know is worth it. The campaign as a whole can be played start to finish, conquest is in and ready to be expanded, our banging tight soundtrack is out in full force and there is a selection of planes to choose from to tickle your fancy as you fight from the Creole Republic to the very precipice of Hell itself.

Our expectations with 1.0 internally was that we knew things would break, and as far as we can tell the most major issues surround hardware configurations (HOTAS implementation especially), and VR. SteamVR at the moment is not exactly playing well with a minority of systems despite indications from our testing, however we are working as fast as we can to settle it and have everyone play PW as best as they can.

One thing that is not completely in at the moment is backer fulfillment, we are populating the game with the remaining names now as we speak in mostly natural ways. This ranges from Conquest implementation to Mercenary mode cameos.



[h2]1.0 Issues and Support[/h2]
As we said earlier our 1.0 is not where we’d like it to be, and we recognize many issues ranging from aforementioned VR issues, to fatal errors on startup, to some screwy localization and subtitle work. As more and more people play and more and more bugs are reported, it’ll just make this next patch able to hit more and secure a better gaming experience for all. So if you’re reporting or experiencing bugs, keep on coming to us and letting us know.
This isn’t the official post-report where we sit down and talk about how far we’ve come, that comes later, but for now, we’ve got another challenge ahead of us: post-release.

We intend to keep the game updated and maintained as we go on forward, however as for any major plans we have in the future?

Non-existent.

We’re living day by day at the moment, and until everything is settled, we won’t be happy.

That being said there are ideas being brought to us: such as more endgame two-seaters for some reason we can’t place our finger on. Tons of people are asking for them, so we are, naturally, going to investigate whether or not we can throw those aircraft into your inventory.

[h3]Kickstarter Rewards[/h3]
All game keys were sent out prior to release, and our soundtrack keys are also on hand ready to be sent out when we are able to organize a push out. The art book will be also handed out at a later date. Be aware that many keys are ending up in spam folders, so if you have not gotten your key yet, check your spam folder, and if it’s still not there, come talk to us.

Keys would’ve been sent from @sectord2.com domain.

Also be aware whether or not the key you received was a GOG key or a Steam key, based on your preferences as listed in the survey.

[h3]In the immediate future[/h3]

Expect patches to roll out until 1.0 is crystal clear and the game is, by itself, a well-maintained and self-sufficient package.

As the day quickly approaches to Project Wingman’s 1.0 release, we think it’s best to put out some reports whose goals are to bring us all to a common understanding as to what the game will be on release. So sit right there and let’s all get ready, together.



Plane List

This is arguably a pretty important report out of these series that we’ll be releasing in the run up to release mostly because, and rightly so, aerial dogfighting is the main reason you’re (probably) playing, Project Wingman. So to put it plain and simple, here’s what you can expect from Project Wingman’s 1.0 in terms of available planes:

20 planes, and even then that might change between the posting of this report and endgame (only upward of course), ranging the whole gamut of playstyles and combat capabilities. To attackers with special weapons racks that would make small armies fear, to interceptors with long range missiles able to strike down foes in a single pass, and even the experimental design or two from this world’s machinations; all are here. You'll have to wait until the release to fully parse out the exact list, but allow us to preview the non-spoilery examples:



























On release, I’m sure genre veterans will notice the omission of some particular standards, or even aircraft that we might’ve teased prior. Simply put then: We didn't include all the planes we might've teased for fear of overinflating the aircraft list and our workload, but in the future we're going to look into adding some back or providing new planes altogether. If an airframe you’re hoping to see represented didn’t get in, hold out hope and feel free to ask!

Now that’s it for this report in the lead up to launch day, we’ll see you soon with another report!

As always follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Steam Group and join our Discord if you want to be informed with PW news and discussion. Wishlist us on Steam!

More information will be inbound soon, especially for those due keys for the game.