BallisticNG
MacOS builds are now available
If you’re playing on Linux you’ll also be seeing an update, the Made With Unity splash screen has been removed for both the Mac and Linux builds. Both versions have also been updated to Unity 2018.1.
Have fun!
Devlog 20/05/2018 - Weapon Effects, Utah Project and Custom Campaigns
Weapon Effects
Weapons have had some visual updates! Projectiles now have flares and use a trail mesh instead of particles. This makes them look more sollid in gameplay and makes them look much nicer to take screenshots of in photo mode.
Utah Project
Utah Project has had a scenery overhaul to bring it up to level with other tracks in the game. The environment has been redone entirely from scratch, with brand new textures and much more city. The general building design has stayed somewhat the same and the small dam originally seen now spans across the entire length of the track and towers over everything.
Custom Campaigns
It's now possible to load in custom campaigns. For the time being the campaigns are defined by hand in XML files, building an interface to make this easier is on the agenda. The game also supports streaming a video file from disk for the animated graphic you see down the right hand side of the campaign list.
Custom campaigns support custom tracks, ships and gamemodes! The only limitation is that you cannot force a specific custom ship, only allow the player to select one.
When you create a custom campaign the game will integrate it into the campaign menu as if it was an official set of events. It will have its own progression so you can build a list of events that unlock as you earn medals.
Other Stuff
This is a list of other major development changes. A lot of the smaller changes have been left out for simplicity.
- Added a new screen to manage C# mods
- Added custom music playlists - you can organise your music by folders and choose to play everything or only play music in a specific folder
- Removed texture filtering option. This has been long overdue, on release the game will always use point filtering unless a track author decides otherwise
- 3D track pads can now be used in 2159 physics. If you have a custom track with no pad tiles of a certain type the game will now enable manually placed 3D pads in place of them
- Quitting in survival now ends the session instead of quitting back to the menu straight away (campaign awards are also counted when doing this)
- You now start survival with a boost
- VR now uses a separate settings.ini file so you can change graphics, audio and gameplay settings independently between VR and non VR sessions
- Speed pads now also increase engine thrust, making a more permanent and noticeable speed increase (especially in higher speed classes)
- The menu can now load custom music. Supports up to 4 instrument layers
- The unlock screen now uses animations, see here: https://twitter.com/BallisticNG/status/992110160423407616
Up Next
For the next development log there's going to be work on improving Aciknovae's buildings, Omega Harbours aquarium (if you didn't know this was a thing then yeah, serious improvements needed) and some general updates to spice up Survival mode, so stay tuned!
Devlog 11/05/2018 - Release Roadmap And FAQ
There’s already been a few updates behind the scenes but I want to use this first log as an opportunity to lay out the roadmap and answer questions that I’ve seen the past few weeks. If you want to get in on updates in between these development logs then check out the game’s twitter, it’s now being used to show off what’s happening as soon as it happens - https://twitter.com/BallisticNG
When is BallisticNG releasing?
As there is still plenty to do a release date hasn't been set yet, the current target however is sometime in winter 2018. The aim is to get a release date set by the end of August, this will be when the roadmap below is almost complete.
Roadmap
This is a simplified version of the roadmap to release. The order of listings isn’t necessarily the order that development will happen in, just a rough guide so you have an idea of how everything will be piecing together.
FAQ
I got the game when it was free, what happens after release?
You will continue to own the game including all future updates. Just note that Steam treats free copies of any game as disposable, if you uninstall it then you will lose your copy.
If you plan to upgrade your computer or reinstall your OS make sure to backup the game, BallisticNG does not use DRM so your backup will continue working.
Will the price be changing after release?
Yes! The game’s price will be increasing to $8 upon release as mentioned in last September's free to paid transition announcements. A short demo with 3 tracks and teams will also be available so new players can try before they buy.
Will you be selling on any other stores?
At first the game will only be sold through Steam and Itch.io, the soundtrack will also release through Itch.io.
I had reached out to GOG but they were not interested at the time, if the game sees more attention in the coming months I’ll be getting back in touch with them.
Will official Mac builds be coming?
This is currently unknown, there is a bug in Unity that is preventing the required libraries needed for full gamepad input to load. I will be working with Aidan to hopefully have this resolved for release.
Will there be matchmaking for multiplayer?
As of currently writing there aren't any plans. The reason for this is because the game is built around direct connect, meaning the online isn’t tied to any third party servers and will always function.
Will the game be coming to consoles?
There are currently no plans for this. Once the game is released the possibilities for console releases will be looked at.
Any plans for DLC?
There are post-release content plans in the works, any additional content will be coming to the game for free via updates.
Update for free players: issue resolved
Valve have responded and fixed the issue, they had made a mistake configuring the game when helping with the free to paid transition which is why it's been possible for people to exploit Steam to activate free copies.
Owners of free copies will now find their game is back and updating as per usual. Apologies to the free players who were affected by this issue.
Notice for free players
When 0.9.4 released last week an exploit in Steam was discovered, I won't be providing details on the exploit itself for obvious reasons. However, the result of this exploit allows anybody to activate a free copy of BallisticNG officially through Steam. This shouldn't be a problem, but over half of all game copies are being obtained through this method and on 0.9.4s release alone 99% of all copies from that day came from this exploit. Because the game is now paid this is effectively piracy, this wouldn't be a concern if it wasn't happening through the store front the game's being sold on.
Do not attempt this exploit, you will only end up with an empty game in your library!
Because of this I have temporarily pulled the free copies contents from Steam. I contacted Valve last week to query and let them know about this issue but they haven't got back yet, this a critical issue that free players need to be aware of so I needed to post ahead of them responding. It is currently unknown when Valve will get back and what the result is going to be, but if you're a free player the only way to play the game right now is to unfortunately deactivate the free license from your account and buy it.
Apologies to the free players this affects, I'm hoping this can be resolved soon. I will be posting about any further developments of this situation when I'm able to.
0.9.4 is now out - VR, Linux, Soundtrack release and more!
- DX9 support has been partially dropped, the game now defaults to DX11 and all custom tracks built with the updated unity tools will now target DX11 too. The game will fallback to DX9 if your GPU doesn't support DX11 however.
- 2280's option has been moved, see the secrets menu section for more info!
BallisticNG 0.9.4 is now out! This update comes with a few announcements, so without further ado let’s jump in:
The Final Straight
Version 0.9.4 is the last early access version of the game! It’s been a crazy three years of development and we’re now at the stage where we’re ready to polish what we have and get the game released. We’re incredibly grateful to everybody who has joined the community and supported development throughout these three years, we hope you continue to enjoy the game after it releases!
For this last period of development we’re going to be working with a select few community members in private to fix bugs, balance gameplay and implement final features. We’ll still be reading public channels for suggestions and issue reports as normal, we just won’t be pushing updates on any public channels until the 1.0 release (this includes the beta branch!).
We will be announcing a release date in the next few months with information regarding the post-release plans, so stay tuned for that!
Soundtrack Release
With this update we are pleased to announce the release of the game’s soundtrack! The soundtrack contains 34 tracks with over 120 minutes of music. The soundtrack is currently available on Steam and will be coming to other major stores in the future!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/837830/BallisticNG__Soundtrack/
SteamVR support
BallisticNG now has SteamVR support! Right click the game in your Steam library and use “Launch BallisticNG in Steam VR mode” to play in VR. With exception to splitscreen, the entire game is functional in VR!
This is just the introduction to VR in the game, we’ll be working to further improve its implementation for the full release. If you have any issues, please let us know in the Virtual Reality forum in discussions!
To support VR the game now uses DX11 by default. If your GPU doesn’t support DX11 the game will fallback to DX9 (as mentioned above).
Official Linux Support
For almost the entirety of the game’s existence on Steam, community member Aidan has been very kindly building and maintaining OSX/Linux versions of the game. Today we are pleased to announce that the Linux builds are now stable and officially available through Steam! Official OSX support will be coming later down the line, there are some specific Unity related issues preventing us from setting up and releasing these builds.
Precision Run Tracks and Campaign Unlocks
The precision run tracks are now fully implemented! These short challenges are built to push your skill. There are currently 4 tracks and we plan to add more in the future, as well as adding support for custom precision tracks.
Campaign unlocks have also been changed. With exception to the Barracuda Type S which you still have to unlock, all ships and tracks are now unlocked from the get go. All you need to unlock now are liveries and physic modifier cheats
Secrets Menu
The secrets menu is now functional! Glide and Ballistic64 can now both be activated from here. Additionally 2280 mode has been moved to this menu too. The reason for this is that 2280 is a cheat mode and having it exposed in the menu alongside other options gives off the impression that it is more than this.
Unity Tools
The unity tools has had a small update (reimport the unitypackage file to update). When building for DirectX it now targets DirectX11. If you have any custom tracks with particles or custom shaders you'll want to rebuild your track with the updated tools.
Custom shaders in this case means any shaders you have written yourself or imported from elsewhere, the built in BallisticNG shaders are swapped out at runtime by the game and will not be affected by this change!
0.9.4 Changelog
- Reworked campaign unlocks, the new unlocks are as follows:
- Rank 4: Allt Liveries
- Rank 8: Neon Liveries
- Rank 12: Clean Liveries
- Rank 16: Glide CHeat
- Rank 20: Ballistic64 Cheat
- Rank 24: Barracuda Type S
- Rank 50: Ballistic Gallery
- Rank 4: Allt Liveries
- Barracuda and Caliburn are now locked in the campaign
- Added animated campaign graphics
- Added SteamVR support and a new VR options menu
- Added final precision runs and precision delta ship
- Added no internal camera tilt setting
- Added animated clouds to tracks with rain
- Updated the game's icon
- Updated cockpits for VR, the head positioning has been updated and ship hulls are now visible
- The information panel on the menu is now a news panel
- The game now uses DX11 and falls back to DX9 if the GPU doesn't support it
- The reverse camera no longer tilts with the ship
- The afterburner can no longer be used in pitlanes
- The weapon icon now flashes when changing
- The weapon icon background is no longer drawn when an icon isn't being displayed
- Energy walls now using the TRM geometry to determine their width, eliminating edge cases where they can spawn in massive
- Material queues are now copied when loading custom tracks
- Inputs on the binding screen have been re-arranged to put gameplay specific binds first
- Removed quick race option from the play tab
- The secrets menu is now functional, Glide and Ballistic64 can now be activated from here
- 2280 mode has been moved to the secrets menu
- The 2017 april fools cheat can now be toggled at any time by typing vaporng on the menu
- Fixed precision run menu entries duplicating
- Fixed energy wall bolt trails starting at the world origin when spawned
- FIxed weapon drop sound not playing
- Fixed tremor fire and loop sounds not being played through the SFX channel
- Fixed onshot sounds not being affected by reverb zones
- Fixed misplaced wall tiles on Aciknovae and Arrivon Peak
- Fixed Xpand - Raging and Xpand - Hydronium not playing in the game
- FIxed the next track button not functioning for non-standard tracks
- (Custom Tracks) Fixed BallisticNG/SkyDome shader not having its appropiate in-game version swapped in
- (Soundtrack) Added Shiftdelete - Dream Catcher
- (Soundtrack) Updated Vonsnake - Hyperion
- Improved crowd ambience mixing on Cassandra, Luna and Dover
- Updated airbrake and maglock sounds
- Slightly reduced SFX volumes:
- Wall scrape
- Wall collision
- Projectile fire and explosion
- Mine deploy
- Wall scrape
- Normalized music volumes
- Some default settings have been changed:
- FoV - now defaults to 80
- Draw Distance - now defaults to 200
- Ship Reflections - now defaults to on
- Music volume - now defaults to 100%
- FoV - now defaults to 80
Testing VR
Here's a video showcasing the current state of VR as of today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsij5YJwWEA
What's supported?
The game uses OpenVR so this means any HMD supported by SteamVR should work!
Just as a side note, because of the VR integration the game now uses DX11 instead of DX9. The game will fallback to DX9 if your GPU doesn't support DX11 however.
How do I try it out?
To try out VR mode, first make sure you're on the beta branch. You can access it by right clicking the game in your library, going to properties, the beta tab on the window that opens and then select the "beta" option from the dropdown.
You'll likely now want to restart Steam. When you load it back up you'll now see BallisticNG in your VR list and if you right click it again, you'll see a "Launch BallisticNG in Steam VR Mode" option.
For those of you looking to run the game without Steam, you can also launch the game in VR mode using the new -vr argument. There is a .bat file next to the game's executable which will launch the game with this argument without you needing to setup a shortcut. Just make sure you've got SteamVR installed and running.
I found a bug!
If you've found a bug please let us know about it! You can do so on the new Virtual Reality forum - http://steamcommunity.com/app/473770/discussions/9/
You can expect daily beta branch updates for this next week as VR starts to take form.
0.9.4 progress update
The precision tracks for 0.9.4 are almost finished, as soon as VR is stable and the precision tracks are done 0.9.4 will be ready for release. We have something else to release alongside 0.9.4 too, stay tuned!
0.9.3.1
Trading Cards
Trading cards have just been added and activated! You'll see those drop as you play the game.
Track Creator
- Fixed deleting segments with track loop enabled softlocking the editor
- Resized segment editor titles
- The track wireframe is now drawn in quads
- Track creator now uses its own gamemode which keeps track of your current lap time, has afterburner enabled, gives you a turbo per lap and has a pause menu without the restart option
- Added stitch segments tool. This tool can be used to re-organise segments so you can make new parts of a track and then move it somewhere else. Usage goes as following:
- Select the first and last segment of the area of track you want to move
- Select the segment you want to move the area of track to
- Making sure you have 3 segments selected, scroll down to the bottom of the segment editor and click the new stitch button
- Added support for C# plugins that can be executed with a command written at the bottom of the screen, until official documentation exists see the examples in Modding/Scripting/Track Creator Examples
- Added some builtin commands, see the new TrackCreatorCommands.txt file next to the game's exe for a list of parameters:
CreateSlalom - Creates a slalom track section using the track creation preview as a guide
CreatePitlane - Generates a pitlane using two selected segments (experimental)
- Fixed track dimensions not being correctly calculated when entering playmode (invisible walls are now more accurate to how they will be ingame)
- Added controller support:
- Uses its own input configuration separate from the in-game binds
- Inputs cannot currently be rebound, as long as you have a controller with buttons that would map onto an xbox/dualshock controller everything should work
- A list of context sensitive inputs are displayed on the left side of the screen, this shows up when you interact with the controller and hides when you move the mouse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WzxGv4P364
Unity Tools
- The build track menu option is now split into DirectX9 and OpenGL. This will allow you to build a version of your track for Windows and Mac/Linux (OGL versions are suffixed with _ogl). It's recommended you move the version you don't need out of your MyTracks directory otherwise you'll have duplicates with one version that doesn't work (alternatively build a WTRK file and use that).
- Added flat 2280 speed pads to the tools. The old pads still exist so it won't break current tracks.
- Added no out of bounds toggle to sections - you can toggle it in the section metadata tab. All sections that allow out of bounds have an OOB tag drawn above them
- The vertex lightmapper now marks the scene as dirty so you can save after using it
- Added physics toggler script (BallisticPhysicsToggler)
Track Uploader
- You can now attach OpenGL versions of tracks to the WTRK file. You can push these safely to the workshop as the game will not attempt to read the OpenGL version of the track in older versions.
- When first creating the WTRK file the uploader will now look for _ogl suffixed at the end of the file name to add the OpenGL version of a track first, otherwise it assumes you're selecting a DirectX9 version.
- Added status displays to show if the WTRK contains DX9 and OGL versions.
Other
- Fixed analogue stick sensitivity on menus
- Gamemodes can now define their own unique settings on the custom race menu - added target score and ai weapon generation options for eliminator
- Refresh rates are no longer shown next to the resolution, duplicate resolutions for different refresh rates have also been removed. (the game uses a borderless window so the refresh rate doesn't actually do anything)
- Sun flares now render in screenshots
- You Tried medal now says No Award and now only rotates 180 degrees so the text is always the right way round
0.9.3 is now out!
64-bit Build
If you're running a 64-bit version of Windows you'll now have a 64-bit version of the game! This allows the game to use much more memory, which is very useful for loads of high poly and high resolution custom content.
Note: The beta branch is 64-bit only! If you want to partake in beta builds you will not be able to do so with a 32-bit copy of Windows.
Multiplayer Alpha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJZGbuzg9dI
Multiplayer is back after a long hiatus! This new multiplayer is very much in an early alpha state and as such you should not go in expecting a flawless experience.
Multiplayer is currently only using direct connect so you'll need to pass your WAN IP to your friends in order to play. The game currently only listens on the port 25565 so the host will need to make sure they forward this port on their router, on top of this everybody wanting to play together needs to make sure the game is allowed through their firewall.
Steamworks matchmaking is going to be implemented in the future, it's planned to allow both direct connect and matchmaking to be used simultaneously so you have the option to connect via IP or connect using Steam.
If you want to report a bug with multiplayer see the new multiplayer bugs forum in the discussion tab or leave a message in #mp-feedback on the game's discord server!
Shorter, more diverse and less grindy campaign
The campaign has had a structural overhaul to make it much less of a chore to play through. It's much shorter with 4 of the series being removed and each series having their number of events cut down to 10 events. The first 4 series give you a lot more choice on what to play, letting you choose to first play any three of the tracks introduced to you before opening up a bit more with different gamemodes.
Game content is now also locked behind the campaign, there is a list on the main menu which shows you what's you've currently got unlocked and what else to unlock you have.
This campaign update will not wipe out your current progress, however because events have been deleted and moved you'll find that your progress is applied across the update differently to how it was before the update. If you want to get a fresh start you can delete the campaigns folder in UserData/Profiles/Player.
Expert Tracks
Expert tracks are a new category of track which are built to push your piloting skills to the max. These tracks unlock at rank 44 making them end game content. Expert tracks are not playable in 2280 mode or survival as they are in no way designed to be playable in these modes! Once you've unlocked them you can press up on the track turntable three times to access them.
Hydrome Bed: Set just a little bit off the shore of Maceno Island, this track requires expert handling of airbrakes to take its drop u-turn and extremely tight hairpin.
Arrivon Peak: Laying just under the peak of Arrivons volcano, this track will push you to the absoluete limit as it weaves in and out of itself with very tight u-turns which require you to slow down or end up on the offroad lava streams.
Reverse Tracks
All of the game's standard tracks are now playable in reverse! You can access them by pressing up once on the track turntable.
Track Updates
Harpstone and Marina Rush have had some scenery updates. Harpstone is a major environment overhaul bringing its visual fidelity in line with all of the latest tracks. Marina Rush has had a few minor detail updates adding in some traffic and an animated tram!
0.9.3 marks the last of major environment overhauls, there is still work to be done such as making Omega Harbour's aquarium actually look like an aqarium however.
New Eliminator
The game can now handle ship respawning and as such Eliminator has had a fundemental change. It's no longer about being the last person alive but instead about racking up points by dealing damage and eliminating other people. The first person to a target score now wins!
The target score is determined by the AI difficulty if you're playing in custom race and by the campaign event if you're playing in the campaign.
Animated Airbrakes
Airbrakes on all standard ships are now animated! Custom ships currently do not have access to this new feature and a new ship importer with the ability to configure this will available at a later date.
Ship Liveries
All ships now have alternative liveries! You will unlock these as you play through the campaign. There are 3 alternative liveries in total covering a general alternative, neon-panel lit varients and clean white.
0.9.4
0.9.4 is going to be the games final content update, bringing in the precision tracks. The precision tracks are going to be point to point tracks testing your skills to fly as perfectly as possible. More information on these will be coming soon!
After the precison tracks the game is on the final straight and will be moving towards the 1.0 release out of Early Access!
Beta Branch Roundup - February - Multiplayer Alpha!
This month has focused on less then last month but brings about more content and the return of the game's multiplayer component!
0.9.3
0.9.3 is going to be coming soon! All that needs to be done now is finishing Arrivon Peak and fixing any major bugs present - particularly with multiplayer.
I was hoping to get the precision runs into 0.9.3 too but with all the other content and features being implemented it's been hard to squeeze them in - these will instead be coming in 0.9.3.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is back! In 0.9.3 it is going to be in an alpha state, you'll be able to jump into some online races with friends but it is expected you will run into bugs.
The new multiplayer uses a client/server model unlike the previous version which was peer/peer. It's currently only direct connect so you'll need to forward a port and give your IP to your friends. Multiplayer is programmed on top of Unity's LLAPI - this means everything has been built almost from scratch which allows the netcode to be optimized specifically to the game's requirements.
When in multiplayer all of the ships are unlocked from the get go. You'll need to unlock the new skins in the singleplayer campaign however. Custom ships are also not implemented into multiplayer yet, however if everybody has the files you can use custom tracks!
Here's a short video that shows multiplayer in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJZGbuzg9dI
Ship Rebalancing
Because of the introduction of multiplayer it's important that the ships are balanced! Every ship, excluding Barracuda ships, have had their top speeds rebalanced so the entire roster is much more competitive. This will have a small impact on leaderboard times, all the new speeds are rebalanced around Nexus which means every ship except the NX2000 has had their speed increased. The NX times currently on the leaderboards will be sniped off at a later date since it's now impossible to beat them. Since every other ship has had a speed increase, the old times can be beat.
Reverse Tracks
All of the standard tracks are now playable in reverse! All reverse variants flip the time of day and have different weather to give them a more unique feel.