This is one of the bug fix patches released to quickly address issues with the game. Usually the issues are obscured, hard to reproduce or are due to regression (bugs caused by improvements or changes made to the game).
In any case, since our development is coming to an end, bug fix patches will come thick and fast.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where the game might crash while loading a mission.
- Fixed a bug when you have 5 fleets, and try to give a bunch of ships a custom flight path, it'll always be given to fleet 5 no matter how hard you try.
- Fixed a bug where the AI can over-request for fighters/bombers, bypassing the limitations imposed normally on players. As such there have been cases where fighters and bombers built by the AI player comes out and die straightaway. This bug was caused by a series of issues, not just a single point.
- Fixed a bug where if a fleet commander dies WHILE your fleet is selected, the voice of the commander is still used. By right, the units should be voiced by the next highest authority.
- Fixed initialization bugs with Survival, Survival Co-op and Siege modes where you might see planets and skyboxes being initialized as you begin your game.
Conclusion
This process is called "hardening" in an environment where testing and feedback can be limited. Over time the game will become more stable and much more playable.
P.S. For those playing mission 28, you might due to the new features, gain access into areas where you weren't supposed to see. We didn't intend that area to be visible in the first place and thus didn't put a lot of efforts into it. Therefore we seek your understanding if you should see it and wonder why it's there.
The next bug fix patch should come in a few days' time.
Regards,
Jeremy
Patch V1.10b released!
Dear all,
First of all, have a merry Christmas!
We've released patch V1.10b with a few new things added to improve the gameplay experience.
Improvements
- The world is more populated with details now! Not the old empty boring space it used to be, certain objects were added to represent certain places or events that took place in the past.
- The asteroid belt is now more detailed.
- Added better representations of planets
- Fighter/Bomber indicators improved to represent 2 more things.
1) The direction of its movement
2) Its health. The lower the craft's hit points, the darker it'll appear. Though this is a courtesy effect; most fighters will not live long enough for you to notice. However, it may still be important to UNC players who can at a glance identify which fighters need repairs in the hangar.
Modifications
- Improved overall optimization of the game. Indicators do not appear until you click on the ship. This helps a lot in optimizing performance.
- Reduced "hanging" occasions where the game might appear to freeze. This is unfortunately, not completely done and there'll still be some frozen points in the game.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a regression bug where an old saved game may fail to load and crash out quietly. The crash is fixed, but the validity of the game cannot be guaranteed. This is due to the fixes made to the game timer which will affect older versions. I'm sorry there's no backward compatibility for this particular bug. Should invalid scenarios or strange behavior occur, please restart the mission.
- Fixed a major bug where Slavic Sirerian crafts will NOT regenerate when you run out of credits. This is incorrect since SS do not depend on credits for regeneration.
- Fixed a small bug where Fleet 1/2/3/4/5 buttons may appear in front of the game journal.
- Fixed a bug where if you've rotated the camera too many times and then you reset, the camera might turn a few times before stopping. This is now fixed. You'll never turn more than 360 degrees.
- Fixed a bug where fighter delivery mechanisms at a certain scenario can leave the fighter or bomber stranded without moving. There should be a resolution. Either the fighter or bomber finds a new home or it should kill itself.
Conclusion
We foresee there might still 1-2 more patches left in the tank. Mostly due to bug fixes and improvements to the AI and the multiplayer performance.
Some bugs are still outstanding such as a sudden loss of control in multiplayer which is still unexplained since it's very hard to reproduce. Nevertheless, we'll continue to work on it to bring you a better gaming experience.
Have a great Christmas week!!
Regards,
Jeremy
Update on V1.10b patch
Dear all,
Sorry for the silence lately as we've been working hard on changing some parts of the game for a better performance. One of the things we've been trying to eliminate or reduce is the "hanging" cursor which gives an impression that the game has crashed.
We've significantly reduced the effect but it'll still appear in certain scenarios.
We're also working on putting in the final bit of content into the campaign missions as well as fixing some of the bugs reported.
As a result the patch has been delayed quite a bit. Tentatively, we should wrap up by Thursday and also be releasing it on the same day. If not, the patch will be out definitely before Christmas.
Thank you for your patience! We look forward to releasing the final few content patches as soon as possible!
Regards,
Jeremy
Foresight is 2 years old!
How time flies! It has been a good 2 years since Foresight was first launched. From launch till now, we've learnt a lot from everyone. Whether it's a complaint, a feedback, a bug report, we've learnt a lot since.
So... why was the game released in a seemingly unfinished state?
For the record, let me clarify once and for all - KISS, our original distributor did not pressurize us into releasing Foresight. We were indeed pressurized however.
When the first reviews came, it was really a sobbering experience. I was like... what did we do wrong? What have we missed? It was depressing enough to just walk away. But ... no... we spent 4.5 years working on this game. Even if there's only just 1 player, 1 customer, we'll still be obligated to support the game.
1 year ago, I did a list of what we've improved since v1.0. Today, I'll just summarize what we've done so far.
Beginning of the year --- V1.08 released. Since then we've:
- Added Celestial Disasters
- Added full Steam integration for multiplayer
- Improved visual cues from user interface widgets, fighters, hit points estimation etc.
- Fixed a ton of bugs
- Improved the camera
- Added Upgrades to help improve the performance of your ships and structures.
- Revamped AI for skimirsh. Campaign AI is still scripted for context purposes but skimirsh AI has a mind on its own.
- Revamped AI pathfinding. This indirectly have resolved certain fleet behavior issues.
- Improved emitter system, leading to an approximate 15% improvement in game performance.
In November, we released V1.10a. Come December, we'll release V1.10b for bug fixes and performance improvements against "hanging" cursors.
Thanks everyone for your support as always! Hopefully we can bring news of our new game in the near future!
Regards,
Jeremy
V1.10a patch released!
Dear all,
I'm happy to announce that patch V1.10a has been released. It's one of the last major patches for Foresight and here're the goodies!
New Implementations
- Added capability for you to get a fleet to auto-plot a flanking route to the enemy base. Just hold SHIFT and click on the destination sector and the AI will try to auto-plot a flanking route. Do note that it will not work all the time since it's heavily caveated.
Modifications
1) Command Radius Limitation is no more! Yes, you can now control all of your units everywhere. Your units will no longer get "lost" because they're too far away from you.
Why did we do that? Limitations are known as negative mechanisms in games development. While a negative mechanism is required for balancing, it should be done in reasonable and measured way. In RTS, it's especially hard to bear when you suddenly lost control of your units just because your fleet commander dies. (Yes even though he/she knows how to take care of ownself)
If the level of discouragement is excessive, we'll either mitigate or remove the limitation entirely. In this case, we did the latter.
2) Slight changes made to the sector map. Instead of showing the 5 sectors in command, now a single bright yellow sector will indicate where YOU are located.
3) Fighter Trails added! This is based on a feedback and trails actually tell a better story on what the fighters are actually trying to do.
Performance will definitely have a slight impact, but it won't be significant. We'll monitor the performance and add LOD controls if necessary.
4) Dormant shortcut
Changed from the awkward SHIFT+D and CTRL+D switches to just a simple double-tap and hold.
So, that means, regardless of what you've changed your Dormant mode key into, you'll have to double-tap (default D) to set your ships dormant. This is a set, not a toggle. That means, double-tapping D will definitely set ships to dormant and will not awaken any who are currently dormant.
Hold D (default) for about 1/2 second to awaken ships in dormant mode. Again, this is set command, not toggle. All ships in dormant will be awoken and others will not be put into dormant mode.
The only toggle therefore is with the Dormant button itself.
* Double-taps and Hold will be used more should there be any future issues with key binds
Why the change? Firstly, when we made the key binding stricter so as not to get bugs from exploits (ie, UNC Frigate morphing into a UNC Outpost), we've also sealed off the ability to consider CTRL and SHIFT keys while handling an event. The only way left therefore is to work around the bind key itself.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where there's a chance that clients receiving a shield overdrive packet can actually influence the outcome of that packet based on the local machine's SHIFT key.
- Fixed a bug when a game is loaded, you can still randomly click on buttons on the screen that are obscured by the fade-in and still trigger something to happen. You might even get a case where your game starts but you still see the main menu buttons appearing on the left!! Yes that's fixed.
- Fixed a bug where flanking suddenly doesn't seem to work. Now it works.
- Added additional steps to prevent the AI path finder from declaring a path that doesn't lead to the destination.
- Fixed a bug where all sector map pinging is GONE. This is due to a regression bug with the new emitter system.
- Fixed a bug where staying in the mission briefing room long enough will cause certain undesirable efforts such as ships and structures being heavily damaged by celestial disasters. Thus, disasters will no longer be activated IF the game isn't started.
- Fixed a bug where celestials disasters may appear in cutscenes and incorrectly destroy fighters and ships, causing a very awkward situation especially if that ship is the one in focus. The chances of it are very small but are there nonetheless.
- Improved skirmish AI picking intelligence where it'll purposely leave out harvesters with a full load, harvesters that are currently harvesting or harvesters that are currently unloading their gas.
Conclusion
Not all the major bugs have been fixed just yet. The last swing brings us back to multiplayer stability as well as adding doodads into every campaign mission.
We're almost done! Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Jeremy
V1.10a is ready but steamworks is down!
Dear all,
The headline says it all. V1.10a patch is already ready for deployment but steamworks seems to be offline at the moment.
Unfortunately, the time in Singapore is rather late at the time of this post, and thus the patch can only be deployed about 10 hours later.
We'll try again in a few minutes and if there's no release logs, we can only try again tomorrow.
Sorry for the delay, the game has been tested enough for deployment. Details to come AFTER the patch is deployed.
Thanks for understanding!
Regards,
Jeremy
V1.10a will be delayed by 1 day :(
Dear all,
A semi-major patch V1.10a will be delayed for another 1 more day for additional testing to ensure that regression is kept to a minimum if not eliminated.
This patch will contain a few more features with plans for another patch in the upcoming week or two for the final bits of features and contents.
We're sorry that we missed the deadline but we're not prepared to release something broken or not tested to you guys.
We therefore seek your understanding and forgiveness. It'll be out by tomorrow.
Regards,
Jeremy
Update on progress for V1.10a patch
Dear all,
This week has been a hectic week for us. With bug fixes and engine optimization kicking in at the same time, we barely had time to introduce new features properly.
As mentioned previously, there won't be major sweeping changes or features however, a major change can still be on the cards.
If all goes well, it should be up by next Wednesday!
We hope you've been having fun with the new Siege map. By V1.10a, you'll be able to play Siege co-op online with your friends!
Looking forward to announcing the release soon!
Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Jeremy
Announcing V1.10a patch, Siege map update
Dear all,
We're going to start work on V1.10a in 2 days' time to work on bug fixes.
As of now, we've already identified a few bugs left over from our bug blitz. I'm not going to lie to you that V1.10 is some patch in shiny armour; it's not. We'll work to stablize the patch AND add additional contents as well.
The reason why this wasn't done so is because of certain major decisions taken to rework on certain parts of the game to be up to standard.
Known issues
- Dormant shortcut isn't working now
- Siege map can't be played properly in Multiplayer just yet
- Shield overdrive may still behave erratically in multiplayer.
Conclusion
We're going to work on the patch as soon as we're well-rested. After a bug fixing patch, the next patch will be a contents addition patch.
The additional contents will be up for free. Of course.
Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Jeremy
Patch V1.10 has been RELEASED!
Dear all,
We're proud to announce that patch V1.10 has been released! This is a major patch that we foresee will require further patches to "harden" or stablize whatever changes we've made.
But first, here're the highlights!
New Implementations
1) Celestial Disasters have been implemented. These are random celestial events that spawns on both single and multiplayer modes. Their purpose is to randomly tip the balance of battle OR be used as a kill zone by capable strategists.
Disasters cannot be prevented. Needless to say there're more than 1-2 types of disasters and by default, they spawn with relative rarity. However, on some maps their spawn chance might be bumped up.
2) New Damage Indicator / Reduction Indicator
Based on feedback gathered during our recent exhibition Game Start Asia 2016
We were told that IF there's a numeric health indicator (other than the health bar) then there should be a numeric damage indicator. Naturally, the thought of a numeric damage indicator did cross our minds way back before. However, since each ship has their own unique arrangement of weaponry, it'll be hard to paint an accurate picture.
Hence, nevertheless, we've decided to implement a reasonably accurate estimation of damage. (p.s the image below is considered outdated and non-canon)
Numeric damage is shown in Damage Per Second. Some ships fire longer than 1 second, while others may be shorter. The damage doesn't take armour type into account and thus might not reflect true damage in all situations.
Irradiation damage is shown as a % in purple color. It's impossible to indicate the final true damage because irradiation is based on the victim's maximum hit points.
Unarmed vessels will from now on, be clearly indicated. This is taken from the fact that some folks that were trying out Foresight built a large group of scouts without knowing that they can't deal ANY sort of damage.
3) New AI Path algorithm. This endeavour delayed us by at least 3 days. The purpose of the new algorithm is to fix the limitation of the original algorithm which can sometimes lead to errenous paths. This has also in the past, caused new fighters and bombers to be built and upon completion, only to self-destruct because it couldn't find a way to the parent ship.
The new AI Path algorithm is far more resilient and performs better.
4) New Survival Co-Op map!
Apart from the Single Survival map we've provided in V1.09, now there's a 4 player co-op map where you can co-op with your friends to survive against an enemy onslaught of waves. Each wave is randomized by race so every replay is different. You can also play in 3 difficulty levels Easy, Normal and Hard - each having a different number of waves. Hard is REALLY hard.
5) New Siege map!
Siege is the new co-op game mode that focus on siege battles mostly. The enemy will present itself as a puzzle in which you must device a strategy to overcome. This new map is a small map with 2 co-op players and 4 stages.
To add to the spice, we've created an Ultra version of the Encephalos. To those who already know what the Encephalos is, this version is FAR more lethal.
Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, we're not able to create different difficulty levels for the siege map. We'll be looking into it very soon.
6) New Camera capabilities
Many players have complained about the apparent lack of camera flexibility when viewing the battlefield.
Thus, we've added 2 features into the existing camera.
- While rotating the camera, you can now move your cursor up/down to actually bring the camera higher/lower respectively. The rotation is no longer confined to just a simple rotation around a flat plane.
- Certain parts of the camera features are now interpolated to reduce confusion between switches. Ie, rotation and reset. Before V1.10, the camera snaps into orientation and position which can sometimes be confusing. To alleviate that, the transitions are now mostly interpolated. It means you'll be able to better know where you're and what you're looking at.
7) Game is further optimized!
Internal changes made to our emitters have made it much more easier and smoother to spawn emitters as required without a huge performance penalty. This means older machines can now experience a smoother gameplay, and newer and powerful machine will look even better.
Modifications
- Ships in dormant mode already will no longer be push-able. They'll have a much higher push priority at the expense of being next to totally vulnerable.
- Added updates to ship navigator to take into account the distance the ship has been pushed. This will then allow the ship to travel its intended destination instead of stopping prematurely.
- "Survival" mode - which is a Single Player mode shall no longer be available during Multiplayer map selection.
- Fleets are now able to recall bombers from remote locations. This feature is only available to fleets only; not ships without a fleet. By default, pressing 'E' will recall bombers within the area of the fleet commander. Now, if you press 'E' twice, you'll force all bombers in the fleet to be recalled. Useful if you intend to salvage your bombers.
- As much as possible, your player name or Steam name will be used in single/multiplayer battles as much as possible.
- AI players (skirmish or co-op allies) will now adapt itself to the speed you've chosen so as to react as fast as it's supposed to be.
- Particles in Foresight is now more varied, giving it a more unqiue and individual feel.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug in multiplayer where the server sets a slot to AI player, thereby reducing the number of available slots and this information isn't updated to the lobby.
- Fixed a bug where in certain cases, drag and drop select does NOT work. This is due to a bug caused when a UNC player opens the repair tool and doesn't close it in a certain way.
- Fixed a bug where the fleet commander remains on the fleet even when all ships on the fleet has been destroyed.
- Fixed a reporting bug where special abilities like Shield Overdrive and Blood Burst can report [0/0] ships affected.
- Fixed a bug where Shield Overdrive for AI players keep turning itself on/off all the time.
- Fixed a bug where Single Battles does not restart properly.
- Fixed a bug where Fleets being orchestrated by the script to attack, doesn't do so. This reduces immersiveness and breaks the momentum of the game events.
- Fixed a bug where AI fleets that are idling do not go help out when their base is under attack. That means, AI is now more reactive.
- Fixed a bug where in certain cases, the server doesn't share player information as required to new clients.
- Fixed a bug where fixed alliance in a Single Battle go missing when the game starts.
- Fixed a bug where certain cross-faction characters such as Thomas Lock comes in their own faction ship. That means a NSAU player recruiting Thomas Lock can end up having a UNC Frigate. This is undesirable since it'll be impossible to request for fighters/bombers when the request buttons on the left clash.
- Fixed a bug where the AI player continues to work even when the game has declared victory/defeat. The complication is such that the AI actually continues playing and gaining statistics, ie, harvested and thus in a way, is cheating.
- Fixed a bug in multiplayer where ships can sometimes hijack the command of another ship due to a corruption in ship index. This is a mismanagement between client and server. The server will now control indexing completely.
- Fixed a bug where the bloom (light flood) levels aren't properly reset when the player chooses to go from the mission briefing room to the main menu.
- Fixed a bug where SS ships do not regenerate after a game is loaded.
- Fixed a bug where rank and command icons appears out of thin air especially when the UI has been kept downwards.
- Fixed a bug where the unit's portrait appears out of nowhere when a ship is being built. If the UI has been kept below, the portrait must appear below as well. (which is out of sight)
- Fixed a bug where AI player escapes to a ship in the defense force (a group of ships used by the player AI to defend against enemy attacks) and then the AI sends that ship to go and die. This causes the player to die way too early and in unexpected ways. The solution is therefore, wherever the player is onboard, that ship can no longer be regarded as fleet of the defense fleet.
- Fixed a timer issue that causes games to be buggy as the game went on. Loading of saved game causes a huge variety of problems such as
* Not being able to build anything
* Units ignore your orders
- Fixed a bug where reset camera resets the camera without releasing from any ships being followed. (ie, Chase Cam)
- Fixed a bug where a UNC player cannot give orders to a fleet when it's under repair tool mode.
- Fixed a bug where AI crafts a path and got its own paths rendered on the player's own sector map.
- Fixed a bug where a saved game is loaded and the player's colors are totally off.
- Fixed a bug where NSAU runners do not set itself to be no longer under construction. Because of this flag, it caused a few issues when the game is loaded.
- Fixed a bug where the resource gas cloud growth timer isn't saved as part of the saved game, causing it later to not grow any further.
- Fixed a bug where you press a key and then press another while holding down the 1st key, a screeching sound is heard.
- Fixed a bug where disconnected clients (from server) end up having the OST jukebox playing the wrong music in the mian menu,
- In multiplayer, if a structure under construction takes damage, the client doesn't properly reflect its true health status on the client.
- Fixed a bug in multiplayer where power down due to a lack of mobile power units isn't properly shown on the clients' machine. Shields aren't taken down and EVA plays the wrong voice for the client.
- Fixed tool tips explanation.
- Fixed a bug where recruited commanders in a SS player configuration doesn't draw any blood.
- Fixed a bug where if you load your saved game too many times, almost everything will stop functioning. You'll still get your game but you won't be able to build, harvest or manage your fighters. This is due to a timer bug which is introduced when we first wanted to use an alternative to getting tick count. It has since been fixed and may require you to restart your mission should the problem persist. We're sorry about that since we try our very best not to cause a problem to your playing experience whenever we update the game. Sometimes it's just simply unavoidable. :(
Outstanding issues and features
- Dormant short-cuts are no longer working. We'\ll need to add 2 more shortcuts instead of using 'D' as the only dormant point.
P.S. We might change it to simply using a single key as the point of trigger. By default it'll be 'D'. The variations will be double-tap to turn on, and holding the D key for a period of time to turn off. - Doodads are not all placed yet.
- Siege maps doesn't have difficulty level as of this writing.
Conclusion
Finally, after 2 months of non-stop work, we've finished the patch of the final set of features we had plan to implement on Foresight. Of course, along the way we had to fix existing bugs and in some cases, being forced further to remodel or redesign the entire module.
This patch should be relatively stable but only time will tell. While that is that, you can rest assured that we'll be listening to your feedback while we do our own testing.
Time to have a Co-Op match some time!!
Have a great weekend and to all our Hindu friends, Happy Diwali!
