The major update to 2280 has begun and we're now ready to push out the first part of the changes.

2280 was originally implemented as a cheat mode for fun which has fallen very far behind in quality compared to the rest of the game, so with 1.4 being our last major feature update we're spending the time to re-implement it. In a future content update we'll start to introduce dedicated content for the mode too.

The physics mode selector is now in the custom race menu. And yes, it'll save your selection between game sessions!

[h2]Playing development builds[/h2]

• 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 development. If the update doesn't automatically queue for download, restart Steam
  
• Once you have opened the game, the version at the bottom right of the menu will read 1.4-d7
  

• 2280 is now mostly separated from 2159, and everything that has been separated has been rewritten from scratch
  
• Hovering is now handled with 4 hover points which apply torque for track alignment
  
• Full physics zone support (Kuiper Overturn fixed)
  
• The chase camera has been rewritten and now has several options to customize it
  
• Collisions have been rewritten and now include visual / audio feedback when hitting the track floor
  
• Added 2280 specific stats for various parts of the physics (adding to modding tools in a future update)
  
• Added support for manually defined turn speed, gain and falloff stats (adding to modding tools in a future update)
  
• Added grounded grip multiplier stat (adding to modding tools in a future update)
  
• Restored the 2159 engine sound behaviour
  

• NgServerSettings.BoostMechanic has been changed from an integer to an enumeration type. None, Afterburner, Turbo, Mixed (case insensitive) are now the valid assignments for both the svrset command and in lua.
  
• Updated example dedicated server lua scripts to reflect the BoostMechanic setting change.
  
• Fixed boost mechanic option not being saved or loaded with lobby presets
  
• Fixed initial connection failing and timing out if a player is using a secret ship that the client doesn't have unlocked
  

• Added support for gamemode configuration overrides. If you're writing campaigns by hand in XML, save a campaign from the editor after setting up config data and check the GmConfig section to see how this is setup.
  
• Added support for custom weapon pools. If writing an XML by hand, check the PuBlacklist section after using the in-game editor to see how this is setup.
  
• Options which previously cycled through values on clicking are now provided in a list popup.
  

• Customize Weapons renamed to Custom Weapon Pool, and is now saved per gamemode
  
• The boost mechanic option now supports none (multiplayer parity)
  

• All camera settings are now per camera mode. Previous options for specific camera modes are now listed under the camera modes section.
  
• Field of view settings can now go down to 60
  
• Hidden FOV offsets for specific camera modes have been removed. Defaults for these camera modes reflect what they would have been at default settings previously.
  

• Added grounder push zone to the light bridge on Luna Reverse in 2280
  
• Added grounder push zone to the off road hill on Freyr Falls / Freyr Falls Reverse in 2280
  
• Increased gravity on Haze and Haze Reverse in 2280
  
• Increased tension of the track spring on Kuiper Overturn and Kuiper Overturn Reverse in 2280
  
• Fixed light bridge floors on Aciknovae Reverse being marked as a TRM floor
  

• Applying both airbrakes to fully brake now requires that analogue inputs are held 1/4 way down to prevent accidentally trimming speed.
  

• Moved physics mode option from Cheats and Extras into Custom Race
  
• Fixed the Forklift Certified title displaying when the Scorplet hasn't been unlocked yet
  
• Fixed DLC track categories being listed below custom tracks (regression in previous development release)
  

• 2159 stat listings are now replaced by the equivalent 2280 stats when in 2280
  
• Camera stats are now editable (in debug mode)
  
• The cameras current FOV is now shown
  

• Physics toggler track scripts are now ran before ships are spawned
  

We've kicked off development of 1.4 and to get things started, we've been working on some modding features alongside some general features and improvements!

[h2]Playing development builds[/h2]

• 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 development. If the update doesn't automatically queue for download, restart Steam
  
• Once you have opened the game, the version at the bottom right of the menu will read 1.4-d4
  

• Creating Lua Runners
  
• Ship Functions Reference
  
• API Reference
  

• Added HUD scaling (graphics -> display -> hud scaling). This ranges from 80-120%, based on the overlap of internal HUDs. Scaling is always disabled in splitscreen.
  
• Added Roll On Thrust Tap (controls -> roll on thrust tap). Enabling this allows you to barrel roll by releasing the thrust input and then quickly pressing it again.
  
• Added option to disable player light colors on DS4 / Dualsense controllers
  

• Sliders now support suffix strings at the end of the value readout.
  
• The controls menu now automatically switches the bindings / calibration list to the last touched input device that's assigned to the player, and opens with the players active input device selected.
  
• The survival score readout is now vertically positioned above the speed and shield bars and has digit group separators.
  
• DLC and custom ship / track loading is now a single loading content screen, which is hooked up to a new content loader.
  
• Added mod -> refresh content to the main menu. This will unregister content that no longer exists on disk and then search for newly added files and register them. This doesn't refresh track menu information.
  
  
  
  • If starting the game with -nougc, this can be used to load custom content on demand.
    
  • This supports moving content around. Just make sure you refresh content before doing anything else so the game is aware of the new file locations.
    
  • Moving tracks which don't have a trkd file will regenerate the cache as tch files are linked to tracks by absolute file path.
    
  • Newly added content is not alphabetically organized with the rest of content due to sorting being a part of the file discovery and not internal sorting. Everything will be correctly organized after the next game boot.
    
  
  
• Removed access to the old layout creator from the menu. It now needs to be accessed from the new mod_legacylayoutcreator command.
  
• Text inputs when using a controller now tries to open the Steam Deck or Steam Big Picture keyboard before falling back to the in-game keyboard.
  
• The update profile interface now has a button to update the profile image, reset the profile image, and has a realtime pilots license preview.
  

• Implemented trkd files. When present next to a .trk file or embedded into a .wtrk file, these replace the game generated .tch files used for menu frontend data.
  
• Fixed custom tracks files in the root of externally linked paths not being moved into an uncategorized folder
  
• Mod content folders in different locations with conflicting folder names are now correctly merged into categories, instead of the last loaded folder with a name conflict taking exclusive priority.
  

• Precision run times are now included in Steam Cloud. This applies globally to all branches, this note is just documentation of the change.
  
• Updated to the lastest version of Steamworks (we haven't updated in 7 years!)
  

• Added mod_legacylayoutcreator. Call from the menu to access the old layout creator.
  
• The following commands have been updated to prompt for an output path using native OS file browsers (they use their previously fixed output paths as the defaults):
  
  
  
  • mod_bloomconfig
    
  • mod_flareconfig
    
  • mod_exportshipstats
    
  
  

• Implemented support for lua scripts on ships. These use functions and global variables which are specific to ships, and have the same freedom (with sandbox restrictions) as track lua scripts. Like with track lua scripts, user variables can be defined in Unity and used in the script.
  
• Added Api:IsSplitscreen() and Api:IsVerticalSplitscreen()
  
• Exposed VirtualEnv (virtual environment control), VirtualPaletteSettings (settings for virtual environment palette) and VirtualColors (class holding virtual environment palette data)
  

Hey everyone, here's a small update to address some issues brought up from the GOG side of things.

Your in-game profile is now decoupled from launchers and can be freely changed however you see fit using the new config -> profile button on the main menu.

If launching for the first time with a launcher running, the game will still pull your name and avatar image from there. A reset button in the new profile menu will let you automatically reset it to the launchers account name, or local defaults if you're not running a launcher.

Your avatar image is now cached to User -> Cache -> ProfileImage.png. You can update this image to be whatever you want, and it'll show up on the menu the next time you launch the game. If you run without a launcher, a default image will be cached.

Finally, the multiplayer name text input has been moved to the new profile menu and like with your local name, can also be reset!

We're going to be expanding the new menu with more functionality in the future for 1.4. We've kept the scope of it for this update fairly limited to maintain stability while we begin work on the new update.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Options[/h3]

• Added config -> profile to the main menu. This opens an overlay menu where you can configure your profile.
  
• Moved multiplayer name input field to the new config -> profile overlay.
  

• The profile name is now a preference entry, which is stored in User/Config/ini/preferences.ini, and is only set from Steam / Galaxy when a profile name isn't available.
  
• The profile image is now loaded from User/Cache/ProfileImage.png. This image file will be written to using a Steam / Galaxy / default profile image if not present.
  
• Fixed issues with processing GOG Galaxy leaderboard entries if the requested entries do not exist
  
• Fixed all preference options, with exception to first startup, not being saved or loaded
  

• Tips mentioning the Game -> Assist menu now correctly mention the Game -> Access menu.
  

With BallisticNG 1.3.3 out of the door, we've now wrapped up 1.3 and are ready to move onto 1.4! Originally this is where we would have moved our main focus onto the game's Switch port, but as we have had unfortunately announced in September, Unity's actions and TOS terms moving forward makes this a risk for us within the time frames that we're operating within.

We're still working on the PC version of course, and we'll start rolling out development builds for various 1.4 milestones as they're reached.

New Trailer
We've just released on GOG! To celebrate, here's a new general trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0vWr5aBqEU

Notices
[h2]Unity Tools[/h2]
The Unity Tools package used to be shipped with the game, but due to us changing our build process to implement GOG builds, we've changed how we're distributing this.

All of the links previously provided with URL files in the modding folder have been merged into a single txt file (Modding/Links.txt), including the addition of a link to the new Unity Tools Github repository.

Our documentation website has also been updated to address this change.

[h2]Custom Tracks[/h2]
1.3.3 completely revamps the game's section tracking system to allow for much more complex layouts to be made. Over the months we've tested the vast majority of custom tracks available to make sure the new system can accommodate for various misconfigurations, but there may be a few exceptions where tracks will want to be updated.

The primary issue misconfigured custom tracks will see is an inability to backtrack after a pitlane exit due to the route exit section type not being setup. As long as you're racing as normal, this isn't an issue that'll impact you. In some rare cases, alternative routes may be inaccessible.

If you've made custom tracks then we advise that you check your tracks for issues. If you find an issue that you'd like to fix, documentation for route setup can be found here, and we now also have documentation for the new tracking system here. If you have long routes that span more then 20 sections that you'd like players to be able to switch between, we've also setup a new feature, which is documented here.

Overview
[h2]Fixed NX2000 and Hyperion collisions[/h2]
With 1.3.3 we've added support for custom made ship collision meshes which has allowed us to finally fix some long standing collision issues with the NX2000 and Hyperion!

If you're making custom ships, documentation can be found here.

We also now have the debug_drawshipconvex console command so you can see what the physics engine sees. Just note that enabling this will drop performance,

[h2]Accessibility option to disable lightning flashes[/h2]
We've previously implemented an option to toggle weather completely, and with 1.3.3 we've added a accessibility specific option to toggle the lightning flashes.

You can now turn these off using the Game -> Access -> Lightning Flashes option!

[h2]Aciknovae Rework[/h2]
Aciknovae has been given a major facelift for this update! An important change in this version is making the reactors building feel much more like a real tangible place with a dense industry surrounding it. Aciknovaes layout has a lot of verticality to it, and the new scenery has been built to tower over you as you go through the lower levels of the circuit.

With this update there's also been some tweaks to the pitlane entrances to make the pitlane less painful to manoeuvre into.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gqg3HU5nGg&t=175s




[h2]Basis Divide[/h2]
Basis Divide is a new track available in the extras category. It's set at the lowest level of the Aciknovae reactor, where the reactors themselves sit. This served as the starting point for the Aciknovae rework, and the spiral of Aciknovae is a direct bridge between the spaces the tracks occupy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbOmdI5VG4E




[h2]Caliburn Rebalanced[/h2]
Caliburn's a team we've been looking to rebalance for a while. Their ship isn't flown much, not even by ourselves, and its over the top grip makes it hard to justify using for fair play. We've put the teams lore in the past and introduced them to the AGL as a legitimate contender.

For 1.3.3 we've adjusted the ships handling stats. We wanted to keep its grippy behaviour but dial it back, and have tweaked various handling stats to bring it more in line with the standard roster of ships. The specific changes are listed in the full changelog below.

With these changes we've also updated the ship to be usable in campaigns, and the team will now show up in regular races if you enable post-release roster in the options menu.

[h2]GOG Galaxy Support[/h2]
As part of our GOG release we've implemented support for GOG Galaxy's achievement and leaderboard systems.

Steam and Galaxy can be used simultaneously if you own the game on both platforms and have both programs open at the same time. Any times you set will be uploaded to both and you can select which backend to view leaderboard entries from in the Game -> General options menu.

[h2]Force disable integrations[/h2]
Launch the game with the new -nosteam and/or -nogalaxy launch arguments to manually disable Steam and Galaxy integrations. These integrations are automatically disabled if the relevant clients aren't running, but you now have the option to tell the game not to use them.

Changelog
For Unity Tools changes, see the documentation website.

[h3]Engine[/h3]

• The track junction resolver can now re-index routes in much more complicated setups.
  
• Ship section tracking can now handle nested routes and backtrack down routes that you pass the exit of. Optimizations have also been made to this process.
  
• Track routes with cyclic dependencies are now detected, ignored and logged as a warning (for track creators).
  
• When switching camera modes and a ship doesn't have a cockpit, the cockpit camera module is now skipped instead of resetting the camera back to track chase.
  
• Optimized section previous reference processing.
  
• Section tracking is now centered around the ship instead of starting behind the ship. This has implications for open wall junctions and pitlane tracking in some cases, but is covered in the new documentation.
  
• Junctions that target a section without a route start no longer update the previous section reference of the target section to themselves. This will break backtracking on incorrectly configured routes, but now allows junctions to correctly act as bridges between routes. Two normal/jump type sections that point to each other as junctions is now also supported as a result of this.
  
• All sections are now given a negative index before re-indexing on track startup, preventing erroneous section links from forming when sections in invalid routes are present. Negative indicies also help with debugging section flow issues with the F1 debug menu up.
  
• Implemented GOG Galaxy SDK support for achievements and leaderboards.
  
• Implemented -nosteam lauch argument. Use to force disable the Steamworks SDK integration.
  
• Implemented -nogalaxy launch argument. Use to force disable the GOG Galaxy SDK integration.
  
• Fixed an interpolation error in junction resolving where the first index in a route wouldn't match the junction sections index.
  
• Removed BallisticSource library and merged it's code with the game.
  
• Removed BallisticUI library. This contained some unused prototype code from 2017.
  

• Added more game tips and updated some existing ones.
  
• Game tips no longer have an image component and now update to show the relevant bindings when the active controller is changed.
  
• The current route index is now displayed on the F1 debug overlay next to the current section index. This values index is inverted as the new track junction resolver works backwards.
  
• Fixed controller binding icons not having pressed highlights applied.
  
• The F1 debug overlay now shows the max and mid section indices next to the current section. These can be used for track setup validation.
  

• The button hold timer for lap invalidation in Speed Lap no longer runs while a turbo is held.
  

• Added missing Route Start flag on Arrivon XI forwards pitlane.
  
• Added route links to Atlanticas split.
  
• (Free Tracks) Added Basis Divide.
  
• Updated Aciknovae Scenery and pitlane entrances.
  
• Fixed race position tracking issues in Dover forwards pitlane.
  
• Fixed race position tracking issues in Omega Harbour forwards pitlane.
  
• (Outer Reaches) Added route links to Kuiper Overturns pitlane.
  

• The precision delta can now be used in campaigns if unlocked.
  
• Rebalanced Caliburns handling. With these changes Caliburn is now available in campaigns, is now part of the post-release roster if the option is enabled, and has been moved in the ship turntable to before the prototype ships. The ships handling performance is now similar to Wyvern, which was chosen as a reference point due to their similar hull designs.
  
  
  
  • Steer Speed from 2.2 to 1.63.
    
  • Steer Gain from 1.35 to 1.3.
    
  • Steer Falloff from 1.1 to 0.9.
    
  • Steer Slide from 1 to 0.95.
    
  • Grip from 35 to 6.3.
    
  • Rebound Pitch Mod from 2 to 1.3.
    
  
  
• Added support for custom convex collision meshes.
  
• Fixed various collision issues with NX2000 (custom collision mesh).
  
• Fixed various collision issues with Hyperion (custom collision mesh).
  

• Hunters can now change routes to reach the race leader.
  
• Fixed hunters being able to fly under the track and getting lost in some cases.
  
• Fixed hunters breaking if the side of a section the hunter is on has a really small width.
  

• Added debug_sectiontracking. This can be used to visualize how the game is tracking sections, intended as a debugging tool for track flow issues. This command has three modes which can be set with the argument:
  
  
  
  • off: nothing will be drawn.
    
  • ship: ship section tracking will be visualized, using player one's ship as a position and current section reference.
    
  • projectile : projectile section tracking will be visualized, using player one's ship as a position and current section reference.
    
  
  
• Added debug_drawroutes. This will draw the routes generated by the game on track load for 5 seconds. Enter photo mode to freeze the cooldown timer on them.
  
• Added debug_drawshipconvex. Setting to true will draw the player ships collision convex mesh, useful for debugging custom collision meshes.
  

• Renamed Game -> Assists to Game -> Access (abbreviated accessibility to fit on the UI) to better reflect the options
  
• Added Game -> General -> Leaderboards. If both Steam and GOG Galaxy are running, this controls which backend the leaderboards will be downloaded from. Leaderboards are always uploaded to both backends when present.
  
• Added option to disable the startup FMV (Game -> General -> Misc -> Skip Startup FMV).
  
• Added option to disable lightning flashes (Game -> Access -> Lightning Flashes).
  

• Added buttons to clear out various save data. Enable debugging mode at the top of the window and a new section to delete the different types of save data will appear. You'll be prompted before deleting data.
  
• Each section of tools are now under collapsible headers.
  

BallisticNG 1.3.3 is right around the corner and we're aiming to get it out next Friday on the 17th. We've been working with GOG and have spent some time getting everything ready for a release over there!

1.3.3 is finishing up our support cycle of the 1.3 update with a new track, an updated Aciknovae and some other various features and improvements, so let's jump straight into what's coming:

[h2]Basis Divide[/h2]
Basis Divide is a new track available in the extras category. It's set at the lowest level of the Aciknovae reactor, where the reactors themselves sit. This served as the starting point for the Aciknovae rework, and the spiral of Aciknovae is a direct bridge between the spaces the tracks occupy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbOmdI5VG4E




[h2]Aciknovae Update[/h2]
Aciknovae has been given a major facelift for this update! An important change in this version is making the reactors building feel much more like a real tangible place with a dense industry surrounding it. Aciknovaes layout has a lot of verticality to it, and the new scenery has been built to tower over you as you go through the lower levels of the circuit.

With this update there's also been some tweaks to the pitlane entrances to make the pitlane less painful to manoeuvre into.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gqg3HU5nGg




[h2]Reworked section tracking and route generation system[/h2]
BallisticNG generates information about track routes ahead of time and uses a system that is aware of where you currently are on the track to optimise figuring out where you might be next.

Previously these systems were designed in such a way that made nested routing impossible, and both have been completely rewritten with this update to open up the game for much crazier track designs.

This is unlikely something we will be taking advantage of internally fully, but this will solve a lot of issue for people making their own tracks!

We've tested the large majority of currently released custom tracks and built the system around misconfigurations we've seen across them, however there will be some scenarios where things might be broken. Backtracking in particular will be an issue for some tracks where route exits aren't configured, however as you want to be moving forwards and not backwards this is not a game breaking issue.


[h2]Caliburn Rebalance[/h2]
Caliburn has been a ship we've wanted to look at rebalancing for a while. It's never been used much, not even by ourselves, and is often frowned upon for use in fair play scenarios.

1.3.3 puts the teams current lore in the past, and dials the ships grip and steering stats back to make it more reasonable to fly.

With these changes, Calliburn can also be used in campaigns and will show up as a regular ship in races if you enable the post-release roster option.

[h2]Custom Collision Meshes[/h2]
1.3.3 adds support for custom convex collision meshes on ships. We've updated Hyperion and NX2000's collision meshes with this to address some long standing collision issues with these two ships.

Custom ships will also be able to take advantage of this feature!

[h2]GOG Galaxy Support[/h2]
We're releasing on GOG soon and we've implemented support for GOG Galaxy achievements and leaderboards!

We've setup the game so if you own it on both Steam and GOG and are running both clients, any times / scores you post to leaderboards will be uploaded to both platforms at the same time, and we have an option that lets you switch between which platform you'd like to view leaderboards from.

BallisticNG is also setup to auto-unlock achievements that are already unlocked in the games internal system, so copying save data between installs or running the game from a single install with both clients open will automatically sync locally unlocked achievements in scenarios where the game writes stat data (on menu loard and after completing a race).

We'd also like to note that while we have not implemented GOG Galaxy multiplayer, both platforms will be receiving the same builds. This means multiplayer via direct IP is store agnostic and you will always be able to play with friends, regardless of where the game is bought.

First off, let's get straight into why you're reading this:

[h2]What this means for BallisticNG[/h2]
There's been concerns about the Unity changes killing off new and existing games, so first off: BallisticNG is not going anywhere.

However, Nintendo has a rolling Unity version requirement for game releases and we're already behind the threshold by two years. 2 weeks ago this wouldn't have been an issue, no doubt there'd have be some pains in updating BallisticNG to a new version of Unity again, but it would have benefited us in the long run.

By the time we'll have a Switch version of BallisticNG ready, the threshold for Unity versions will exceed the new versions that Unity are pushing their TOS changes with, and we currently have no confidence that they won't try pulling another move or pushing back to their original plans under / beyond this new TOS.

[h3]The Switch port is cancelled[/h3]
Despite Unity's efforts to recover after their PR disaster, there just isn't any trust and security for us to continue moving forward with newer versions of their tools in the foreseeable future.

It comes with much frustration and disappointment that we're announcing the cancellation of the Switch version. Several years of development has gone into preparing BallisticNG technically for the port while maintaining the usual output of updates for the PC version, so this comes as a big kick in the balls to both us and everybody else who was excited for this version of the game. We're sorry that it has turned out this way, and we'll be looking at working with the console (or the rumoured Switch 2) in a future project not bound by Unity.

We'll still be moving forward with 1.3.3, 1.4 and continued content support, and we look forward to bringing in community members for content development again in the future for that.

[h2]What's this about Unity?[/h2]
A quick rundown for the uninitiated:

• On September 12th Unity had announced a new business model where they were removing the Plus license, introducing always online DRM to the Unity editor, will start charging developers a per install fee (the runtime fee) based on their own black box estimates after certain thresholds were met, in some rare cases potentially bankrupting companies, and took down their public Github repository for their TOS, which allowed people to track every minute change, while forcing everybody into a new agreement that applied retroactively.
  
• They damage control a few times as developers respond extremely negatively.
  
• On September 22nd they rolled back a bit. The runtime fee no longer applied to Personal licenses, now has a 2.5% revenue cap and is self reported, the TOS has been restored to Github and the new terms are no longer applied retroactively. The plus license is still gone (it's merging with Personal, but you'll need to use the new versions not released yet), and they're still introducing always online DRM to the editor.
  

.3.3 is the last update for the 1.3 support cycle. Before we move onto the final two tracks we've worked on some major engine changes.

The past month has been spent rewriting two core components of the game's track system to lift all known restrictions with track routes to enable much crazier layout designs! We've tested all internal tracks and hundreds of custom tracks, and are now ready to roll the changes out in a preview release.

The Unity Tools have also been updated with some new features. You can read about what's new on the documentation website:
https://ballisticng-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/unity_tools/whats_new.html


[h2]Playing the preview[/h2]

• 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 development. If the update doesn't automatically queue for download, restart Steam
  
• Once you have opened the game, the version at the bottom right of the menu will read 1.3.3-d5
  

• The track junction resolver can now re-index routes in much more complicated setups.
  
• Section tracking can now handle nested routes. Optimisations have also been made to this process.
  
• Section tracking is now centered around the ship instead of starting behind the ship.
  
• Track routes with cyclic dependencies are now detected, ignored and logged as a warning
  
• Optimised section previous reference processing
  
• Junctions that target a section without a route start no longer update the previous section reference of the target section. This will break backtracking on incorrectly configured routes, but now allows junctions to correctly act as bridges between routes. Two normal/jump type sections that point to each other as junctions is now also supported as a result of this.
  
• Fixed an interpolation error in junction resolving where the first index in a route wouldn't match the junction sections index
  

• Added more game tips and updated some existing ones.
  
• Game tips no longer have an image component and now update to show the relevant bindings when the active controller is changed.
  
• The current route index, the max section index and mid section index is now displayed on the F1 debug overlay next to the current section index.
  
• Fixed controller binding icons not having pressed highlights applied
  

• The button hold timer for lap invalidation in Speed Lap no longer runs while a turbo is held
  

• Rebalanced Caliburns handling. With these changes Caliburn is now available in campaigns, is now part of the post-release roster if the option is enabled, and has been moved in the ship turntable to before the prototype ships. The ships handling performance is now similar to Wyvern.
  
  
  
  • Steer Speed from 2.2 to 1.63
    
  • Steer Gain from 1.35 to 1.3
    
  • Steer Falloff from 1.1 to 0.9
    
  • Steer Slide from 1 to 0.95
    
  • Grip from 35 to 6.3
    
  • Rebound Pitch Mod from 2 to 1.3
    
  
  
• The precision delta can now be used in campaigns if unlocked
  

• Added missing Route Start flag on Arrivon XI forwards pitlane
  
• Added route links to Atlanticas split
  
• Fixed race position tracking issues in Dover forwards pitlane
  
• Fixed race position tracking issues in Omega Harbour forwards pitlane
  
• (Outer Reaches) Added route links to Kuiper Overturns pitlane
  

• Added debug_sectiontracking. This can be used to visualize how the game is tracking sections, intended as a debugging tool for track flow issues. This command has three modes which can be set with the argument:
  
  
  
  • off: nothing will be drawn
    
  • ship: ship section tracking will be visualised, using player one's ship as a position and current section reference
    
  • projectile : projectile section tracking will be visualized, using player one's ship as a position and current section reference
    
  
  
• Added debug_drawroutes. This will draw the routes generated by the game on track load for 5 seconds. Enter photo mode to freeze the cooldown timer on them.
  

• Projectiles use the new section tracking system, and now operate with a smaller section tracking range.
  
• Hunters can now change routes to reach the race leader
  
• Fixed hunters being able to fly under the track and getting lost in some cases
  
• Fixed hunters breaking if the side of a section the hunter is on has a really small width
  

Hey everyone, here's a small update to address some more multiplayer issues present in 1.3.2.

Also since the release of 1.3.2 there is now an official dedicated server running! If you get yourself updated to 1.3.2.1, check for Neognosis Dedicated in the Steam lobby browser!

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Engine[/h3]

• Reworked the game's build process. This is just a public log of us doing this, although this does bring one small public facing change:
  
  
  
  • TrackCreatorCommands.txt renamed to Legacy Track Creator Commands.txt.
    

• Added Play button to the leaderboards menu. This will take you to the ship selection screen with the game pre-configured for the current leaderboard being viewed.
  

• Starting an in-game hosted server now correctly resets the start countdown time to its default value
  
• The server now only registers new players once the players client has returned their side of the connection handshake.
  
• Logs previously only sent to the ingame console are now also sent to the disk log.
  
• Steam multiplayer now handles timeout events.
  

• Removed .lua extension in RandomLobby.lua's require to fix an issue loading the target module on Linux.
  

months in the making, BallisticNG 1.3.2 is now available with more content and features!

Tracks
[h2]Nova Split[/h2]
Nova Split has seen a major update with new scenery and a retraced and tweaked layout. As with Harpstone, care has been taken to make sure the campaign time trial and leaderboard times are still beatable with this updated version.

The scenery has had a major overhaul to bring it up to modern BNG standards, ground the start grid in a more authentic looking Chicago and update the park to mirror what was made for Nova Park, the virtual track counterpart to Nova Split.

The layout has received some minor tweaks to improve the flow of the final corner and improve access to the pitlane. With the updated scenery we now have terrain connected to the track, instead of the track being raised above it, which allows you to fly on the grass after jumps for more breathing room around some of the corners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spz-yW4sDNc

]




[h2]Pines Complex[/h2]
Pines Complex is a floorhugger track with 3 courses that join onto the same start grid. Like with Vespera Heights in 1.3.1, this track is a prototype for a future expansion.

Pines Complex sees the AGL return to Earth after the Outer Reaches project, this new multi-course track testing G-Tek's latest AG technology on home territory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiwXzkD6Hxo









Playlist Editor
With 1.3 we had introduced a new music backend which merges both internal and custom music into a single playback playlist. With 1.3.2 this system has been opened up with a new dedicated menu for music playlists!

The new menu can be accessed via Config -> Audio -> Playlists. The music options from the Audio -> Mods menu have been moved to this new interface under the Quick Setup section, which now update the active playlists in the sections below.

If you don't have any custom music installed, the playlist menu also provides instructions on how to get started. Previously this was only explained on our documentation website and Discord server.

Finally, all expansion prefixes have been removed from internal music files and each song has been moved into 1 of 4 built in playlists, categorized by the expansion that they were added alongside.



Multiplayer
[h2]Dedicated Servers[/h2]
[h3]An Important Note[/h3]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dedicated servers introduce the svrlogin and svrexec commands, which allow you to setup a password to remotely execute commands on the server using the in-game console.

Use a unique password for your server if you intend to use svrexec!

The password is hashed by the server on startup and by the client when executing the svrlogin command. The hashing process is the same on both ends, doesn't involve keys for encryption and should not be considered foolproof. This system is intended to reduce required bandwidth for long passwords and provide basic obfuscation against packet sniffing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BallisticNG can now be ran as a dedicated server! See the newly included DedicatedServerExample.cfg file and LaunchServer.bat / LaunchServer.sh files.

Because of limitations with how Unity loads built game data we unfortunately can't release a standalone dedicated server as a Steam tool without distributing the entire game for free. If you want to run a server, you'll need to download the game as normal and run it from the game's regular executable. Remember that BallisticNG is DRM free, so you will not need Steam running to run your server!

Dedicated servers run as a headless instance of the game with no graphics rendering. The required specs are the same as running a regular multiplayer game, minus graphics card requirements.

Make your own copy of server related files. If the provided files are updated in the future, it will overwrite your changes

[h3]Voting[/h3]
Dedicated servers by default enable voting. This allows players to vote on tracks, start or stop races and vote to kick people. Server hosts can set player percentage thresholds per vote type, or disable them entirely.

Note that voting is only available on dedicated servers. Servers hosted in-game still only let the host configure it.

[h3]Lua Scripting[/h3]
Dedicated servers feature lua scripting for automating server configurations and triggering commands Right now these scripts have limited use cases, but let us know what you think and if there's something you'd like to see!

Documentation and examples can be found in the SvrScripts folder. The bundled example shows how you can setup a randomized lobby configuration after every race, with chances for tournaments to be thrown in the mix.

[h3]Bots Configuration[/h3]
Dedicated Servers get more configuration options for bots! Four additional options are added:

• BotRoster
  
  
  
  • Provide the display name of any ship and the AI will use ships that come from the same category as this ship.
    
  
  
• BotRosterPeers
  
  
  
  • When true, BotRoster will be ignored and the server will determine a bot roster by figuring out the most popular category of ship that everybody is using. If there's a tie, a random category out of most popular ones will be chosen.
    
  
  
• MingleBotRoster
  
  
  
  • When set to true alognside BotRosterPeers, the server will randomly select ships out of all categories people are using.
    
  
  
• BotNamesFile
  
  
  
  • Providing a relative or absolute file path will replace bot names with names from this file, with a bot name per line. If there are more names then bots, the game will sequentially cycle through the list when starting a race / tournament.
    
  
  

• Added Pines Complex, a floorhugger track with 3 courses.
  
• Remade Nova Split scenery and tweaked layout
  
• Lua runners without a script attached are now logged.
  
• Fixed race position issue on Ishtar Citadel Reverse
  
• Fixed the game attempting to call OnShipHitWeaponPad in lua scripts if they don't have the function.
  

• Ships using the Drag custom module now only play turbo sounds for Player ships
  

• The music list is now populated using all enabled playlists. New playlists are enabled by default and can be disabled in the playlist editor.
  
• Internal songs are now split into separate playlists, categorized by the expansion they were introduced in.
  
• Music now has the highest playback priority in case of scenarios where the game hits the virtual sound voices limit
  
• Removed the expansion name prefix from internal music.
  
• Improved randomness of song selection when sequential playback is disabled
  
• Fixed music manager instances not being destroyed when switching between track scenes
  

• Added ship name tag scale option. Defaults to 80%.
  
• Added a playlist editor to the Audio menu (Audio -> Playlists). Playlist states are stored as a colon separated blacklist in config.ini / config_vr.ini
  
• Removed the Custom Music options from the Audio menu (replaced by playlist editor)
  

• Added svrset , svrget and svrgetall commands.
  
• Added svrlogin and svrexec commands. Passwords are hashed on both ends to obfuscate the original inputs. Note that this isn't foolproof and is only intended to reduced bandwidth for long passwords and provide obfuscation against packet sniffing. Use a unique password!
  
• Added svrquit command.
  
• Added svrlobby and svrstart commands.
  
• Added svrcon command. Use before using svrkick and svrban
  
• Added svrkick and svrban commands. These can be used mid-race.
  
• Added svrsay command.
  
• Added svrsayraw . This is the same as svrsay but doesn't prefix Server: to the message.
  
• Added svrtrack command.
  
• Added votestart command.
  
• Added voteend command.
  
• Added votekick command.
  
• Added votestart command. This can be used with a negative lobby countdown time to use a client driven vote to start setup.
  
• Added voteskip command.
  
• Added votetrack command.
  
• Added vote command.
  

• Adding a forward slash (/) before text in the chat box now interprets the message as a console command
  
• Added a vote menu to the lobby menu
  
• Ship update ticks are now decoupled from the players ship and run as part of the global tick manager.
  
• The lobby start countdown text and sounds are now controlled by the server.
  
• The races progress is now sent to players sat in the lobby every 5 seconds, using the lobby start countdown text.
  
• Network message buffers are now re-used (performance improvement)
  
• Ship roster limitations are now ignored when picking ships for multiplayer bots
  
• The lobby chat now informs players that they don't have a track installed when the server starts a race.
  
• Clients no longer start tournaments if they're missing a track in the roster.
  
• Peer ships now spawn at their spawn location, instead of world origin
  
• Server handshake packets are now sent over the sequenced socket channel to ensure everything arrives in order (IP only)
  
• Clients now buffer player and weapon data handshake packets until the main handshake packet has been sent, in case they arrive out of order.
  
• Launching the game with the -batchmode -nographics -svrcfg arguments will now run the game as a headless dedicated server. The server does not have its own ship in this mode and runs in an automated mode. A .bat file has been included with the game to launch the game as a dedicated server, pointing to the provided DedicatedServerExample.cfg file.
  
• Fixed tournament scoring
  
• Fixed players with missing tracks showing up in races. If a client doesn't confirm whether they have the current track(s) before a game is started, the server will wait an additional 2 seconds before excluding unconfirmed clients from the race.
  
• Fixed clients instantly disconnecting from Steam lobbies and hanging on the connecting screen if joining at the same time as somebody else
  
• Handle a race condition which created Unknown Player peers if connecting to a server while somebody else is still in a server handshake. New peer packets are now buffered until after the server handshake has finished to enable this fix.
  

• Improved formatting of the multiplayer single race result screen
  
• The multiplayer tournament results now uses the same design as the singleplayer version
  
• The menu scroll inputs now work on the multiplayer tournament results table
  
• Various leaderboards menu improvements
  
  
  
  • Now uses the advanced track selector instead of a flat horizontal list for track selection
    
  • Now has a track preview display
    
  • Now dynamically grabs the available ship classes. (Now supports drift and is future proof for any other additions)
    
  
  
• Fixed the waiting for players text in the multiplayer tournaments results not updating with a timer
  
• Fixed the campaign difficulty toggle not showing on certain resolutions and aspect ratios
  

• Fixed random mines not rotating after the first race.
  

• Fixed duplicate music player instances being created every race when continuous music is enabled
  

We're still working hard on the two tracks for 1.3.2, but in the meantime we have some new features that we'd like to get in your hands while we're working on those tracks!

Playing the preview

• 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 development. If the update doesn't automatically queue for download, restart Steam
  
• Once you have opened the game, the version at the bottom right of the menu should read 1.3.2-d2
  

• The server is a headless instance of the game with no ship. It runs the game, but does not participate in it.
  
• The server will wait for players to connect before starting a countdown to begin the race, or if the timer is set below 0, until enough players have voted to start the game.
  
• While connected to a dedicated server, players can vote kick, vote tracks and vote start / end races. By default each vote type has a success threshold of 50%, which can be adjusted in the server config and on the fly.
  
• Many new console commands have been added for servers. These are all documented in the example cfg file.
  
• Server hosts can set an admin password and then login and execute commands using the in-game console, instead of needing to use the operating systems console / terminal.
  
• Custom content and code mods are supported as with usual multiplayer.
  
• Hardware requirements are about the same to run the game normally, minus rendering overhead on the CPU and the need for a GPU.
  

• Internal songs are now split into separate playlists, categorized by the expansion they were introduced in.
  
• The music list is now populated using all enabled playlists. New playlists are enabled by default and can be disabled in the playlist editor.
  
• Removed the expansion name prefix from internal music.
  

• Added a playlist editor to the Audio menu (Audio -> Playlists). Playlist states are stored as a colon separated blacklist in config.ini and config_vr.ini
  
• Removed the Custom Music options from the Audio menu (replaced by playlist editor)
  

• Adding a forward slash (/) before text in the chat box now interprets the message as a console command
  
• Added a vote menu to the lobby menu
  
• Ship update ticks are now decoupled from the players ship and run as part of the global tick manager.
  
• The lobby start countdown text and sounds are now controlled by the server.
  
• The races progress is now sent to players sat in the lobby every 5 seconds, using the lobby start countdown text.
  
• Launching the game with the -batchmode -nographics -logfile "User/Logs/server.log" -svrcfg arguments will now run the game as a headless dedicated server with a local log output. The server does not have its own ship in this mode and runs in an automated mode. A .bat file has been included with the game to launch the game as a dedicated server, pointing to the provided DedicatedServerExample.cfg file.
  

• Added svrset , svrget and svrgetall commands.
  
• Added svrlogin and svrexec commands. Passwords are hashed on both ends to obfuscate the original inputs.
  
• Added svrquit command.
  
• Added svrlobby and svrstart commands.
  
• Added svrcon command. Use before using svrkick and svrban
  
• Added svrkick and svrban commands. These can be used mid-race.
  
• Added svrsay command.
  
• Added svrtrack command.
  
• Added votestart command.
  
• Added voteend command.
  
• Added votekick command.
  
• Added votestart command. This can be used with a negative lobby countdown time to use a client driven vote to start setup.
  
• Added voteskip command.
  
• Added votetrack command.
  
• Added vote command.
  

• Fixed random mines not rotating after the first race.
  

• Fixed duplicate music player instances being created every race when continuous music is enabled
  

BallisticNG 1.3.1 is now available!

This is part 1 of 3 for our 1.3 support cycle where we have focused on a track update, a new track and addressed feedback from the 1.3 release.

The Unity Tools package for modding has been updated, you can view the changelog for that here: https://ballisticng-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/unity_tools/whats_new.html

Harpstone Update
Harpstone has seen a major scenery rework and some revisions to its layout! As we try to avoid needing to reset leaderboards, we've been careful to make sure the tweaked layout is as compatible with existing leaderboard times as possible.

The new scenery brings together many iterations of the track over the course of the game's development and brings everything up to modern BallisticNG standards.

The layout update sets out to primarily fix the pitlane by straightening it out and making the entrances for both forward and reverse much more approachable. We've also straightened out the jumps landing slalom and removed the chicane coming into the final tunnel as we felt they didn't add anything to the layout and threw off what should otherwise be a straight forward racing line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCr9IzEuC8o









Vespera Heights
Welcome to the new free track set in the Lance Systems Virtual Environment! This is an experimental track that has been made to test out ideas for the virtual themed expansion coming after 1.4, building on what was previously done for Nova Park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFjb0uLWFMo









More Liveries
Community member NathanCubed has kindly submitted sponser themed liveries for the Barracuda Model B, Barracuda Model C and Aster vehicles! Here's a look at some of them:








Multiplayer Changes

[h3]Improved Connection Handshake[/h3]
With 1.3 we had introduced an issue where the player data sent on server connect could exceed the maximum packet size we've set, which would result in people not being able to connect. This is because of changes to the game's livery system and how we now share that information in multiplayer.

Player data is now sent in individual packets to stay under the maximum packet size. This change will also give us more headroom to add more player data in the future if we need it.

[h3]Bans[/h3]
It's now possible to ban people from lobbies. This works for both IP and Steam lobbies and the ban lists are stored in plain text under User/Config for you to edit at any time. IP strings are stored for IP lobbies, Steam IDs are stored for Steam lobbies.

The in-game kick menu has been updated to a manage menu, where you can both kick and ban players.

[h3]Shield Bar Lobby Setting[/h3]
Lobby hosts can now disable the shield bar UI element to keep everybodies shield levels hidden from those who have shield bars turned on. This can be useful if you want to prevent people from targeting others they know have low shield energy.

Other Changes
[h3]Stunt Height Aid[/h3]
Some people have noted that they find it hard to determine when the ship is grounded or not in Stunt, so we've created an additional visual aid to help with that. This is enabled by default and can be disabled with the Game -> General -> Stunt Height AId option.



[h3]Stunt Steer Roll Option[/h3]
We've added an option in the controls menu to disable rolls being triggered by steer input so you can now get twitchy in the air without worrying about accidently rolling!

[h3]Campaign Unlocked Scorplet[/h3]
The scorplet is now unlocked by beating the Aster League Forklift Certification campaign event with a gold or platinum medal. As this is no longer classified as a cheat ship, it will also be able to set leaderboard times!

Full Changelog

Tracks

• Added Vespera Heights. Available under the Extras category,
  
• Tweaked Harpstones layout and redesigned its scenery
  
• (Maceno Island) Fixed incorrect tile texture on Freyr Falls Reverse
  

• Added Sponsor liveries to the Aster LB221, Aster VB221, Aster KA10, Barracuda Model B and Barracuda Model C. (Thanks NathanCubed!)
  
• Fixed the barrel roll animation snapping back to zero if the ship leaves the ground while it's still playing.
  
• The Scorplet is now unlocked by earning forklift certification instead of through the nanomachines cheat
  
• The scorplet can now set leaderboards times
  

• Added lobby option to turn off shield bars for all players
  
• Added support for banning. The kick menu has been renamed to manage, where both kicks and bans can be handled. Bans are stored in separate txt files for IP and Steam bans under the User/Config folder and will be created the first time you ban somebody under each network backend.
  
• Fixed connection issues caused by handshake packets exceeding maximum packet length,
  

• Fixed incorrect Mechanics layer in Barracuda Model B livery template
  

• Fixed internal ships with custom frontend material overvides not being blacked out in the advanced/in-game turntable ship selector
  
• Renamed reset cheats in custom race to reset cheat modifiers
  
• Ship selection turntables now remember the previous highest livery index when navigating through ships with lower livery counts.
  
• Fixed the input cooldown bar being rendered under the combo fill in Stunt.
  

• Added a height aid visual to Stunt. Enabled by default, can be disabled in the Game -> General menu.
  
• Added an option to disable steer roll inputs in Stunt. See the controls menu.
  

• Added support for applying the virtual sky material to meshes in virtual mode. This can be used in conjunction with render culling materials to make sure the virtual sky is rendered properly.
  

BallisticNG 1.3.1 will be releasing on March 13th! This first 1.3 support cycle release will update an existing track, add a new track and address feedback and issues from the 1.3 release.

Harpstone Update
Harpstone has seen a major scenery rework and some revisions to its layout! We've been careful to make sure the tweaked layout is as compatible with existing leaderboard times as possible.

The new scenery brings together many iterations of the track over the course of the game's development and brings everything up to modern BallisticNG standards.

The layout update sets out to primarily fix the pitlane by straightening it out and making the entrances for both forward and reverse much more approachable. We've also straightened out the jumps landing slalom and removed the chicane coming into the final tunnel as we felt they didn't add anything to the layout and threw off what should otherwise be a straight forward racing line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCr9IzEuC8o









Vespera Heights
Welcome to the new free track set in the Lance Systems Virtual Environment! This is an experimental track that has been made to test out ideas for the virtual themed expansion coming after 1.4, building on what was previously done for Nova Park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFjb0uLWFMo









More Liveries
Community member NathanCubed has kindly submitted sponser themed liveries for the Barracuda Model B, Barracuda Model C and Aster vehicles! Here's a look at some of them:








Multiplayer Changes

[h3]Improved Connection Handshake[/h3]
With 1.3 we had introduced an issue where the player data sent on server connect could exceed the maximum packet size we've set, which would result in people not being able to connect. This is because of changes to the game's livery system and how we now share that information in multiplayer.

Player data is now sent in individual packets to stay under the maximum packet size. This change will also give us more headroom to add more player data in the future if we need it.

[h3]Bans[/h3]
It's now possible to ban people from lobbies. This works for both IP and Steam lobbies and the ban lists are stored in plain text under User/Config for you to edit at any time. IP strings are stored for IP lobbies, Steam IDs are stored for Steam lobbies.

The in-game kick menu has been updated to a manage menu, where you can both kick and ban players.

[h3]Shield Bar Lobby Setting[/h3]
Lobby hosts can now disable the shield bar UI element to keep everybodies shield levels hidden from those who have shield bars turned on. This can be useful if you want to prevent people from targeting others they know have low shield energy.

Other Changes
[h3]Stunt Height Aid[/h3]
Some people have noted that they find it hard to determine when the ship is grounded or not in Stunt, so we've created an additional visual aid to help with that. This is enabled by default and can be disabled with the Game -> General -> Stunt Height AId option.



[h3]Stunt Steer Roll Option[/h3]
We've added an option in the controls menu to disable rolls being triggered by steer input so you can now get twitchy in the air without worrying about accidently rolling!

[h3]Campaign Unlocked Scorplet[/h3]
The scorplet is now unlocked by beating the Aster League Forklift Certification campaign event with a gold or platinum medal. As this is no longer classified as a cheat ship, it will also be able to set leaderboard times!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Z5S33WRhc

Today marks the 4th anniversary of post-release BallisticNG!

Before and throughout BallisticNG's development there were many track ideas that never made it past just being layouts or having some rudimentary scenery, and we often like to look back at those ideas and realize them in some shape or form, taking the bits that work and remixing it into new content. Route 05, Project 9, Relay, Yala Outpost and Arrivon Falls are all a result of this.

Maceno Island is an expansion that started by looking at unfinished track ideas and building off of them. This is a combination of older ideas being realized, new ideas and the opening FMV track. It's been a lot of fun working on this expansion and we're excited to finally get some of our oldest ideas fully developed into playable content!

[h2]Maceno Island is now available![/h2]
Welcome to Maceno Island, a man made paradise home to high rise sea fronts, massive jungles, precarious mountain thrills and an AGL newcomer with a rich history in sea bed mineral mining and designer sandals.

Maceno Island introduces 6 new tracks, all playable in forward and reverse, a new campaign and a new set of colorful liveries.

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

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

Maceno Bay was originally called Kahawai Bay in very early versions of BallisticNG. Eventually we changed the name to Maceno Bay in later early access releases, but the idea was never finalized and never made a finished appearance. A "final" layout for Maceno Bay had however been made and is still in the game today as the layout for Dover.

This incarnation of the track is based off the very original Kahawai Bay layout, with some scenery design cues of versions when the name was changed to Maceno Bay.




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

The concept for Therma Fumos dates back to before BallisticNG was even conceptualized. This track started as a demo track in one of BNGs predecessor projects, AGR2280, and had temporarily made its way into early access builds of BallisticNG in an unfinished state as Maceno Reef. Maceno Reef eventually become the location of Hydrome Bed.

Maceno Reef was a full port of the original AGR2280 layout while Therma Fumos only takes the first half of it, with the second half being new. The reverse version of the track uses the color palette of the original AGR2280 version!




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

Maceno Interchange is a fully realized version of the track scene made for the game's opening FMV. Only the start grid was modeled for the FMV so this in-game version of the track fills in all of the stuff you don't get to see.




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

Freyr Falls is mostly a new layout, however we did borrow the first layout section from an older version of Utah Project as we like what we had with that section and wanted some way to bring it back!

The concept for Freyr Falls was also the seed for some of the small vehicle tracks recently released with 1.3, and we had used the small vehicle tracks to test ideas on how to handle off-road segments for when we came back round to making this.




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

We don't have any history for Alto Overseer, this track is something completely new for this expansion!




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

Maceno Peak doesn't have any history either, this is another completely new track!

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/

Notices
[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!

1.3 Update Overview
[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.

[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]2 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]3 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]7 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]6 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]6 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]



[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.

[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]10 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]2 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]9 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]0 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]



[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.

[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]9 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]10 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]9 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]9 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]0 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]




[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.

[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]8 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]3 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]8 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]0 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]




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

[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]2 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]2 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]0 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]




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

[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]9 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]6 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]0 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]




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

[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]8 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]5 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]0 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]




[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.

[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]2 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]6 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]7 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]10 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]0 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]




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

[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]7 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]2 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]3 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]0 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]





[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.
  

• 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
  

• 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.
  

It's almost here!
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.

Price Bump
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.
  

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
  

• 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)
  

• 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.
  

• 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
  

• Added Vonsnake - Mako
  
• Added Vonsnake - Smooth Gliding
  

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

• 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
  

• The scanline effect on virtual skies is now disabled
  

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

• 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
  

• 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
  

• 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.
  

• Reduced turbo drop chance weighting by 70%
  

• 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.
  

• 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
  

• 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
  

• 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.
  

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

Tracks
[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







Other Changes

[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

New Content
[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









Other Updates

[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.







[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]8 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]3 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]8 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]1 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]0 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

[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]

MAKO
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.



[table]
[tr]
[td]Acceleration[/td]
[td]2 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Top Speed[/td]
[td]3 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Handling[/td]
[td]7 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Shielding[/td]
[td]6 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Firepower[/td]
[td]6 / 10[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Freyr Falls
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






(Work In Progress) Alto Overseer
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.





Updated Campaign Event Details UI
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
  

.3 Beta 7 is now available! This is going to be our last beta build for a while. A lot of work now is content related, so we're going to get cracking on that and drop it all with the final 1.3 release. Stay tuned for content teasers!

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
  

• Added Forgotten Coast
  
• Added Maria Tide
  
• Restored the world hologram on Omega Harbour
  

• Implemented support for animated ship characters which can respond to steering, pitching, speed and engine power. This will be available to mods in a future Unity Tools update.
  

• Steer and pitch inputs are now sent to apply character animations. With a full 16 player lobby, this adds an additional 960 bytes per second to the required bandwidth.
  

• Added debug_logcheats to print all typed cheats and a description of what they do into the console.
  

• Added nanomachines cheat. This unlocks the Scorplet, Omnicom CD-AG32 and M-Tech RD-1
  
• Added spacerace cheat. THis unlocks the Barracuda MT Mini and Wyvern SCC Ares Mk I
  
• Added funallowed cheat. When activated, the state of ship unlocking cheats will be remrembered across game session. Typing again will disable it.
  

• The name of cheats typed on the menu is now briefly displayed for visual feedback
  

• Added Aster LB221 livery template PSD and XCF
  
• The Model B and C ships have been merged into a single ship with liveries. Custom liveries will now work for these.
  
• The original Survival Model B livery is now available (named Stealth)
  
• Decreased Model B hover rot power from 25 to 20
  
• Aster LB221 now has pilot animations
  
• Moved Aster LB221s camera slightly closer
  
• Increased Aster LB221s hover damping from 4 to 5.5
  
• Decreased Aster LB221s camera sensitivity from 1 to 0.85
  

• Usage stats for the Aster LB221, Barracuda Model B and Barracuda Model C are now tracked.
  

.3 Beta 6 is now available! We took a month off over Christmas to refresh and come back with a strong start to the year. We have lots of new modding features and content for you!

Note: We have made major refactoring changes to the game's code base. What we've done shouldn't affect game stability, but code mods will now be broken. See the Codebase Refactored section below for more details.

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
  

• Release 1.3 as a major content and modding tools update for PC with some preliminary and fundemental engine changes for the Switch version
  
• Release Maceno Island shortly after 1.3 drops
  
• Begin work on 1.4, a major overhaul to the game's internals to get it ready for the Switch release.
  
• Once 1.4 has dropped, continue supporting the game with new content in 1.5 and beyond.
  

• Cassandra
  
• Zephyr Climb
  
• Marina Rush
  
• Zephyr Ridge Reverse
  
• Nova Split Reverse
  
• Alantica Reverse
  
• Nova Park
  
• Vega Square Reverse
  
• Route 05 Reverse
  
• Maceno Interchange (Upcoming in Maceno Island)
  
• Alice Mountain Reverse
  

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.

[h2]C.Y.G.O.N Tempest Livery Template[/h2]
A livery template for the C.Y.G.O.N tempest is now available. Our friends at Caged Element have given us the all clear, so it's now included!

You'll find the template PSD alongside all of the others in the modding folder. If you're new to custom liveries, you can check out our documentation which covers how they work here.

Here's a livery that community member Vista has already made!



[h2]Aster LB221[/h2]
For those of you who have been with us for a while now, carving is back.
The Aster LB221 is a fully realized version of the original cheat, coming back with its own category of tracks!

The bike has a livery for all of the main teams and can be used to set leaderboard times. If you'd like to race other bikes on normal tracks, type carving on the menu to force the AI to also use the Aster with you ;)

To select the bike you'll want to move up to the new Small Vehicles category on the turntable interface.





[h2]Ribble Raceway (and future tracks)[/h2]
Small Vehicle tracks are a new type of track which are designed for smaller vehicles, namely the Aster LB221 at the moment.

Currently we have plans for 8 of these tracks, and to help make them are community members Kabelsalat and Brobama!

Small vehicle tracks have lower top speeds but the tracks themselves are much smaller. We're allowing any ship to be raced on them, but ideally you'll want to use the Aster. They're 30% slower then the normal game, so if you want to race them at normal speeds you can use hyper speed to counter the speed reduction.

In the future, custom tracks will be able to be setup as small vehicle tracks. We'll have template layout creator and blender files alongside the final 1.3 release for this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXKQVv4kkv4





[h2]Arrivon XI Reworked[/h2]
Arrivon XI has had a major update. We've made improvements to the pitlane entrances and gave the scenery a fresh coat of paint to bring it up to spec with other tracks. We'll be giving Omega Harbour the same treatment next!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS7-QwnD7LQ





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

The base game campaign has been updated to better space out events, add new events for post-release gamemodes and make tweaks to existing events to make it more fun.

Ascension and Decension have also seen a major update so they introduce and use all of the game's reverse tracks.

The Barracuda events have also been restructured so they're not such a grind, now with only 4 time trial events and the tournament only covering a handful of tracks. The Model B tournaments have also been split out into individual races, with two tournaments at the end to challenge your consistency across the forward and reverse versions of the tracks.

All campaigns have also been updated so you now only need 4 points to unlock the next set of events 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.

Unlock requirements for DLC liveries have also been reduced to 50% overall completion of the DLCs campaign.

[h2]Layout Creator 2.14[/h2]
Layout Creator 2 has had a major update, bringing it to version 14. Some of these are previews of features you can expect out of Layout Creator 3! Refer to the in-game hotkey reference window for more information.

• Added tangent rotation snapping. Defaults to 15 degrees and is enabled alongside grid snapping.
  
• Added option to set the track refresh poll rate. Now defaults to 60fps thanks to some major optimizations
  
• Added orthographic camera modes. Refer to hotkey reference
  
• Added node scaling tool, bound to the S key.
  
• Added node orbit tool, bound to the R key.
  
• Added a ship speed option
  
• Implemented a new junction connection smoothing algorithm that deals with geometry much better. The old one can be turned back on in the route editor and will still be used by default when opening files created in V13 or lower.
  
• Added options to copy shape data when appending a new node and interpolate when inserting. Both are enabled by default.
  
• Insert Segment hotkey moved to I key
  
• Move reference image hotkey moved to W key
  
• Grid snapping now defaults to 2 units
  
• Grid and rotation snapping can now be set using a text input field at the top of the editor
  
• Track mesh generation now takes place over three separate passes, fixing numerous issues caused by the original single pass
  
• Improved handling of section transforms near the end of a closed route
  
• The editor no longer responds to play mode toggle inputs until the ship has been spawned
  
• Using the move to cursor tool now supports multiple nodes
  
• The default camera speed is now faster
  
• Fixed an issue where routes with a single note would create connections to sections near the world origin
  
• Fixed input fields not being deslected when ending an edit
  
• Fixed a slow memory leak caused by materials not being purged from memory after exiting play mode
  

• Added obtainable target message and notice sound
  
• Ships no longer lose zones after being eliminated
  
• The shield fill bar now correctly correlates to the shield refill percentage
  

• Added an option to disable the Ai player stat sharing. Disable this option and Ai ships will always use the actual top speed of their selected ship. This does not affect campaign progression.
  
  This option will now always be off for AI in multiplayer lobbies.
  

• Implemented support for the event description field. The ingame campaign editor has been updated to support this too.
  

• Barrel rolls and sideshifts can now be turned on in 2159 and floor hugger physics. Barrel rolls have also had some major improvements that apply to all three physics modes.
  

• The lobby settings menu has been redesigned and is now generated on the fly, making it easier for us to add more stuff to it ;)
  
• Implemented bot count option
  
• Implemented barrel roll and sideshift options
  
• Clients are now restricted to the hosts installed weapons. (for custom weapons)
  

• Fixed formatting issues with campaign editor UI elements
  
• Improved the formatting of text on the stats menu
  

• Implemented error handling for Survival music visualization. If there's a problem the game will now continue going without music effects instead of softlocking.
  
• Fixed total races with X ship stats not tracking properly
  
• Fixed ships not rendering for player 2 in splitscreen
  

• The 3d track pads have updated textures with bloom baked into them for a better look
  
• 3d weapon pads now pulsate their color between pink/yellow like their tile brethren, instead of being a fixed red
  

• Removed the slalom on Luijazui Parks cave exit
  

.3 will be updating a few tracks to bring them up to spec with the rest of the roster. The first of these is Metro, which is the focus of this update. We also have some news regarding the game's switch port, which you can find below the beta release information.

About

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
  

• We're targeting 60fps in singleplayer and online with support to up to 8 AI. Online will support 16 players with up to 8 lobby slots being available to AI.
  
• We're currently targeting 30fps in splitscreen, however we are looking for opportunities to further optimise to potentially get it going at 60fps.
  
• The game will run at 1080p when docked. The framerate targets above are for when the console is both undocked and docked.
  
• The game will have a battery saving mode which will cap the FPS to 30 across the board.
  
• Excluding the CRT filter, all retro effects will be available as options.
  
• The upcoming Layout Creator 3 and in-game campaign editor will be part of the port and cross compatible with PC. We'll be looking at services in the future to enable this, probably Mod.IO.
  
• Custom ships and tracks made for PC may potentially be playable on the Switch using the same service for hosting mods made in the internal game tools. There will be numerous llimitations and workflow requirements for this to work though, but we can talk about those at a later date if we get PC mods up and running.
  
• Online will not be cross platform with PC, however if sales provide the budget to get platform agnostic matchmaking servers setup and maintained we will implement it. Remember to tell your friends about the game ;)
  

The last month of development has been busy as we start to standardise the game across the PC and Switch builds. This beta isn't focused on a single feature, but is instead more general in getting an engine upgrade to Unity 2020.3.5 available to everyone.

If you are making mods do not update Unity on your end. We have not updated the Unity Tools package yet and you will irreversibly break your projects if you upgrade at this time. Stay with Unity 2018.3.8 for the time being.

About

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
  

• Ship prefabs moved to an asset bundle
  
• Internal tracks moved to an asset bundle
  

• Ships for the UI for internal and custom ships using the CSF format now load asynchronously. The interface will no longer lock up when loading resource heavy ships.
  
• Fixed previously viewed custom ship resources not beeing freed in the lobby ship selection turntable when moving to another ship
  

• Rewritten music playlist backend, fixing numerous bugs and simplifying code for future additions
  
• Fixed the pause menu not showing the name of in-scene song overrides
  
• The All Music custom playlist now includes every song loaded from external.txt
  
• Added Vonsnake - In The Depths
  
• Added Atlanticore - Slipstream
  

• 2159/2280 ship hover damping computation updated to fix numerous movement issues related to ship being at the top of its hover height.
  

• Fixed voices being much quieter when spatial audio is enabled
  

• Barracuda S liveries can now be selected in survival
  
• Fixed custom liveries not being applied to duplicate ship entries
  
• Model C stats update
  
  
  
  • Reduced steer steer falloff from 1 to 0.7
    
  • Increased steer gain from 1 to 1.22
    
  • Increased steer slide from 1 to 1.2
    
  
  
• Protonic Stats Update
  
  
  
  • Increased top speed and acceleration to be slightly slower then Scorpio
    
  • Slightly decreased grip from 3.4 to 3.3
    
  • Reduced tilt angle from 35 to 30
    
  
  

• Upgraded from Unity 2018.3.8 to Unity 2020.3.5 to standardise development with the Switch version
  
• The intro FMV is now smooth (fixed from Unity upgrade)
  
• Updated to the latest version of Rewired. The Dualsense controller is now fully supported with feature parity to the Dualshock 4.
  
• The game now uses incremental garbage collection as part of the Unity engine upgrade. We don't generate much garbage data, but any amount that is collected should now have less of an impact on slower hardware.
  
• Implemented render zones, a new rendering feature that can be used for rendering optimisation and other creative purposes. These are not available for modding yet, but will be in a future update.
  
• Added support for loading all custom content from external locations using external.txt. See the dedicated section above for details.
  
• UI inputs are no longer processed when the game window isn't in focus
  

• Multiple controllers can now be assigned to players. The UI has been split into separate Add/Remove buttons to manually control the assignments.
  

• All internal tracks rebaked with the newer 32-bit lightmapper (unity upgrade broke lighting)
  
• Removed an unused tonemapper component from all scenes and custom track camera prefabs
  
• Removed a light from the final tunnel on Atlantica that bloomed out the exit with the new lighting
  
• Removed light from Nova Park that bloomed out track sections under the 2nd park bridge
  
• Added missing lights to ceiling lamps on Nova Park Reverse
  
• Added light for missing flood light source on Thunderhead
  
• Surge now has a different track illum color. Surge reverse has also been given a lighting makeover.
  
• Outer Reaches holopads particle effect update (unity upgrade broke them)
  

• Fixed no tonemapping options showing on a select few tracks
  

• Added weapons quality option. Setting this to low uses alternative particles with much less overdraw for weapon impacts.
  
• Renamed the tonemapping option to vibrancy boost to better reflect what the option does.
  

• Height labels have been updated from Unity's now removed GUIText components to Text Mesh Pro components
  

• SteamVR updated to the latest version
  

The next modding feature has been implemented so it's time for another beta build. 1.3 Beta 2 is now available with custom livery support!

[h2]About[/h2]

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
  

• Added custom livery templates. These can be found in Modding -> Livery Templates
  

• Added support for custom liveries. See the documentation for more information.
  

• Entering numbers before letters in a custom value name will now remove them when submitting the change
  
• Fixed the data input fields not being assigned a text validation type and allowing invalid data to be entered
  

• AI now start at the default livery if the players current livery is of an index higher then the AIs ship livery count
  

• The on-screen keyboard now has a grid design for better navigation. Vertical navigation wrapping has also been added
  
• The on-screen keyboard now has a minus key
  
• Fixed the caret position not immediately updating if using the on-screen keyboard to navigate text
  

• Added debug_refreshliveries command to rebuild file path references to custom liveries (see the documentation for more information)
  

• Livery selections are now handled by name instead of index to accommodate that players may now have different livery setups
  

Maceno Bay
The Maceno Island expansions first track, Maceno Bay, has been completed! Here's a first look at the upcoming track :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_QYqV_9rAI

[h2]Screenshots[/h2]





1.3 Beta 1
1.3 is going to be a major update focusing on new modding tools and features for both the PC and upcoming Switch version of the game. Most additions for the Switch will also be on PC, so we're developing them on PC first to give the community access to try stuff out as it's developed!

This update focuses on the addition of a campaign editor, which can be accessed in the campaigns menu. Campaigns that you build in this new tool are also compatible with past versions of the game.

[h2]Joining the Beta[/h2]

• 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
  

• Most file operations are now handled in platform agnostic code
  
• FIxed the autopilot disengage spinning the ship at insane speeds if disengaging immediately after engaging it
  
• The audio manager and mixer is now always initialised on the first frame of track loading if they're not already. This fixes many sounds in fast play ignoring the audio settings and playing at max volume.
  

• Custom music can now be loaded from any folder on your computer by creating external.txt in the User/Mods/Ingame Music folder and entering a folder path per line. Like the User music folder the game will also scan sub-directories.
  

• Ships now have updated descriptions (thanks Kekka & Brobama!)
  
• Fixed big arrow buttons not resetting their internal selection color status when disabled
  
• Gave the campaign menu some visual tweaks.
  
• Precision runs menu updated with the same visual tweaks as the campaign menu
  
• The campaign gamemode description scroll view is no longer scrollable and now auto scrolls over time
  
• Fixed the capital M on the onscreen keyboard being an N
  

• Fixed custom values being ignored when loading campaigns
  
• Campaign content is now validated. Any event that has missing content will now show what's missing instead of the event name and will no longer let you try to start it.
  
• Added exception handling to campaign loading. When an exception is thrown the game will now skip the campaign and open the console to show the issue.
  
• Updated the difficulty icons
  

• Added a campaign editor. You can find it at the top of the campaigns menu.
  
  
  
  • Works off the same XML format that custom campaigns already do. No new features have been added to campaigns, this is simply a UI wrapper around the XML format.
    
  • The UI is designed to be controller friendly. Every option uses the same UI element and all interactions are handled through the submit button.
    
  • When using a keyboard in the input field dialogues you can press return to confirm instead of navigating to the confirm button.
    
  • You can load exiting XML campaigns into the editor. Just note that saving an edited campaign rewrites the file, so any additional data like comments will be lost.
    
  • The editor only uses the current iteration of attributes. Resaving an XML with legacy attributes will use the newer versions instead.
    
  • Leaving the campaign editor reloads all custom campaigns. If you're manually writing XMLs you can go into the editor and back out to reload your work on the fly without having to restart the game.
    
  
  

• All DLCs rebuilt with smaller abbreviated logos for the menu
  

• Omnicom Steering Speed increased from 1.63 to 1.7 and Grip increased from 5.5 to 5.65
  
• Mtechs Top Speed increased to match G-Teks and Steer Slide increased from 1.23 to 1.5
  
• Large protonic stats tweaks. The new stats make the ship less twitchy so you can let the ship carry its momentum.
  
  
  
  • Tilt angle reduced from 50 to 30
    
  • Steer Speed increased from 2.3 to 2.5
    
  • Steer Gain decreased from 1.52 to 1.2
    
  • Steer Falloff decreased from 1.26 to 0.8
    
  • Steer Slide increased from 1 to 3
    
  • Airbrake Drift Falloff decreased from 14 to 3
    
  • Grip increased from 2 to 2.4
    
  • Weight increased from 0.7 to 1.2
    
  • Top speeds now match Gteks
    
  
  

• Fixed various generated UIs having their elements placed far away from the viewpoint
  
• Advanced content selectors are now correctly curved on the main menu
  

We've just released a new update that adds a preview for Maceno Bay, the first track coming in the Maceno Island expansion. It will only be available to try today however, so better try it out fast!

The track is available under the new Maceno Island category on the menu.

Have fun :)

BallisticNG 1.2.5 is now available. This update focuses on Model B content and adds one of our biggest community requests: multiplayer bots! We also have news regarding development of a Switch port and the next expansion DLC, so see below for that!

Model B Tracks Remade
All 4 model B tracks have seen an update. These changes rework the scenery to bring them up to scratch with the rest of the game, adds pitlanes, weapon pads for standard ships and introduces reverse variants. Check them out in the showcase videos below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvUglTaZ-G0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEptS1A7KbQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrfgU1I9T38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSedjAq0yUs

Model B Ships Tweaked
The Model B ship stats have been tweaked to improve their handling. Beforehand they were extremely twitchy and airbraking was particularly bad as you wouldn't keep much lateral momentum through corners. These changes make the ships more manoeuvrable but also makes them drift longer, making them less twitchy to manage at high speeds.

Light Bridge Updates
Light bridges used to be really finicky to play on because they had no walls and often didn't really follow a racing line. For 1.2.5 we've updated all of them with a new design that includes walls and repaths them onto better lines. Here's a showcase video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn2k7BxVgUI

Multiplayer Bots
Mulltiplayer now has bots! When you create a new lobby Novice bots will now fill in empty spaces. You can configure the difficulty to any of the difficulties in the game or just turn them off completely. It's important to note that AI don't have rubber banding enabled in multiplayer, so if you're used to the AI being harder because of rubber banding then you're more likely to school them in multiplayer.

Here's some cool bot facts:

• Bots do not take up server slots. If somebody joins when a race with bots is happening, they'll simply just wait in the lobby like before and the bot for their player slot won't be spawned in the next race.
  
• Bots will use whatever ship folder the host's current ship is from, including custom ships.
  
• Bots are ran on the server and treated by everybody but the host as real players.
  

• Model B Tweaks:
  
  
  
  • Turn Falloff reduced from 1 to 0.8
    
  • Turn Speed increased from 1.7 to 1.9
    
  • Airbrake Drift Falloff decreased from 14 to 8
    
  
  
• The ships convex environment collider is now generated as a separate object from the visual mesh. (needed change to fix various splitscreen rendering issues)
  

• All reverse tracks updated with new light bridge designs
  
• Tokyo bowl updated with pitlane, increased width, weapon pads, new scenery and a reverse variant
  
• Relay updated with pitlane, weapon pads, reverse variant and minor scenery tweaks to adjust for the new pitlane
  
• Underpass updated with pitlane, weapon pads, new scenery and a reverse variant
  
• Lujiazui Park updated with pitlane, weapon pads, reverse variant and new scenery
  
• Custom tracks now have a material shader translation applied to the scene skybox if one is present
  
• Fixed grip override for non Model C ships not working on the Model C tracks below Zen class
  
• Fixed Zephyr Climb being next to impossible on Floor Hugger due to jump collision meshes
  

• Implemented vertical splitscreen, which is now the default mode. The split direction can be changed in the custom race menu.
  
• Engine effects for the other player are now drawn as the AI version
  
• Lens flares now store a visible state per player to fix lens flares always rendering in splitscreen
  
• Fixed airbrakes not rendering for the other player if in internal/cockpit view
  
• Fixed cockpits not rendering
  
• Fixed contrail effects not rendering for the other player if in internal/cockpit view. The cheaper AI contrails are now also used when rendering the other players ship too.
  

• Implemented bot support
  
• The race complete screen now shows the race finish countdown that players still racing see
  
• Spawn positions are now randomized
  

• Cursor images are now 32x32 so they're the right size on Linux (Bug in Unity prevents hardware cursor from working on it)
  
• When adjusting the HUD scaler for splitscreen, the difference in aspect ratio in reference to a 16:9 display is now used to better scale elements so they always fit on screen at the same relative scale.
  
• Name tags and health bars are now clipped by their UI canvas to stop overlap happening in vertical splitscreen
  
• Name tags and health bars now work in VR
  

• Added Step Game option to the render tab, allowing you to advanced the game by a physics frame. Note that you will be kicked out of photomode if you step into the frame where your ship completes the event.
  

• Exposed the game's audio manager as NgAudio. See the updated read the docs for more information.
  

• The documentation button now leads to the read the docs page instead of the old, now deleted, wiki page.
  

Linux custom music crash fixed
Alongside this announcement we have pushed an update that fixes custom music crashes. Right now the virtual music visualization effects don't work but we will be working on getting them working again in a future update.

As a bonus our tilemap building tool is now available on Linux, and we've updated the Windows release to now use OpenGL. If you're making custom tracks you can grab it from the google drive folders here.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Multiplayer Bots
First and foremost, a much requested feature has been implemented and will be coming with 1.2.5: multiiplayer bots!

Bots are an optional setting for both Direct IP and Steam lobbies which allows the host to decide if they'll be added and set what their difficulty level will be. When enabled the standard roster of ships will fill in empty player slots.

Updated Light Bridges
To bridge gaps on the reverse tracks we use light bridges. They've always been really janky in that they've never had walls and some of them didn't flow well with the racing line. 1.2.5 will be addressing this with an updated design that includes walls and better integrates them into the tracks layout. In short, no more threading the needle on reverse tracks!




Model B content overhaul
1.2.5's main focus is following up on 1.2.4 by updating the Model B content and giving it all some much needed love.

Every Model B track is being updated to include a pitlane, weapon pads for normal ships, updated scenery and reverse variants. We're also taking this as an opportunity to address issues with the layouts and make tweaks to the Model B ships to make them feel better to control.

[h3]Tokyo Bowl[/h3]
Here's a look at tokyo bowl, the first of the tracks to be updated!
The track has been re-imagined drastically, with the track now being raised off the floor and the center housing vehicle parking and venues to make the most out of the huge area the bowl sits in.

[previewyoutube=WvUglTaZ-G0;full][/previewyoutube]




There's also some HUGE news that we will be revealing alongside the 1.2.5 release, so stay tuned ;)

BallisticNG 1.2.4 is now available!

This update focuses on adding Model C specific content the game, with 4 new tracks designed around the Model C ships. All 4 tracks are free and part of the base game. Simply download the update to start playing them!

Note for Linux users:
We will be implementing a separate audio library for custom music in a future update to address crashing. We hope to have this out in the near future.

Model C Tracks
With 1.2 we updated the Model C ships to bring them up to spec with the other ships. They were in the game but inaccessible without custom tracks until 1.2 where we made them available on every track.

The Model C tracks bring in 4 new tracks designed for these ships. You can even play them with any other ship and they'll all have drifty physics!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eh9M1LgNV4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtZmNXBjDCI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N9_Dx56a68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCVRMOmYpBI

Custom Ship Livery Locks
We've added the ability to lock custom ship liveries behind campaigns. Like with the DLC liveries, if a ship creator decides to do this you will need to gold or platinum an entire campaign to unlock the liveries. This supports both offical and custom campaigns!

More information can be found here: https://ballisticng-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/unity_tools/custom_ships/ingame_prefab/liveries_setup.html

Attract mode
After a suggestion in our discord, we've exposed the attract mode to the custom race menu so you can setup AI only races with ships and a track that you want.

Attract mode is what the game launches when you idle on the title bar of the menu for a little bit. All ships are controlled by AI and you are simply spectating an endless race.

Sony DualSense Definition
The game now has a controller definition for the new Sony DualSense. The controller would work before but was detected as a generic controller. This added definition does the following:

• Adds default bindings for the controller
  
• Correctly Displays Sony DualSense on the menu instead of Wireless Controller
  
• Displays the Playstation button icon set on the menu. This now also includes the create button, updated options button, mute button and touchpad press.
  

• Protonic logo added to Vista's credit listing
  

• Added Vonsnake - Combined Arms
  

• The red background for beating an event in hard mode now applies whenever the event has a platinum medal, regardless of whether hard mode was actually used or not
  

• Fixed tangent rotations being overridden when pasting shape data
  

• Fixed ship shadows still being enabled when using the environment only draw mode
  

• Added ship to ship scrape particles
  
• Custom ships can now lock liveries behind gold/platinum completions of campaigns
  
• Fixed crashes related to the autopilot
  
• Fixed the left airbrake closing slower then the right airbrake on the Model C ships.
  

• Fixed the survival sky shader turning black when the vertical rendering resolution was low enough (menu background, CRt set to low on nova park, etc)
  

• Added setting for different shield animations (Down, Along and Legacy). The option can be found in the Graphics -> Effects menu
  
• The framelimiter can now go down to 20fps
  

• Added ping command. This will return the round trip latency between you and the current multiplayer server.
  

• The Barracuda Challenge is no longer mirrored
  

• Added Pocono Circuit (Model C Category)
  
• Added Meads Pass (Model C Category)
  
• Added Arrivon Falls (Model C Category)
  
• Added Pacheon (Model C Category)
  
• Free tracks package updated with sky shader fix for Nova Park
  
• Fixed the aurora on Harpstone Reverse being affected by the distance clipping retro option
  

• Exposed the attract gamemode to the custom race menu
  
• Ships now have god mode in attract mode
  

• Added controller definitions for the Sony DualSense
  

• Pressing menu back or right clicking in the lobby settings menu will now back out and save the settings
  
• Afterburner option has been replaced with the boost mechanic option seen in custom races
  
• The post race leaderboard now sorts entries by total race time instead of what each client and the server reports the positions as. This fixes weird issues where server latency in very tight races would screw up the results listing.
  

• Fixed the raw ShipTriggerInfo data being fed into OnShipEnter/Exit instead of the direct ship reference
  

This update is a smaller one and focuses on engine changes, new modding tools and modding tool fixes.

Note for linux users
We're continuing to investigate issues with custom music. We don't have a time frame on a fix at the moment but we will keep you updated with any advancements on the issue.

Nova Park
Return to Nova Split in this virtual blueprint of the park before it was destroyed. This track makes use of our lightmapper update mentioned below to provide more vibrant lighting.

Nova Park is part of the free tracks expansions. Simply download 1.2.3 to get this track added to the Extras category on the menu.

There's even more free content coming in the near future, so stay tuned!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceklYdgY9fk




Unity Tools
For the full Unity Tools changelog, see the what's new section of the documentation website:
https://ballisticng-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/unity_tools/whats_new.html

Lua Scripting
Getting Started Guide

Lua scripts can now be written for custom tracks! These allow you to build your own procedual animations and create new behaviours, gameplay features and modify stuff like ship physics and AI settings for your tracks.

Scripts are sandboxed and can only access what the game tells them they can access, so are safe to have in tracks.

The hologram on Nova Park is an example of Lua being used to drive an animation!

Layout Creator Visuals Update
Recently myself and community member Kabelsalat released two tracks based on layouts we created for each other and this update incorporates the style into the layout creator play mode. This is also the style that was used for Nova Park.

Tracks are here, by the way ;)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2248225033&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2248229262&searchtext=

New Terrain Shaders
Two new terrain shaders have been added that take the base established for the Terrain 4 Blend shader and implement vertex color based texture blending.

We have also provided a .blend file with a material inside which will allow you to preview vertex color texture blending as you're painting them in Blender.

Note: These shaders require the new Encode In Tangents options to be setup in a lightmapping options script to work, otherwise lighting will override the vertex colors used for blending. See the documentation website for more details.

32-bit Lighting
Lighting is now 32-bit instead of 8-bit. We haven't updated any internal tracks with this so this change at the moment is entirely for mod creators and Nova Park.

Lighting will continue to be 8-bit until you rebake it on your tracks, after which the track will be upgraded to 32-bit.

So what does this do exactly?
Up until now lighting in BallisticNG has been stored using single bytes per color channel. This provides a whopping 16,777,216 possible colors, but we can go way higher then that.

32-bit stores these colors using 4 bytes per channel instead and it effectively gives you HDR. Where having lots of bright colors would previously blend into white, those colors in the updated lightmapper will bleed into each other and make a brighter blend of themselves. This also affects lit objects like ships too.

Ship cockpits are an exception to this change as letting really bright tiles light them up can bllind you with the canopy enabled, so cockpit lighting remains the same as before.

Example Code Mods
A github repository for example code mods has been created. Right now this contains an example Grenades weapon (thanks Kabelsalat for the voice line!).

If you'd like a hands on example of writing code mods, here's the link: https://github.com/bigsnake09/ExamplesNG

The compiled and ready to use mod is also provided ;)

Changelog
Credits

• Vista added to credits for contributing logos for M-Tech and Lance Systems (precision delta). You can check out the new logos in-game along the start grid for Nova Park.
  

• Now uses VLM 2 for baking lighting when entering play mode
  
• Play mode now uses the new virtual environment visuals from Nova Park
  

• Added Nova Park
  

• Fixed the wrong tooltip showing for the speed measurement option
  
• Fixed the level up overlay not showing when returning from campaign events
  
• Fixed name tags and shield bars rendering on top of other important UI elements
  

• Implemented a LUA interpreter for running user scripts on tracks
  
• Lighting colors are now stored in 32-bit, removing the previous headroom for lighting where colors would end up combining into white.
  
• Survival togglers now check for empty meshes before attempting to split vertices for the survival environment
  

• Added URL to the modding folder that links to a github repo of example mods
  
• Data types from mods can be exposed to the LUA interpreter by attributing a class or struct with [ExposeToLua]
  
• Fixed the wrong directory being fed to mod registers if there are code mods that are disabled
  
• Custom huds can now be registered from pre-loaded HudComponents objects, allowing huds to be stored in and loaded from NGA files
  
• Implemented asset loading API. See the Unity Tools documentation for more information.
  

Note for custom ships creators:
This update makes big changes to the shield and weapon power stats and how they interact with weapon damages. This results in custom ships now being damage sponges in comparison to the vanilla ships. To make the transition easier for anybody who wants to maintain a balance with the vanilla ships, all of the updated ship stats are now provided in the Unity Tools packages as XML files. The stat prefab system now uses these too!

Bling Pack
Bling up your ship and show off with 4 new shiny liveries! This small pack introduces Gold, Iridescent, Platinum and Psychedelic liveries for every standard ship.

If you were previously a donator in the game's Patreon days and already have the gold liveries then these new liveries are available to you at no cost!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/580180/BallisticNG__Bling_Pack/

Modding
The Unity Tools have had a few updates, see the documentation for more information: https://ballisticng-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/unity_tools/whats_new.html

We're also pleased to announce the introduction of workflow tools!
We're switching to Blender for our asset development so there's currently plenty of work being done to build tools to aid with the BallisticNG workflow. These tools are being built with the community in mind so they are free to download and to use however you like, even for non BNG related projects.

A URL shortcut is now provided in the modding folder to link you directly to the downloads, or if you just want the link now: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zeO7PK-6nkatEN6sd0rTuJKbU_lzOdTG

Right now these tools primarily consist of utilities to speed up UVing from an atlas texture, similar to what sprytile lets you do, but we'll be adding new stuff as we go.

1.2.2 - The Balance Update

BallisticNGs combat is a system that hasn't had much attention in recent times. In singleplayer this has been fine as the AI were always at a disadvantage and the game was always balanced around that, but we've seen clear problems with how everything was balanced in multiplayer and this update has been long under consideration.

This update focuses on adjusting combat to standardise the singleplayer and multiplayer experience, make needed changes to ship stat distributions, touch up the AI and give you a whole lot of new gameplay and HUD options.

We've also scrapped the pilot assist and replaced it with separate AI assists. More info this below!

[h2]Ship Stats[/h2]
Ship combat stats have been updated to bring the roster much closer together. This means every ship is now a lot more consistent with every other ship and firepower/shields makes much less of a difference then before. You'll still be able to bully a Tenrai using a Diavolt, but it's no longer a difference so great that it makes sense to just stick with Diavolt for that one trait alone.

[h2]Weapons[/h2]
Weapons have been made weaker so the focus can now be more on the race then on combat. Modes like eliminator and team race are of course still focused on combat and the scoring for these are still the same.

If you're interested in all of the stat changes, see the full changelog below.

[h2]Ai[/h2]
The AI has seen a huge backend overhaul that completely rewrites how they navigate the track. This has also allowed us to also introduce new ways to control their difficulty more like how a human players skill differs, instead of just telling the AI to accelerate at certain speed thresholds to simulate difficulty.

We've also introduced rubber banding so the AI can keep pace. The rubber banding has limits so you won't be seeing them shoot down the track at lightning speeds, but you should now feel the pressure in the higher AI difficulties.

If you don't want the rubber banding we've also introduced an option to turn it off in the new assists options menu. This option is completely optional and does not restrict any of the game's functionality if it's turned off.

Finally one thing we've seen in reviews and people doing lets plays is some people not understanding why the AI take off the start grid really fast so when playing in Novice, like at the start of the campaign, the AI start boost is now disabled to better represent the understanding of mechanics that a new player will have.

[h2]Assists[/h2]
We've killed the old pilot assist option and instead rewrote it and split it into three separate options, available in the new assists options in the game options menu.

These assists give you a speed handicap, disable online functionality and in some modes such as Survival won't be available.

Steer Assist: An AI will provide a steering assist. This scales with your input, so fully turning will disable the assist so you still have complete control of the ship when you need it.

Pitch Assist: An AI will provide a pitch assist. Like the steering assist this scales with your input so you can maintain manual control.

Airbrake Assist: An AI will provide airbrake tap assists. This doesn't scale to input and the AI will always be providing inputs for this sit it just flips the airbrakes on.

Utah Dam
Utah Dam is a new free track that takes you back to Utah Project to race on an alternative circuit that drops you underground into the water processing chambers below. Simply update to 1.2.2 to get this track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq6ZTTblyM8





Changelog

Music

• Added Xpand - Menu 2 to the OST folder
  
• Added Paused Playback option (enabled by default)
  
• Fixed various issues with custom track music when continuous playback is enabled
  

• Custom sounds are now read from their absolute path instead of their relative path (fix for regression of soundpacks not working on MacOS since 1.2)
  

• Added Utah Dam
  
• Fixed survival disable and survival ignore track not working on custom tracks
  
• Fixed the AI not using racing lines on Arrivon Peak
  
• Fixed start line position tracking issues on Luna
  
• Fixed incorrect wall tiles on Tokyo Bowl and Hydrome Bed
  
• Fixed the music visualizer advert replacements scaling their layout with the screen resolution
  

• Rebalanced shield and weapons stats. The frontend combat stats are now also accurate.
  
• Reduced wall collision damage by 30%. (survival mode has been accomodated for so damages are still the same)
  
• Ship cannon fire rates are now determined by an option on the ship instead of being automatic
  
• Decreased threshold for ship to ship bounce collisions
  
• Rewrote airbrake drift code to properly respond to analog inputs
  
• Reduced Orbitronix's grip from 10 to 5.75
  

• Removed AI to Player damage reduction multipliers and rebalanced weapons around multiplayer player vs player
  
• Increased minimum integrity threshold for the emergency pack from 10% to 25%
  
• The energy wall is no longer collidable as it plays the fade out animation
  
• The warning for AI missiles is now triggered when the AI picks the missile up
  
  
  
  • Fixed tremors flinging ships high on sections marked to allow out of bounds
    
  • Tremor damage now deals 8% first impact damage instead of 0.7 damage per physics tick
    
  • Increased tremor effective height
    
  • Increased tremor slowdown
    
  • Increased tremor distance from 75 sections to 120 sections
    
  • Reduced rocket damage from 35 to 12
    
  • Missiles now ignore gravity if they're flying and have a lock-on
    
  • Reduced missile damage from 30 to 15
    
  • Reduced cannon damage from 0.8 to 0.5
    
  • Decreased difference in cannon type fire rates
    
  • Reduced hunter damage from 30 to 8
    
  • Increased velocity loss from hunter impacts
    
  • Reduced hellstorm damage from 36 to 15
    
  • Reduced plasma damage from 90 to 70
    
  • Reduced tremor pickup weighting from 30 to 12
    
  • Reduced energy wall pickup weighting from 25 to 5
    
  • Reduced slowdown from cannons
    
  
  

• Fixed mines being spawned with the wrong rotation
  

• All assemblies are now loaded before executing mod registers, removing the need for ordered loading if sharing data between DLLs
  

• Fixed scaling issues with the custom race menu on ultrawide resolutions
  
• Added handling of an edge case for the resolution selector where Unity might not return a resolution
  
• The AI difficulty is now shown on the campaign event details box
  
• Ship information overlays now scale with distance and are correctly depth sorted
  

• HUD and Assists sub-menus have been added to the game options menu
  
• Removed pilot assist option from the pause menu
  
• Added thrust toggle option to the controls menu
  
• Added option to toggle the low energy warning voice. Defaults to on
  
• Added option to toggle the critical energy warning voice. Defaults to on
  
• Added option to toggle AI rubber banding. Defaults to on
  
• Added options to enable new steer, pitch and airbrake assists. Defaults to off.
  
• Added option to set the units the speedometer uses. Defaults to metric.
  
• Added option to show the racer position list in singleplayer. Defaults to off
  
• Added option to show all ships on the position bar. Defaults to off
  
• Added option to show shield bars in races. Defaults to off
  
• Added option for the default camera mode when starting in zero-g (Kuiper Overturn). Defaults to rear chase
  

• Increased minimum shield before pitting from 25% to 50%
  
• Ai now spread themselves apart more at the start of the race
  
• Reworked AI steering to simulate steering the ship instead of forcing their rotation towards where they're heading
  
• AI ships now slow down if they're exceeding the capabilities of the ship they're piloting
  
• Removed Ai grounding force. They will now fly just as high as the player can
  
• Ai now brake if they're about to hit another ship in front of them
  
• Rewrote Ai track navigation to be based on time instead of section offsets
  
• Fixed an issue where AI would use airbrakes and/or slow down on track sections like maglock drops, loops and corkscrews
  
• AI wall avoidance forces now slow the ship down and worsen the AIs racing line for a brief moment
  
• Implemented optional rubber banding
  

• Section floor widths are now cached on track startup
  
• A warning is now thrown to the output log when there are racing lines but none are available to be used (for track creators)
  
• Fixed an issue where the position tracking would not correctly track two ships on different routes if their section index was the same
  
• The buffer for custom music playback is now re-used (small performance boost)
  

• Added test_damage
  
• Added gm_timescale
  

• Reduced AI speed on the base game 1v1 events
  
• Rebalanced the first half of the base game campaign to introduce experienced and expert difficulties earlier on, akin to the expansion campaigns (novice is now super easy)
  

• Player ship trails are now swapped over to the AI trail
  

• Fixed the pitlane on Caldera not being marked as a pitlane for the AI
  

A beta for BallisticNG 1.2.2 is now available!

What's the beta for?
1.2.2 is going to be making major changes to the game's balance to address a large disconnect between the singleplayer and multiplayer combat experience and better balance large combat encounters with lots of weapons going off. We're also focusing on the AI so it navigates the track more human like and is held back in the lower difficulties in a more believable way that reflects player piloting skills instead of just handicapping their raw speed.

We've started this beta so you can help give early feedback on the changes. This will help shape the final release of this version.

Give us feedback!
This beta is very important in figuring out how the changes impact a wider range of players so we strongly encourage you to let us know what you think.

You can do so in the Steam forums or on our discord, which you can find here: https://discord.gg/ballisticng

Before giving feedback please make sure you're on the beta version. To do this, make sure the version shown at the bottom right of the main menu says 1.2.2-beta.

Joining the Beta
Right click the game in your library, head to properties, the beta tab, select beta from the dropdown and then close the window. The game should then begin updating. If it doesn't then restart Steam.

Ai Changes
The Ai have seen major changes in how they navigate the track and how the game manages their difficulty level.

Ai ships now navigate the track based on time instead of relying entirely on track sections. This results in the AI having a much higher resolution understanding of the track that greatly helps define their racing line.

We're now also using this new higher resolution understanding of the track to tweak the Ais racing line, pitch control and airbrake usage to simulate the skill of a real player instead of just capping or artificially inflating their speeds. Ai will now also work with the ships grip stat instead of using their own, which now makes picking a higher handling ship an even better option for new players then before.

All of these changes put more emphasis on a good racing line and better pitch control as you climb up the AI difficulties.

Weapon Changes
Weapons have been re-balanced alongside ship shield and firepower stats to make eliminations harder and reduce the massive gap between ship defensive and offensive capabilities.

The combat was originally built around the player dealing lots of damage to AI and the AI dealing little damage to the player. This had been the balance in the game from 2015 to now, which has proven to cause issues with Multiplayer since everybody is dealing the player damage which was insanely unbalanced.

These changes remove that weaker AI design and puts everybody on an equal playing field, while reducing the damage of weapons to accommodate.

Changelog (not final)

[h2]Ai[/h2]

• Increased minimum shield before pitting from 25% to 50%
  
• Ai now spread themselves apart a bit at the start of the race
  
• Reworked Ai/Autopilot rotation so they simulate steering the ship as a player
  
• Ai ships now slow down if their steering exceeds the ships turning capabilities
  
• The AI warning for missiles is now triggered when they pick the missile up instead of when they lock onto the player
  
• Ai no longer start boost on Novice
  
• Ai now begin to brake if they are about to collide with another ship in front of them
  
• Difficulty configurations are now reloaded every race so gamemodes can modify them without the changes persisting over the entire game session
  
• Rewrote AI track navigation to be time based instead of section offset based
  
• Fixed an issue where AI would use airbrakes and slow down on track sections like maglock drops, loops and corkscrews
  
• Ai are now slowed down when the game applies wall avoidance forces
  
• The angle to route entrances is now taken into account when the AI is determining the distance before it makes a navigation decision
  
• Ai are now less agressive with weapons for the first 40 seconds in Race and Knockout
  

• Rebalanced shield and weapon stats. The menu stats for these are also now accurate:
  
  
  
  • Shield and weapon stats are now more closely packed together
    
  • Barracuda Model A and C still the strongest shielding by a large margin but have generally been nerfed
    
  • NX2000 shield stat hasn't been changed but now has a menu stat of 1/10
    
  
  
• Reduced wall collision damage by 30%. Survival has been adjusted to accomodate for this change so ships take the same damage as before.
  
• Ship cannon fire rates/sound type are now determined by a separate option on the ship instead of being automatically calculated
  
• Rewrote airbrake drift code to correctly respond to analogue inputs
  
• Decreased maximum angle for ship to ship nose bounce collisions
  
• The afterburner speed increase now trails for slightly longer
  
• Reduced slowdown and camera shake from rear ship to ship bumps
  

• Removed AI damage multipliers and rebalanced damages to reflect player vs player combat
  
  
  
  • Ai now deal the same damage as players
    
  • Reduced tremor damage from 0.7% per physics tick to a single 5% on first impact
    
  • Reduced rocket damage from 35 to 12
    
  • Reduced missile damage from 30 to 10
    
  • Reduced cannon damage from 0.8 to 0.5
    
  • Reduced hunter damage from 30 to 8
    
  • Reduced hellstorm damage from 36 to 12
    
  • Reduced plasma damage from 90 to 70
    
  
  
• Increased emergency pack pickup threshold from 10% energy to 25% energy
  
• Increased tremor distance from 75 sections to 120 sections
  
• The energy wall collider is now disabled before it starts fading out
  
• Reduced tremor pickup weighting from 30 to 12
  
• Reduced energy wall pickup weighting from 25 to 5
  
• Reduced slowdown from cannons
  
• Fixed tremors flinging ships high into the air when on sections marked as AOOB
  

• Greatly reduced AI speed on the base game 1v1 events
  
• Rebalanced the first half of the base game campaign to introduced experience and expert difficulties more gradually
  

• The players engine trail is now swapped out for the AI trail
  

• Fixed mines being spawned with the wrong rotation
  

• Added Xpand - Menu 2 the soundtrack DLC
  
• Added Paused Playback option (enabled by default)
  
• Fixed various issues with custom music embedded in tracks when continuous playback is
  

• Custom sounds are now read from their absolute path instead of relative to fix them not loading on MacOS
  

• All assemblies are now loaded before executing mod registers
  

• Section floor widths are now calculated and cached for use by the AI
  
• A warning is now thrown to the output log when there are racing lines but none are available for the AI to use
  
• Fixed an issue with the position calculation where it would use the same section for both ships on different routes
  

• Added test_damage
  
• Added gm_timescale
  

• Fixed survival disable not working on custom tracks
  
• Fixed arrivon peak's racing lines not being available to AI
  
• Fixed start line position tracking issues on Luna
  

• Added handling of an edge case for the resolution selector where Unity might not return a resolution to the game on very specific Linux setups
  
• Added option to show all ships on the position bar (Game -> General -> Misc)
  
• The AI difficulty is now shown on the campaign event details box
  

• Added cannon type stat to custom ships under the combat settings foldout
  
• Built in ship stat prefabs now read from .XML files in the Assets/ShipStats folder and now includes all ships. You can now also add your own XML files to this folder to make your own stat prefabs!
  

BallisticNG 1.2.1 is now available. This update focuses on reworking the precision runs with a new simplified time attack design and opening them up to custom tracks!

Precision Update

• Removed scrape medal reduction mechanic. The mode is now based on time only with bronze, silver, gold and platinum medals.
  
• Grades from previous versions of the game are read as silver, bronze and gold awards.
  
• The precision delta is unlocked by getting a gold in every non custom precision run. Platinums are not required and are there for those who want the extra challenge.
  
• Skip detection in precision runs is now disabled. Skips are required for the platinum times.
  
• Afterburner is now enabled. Use of it is required for the platinum times.
  

• Added continuous playback. This is enabled by default and can be toggled from the audio menu if you prefer the previous new song every race behaviour.
  

• The airbrake open sound is now muted when the ship is being controlled by an AI
  

• Added custom track support to precision runs
  
• Available resolutions are now written to the log file on launch
  

• All precision tracks updated with new bronze, silver, gold and platinum times
  
• Gave the precision tracks a slight visual and lighting update
  
• Animation scripts for custom tracks no longer update when the scripts object is disabled
  

• Updated the Precision Perfect achievement description to reflect the new medal system.
  

• Fixed the medal render on the precision run HUD not displaying
  
• Portals now render black. Because the game is configured to use a single camera for both eyes and because of optimizations in portal rendering, we only get access to the camera after the right eye is about to render, not giving us any opportunity to configure the portal for the left eye. This created the double vision that has been reported. For the time being we have disabled portal rendering in VR to save your eyes.
  

After just over half a year in the making, we're pleased to announce that the BallisticNG 1.2 update and the Outer Reaches expansion are now available!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi1BGUaRzb0

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1165070/BallisticNG__Outer_Reaches/

This update was originally planned to be 1.1.6 but because of the scale of changes to support Outer Reaches, we've decided to release this as 1.2 instead.

Important: read before starting the game
If you have been playing the 1.1.6 beta you don't need to worry about this. This is only for people coming straight from 1.1.5.

With 1.2 we've changed up the game's folder structure to better organise everything and rewrite the backend to make it more adaptable for future additions if we need it.

When you launch 1.2 for the first time do not have any files related to the game open anywhere, this includes viewing any folders. The game will migrate all of your data over to the new folder structure and it needs permissions from the operating system to do this.

On Windows, having the game installed on your C drive might result in a failed upgrade as your user account will not have permission to modify files on this drive without administrator permissions. If the game is installed on your C drive or you are unsure where it is installed, run the game as an administrator. To do this, follow these instructions:

• Open your Steam library, right click BallisticNG and go to properties
  
• Go the local files tab and click the browse local files button
  
• Right click BallisticNG.exe and click the Run as Administrator option
  

• Added Vonsnake - To The Cosmos
  
• Added Xpand - SpaceRaver
  
• Added Xpand - Eons
  
• Added Xpand - Telomere Extension
  
• Added Xpand - Partial
  
• Added Vonsnake - Caliburn
  
• Added Vonsnake - Out There
  
• Added Vonsnake - Orbitronix
  
• Added Vonsnake - Beyond
  
• Added Xpand - Lightspeed
  
• Remastered Wyvern, Nexus, Diavolt, Omnicom, G-Tek, Tenrai and Scorpio. For soundtrack DLC owners, you can find the original versions in the Legacy folder.
  
• Music introduced in expansions are now prefixed with the expansions now
  
• Fixed Shiftdelete - The Only Way Is Up not being streamed and causing a small frame hiccup when loading
  
• Shiftdelete - Worldwide is now the song played when returning to a lobby in multiiplayer
  

• Added option to set which eye will be drawn in the desktop game window
  

• Menu rewritten from scratch to be consolidated into a single list that's generated on the fly
  
• Settings that are not relevant to a gamemode are now hidden
  
• Gamemode specific settings are now saved
  
• All settings are now saved when backing out
  
• Racers and lap settings now show the result of their settings instead of the internal values that the game uses
  
• Added options to disable any weapon in the game. This list also acts as a readout of weapons that gamemodes disable
  
• Menu progression/regression is now handled by inputs only (mouse interactable buttons are still available at the bottom of the screen)
  

• Added the ability to set which gamemode a tournament will use. Currently only the race gamemode is supported.
  
• Every setting available in custom race in now available to tournaments
  

• Added option to control the screen shake intensity
  
• Added option to toggle muffled audio when in vacuums
  
• Added option to toggle custom track music overrides
  
• Added option to toggle cockpit audio filtering
  
• Added option to control the resolution of portals
  
• Added option to disable engine sound loading from soundpacks
  
• Added options to fine tune the camera distance
  
• Added depth buffer based lens flare occlusion. It defaults to on but can be turned off in the Graphics -> Effects menu. This option only works on Windows when using DX11. Linux/Mac and OpenGL are not supported as they don't support the compute shader features needed to read the data back.
  
• Renamed gameplay options to game
  
• Moved camera settings into their own sub category in the game options menu
  
• Reworked realtime ship reflections so the high option now uses a higher resolution instead of a higher refresh rate
  

• The server can decide whether code mods need to be disabled, can be enabled or whether all clients need the exact code mods they have installed running.
  
• If the server is running in host mods mode and you don't have the same setup, information on what you need to disable and what you need to install will be available in the game's console.
  

• Added controller navigation to the chat box and back
  
• Added ingame and lobby messages for when players join and leave
  
• Added sounds for the lobby start countdown
  
• The game's version number is now used instead of an internal multiplayer version. This now means everybody has to be running the exact same version of the game to play with each other.
  
• Skip detections are now broadcast to everyone
  
• Fixed the lobby chat in VR not being visible
  
• Fixed damage overflow on respawning ships
  
• Fixed the game trying to access a peer using the pper ID as an array index when retrieving a networked ship name, fixing performance drops when eliminating certain online players
  
• Fixed CSF ships being viewed in the ship turntable getting unloaded when a network peer changes ship
  
• Fixed desync with ship meshes in the lobby when peers disconnect
  
• Fixed tournament races not waiting for players to load before starting subsequent races
  
• Fixed a bug with rockets where finishing a race with them would have the AI fire them but not dispose them, causing more to be spawned until the game crashed
  
• Fixed a client softlock that would happen the race after a race where the host selected and played a track you don't have
  

• Added support for forcing floor hugger. Use FloorHugger="True" in the mode group in custom campaign XMLs
  
• The gamemode description box for campaign events is now scrollable if the description is too long
  
• The Neon Nights finalist hardcore cup is no longer hardcore
  
• Campaign progress can bow be saved when debugging is enabled
  
• Custom gamemode settings loaded from campaign XMLs are now reported to the console for debugging purposes
  
• Added a short description next to the campaign difficulty option to make it clearer what both options are doing
  
• Fixed the Barracuda time trial events still using a legacy hard multiplier
  
• Fixed a crash that happens on game exit if you view a custom campaign that points to a non existent video file
  

• Unity light objects are now disabled on track load. This should provide a performance boost on complicated tracks like Basin when using lower end hardware
  
• Reworked lighting on all tracks using the new vertex lightmapper
  
• Fully remade Marina Rush. The new layout is only ever so slightly shorter then the previous one, so all leaderboard scores have been left up since the top entries are possible to beat
  
• All tracks updated to fully support the new affine texture map setting
  
• Added AOOB flags and increased the jump zone force on the gravlift sections on Atlantica Reverse
  
• Added no anti skip volume to the final raised turn on Omega Harbour Reverse
  
• Omega Harbour's lower quality ocean now uses the BNG water shader
  
• The respawn areas on Hydrome Bed's drop turn are now less agressive and provide more wiggle room
  
• Luna's introduction intercom now uses the new processing used for the Outer Reaches tracks
  
• The texture maps used for the fancy oceans no longer have texture filtering
  
• Normals are now calculated for scenery floors that don't have any, fixing a major issue caused by Unity stripping normals on track builds (which is now disabled when using the latest Unity Tools build)
  
• The transform interpolator script now keeps track of the number of ships that have interacted with it so the animation doesn't play until all ships have left the collider
  
• Spawn tile discovery is now based on the user defined start line and not a hard coded section offset
  
• The spawn position now takes into account the section orientation (upside down maglock/floor hugger spawns are now possible)
  
• When using a standard ship with more then 8 contenders, each teams ship will now spawn side by side
  
• The Metro frontend mesh now only shows the routes you will take and not the entire track floor mesh
  
• Fixed 2280 pads on the start grid on Utah Project
  
• Fixed floating 2280 pad on Harpstone's jump
  
• Fixed anti-skip issue on Hydrome Bed
  
• Fixed a skip exploit on Arrivon Peak
  
• Fixed the train on Dover not being animated
  
• Fixed the palm trees on Atlantica Forward being disabled in survival
  

• Updated the terrain textures on Europa to make them more icy in appearance
  
• Europa's introduction intercom now uses the new processing used for the Outer Reaches tracks
  
• Updated Europa and Yala Outpost terrain material with new terrain shader features to blend the UV scale over a distance
  

• Added Rush Hour
  
• Added Team Race
  
• Speed lap will now respawn the player if they're eliminated (for damage zones)
  
• Tournament scores are now based on the amount of alive ships and not the total ships
  
• Ship places in tournaments now determine their position on the start grid for the next race (singleplayer only)
  
• Idle attract mode now uses a random ship, ship livery, ship livery scheme and track from all loaded content instead of just the base game content
  
• Fixed the idle attract mode using splitscreen if the previous race played was in splitscreen
  

• Added option to toggle between the afterburner, turbo pickup or both as the boost mechanic
  

• Added option to toggle between the afterburner, turbo pickup or both as the boost mechanic
  

• Survival now saves offline records
  
• Survival can now detect when the ship is spinning and begin heavily damaging it as an anti-cheat measure (for Port Ares and Kuiper Overturn)
  

• Double tapping the afterburner will now give you a boost when the spin finishes. Boost combat spinning will also increase your grip through the spin for better control when exiting it
  
• There is now a 200ms cooldown to the combat spin
  
• Added easing to the combat spin animation for an added sense of weight
  
• Ai can now combat spin
  
• Fixed combat spin not working for player 2
  
• Fixed players being able to combat spin in the results screen
  
  
• Ship collisions are now always disabled
  
• Increased difficulty in the higher AI levels
  
• Reduced the amount of points given for ship eliminations
  
• Doubled weapon impact scores so events are now shorter
  
• Ships must now hit another weapon pad before a previous weapon pad can be used again
  
• Speed pads are now disabled
  
• Removed hunter from the weapon roster
  

• A zone is now worth 20 shield instead of 10
  
• Increased shield time to 1.5 seconds
  

• Rewrote the random weapon system to have much better fallbacks in place in case a weapon can't be given, such as only allowing a weapon that might only be available in specific race positions
  
• Weapons are now inserted into the weighting table at random positions instead of sequentially to improve the random selection
  
• Projectiles can now respond to trigger behaviours such as teleporters
  
• Projectiles now slide non player ships to the side instead of pushing them upwards
  
• The shield will no longer auto deploy when another shield is already active
  
• Fixed an issue where AI didn't recognise themselves being near an energy wall and would always fire one
  
• Mines now spawn using the ships full 3D rotation
  
• Fixed the hellstorm reticule not aligning with the camera in certain situations like through loops
  
• The ship detection for the AI rocket logic now uses a sphere cast to accommodate for the rocket spread
  
• Ai now have a stop delay for the cannon fire, making their usage of it more player like
  
• AI can now fire missiles backwards in the expert, elite and hardcore difficulties if they can't get a forward lock
  
• Ai now have a separate usage timer not affected by the aggression stat, allowing them to hold weapons for longer in Eliminator and Team Race where the fire aggression is increased further beyond its base value
  
• Improved AI accuracy with the rockets, scaled by the AI difficulty level
  
• Destroying mines with weapons will now given you the points the owner would have recieved if you had collided with them
  
• Improved missile and hellstorm reliability on non flat track surfaces
  
• Missile and hellstorms now aim torwards their targets much faster
  
• Improved projectile lockon reliability
  
• Fixed mine lifetimes being framerate dependant
  
• Fixed score increments from mines being based on projectile impacts instead of ship impacts
  
• Fixed the plasma not increasing scores on impact
  

• Fixed cannons not counting towards the minesweeper stat and achievement
  
• Fixed fire rate being framerate dependant
  
• Now only updates the weapon information readout per fire (small optimization)
  
• When a ship has a damage stat of 0 the cannon fire rate will now default to the base fire rate
  

• Added advanced content selectors. Press the open leaderboard input bind when on the ship and track turntables to open it
  
• Added an onscreen keyboard to input fields when using a controller or when in VR. With an input field highlighted press menu submit to bring it up. Menu back, menu category left, menu category right, use pickup, drop pickup and pause will simulate you pressing space, left arrow, right arrow, backspace, caps lock and return respectively.
  
• Added the ability to edit ship stats in realtime using the F1 overlay when debugging mode is enabled
  
• Added controller input icons. This currently supports xbox and dualshock controllers
  
• You can now select the ship class and physics mod in the records menu
  
• The option menus are now automatically laid out and given automation, resolving any past and future issues with navigating through them
  
• The progress loading DLC is now shown
  
• The layout creator file browser can now back out to show all of the drives connected to the computer
  
• The lobby ship turntable now shows stats and the ship description
  
• The in-game leaderboards overlay will now download the top scores if you haven't set a score for surrounding scores to be based on
  
• Sliders now increment values faster over time when held
  
• Renamed back to cancel in the option menus
  
• Improved visuals of the code mods menu
  
• Bindings in the controls menu are now categorised for better readability
  
• Fixed the lobby ship turntable loosing the current content when a peer changes their ship
  
• Fixed seconds in the stats screen having 2 s's
  
• Fixed an issue where not having any custom ships installed would require a double tap to move past the last category of ships on the turntable
  
• Fixed the ship selection turntable using player 1's inputs for player 2
  
• Fixed the mouse having an influence on highlighted elements when it's not visible
  
• Fixed menus marked to not regress on menu back inputs being regressable when right clicking
  
• Fixed the code mods menu breaking when you back out, go back and the back out again
  
• Fixed the controls menu loosing selection focus when coming back in after a runtime generated element was selected
  
• Fixed various issues where UI elements would have the highlighted color stick when in-game
  
• Fixed various UI element issues where the highlighted color would stick when the game is paused
  

• Redesigned the speed lap HUD
  
• Updated the total time / lap time HUD design
  
• You now need to hold down the open leaderboard button to bring it up. An open progress bar is shown on screen as you hold the button down
  
• The notification buffer now uses the aldrich font, shows a kill feed and will scale down text if iti's too large to fit in the text area
  
• If you're using cheats or are in debugging mode the notification buffer will now let you know, in case you were wondering why stuff wasn't saving
  
• The position HUD element now updates every 100ms instead of every frame to stop the readout rapidly jumping about if you're rapidly trading places with another ship
  
• The race lap readout now keeps the perfect lap highlight updated for the active lap
  
• Improved the now plying display positioning so it can now show 2 lines without clipping and fixed the width so characters for longer names don't overflow off of the screen
  
• The notification overlay now cancels its animation coroutine and resets its alpha when disabled
  
• Improved positioning and scaling of the eliminator scoreboard, ship energy scoreboard and campaign awards panel
  
• Fixed the time looking at stats display not converting the milliseconds back to seconds when the stat overlay loads
  
• Fixed the ship energy overlays not flipping their position in mirror mode
  
• Fixed the race lap readout page switch being offset after 10 laps
  
• Fixed the wrong way notification showing in Eliminator
  

• Added a 2 second shield when ships respawning
  
• Added Outer Reaches liveries (unlocked by getting a gold or platinum in every Outer Reaches campaign event)
  
• Added a secret ship. We'll leave discovering the code to unlock this up to you ;)
  
• Added Orbitronix
  
• Added support for user variables (for use with the custom ship module system)
  
• Added a bounce response for front - front ship collisions
  
• All ships now have Neon Nights liveries
  
• The Barracuda Model 0 now has it's own unique cockpit
  
• Re-uv'd and retextured the Barracuda Model S
  
• Caliburn now has its own engine sound
  
• Added support for infinitely nested physics mod zones
  
• Steer sliding is now applied over time instead of instantly, adding some smoothness to the drift of ships so it doesn't abruptly cut in and out
  
• Steer tilting is now more visually coherent with how it would affect the ships rotation
  
• Floor hugger now allows full 360 pitching and no tilt zeroing when airbourne in zero-g
  
• The drag ship trails no longer turn blue when boosting and have been made shorter
  
• All ships have been updated to the newer engine effect backend and now have their own unique, thicker player trails
  
• Increased the width of the AI trails to match the width of the players
  
• The AI trail is now used when using the reverse camera in the legacy mode
  
• The controls and navigation lights are now hidden when in internal cameras and normal reverse cam mpde
  
• Moved hyperions contrails to the back side of the hull
  
• Updated Tenrais engine colors so they better match the teams primary color
  
• Secondary thrusters no fire when start boosting
  
• Updated drift ships with animated airbrakes, new engine effects, new engine sounds, reflection masks and lowered top speeds and altered handling
  
• Ship shadows now project onto scenery floors
  
• Updated the ship elimination animation and physics
  
• Updated the drag engine sound
  
• The rear chase camera no longer offsets itself based on the ships vertical distance to the track when in floor hugger
  
• Fixed ships refetching track normals and triangles every physics step when hovering over scenery floors (huge optimization)
  
• Fixed the survival ship trail remaining when using custom ships in Survival
  
• Fixed the scrape sound continuing to play if a ship is scraping when eliminated
  
• Fixed engine trail Uvs now updating if update colors is disabled
  
• Fixed ship effects being disabled when the camera switches to the race finished view and the player is in first person
  
  
• The INTERNAL_TEMPEST module is now depreciated an will be removed in a future update.
  
• Added updateColors, useBoostColors and useTurboSounds boolean variables to the drag module
  

• The AI grounding force now respects physics mod zones gravity settings
  
• The AI no longer have section wall avoidance when the side of the track they're on doesn't have a wall
  
• Improved the autopilots vertical movement
  
• Fixed the autopilot junction control not having its inputs mirrored in mirror mode
  

• Moved UserData folder to User. All of your data will be automatically transferred over. Make sure you have read the section on this above
  
• Outside of the campaign there is no longer a restriction on what content is available where. All standard ships can now be used on drag tracks and the drift ships can now be used everywhere.
  
• Added CRT filter option (Graphics -> Retro menu)
  
• Added -skipintro launch argument
  
• Added an option to control how custom menu music plays, similar to the soundtrack options (Audio -> Mods menu)
  
• Implemented a new settings backend to handle settings and preferences
  
• Implemented custom HUD support. Examples and documentation will be coming in the future
  
• Asset bundle loading for DLC and generating custom track caches is now asynchronous
  
• When splitting faces for virtual environments, the game now uses Unity's new 32-bit index buffer to allow the output mesh to have more vertices if needed
  
• Implemented affine texture mapping. This can be toggled from the Graphics -> Retro menu
  
• Implemented an uber shader to consolidate many shader types into a single source
  
• Custom content shader to internal shader translation is now handled with a database instead of having everything hard coded
  
• Depreciated the ingame ship importer
  
• Replaced the rich presence rank readout with a speed class /w speed modifiers readout
  
• Countdown displays are now rendered into the depth buffer
  
• Extra laps being a negative value now activates cheat mode
  
• The anti-skip system is now disabled for ships that are respawning
  
• Fixed Unity based skybox's not being disabled when using the ship render only mode in photo mode
  
• Fixed the skip detected sound playing for AI ships
  
• Fixed the machinima camera tool not functioning (accessed via console command)
  
• Fixed ship liveries for DLC campaigns not installed being unlocked when using the unlock all feature
  
• Fixed a major issue in position tracking that would affect the accuracy of positions on tracks like Dover Reverse
  
• Fixed the photos taken stat not being incremented
  

• Controller configs are now stored to an XML file
  
• Fixed only mapped inputs working for skipping the startup scenes and added mouse input support for skipping
  
• Fixed controller vibration not being stopped when the game pauses
  

• Added support for Steam Audio HRTF. You can enable it in the Audio -> Mixing menu (spatial audio)
  
• The track introduction voice is now played through the voices audio channel
  
• The intro FMV now respects the music channel volume
  
• Oneshot environment sounds are now processed by the audio source enumerator to ensure they have the right mixer channel assigned
  
• Removed the airbourne high pass filter from the music in 2280 (linux compatibility fix)
  
• The ship bump sound no longer plays for AI to AI collisions
  
• Optimized what sounds AI play to keep voice counts below the 64 ceiling against 16 AI
  
• Fixed the ambient audio culling not working on some tracks where the culling manager has empty object entries
  
• Fixed custom shield hit sounds not playing
  

• Made the background darker
  
• Added support for changing the per-node track shape interpolation method. A dropdown has been added to the node tools window to set this.
  
• Added camera orbit using the middle mouse button while there is an active selection. You can also use W and S to move towards and away from the selected nodes.
  
• Added teleporter node (press ; to toggle it)
  
• Fixed physics mod zones being wiped on undo/redo
  
• Fixed physics mod zones blocking selection inputs