The past few months of development have been spent almost exclusively on the game's UI. We've been pushing out builds along the way, so most of what's listed here has already been available for a while. If you're not in our Discord server, this will bring you up to date with all of the changes since Dev 4.

Playing on development builds

• 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-d51

Notices

Dedicated Server Changes

There have been a lot of backend changes for multiplayer in this release which changes variable names used in dedicated server CFG files and changes how the LUA API is used for for changing lobby data. See the updated example CFG, random lobby lua example script and LUA documentation txt for more details.

Menu Background Animation Options

Two options have been added to customize the background animations on the menu. Some people don't like the new flying ship animation or find the particles in particular are too distracting, so we've added options to customise this. You can turn the particles off, or swap back to always using the old turntable animation.

• Options -> Game Options -> Interface -> Always Use Turntable
• Options -> Game Options -> Interface -> Flying Ship Particles

BNGL Bundled

To coincide with the gallery update in this build, we've worked with Radracer to officially distribute a portion of their BallisticNG legacy project with the game! We've taken the mods which are relevant to the game's development history and packed them in a ZIP which you can find in the Additional Content folder where the game's installed. A readme is included with installation instructions. If you're a GOG user, we're currently working with them to have the ZIP added as a goodie. When uncompressed, the ZIP provides just over 700mb worth of old ships and tracks from the game's past for you to play around with!

The UI Overhaul

Dev 5 finishes up the majority of work on interfaces that we had started on with Dev 4. The changes here span across the entire game and a detailed breakdown about all of them would take a long time, so we'll touch upon the most significant changes since Dev 4.

Scaling & Padding

UI scaling and list padding can now be customized! The game starts at 100% scaling (the maximum) and 72% padding to make sure everybody can see the UI regardless of the screen they're playing on. Here's the custom race settings list at 60% scaling:

Multiplayer Lobby

The multiplayer lobby screen has seen a major layout change to accommodate for vertical navigation and to maintain more consistent scaling with other UIs. Information is now split into three tabs: players, config and chat. The player tab shows the player list with chosen ships and liveries. Name tags are now also shown above each ship in 3D so you can more easily identify who's who visually. The config tab shows the full lobby configuration, listed in the same order that the host sees in the configuration screen. If the host changes the settings while you're in this tab, a soft flash animation will play to let you know. The chat tab shows you the full chat log for the current menu session. When you're not in this tab, chat messages are posted to the center region of the screen for a brief time. This is called out of context chat and can be disabled in the options menu if you'd like to keep the chat hidden. Whenever the content of a tab changes, it'll flash green to let you know there's something new you haven't seen yet. Sending chat messages is now also activated with a button press instead of needing to navigate to a text entry field. Note that there's still a chat entry field that you can click into with a mouse. Sending a chat message will automatically move you into the chat tab.

Result Screens

The old result screens featured a lot of contrasting black and white in a very cramped space at the center of the screen. For this update we wanted to space things out a bit, using more of the available screen real-estate to give everything some breathing room. We've also added some details about the event you've just played at the bottom left. When you're in a tournament and still have tracks lined up, this is replaced with the next track preview.

Campaign Menu

The campaign menu is now split into three tabs: official campaigns, custom campaigns and precision runs. Our previous UI had an issue with too much information being displayed at once. It was actually so much that playing the game in 4:3 would push a fair chunk of that information off-screen. The new UI breaks information down into three pages that you can cylce between, allowing us to ensure that all of the information is readable and consistent in size with everything else regardless of the display aspect ratio.

Options Menu

New Design

A criticism we've frequently received over the years is that options are not logically laid out and that manual saving is a pain. The input options menu in particular has been a complete mess, arguably the worst in the game. We've added a lot of options over the years without changing much about the menu, so this has been an opportunity to redesign it from scratch. There are now two option menus instead of four. One for everything related to the game, and one for inputs. Everything in these menus has been re-organized into a much more suitable set of tabs which can be easily switched between. You can now also search for options! Quite a few options have also been given more descriptive names. With tooltips now also being moved into a permanent area on the side, we've updated a lot of them with more in-depth explanations.

Change Tracking

There is now only one way to leave the menu: pressing back. The game now tracks which options you change and now asks to save when backing out if you had made any changes. With this feature implemented, we also figured an optional change review UI would be a nice thing to have:

Updated Gallery

The gallery has been completely re-made from scratch, is much more rich in information and includes more history items. [expand type=spoiler]
[/expand]

Image Viewer

We now have a fullscreen image viewer for looking at concept art and getting a better look at the images provided in pages with descriptions. Any scanned sketches are inverted by default so we're not blinding you, however this can be disabled if you'd like to see the original images. Like so: [expand type=spoiler]
[/expand]

Full Changelog

General

• A portion of Radracers BallisticNG Legacy mod project is now available through official means. These are optional and need to be installed manually.
  • `Mods - BallisticNG Legacy.zip` is bundled with the game in the Additional Content folder
  • A readme with installation instructions and credits is included in the ZIP

User Interface

• Added input to select the search box in advanced content selectors
• Added support for right click back in advanced content selectors
• Added skip button to survival elimination sequence
• Added feedback sound when generating a random tournament
• Added option to open the game's folder in the modding menu
• Redesigned result screens
• Redesigned advanced content selectors
• Redesigned sound pack list menu
• Redesigned leaderboards menu and overlay HUD
  • Returning to the menu from a race started in the leaderboards menu now returns you to the leaderboards menu
• Redesigned code mod management interface
  • Any errors that were encountered during loading are now viewable per listed mod
  • Any mods that were added before launching the game are now marked as new
• Redesigned records menu
• Redesigned stats menu
• Redesigned achievements menu
• Remade gallery
  • Gallery content is now only loaded while in the gallery to reduce memory usage in the menu
  • Content history now includes post-release changes
  • Added more information, additional history tidbits and updated all images
  • Added ship and track concept drawings
  • Added a fullscreen image viewer
  • Added option to open additional content folder to install the bundled BNGL when present (Steam)
• Updated loading screen design
• Updated content loader design
• The right stick scrolling speed on a gamepad is now consistent
• Entries in track lists now scale text down instead of wrapping it onto new lines
• Entries in the selected tournament track list now scale text down instead of of wrapping it into new lines
• Updated award medal shader with rim and specular lighting
• Renamed labels for insert input bind displays to better describe what they're doing
• Input fields no longer open the onscreen keyboard while the mouse cursor is visible
• The special inputs for the onscreen keyboard are now displayed
• The onscreen keyboard can now be canceled out of
• List dialogs called from buttons which provide additional options to access sub-menus are now placed on the right hand side of the calling button
• Elements no longer play selection animations while a scroll rect is being left click dragged
• Content selector variant options are now vertically centered
• Content selector text can no longer wrap onto new lines and now shrinks when the length of text is too long
• The option slider arrow now scales down below 70% UI padding to keep it framed
• Fixed various issues with the handling of the Steam keyboard overlay
• Fixed track list selector overlay not stretching to fill the screen in non 16:9 aspect ratios
• Fixed the practice guide description background not filling the text area on first open
• Fixed typo in Speed lap gamemode description
• Fixed typo in Ship Viewer material settings header
• Fixed in-game menus not working if an advanced selector was open during the menu to track scene transition
• Fixed various issues related to the random button in advanced content selectors
• Fixed the advanced ship selector not allowing anything other then the Aster LB221 to be selected from the small vehicles category
• Fixed the scroll wheel and left click drag scrolling not working in the advanced content selectors
• Fixed issues relating to tooltips sometimes getting stuck on screen
• Fixed scroll rect jittering when scrolling the mouse wheel while left click dragging
• Fixed unstable scroll bar position in content selector menus when moving the mouse cursor very fast through them
• Fixed double sounds when switching categories in content selector menus
• Fixed content selector menu typewriter animations not playing when navigating back and forth between them

HUD

• Updated all HUDs with signed distance field text rendering
• Updated shield bar overlay design
• Updated name tag design and added maximum length before the font size is reduced instead of overflowing
• Updated lap and position designs
• Updated lap times design
• Updated player list design
• Updated speed lap design
• Updated score list design and added animation for when a score changes
• Updated shield energy list design
• Updated team score list design
• Updated campaign awards design

Gamemode

• Increased global drain rate in Rush Hour by 50% (faster pacing)
• The Rush Hour drain rate is now logarithmic instead of linear to prevent clumps of eliminations
• Increased minimum speed pad zone charge amount in Upsurge by 100% (faster pacing)
• Wall collisions no longer break chains in Stunt
• Increased Stunt combo chain time from 2.5 to 3 seconds
• Stunt now disables 2280
• Time trial now awards medals in custom race depending on the time difference when beating a previous record:
  • Setting first record: gold
  • Beating previous record by half a second: bronze
  • Beating previous record by 1 second: silver
  • Beating previous record by 2 seconds: gold
  • Beating previous record by 4 seconds: platinum
• Fixed total time being counted while the ship is eliminated in Survival
• Fixed eliminated and results screen opening when both players are eliminated in splitscreen
• Fixed numerous issues in Knockout
• Fixed Rush Hour not ending in splitscreen
• Fixed typo in Rush Hour description

Custom Race

• Added custom race presets. These save and load the entire state of the custom race menu
• Added clear tracks button to the tournaments menu
• The previous tournaments tracks are now preserved when entering the tournament menu
• Fixed speed class selector not refreshing the UI if the laps slider isn't present

Campaign

• The unlock screen now reports where the unlocked item can be found

Multiplayer

• Hunter is now available
• Added score differential to tournament results
• Ship scores are now synced (will be used in a later build)
• Lobby settings are now remembered across game sessions
• The lobby menu title now shows the player count
• Chat messages are now timestamped and no longer support rich text tags
• The lobby countdown is now stopped instead of frozen when the host goes into the options menu.
• Updated lobby interface design:
  • Options are now on the left with vertical navigation
  • Lobby information is now split into tabs on the right
  • The lobby config tab is structured like the custom race menu settings
  • The option for clients to vote is now only shown for dedicated servers
  • When the chat tab is not active, the latest messages will be briefly shown in the bottom center region of the screen (out of context chat)
• Updated connecting and error popup designs
• Unexpected disconnects while racing will now show an error when returning to the menu
• Servers now request configuration confirmation from clients. If a client doesn't receive the latest configuration data or can't apply it (missing gamemode) then they can't join races.
• The lobby settings button is now hidden while the start countdown is running
• Server settings are now merged into custom race settings
  • Configuration is now compressed and sent as INI data
  • Settings for the chosen gamemode are automatically synced without additional work required (code mods)
• New settings are available
  • Pause autopilot
  • Custom weapon pools
  • Ai speed
  • Gamemode (not yet changeable, will always be race for now)
• Fixed the pause autopilot conflicting with the pickup
• Fixed projectile spawn position prediction becoming increasingly inaccurate over the duration of races
• Fixed early end of race not triggering when bots are present

Dedicated Servers

• Updated example CFG with changes to variable names
• LUA: Updated example scripts with latest changes
• LUA: Lobby settings are now handled through Get() and Set(). See the API functions section of SvrScripts/Documentation.txt for more information

Weapons

• Increased Hunter slowdown
• Reduced Hunter pickup weighting from 45 to 12 (same as Tremor)
• Added 30 second cooldown between hunters being available in the weapon pool after one has impacted

Ships

• Fixed the right airbrake of 2159 Hyperion using the left airbrake's uvs
• Fixed raised airbrakes on 2159 Hyperion
• Fixed mipmapping on Barracuda Model S 2280 clean livery

Engine

• Additional components attached to an object with a PhysicsModZone script in custom tracks are no longer lost on track load
• The cockpit camera look and offset inertia is now based on the ships physics and is tuned for 2159 and 2280 individually
• The 2159 rear chase and 2280 rear chase camera FOVs no longer decrease below the base FOV setting when moving backwards
• Code mods that fail to load due to errors no longer cause a boot softlock
• Fixed controllers that have been unassigned from a player being assigned again on the next input settings load
• Fixed controller calibration issues when switching between the native Linux build and Windows builds through Proton.
  • When saving controls, calibration files for connected controllers will be replaced with an OS specific file.

Commands

• Added debug_logrcinterfaces. This logs all of the race settings in the game.
• Added svrapply. This must now be used after svrset to apply changes on the server and then send the updated ini configuration to clients
• svrset and svrget now use a new race settings backend for variable names and provide autocompletion

Options

• Added option to set UI padding between 60% and 100% (interface > menu > menu padding). Defaults to 72%
• Added option to set menu scaling between 60% and 100% (interface > menu > menu scaling). Defaults to 100%
• Added option to disable out of context chat in lobbies (interface > menu > out of context lobby chat)
• Added option to disable particles in the menu flying animation (interface > menu > flying ship particles)
• Added option to disable the menu flying animation and use the turntable instead (interface > always use turntable)
• Added option to toggle dynamic FOV for the 2159 rear chase and 2280 rear chase cameras (camera > 2159 rear chase > use dynamic fov and camera > 2280 rear chase > use dynamic fov)
• Added option to toggle cockpit camera inertia (camera > cockpit > cockpit inertia)
• Added option to set the cockpit camera tilt percent when using player tilt (camera > cockpit > cockpit player tilt ratio)
• Increased FOV option ranges to 40 - 170. FOVs set above 115 for cameras with dynamic fovs will lock the fov to the option
• Tooltips for camera FOV options now show the value converted into a horizontal FOV for the current display aspect ratio
• The VR cockpit camera mode options are now available outside of VR
• Redesigned options menu
  • Graphics, Audio and Game options are now in a single menu with a more logical set of tabs
  • Manual saving is removed. The menu keeps track of what you change and offers to save when backing out. You can also view a breakdown of all the changes you've made
  • Options can be searched
  • Holding a category navigation button and then pressing the other will open a selector list for the current tab, like with content selector menus
• Redesigned inputs menu
  • Player two now has navigation control in player two's menu when there's an available controller.
• Removed prefer options for VR. The game will now set the appropriate default options for VR when first creating the User\Config\Ini\config_vr.ini file
• Legacy options can be accessed on the main menu by entering debug_legacyoptionsaccess true in the command console.

Photo Mode

• Fixed background gradient behind input buttons not scaling correctly at lower menu interface scale percentages
• Fixed the back button working while moving the camera
• Fixed the FOV being reset when stepping the game

Music

• Added Vonsnake - Lance Systems

What's Next?

We'll now be shifting our focus onto some content with the 2280 ship cockpits and a 2280 track. Stay tuned!

[ 2024-12-30 19:10:50 CET ] [ Original post ]