Happy April 1st! If you celebrate the Day of Fools, then happy fooling. I however do not celebrate this holiday or very many others for that matter. So today I am releasing patch notes for what is probably the biggest and most complete change to the game in some time. For those who might be seeing this update as their first notification in a while, I am indeed back to working on the game alone and have decided that it really is better if I keep it this way for the most part. I will hire people to fill the gaps on an as needed basis. Additionally, I've decided to return to the original plan of gearing the project as a story driven live service type of game that players will only ever be required to pay 20 dollars for. No other fees or costs will be charged to you for this game throughout it's life span. However, I should make it clear that other titles are planned so this games content releases will eventually slow down before coming to a halt and shifting towards community created content. There is no doubt in my head that this can be done. In fact, it's not only been possible the entire past year but the system that I started building back in late 2020 is now more capable and robust than ever before. But you'll get to dive into it on your end if you go digging in the games files so for the time being, let's get into the patch notes. [previewyoutube=qT8c8_2EAic;full][/previewyoutube]

- Overhauled Flight/Combat System

The entire system for flight and combat, as well as many subsequent systems has been overhauled. Much of it from the ground up. The enemy fighter AI has been a key component of this. Capital ships not so much but there are some big changes planned for capital ships and their behavior in combat. The highlight of all of this, of which has also been the primary focus, was getting the cockpit instrumentation into an acceptable state. There is now an abundance of feedback coming from the cockpit instrumentation and if at first you feel a little overwhelmed, then I did my job. The original inspiration for the cockpits comes from Cold War fighter jets which are rich with instrumentation. But the audio cues you will recieve from that instrumentation will help ensure your eyes are not glued on it. [previewyoutube=opgGLfLf1ow;full][/previewyoutube]

- NPC Chatter and Character Dialogue

There is now a system to assign a voice to NPCs as they are spawned. The number of voices is extremely limited right now but will be expanded over time. If you're interested in participating you can join the Discord for more information.

- New Game Modes

There are now two new game modes available to play with more on the way. These new game modes are replayable missions that can be engaged with at any time and will help you net salvage points. Scavenge Missions - Find cargo crates hidden in various places throughout a level. Swarm Missions - Fight wave after wave of enemies on a level. (currently supports only 4 waves for testing purposes)

- Complete Rebalance of Weapons

Weapons have been completely rebalanced with cannons now doing the damage they should be doing. Additionally the weapon slots have been reorganized some. The internal weapons bay now supports a large number of missiles or rockets, ensuring you have plenty for each missions. However, a limitation on the light hardpoints, and heavy hardpoints has been imposed. Not only will they no longer reload outside of you landing to reload, but bombs will be relegated to heavy weapons only with smaller versions of bombs being mounted in larger quantities. [previewyoutube=ulNNnmludoA;full][/previewyoutube]

- The Story

I've been a fan of story driven games since I was young. In fact, a game without a story is quite difficult for me to enjoy. There's something about having an adventure that I love and have since my days of messing around with a certain role playing game maker software that was released in 2003. As such the entire story has been overhauled. This time the story is a bit closer to what I had in mind originally. I've done as much as I can to expand this new universe through text but you should know that I am planning to do animated shorts in the future and currently have some character work under way to make these shorts a reality.

- The Plan Moving Forward

It is my intention that Frontiers Reach will recieve regularly scheduled story driven missions as weekly updates. That was the original plan when I first started and it will be the plan I am to assume now. This will of course require some constraints to ensure it can be done without a lot of crazy load lifting, but I've done as much as possible to make my tools as flexible as possible so that I can do an array of interesting things. For those who may have concerns over this part of the game, I can assure you it is already working and that the biggest hurdle is actually coming up with content to script into the game. It is my hope that much of this content will be in the pipeline and/or in the engine waiting to be deployed ahead of schedule to allow for wiggle room if needed.

- Concluding Notes

I want to say thank you to everyone who has stuck with this thing through thick and thin. I know it probably hasn't always been good, and it probably hasn't always been something you like. But this is the risk developers take when making a game, especially when that game doesn't exactly fall into the mainstream appeal. So my metric for success has to be different out of necessity. And what is that metric? 1) Was the game completed? 2) Did the game evoke the experience that was intended? 3) Was new knowledge obtained? Those three, and especially the last one, are of greater value and importance to me right now than anything else. Without those three things right there, even if you get all the money you could ever want, you don't really have a game and no room for future growth.