Coming close to a year and a half in the making, 1.4s release on the default branch is rapidly approaching.

As our final major update, 1.4 is focused on reworking 2280, reworking the menus, making a magnitude of QOL changes and implementing long standing community requests. We'll still be working on minor additions, fixing bugs and working on DLCs, but the focus after our support cycle for 1.4 has concluded will be on a new project.



We had planned for our Dev 7 release (d62) to be the final development branch release for 1.4, but we really had an opportunity with this build number and we're taking it.

1.4 is now feature complete so we'll be spending the next 3 weeks on our final round of bug hunting. If you run into any issues or have feedback, please let us know!

• 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-d69

The Unity Tools package has been updated with this release. If you're making mods, you can view the changelog and download the package update here:
https://github.com/Neognosis-Workflow/BallisticNG-Unity-Tools/releases/tag/1.4


A common request we've received over the years has been for an official 2280 campaign. With 1.4 being heavily focused on 2280, it wouldn't be right if we didn't have a campaign for it.

AGL 2280 is a DLC sized campaign that covers the base game tracks in 2280 and is setup as a remix of the base game AGL campaign.

We've also added a 2280 practice / tutorial event with it's own pause menu guide, which you can find under the expansions header. With this, we've also updated the guide in the 2159 practice / tutorial event with new videos and a new page that explains wall collisions.

Manually installing mods provides the luxury of using folders to categorize installed content in the menu. If you're using the Steam workshop however, you haven't had this ability... until now.

On the menu, navigate to Modding -> Categories Editor. In this menu you can create categories for ships and tracks separately and then assign any custom content you want into them. Any changes you make will be applied immediately while the game's running.

Content will be moved out of its original category and into any categories that you've assigned it to.

Note that this tool can only be used for custom ships and tracks. The game's internal content can't be re-organised.

Game Options -> Interface -> Hud -> HUD Horizontal Margins

This option lets you control the horizontal margins of HUDs to center them more. This is particularly useful ii you're on an ultrawide display.

We've left the range of this option quite large to accommodate even the most super of ultrawide displays. Just note that the game won't stop you from pushing elements in far enough that they start to overlap, and if you really want to push how centered elements are then you will probably also want to turn the HUD scaling down.

This option also works in VR!

The upsurge gamemode has seen QOL improvements.

Barrier deployment now has a charge animation and sound which adds a drop delay and provides a brief window to react to other ships. AI now also has a global deployment cooldown which prevents them from creating large clusters of barriers immediately in the lower difficulties.

Absorbing now only consumes a single accumulated zone, allowing for more strategic use of recovering shield energy and activating shields.

Starting with Freyr Falls in the Maceno Island DLC, we had started paying more attention to the layout of track pads on reverse tracks to make sure they're in appropriate places and are fun to hit.

Almost every reverse track in the game and its DLCs have received a pad layout update. Note that the number of speed and weapon pads are the same, we've only moved them around.

We've also updated the pad layout for Thunderhead forward as it was a bit chaotic.

We've made a few optimizations to track section processing and custom track data conversion that has significantly sped up the loading of custom tracks. A typical custom track should now more or less match the load speed of internal tracks.

In our most extreme test case, a track with over 3000 sections has gone from 30+ seconds of load time to just 7, with most of that time now being Unity rendering the cubemaps for reflection probes along the track

• Added ShipsAutoBoostStart configuration setting. When enabled, all ships will automatically boost start.
  
• Replaced CanShieldRegen configuration setting with ShieldEnergyRegenRate. Setting this to anything other than zero will drain or replenish all ships shield energy at the provided % rate per second.

• Added deploy animation to barriers
  
• Added shared deployment cooldown to AI to prevent them from creating large clusters of barriers immediately in lower difficulties
  
• Absorbing now only consumes a single zone (allow more granular recovery of health and more strategic use of shields)
  
• Updated description to better explain mechanics
  
• Fixed start boost not triggering in 2280

• Fixed start boost not triggering in 2280

• Disabled distortion effect on plasma ball to improve visibility at a distance
  
• The number of mines left to deploy is now shown below the pickup icon
  
• Weapon absorb values are now shown below the pickup icon
  
• Fixed the mine deploy timer being reset if the pickup is used while deploying

• Added reflection mask to 2280 Barracuda Model S's virtual livery
  
• Made small optimizations to engine reflection rendering
  
• Reduced NX2000 frontend handling stat from 8 to 3
  
• Engine power is now reset to zero after the countdown if a start boost is not performed in 2280
  
• The speed pad FOV animation is now triggered when start boosting in 2280
  
• Fixed engine reflections not rendering in 2280
  
• Fixed hover jerk after the race starts in 2280

• Added back prompts to the ship and track content selectors
  
• Added option to change a campaigns display name in the campaign editor
  
• Added options to copy and paste campaign events in the campaign editor
  
• The custom track loading screen is now updated before scene processing begins
  
• The cheats disabled saving list is no longer shown in campaign events (campaigns can change config data which triggers this)
  
• The entire span of input glyph elements is now intractable with a mouse
  
• A notification is now shown at the top of the pause menu when code mods have disabled leaderboards
  
• Fixed the next track counter element in the results screen using the current tracks index instead of the next tracks index
  
• Fixed custom precision tracks being added to the track selector

• Leaderboards are now disabled in campaign events if gamemode configuration values are modified

• Added barriercharge.wav

• Added HUD Horizontal Margins option (Game Options -> Interface -> Hud -> HUD Horizontal Margins). Dropping this below 100% allows you to control how centered the HUD is on the screen. This can also be used in VR!

• Updated Cassandra Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Zephyr Ridge Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Surge Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Harpstone Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Aciknovae Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Zephyr Climb Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Nova Split Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Luna Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Dover Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Ishtar Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Omega Harbour Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Utah Project Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Marina Rush Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Atlantica Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Underpass Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Luijazui Park Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Pocono Circuit Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Arrivon Falls Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Meads Pass Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Pacheon Reverse pad layout
  
• Replaced mag lift on Luna Reverse with a maglock
  
• Replaced mag lift on Atlantica Reverse with a maglock
  
• Fixed push zone on Luna Forward jump pushing the ship slightly sideways

• Added intro lines to Basis Divide
  
• Added intro lines to Gullfoss Run
  
• Updated Yala Outpost Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Utah Dam Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Nova Park Reverse pad layout

• Updated Vega Square Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Route 05 Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Thunderhead & Thunderhead Reverse pad layouts
  
• Updated Basin Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Metro Reverse pad layout

• Updated Caldera Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Project 9 Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Haze Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Helios Ascent pad layout
  
• Updated Port Ares Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Kuiper Overturn Reverse pad layout

• Updated Maceno Bay Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Therma Fumos Reverse pad layout
  
• Updated Maceno Interchange Reverse pad layout

• Added AGL 2280 campaign
  
• Added 2280 practice / tutorial event under the expansions header. This contains a separate sandbox and guide to cover mechanics in the AGL 2280 campaign
  
• Added page for wall collisions in practice mode guide
  
• Updated all practice guide videos

• Hidden custom content is now shown when not referenced to as a variant or additional course (no hard dependencies)
  
• Optimized track dimension discovery and made it more accurate
  
• Optimized the conversion of track tile and section data when loading custom tracks
  
• Empty track data is now pre-cached and loaded as part of UGC load/refresh for use when loading custom tracks, significantly decreasing custom track load time
  
• Fixed track dimension discovery being less accurate through twisting track sections
  
• Fixed custom track loading errors not displaying the error in the console and then returning to the menu
  
• Fixed the additional laps option not being reset when launching a track through the online leaderboards menu

• Fixed debug_drawsections drawing section dimensions incorrectly

• Added category editor (Modding -> Categories Editor on the menu). This allows you to remap custom content into new categories on the fly, and is intended for use with workshop downloads.

• The names of tracks that aren't installed are now shown in the lobby track preview
  
• Fixed the tracks not installed message being sent whenever a client returns to the lobby menu from the options menu
  
• Fixed the config change flash animation playing if the config tab is open when returning to the lobby menu from the options menu. It will now only flash if the server changed settings while you were in the options menu.

• Added Vonsnake - Strike Swiftly

It's been more then a year since we started work on 1.4. To allow us to focus on releasing the most important aspects of the update, we're splitting out a few planned features into smaller releases that'll come after 1.4. Dev 7 is the final development build for 1.4 and our next announcement will be a release date!

Check out our roadmap for more details on what we'll be working on between now and 1.4s release, and throughout 1.4s support cycle (1.4.1 and 1.4.2).

• 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-d62

Gullfoss Run is the first of three 2280 tracks coming to the game. Although it's designed for 2280, you can also play it in 2159 and floorhugger!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymO62XJxsek

Leaderboards are now available for 2280! The physics mode is also no longer considered a cheat, so you can now also set local 2280 records.

We've also updated the API naming scheme for leaderboards, resetting them from 1.4-d62 onwards. As Steam has a limit to how many leaderboards we can have, we'll be removing leaderboards for 1.3 and versions before it once 1.4 has released.

As we had mentioned with the release of a previous development build, we've moved the NX2000 into the high-end ships category so the standard category has a much more balanced range of ships. As 1.4 is our last major update, we've decided this is the right time to clear out scores and start fresh.

We previously had support for DIscord rich presence, and we've now extended it to Steam and GOG Galaxy! We've also made some improvements to rich presence by allowing it to display the ship variant you're using, present campaign event information and let others know when you're in a lobby.

Steam and GOG Galaxy rich presence is enabled by default and can be disabled in the options menu (Game Options > General > Integrations) if you'd like to keep your in-game activity private.

• 2280 is no longer a cheat and can now be used to set local records

• Added 2280 leaderboards
  
• Added support for Steam and GOG Galaxy rich presence (enabled by default)
  
• Rich presence now shows the ship variant being used, campaign events being played and when you're in a multiplayer lobby
  
• Reset leaderboards for 1.4-d62 onwards. Older builds will have their leaderboards removed when 1.4 releases to ensure there's plenty of space available on Steams backend.
  
• Fixed Discord rich presence not reporting menu activity

• Settings that have disabled saving are now shown on the pause menu instead of logged to the console
  
• Merged 2159 and floorhugger records into a single physics mode option in the local records menu (not possible to set records for both so this improves UX)
  
• Fixed custom ships using the .ship and .shp file formats not being selectable when the selector is in a utility context (AI presets, ship viewer)
  
• Input actions being presented with button glyphs no longer trigger while the debug console is open

• Added Gullfoss Run (2280 category)

• Fixed Practice Makes Perfect achievement triggering a lap early

• Fixed Speed Freak - Luna Survival allowing a ship selection
  
• Fixed Aftermath - Relay Novice Race having weapons enabled

• Added options to toggle Steam and GOG Galaxy rich presence (Game Options > General > Integrations). These options only show when the relevant client is running.

• Added gm_setconfig. When in debug mode and in-game, this allows you to manually adjust configuration data for the active gamemode.

The past two months have been a busy few. We've added cockpits for all of the 2280 ships, continued to work on the new UI and along the way have had the game Steam Deck verified.

If you're playing on a Steam Deck, make sure you hop into the development branch for the best experience!

• 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-d60

Finishing off development of the 2280 ships, every 2280 ship now has a cockpit and are ready for VR. Thanks to community member Kabelsalat who helped design the majority of these!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80_kBnr0tVc

We've continued to work on the UI, addressing feedback from both the community and Valve through the Steam Deck verification process.

Input prompts now have a standardized position along the underside of the menus bottom bar. This frees up space in the menu which has allowed us to better balance UI layouts.


The campaign info pages are now presented as tabs, making it much easier to keep track of what you're looking at. These are also intractable with a mouse, allowing for much faster switching if you're clicking around at a desktop.



The game now reports controller events! Tying into the Input Improvements mentioned below, the following events are now reported to you at the top of the screen:

• Controller connected
  
• Controller disconnected
  
• Controller assigned to a player
  
• The player navigating the menu has changed

Two controllers can now be automatically assigned to players by default. This fixes a conflict issue on the Steam Deck between the built-in controller and any external controllers.

Unassigned controllers will now be automatically assigned to a player when pressing a button on them (this can be disabled in the Input Options menu). Controllers are assigned to the player who currently has menu navigation control.

Finally, splitscreen is now inaccessible until Player Two has a controller assigned. The game will let you pick a controller in the menu before navigating forward, using the same selection interface as the Input Options menu.


Note: enabling debug mode bypasses the player two controller check.

Controller data is now saved by device ID instead of a hardware ID.

The device ID is a way to uniquely identify a specific controller instead of just bundling everything under the controllers generic hardware ID, which finally allows two controllers of the same type to have unique binds and calibrations saved for them. Note that for Xbox controllers, the XInput player is the unique identifier, so binds and calibrations are stored and recalled in the order that the controllers are plugged in.

• Added G-Tek 2280 cockpit
  
• Added Wyvern 2280 cockpit
  
• Added Hyperion 2280 cockpit
  
• Added Scorpio 2280 cockpit
  
• Added Omnicom 2280 cockpit
  
• Added Diavolt 2280 cockpit
  
• Added Nexus 2280 cockpit
  
• Added Tenrai 2280 cockpit
  
• Added Caliburn 2280 cockpit
  
• Added 2280 Barracuda Model A, 2280 Barracuda Model B, 2280 Barracuda Model C and 2280 Barracuda Model 0 cockpit
  
• Added 2280 Barracuda Model S cockpit
  
• Added 2280 Orbitronix cockpit
  
• Added 2280 Protonic cockpit
  
• Added 2280 MTech cockpit
  
• Added 2280 Precision Delta cockpit
  
• Added NX3000 cockpit
  
• Increased camera height for the Barracuda Model B in 2280
  
• Fixed wobble when entering maglocks at an angle in 2280
  
• Fixed 2280 Barracuda Model S not being delectable from the Survival ship category before Rank 24

• Added Force Weapons option
  
• Added Weapon Pad Time option

• Added Force Weapons option
  
• Added Weapon Pad Time option

• Increased event details font size in the results screen (Steam Deck compatibility)
  
• Increased tooltip font size (Steam Deck compatibility)
  
• Increased font size in advanced selectors (Steam Deck compatibility)
  
• Increased font size of the details and description pages in the campaign menu (Steam Deck compatibility)
  
• Restructured practice mode guide descriptions to provide space for larger input glyphs (Steam Deck compatibility)
  
• Campaign event info pages now have a tab header which can now be interacted with using a mouse.
  
• Moved the game version text and expansion list to thee bottom edge of the screen
  
• Moved input bind displays below the menu's bottom content divider. Menus such as the campaign menu, multiplayer menu and option menu now take advantage of the additional space
  
• Device connect and disconnect events are now logged on screen
  
• Player two must now have a device assigned before entering menus for splitscreen. An overlay for assigning a device will now be displayed if no device is assigned. Enabling debug mode bypasses this
  
• Fixed softlock in options menu after switching from exclusive fullscreen to another screen mode if there's multiple refresh rates available
  
• Fixed incorrect values for refresh rate being reported in the options menu save review list
  
• Gamemode settings in the custom race menu and lobby config tab now use an adaptable grouping system to eliminate stray option listings
  
• The device assigned message is now shown after assigning a device to player two in the player count select menu
  
• A global message is now displayed when the player providing menu navigation control changes
  
• Fixed input binds not being assignable when there isn't an input already assigned

• Added option to toggle automatic device assignment (input options -> devices -> auto assign devices)
  
• Increased max value of frame limiter to 360fps
  
• Fixed Survival Palette option not saving

• 2280 angular velocity is now reset when teleporting to the start line on point to point tracks in Speed Lap

• Players can now have two devices automatically assigned to them (fix for Steam Deck compatibility - allow the built in controller to be assigned alongside an external controller by default)
  
• Automatic controller assignment is no longer evenly distributed. Player one will need to have two controllers assigned before player two receives any. Controllers can be assigned as needed in the input options menu.
  
• Pressing a button on an unassigned device now assigns it automatically to the player that currently has UI navigation control
  
• Decreased the cockpit camera near clipping plane distance
  
• Saved controller data is now identified by device ID instead of hardware ID. New config files with device specific IDs will replace the old files when input settings are saved.
  
  • The hardware ID is an identifier for a general make of controller and is shared between units. The device ID is a unique identifier for the specific unit.
    
  • There may be cases where a unique ID can't be determined based on the controller itself and the operating system. The hardware ID is still saved and can be used in case a unique device ID is unavailable.
• Controller settings are now saved on game exit (allow automatic assignments to be remembered and consistent across sessions without a user triggered save)
  
• Fixed known unassigned devices being auto assigned to players on the next game boot
  
• Fixed softlock when loading custom tracks with zero-g sections
  
• Fixed the 2280 chase camera being reset to the world origin for a single frame when being switched to
  
• Fixed controllers being unassigned when entering the input options menu if they had been automatically assigned when the game started
  
• Dedicated Server
  
• An attempt to determine if the terminal has a cursor is now made. If a cursor isn't found, the server is now ran in an output only mode.
  
• DedicatedServerExample.cfg updated with default setting entries for ForceWeapons and WeaponPadTime

• Fixed precision run entries not being visible unless the previous run had an associated save file

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.

• 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

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.

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

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!

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.

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:


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.


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.


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.


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.



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:



The gallery has been completely re-made from scratch, is much more rich in information and includes more history items.

[expand type=spoiler]

[/expand]
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]

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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.

• 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

• 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.

• 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

• Added Vonsnake - Lance Systems

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

With 1.4 being our last major feature update, we want to make sure that we're leaving the game in the best possible state that it can be in. The user interface is an area of the game that's needed some love for a very long time, and we're now giving it the attention it needs.

We haven't finished every interface yet and will be completing them in a future development build. The interfaces we still need to update are:

• Campaign, campaign editor and precision runs.
  
• Multiplayer lobby.
  
• Multiplayer connecting popups.
  
• Options.
  
• Records, stats, achievements.
  
• Result screens.
  
• Code mods management.
  
• Gallery.
  
• HUDS (text rendering update, minor aesthetic tweaks).
  
• Probably some other Uis somewhere (we have a lot).

• 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-d35

• UI preset locations have been changed and the game won't automatically move them. If you've been using presets for custom AI rosters or multiplayer lobbies, you'll want to move the following folders:
  
  • User > Config > Ini > Ai Presets, to User > Config > Presets > Ai Rosters
    
  • User > Confg > Ini > Lobby Presets to User > Config > Presets > Lobby Settings

The Unity Tools have been updated with this release. Click here to view the changelog and download the latest package.

The UI element style that we debuted with the content selectors in 1.4 Dev 3 is now being rolled out across the entire game.

The main menu has been reorganized with fewer options being displayed immediately. What we consider important options are at the forefront of this new menu, then everything else that was previously available on the start page can be found a layer deeper.

We've also introduced a new style to the menus 3d rendering. When you're not in the track selector, ship selector or in a multiplayer lobby, you'll now be looking at this animation inspired by the game's cover art:

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

Navigation through all currently updated menus is now vertical only. Horizontal inputs are reserved for changing options.

Combined with menus now resetting their selection to the first option when you navigate forward into them, we hope this will help with forming more consistent muscle memory for quickly breezing through interfaces to get into the game.

Every text element in the game is being updated to Unity's TextMeshPro component, which uses SDF rendering to keep fonts sharp at any resolution. This not only has a benefit for people playing at higher resolutions like 4k, but it also improves readability at really low resolutions too.

Here's a look at what this actually means. The top is using the old text renderer, the bottom is using the new text renderer.



Tournament track setup has seen some major changes. You'll now be presented with a menu where you can freely insert, move and delete tracks.

With this build we've also finally implemented a long requested feature: tournament presets!
Also worth noting, custom weapon pools in custom races now have support for presets too, and we plan to add presets for the entire custom race menu.



Other then the updated UI, there have also been a few other updates to Photo mode.

The FOV can now go as low as 1 degree and as high as 179 degrees. 1 degree can be useful, like the image below, and 179 is basically useless but it's also funny to have.



You can now enable a thirds grid to help with shot composition!

• Added keyboard input icons.
  
• Updated controller input icons with more consistent dimensions and a new design for improved readability.
  
• Updated main menu background with an animation inspired by the game's cover art.
  
• The main menu title on the menu now changes to provide context of the menu / overlay currently opened.
  
• Cheats & Secrets elements now update immediately after activating Unlock All.
  
• Redesigned most pages on the main menu. More updates coming in future builds.
  
• Redesigned first startup and VR welcome overlays.
  
• Redesigned update profile overlay.
  
• Redesigned the pause menu.
  
• Redesigned the practice mode introduction popup and pause menu guide. All guide entries have also been rewritten.
  
• Redesigned the credits interface.
  
• Redesigned the data selection elements. These do not automatically replace the old elements, and are being deployed to new interfaces only.
  
  • Clicking a values text area now opens dialogs for faster input interactions with keyboard and mouse.
    
  • Selectors now always wrap. With two options, mouse clicking the value text acts as a toggle. With three or more, a full list will show.
    
  • Sliders show a preview for how the mouse will change the value. Dragging the slider no longer allows scroll rects to follow mouse movement. Mouse clicking the value text opens a text field to manually enter a value, which is rounded to the relevant step size as you're typing.
    
  • Text inputs now require menu submit to be pressed before typing (clicking / tapping will also work). Data type validation is also now supported.
• When ending a session from the pause menu in Survival and Speed Lap, an explanation of what ending the session does is displayed in the confirmation dialog.
  
• Menus now have a brief fade in animation. This is being rolled out to interfaces as they're updated and is replacing the sequenced element toggle animation.
  
• Main menu meshes are now toggled based on the current context (noticeable in VR)
  
• The first item of a menu list will now always be selected when navigating forwards on redesigned menus.
  
• Tooltips redesigned, are more consistently positioned and no longer open while the left mouse button is held (sliders).
  
• Autoscrolling scroll rects now center the scroll position to all elements correctly and can now handle centred content alignment.
  
• The ship selector will now show standard ships if the only available ship category is custom ships while no custom ships are loaded.
  
• Right click back now works on the update profile interface.
  
• Fixed the resume button not being highlighted when opening the pause menu more then once.
  
• Fixed the ship selector showing nothing if custom campaigns that only allow custom ships are used.
  
• Fixed startup epilepsy notice automatically skipping too fast.
  
• Fixed startup epilepsy notice not DPI scaling.
  
• Fixed fallback input bind text being used if no input is pressed before reaching the menu.

• Added weapon damage multiplier option.
  
• Added collision damage multiplier option.
  
• Added AI speed multiplier option.
  
• Added speed pads option.
  
• Added support for custom weapon pool presets.
  
• Added support for tournament track list presets.
  
• Redesigned the interface.
  
• Difficulty renamed to Ai Difficulty.

• Added weapon damage multiplier option.
  
• Added collision damage multiplier option.
  
• Added speed pads option.
  
• In-game host menu settings are now saved and recalled.
  
• In-game configuration of max players can now be set freely between 2 and 16.
  
• The IP list now saves as a json file (User > Cache > Interface > IpList.json). The previously used .bin file will be converted automatically.
  
• Fixed 2280 Model B and 2280 Model C always showing default liveries for peers.

• Added an exit confirmation.
  
• Added thirds grid option to the camera tab.
  
• Redesigned the interface.
  
• Exiting is now handled with the menu back and pause inputs.
  
• Effects are now automatically toggled based on their settings.
  
• The cursor is now left hidden when exiting move mode if it was hidden before entering it.
  
• The FOV can now be set between 1 and 179 degrees.
  
• Fixed cursor being visible when using move mode with a mouse.
  
• Fixed 240p output resolution using the wrong width.

• Fixed typo in Arrivon XI's location name.
  
• Fixed speed pad wall tile on Maceno Interchange Reverse.

• Disabled mipmapping on 2280 Barracuda Model S stealth texture.
  
• Fixed typo on 2280 Tenrai gold livery.
  
• Fixed typo in Scorplet frontend description.
  
• Fixed black spot on 2280 MTech's Outer Reaches livery.
  
• Fixed incorrectly rotated logo on 2280 Hyperion Alt livery.

• To prevent an exploit, continuously scraping walls now inflicts collision damage in 2280 Survival.

• Fixed typo in an Outer Reaches campaign event name.

• Now accessed through the campaign menu. In a future update these will be a tab instead of a sub menu accessed through a button.

• Increased absorb shield replenish values by 2 (epack excluded).

• Ships now correctly rotate to face the direction of gravity when falling.

• Added no anti-skip volume to Project 9's hairpin.
  
• Fixed ships being thrown into the hole before the Nova Park hologram on Nova Split in 2280 Survival.
  
• Fixed ships sharply nose diving off of the Zephyr Climb jumps in 2280 Survival.
  
• Fixed ships hugging the start grid station roof on Luna in 2280 Survival.

• Respawning ships now have their collision mesh set to a trigger instead of being disabled, allowing trigger enter/exit events to run.
  
• Moved AI roster presets from User/Config/Ini/Ai Presets to User/Config/Presets/Ai Rosters.
  
• Moved lobby presets from User/Config/Ini/Lobby Presets to User/Config/Presets/Lobby Settings.

• Added debug_respawn to manually trigger a ship respawn.

• Fixed arcade mode introduction music continuing to play after the race has started in splitscreen.

• Redesigned the interface.

It's been half a year since our last development branch update. We've been busy, let's get into what's we've been working on.

Our previous build focused on setting the foundations for the rewritten 2280 physics mode. In this build we've not only continued to polish it, but have broken its mechanics out into general options that can be used anywhere. On top of this, we're also introducing 2280 variants for almost every ship in the game!

• 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-d28

• How you barrel roll has changed in this update to tapping the thrust button. We had previously implemented the Roll On Thrust Tap option which was disabled by default, but have now expanded it into a general Barrel Roll Input option, with thrust tap as the default value. If you prefer the original way of barrel rolling or want both methods active, you can do so with this option in the controls menu.
  
• The new selector menus make use of new input bindings. If you're using a supported controller (you didn't have to bind inputs after installing the game) then these new bindings will be setup automatically, otherwise you'll need to head to the inputs menu to bind them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H70c0Hk-VTQ
The biggest addition coming with this update are the 2280 ships. Several months in the making, these are variants of a majority of the game's ships with the full suite of liveries. They currently don't have cockpits and we'll be adding these in future updates.

A huge thanks to community members Brobama, Kabelsalat, MrX, Nathancubed and Vista for their hard work in helping design and develop these ships! A new section has been added to the game's credits which lists all of the contributions to this project.

The 2280 ships are statistically identical to their 2159 counterparts and can be used anywhere. Yes, this includes being able to use them in the campaign! Although designed to best fit with 2280, they can be used in any physics mode.

2280 ships use a newly added variant system, which allows you to select the ship through the menu entries for the 2159 ships. More information about both the variant system and the new selection menus are below.

The new variant system reduces a lot of clutter that has started to build over the years. Also available to modders, variants allow us to combine multiple options into one entry in the menus. For ships this means allowing the selection of multiple prefabs from a single menu entry, and for tracks this is forward/reverse and course selections.

Our internal use of this system is a bit more strict then what modders can use it for. The system allows you to pull in any installed content (except built in ships for custom ships) so you can create content that acts as it's own self contained category, providing any variant dependencies are also installed.

To properly support the selection of 2280 ships we've redesigned the ship selection menu and taken the oppertunity to fix many long standing issues with the previous turntable design. We've also copied this design over to the track selector to streamline everything.

• Ship and tracks are now shown in vertical lists.
  
• Horizontal inputs now switch liveries for ships and switch between forward and reverse versions of tracks.
  
• Holding one of the category inputs and then pressing the other will list all content categories. This is useful for very quickly navigating to a content category if you have lots of mods installed.
  
• New inputs for variant selection have been added. For ships this will switch between the 2159 and 2280 ships. For tracks this will switch between courses, which is currently only used by Pines Complex.
  
• For custom content, the variant selection may be different depending on how mod authors configure their content.

2280 is now just a physics mode. It does have sideshifting as an integral mechanic, but everything else has been broken out into togglable game mechanics which can be configured by gamemodes, campaigns, in custom races and in multiplayer.

Out of the box 2280 is now, for the most part, mechanically identical to 2159. Pitlanes, afterburner, no barrel rolling and rescue droid respawns are the default settings, and of course as part of these changes mechanics like absorbing can now be used in 2159 if desired.

Time trial in 2280 now also uses pitlanes and afterburners. If barrel rolls are enabled then leaderboards will be disabled. This will be important for later when we have 2280 tracks where you can actually post times in the physics mode.

All ships now have manually set steering stats to refine how all of the ships feel, 2159 ships have been updated with new camera and steer tilting stats to give them a different flavour, and a few ships have had larger changes to general handling to drastically improve them from the setup in Dev 2.

Sideshifts have been toned down and will no longer slam you into walls.

The ship stats for 2280 have some new additions!

• Sideshift Strength allows control over how strong sideshifts are. This is for both 2159 and 2280.
  
• Ratio based airbrake grip has been introduced. This automatically calculates the airbrakes grip based on the ships regular grounded grip which keeps it consistent across all 5 speedclasses. The old static grip stat setup can however still be used as it has some benefits for driftier ships.

We've rewritten how we calcuale torque for maglocks so ships now correctly rotate to them. This also fixes an issue where the chase camera would vertically lock behind the ship.

The chase camera has been updated with some fixes so orbit angles are now correctly calculated, which results in a snappier camera at extreme angles. We've also swapped the order of rotation so it orbits vertically before horizontally, which fixes an issue where the camera would vertically lock if there was some horizontal movement.

Ai now have 2280 specific tunings that help them navigate more cleanly in the physics mode. Beforehand they would be constantly slowed down by exceeding ship handling capabiltiies, so many tweaks to prevent this from happening have been made.

Several tracks have been updated with 2280 exclusive physics zone to make them play nicer in the mode. These are a mixture of helping the ship orientate with the track while in the air and applying springs to keep the ship lower to the floor over problematic jumps. See the full changelog below for the list of tracks that have been updated.

When playtesting the 2280 AI changes we ran into some general issues with the difficulty of the drag content and have made some tweaks to improve it. These tweaks are:

• Removed the acceleration reduction when Drag mode is enabled so you can catch back up faster
  
• Dropped the number of additional laps on drag tracks. The max is now 10 on Zen instead of 15.
  
• Tweaked the Model B stats so it's much more stable in Drag speeds.

BallisticNG has had AI flares that clip for a while now. It's been mostly okay since the ship designs don't make it completely egregious, but some of the new 2280 ships started to show the cracks in the previous setup.

We've updated the AI flare shader so flares stay on top correctly, and it now provides some additional functionality which has allowed us to setup flares on ships with flame engines too. The AI flare can now also be overriden, which gives custom ship authors some new toys to play with!



We've also been busy adding new modding features and improving the game's Unity's Tools package.

The changelog and latest version can be downloaded from here.

Note: These inputs will only be bound if you're using a supported controller. If you had to manually bind inputs for your controller, you'll need to manually bind these too

• Added Menu Previous Variant and Menu Next Variant input binds. (Defaults to shoulder buttons on gamepads, Q/E on keyboard)
  
• Added Open Advanced Selector input bind. (Defaults to Select/Share/Options button on controllers, Tab on keyboard)

Livery templates are available for the 2280 ships! You can find them in the Modding > Livery Templates > 2280 folder.

• Added 2280 G-Tek
  
• Added 2280 Wyvern
  
• Added 2280 Hyperion
  
• Added 2280 Scorpio
  
• Added 2280 Omnicom
  
• Added 2280 Diavolt
  
• Added 2280 Nexus
  
• Added 2280 Tenrai
  
• Added 2280 Caliburn
  
• Added 2280 Protonic
  
• Added 2280 NX2000
  
• Added 2280 MTech
  
• Added 2280 Orbitronix
  
• Added 2280 Mako
  
• Added 2280 Lance Systems (precision delta)
  
• Added 2280 Barracuda Model A
  
• Added 2280 Barracuda Model B
  
• Added 2280 Barracuda Model C
  
• Added 2280 Barracuda Model S
  
• Added 2280 Barracuda Model 0
  
• Added support for custom ship variants. If somebody is using a variant you don't have in multiplayer, it will default to the base version of the ship.
  
• Decreased sideshifting strength and exposed it as a ship stat
  
• Custom ship tilt stats are now used in Survival
  
• Boosted the color intensity of various ship flares to make the visual connect between flare and trail more seamless
  
• The INTERNAL_DRAG module now accepts a zeroPowerColor userdata color variable. Providing this lets you set a custom engine color when the engine power is at zero.
  
• The INTERNAL_DRAG module now accepts a customBaseColor userdata color variable. Providing this will override the engine color set in the ship prefab.
  
• The INTERNAL_DRAG module now accepts a customBoostColor userdata color variable. Providing this will override the engine boost color if useBoostColors is also set to true.
  
• Updated 2159 ships with new 2280 camera and tilt stats
  
• Decreased the default 2280 chase camera far spring values from 11 to 10.
  
• Fixed custom liveries not loading for secret ships
  
• All ships, excluding Protonic and Barracuda Model C for airbrake grip, updated with manually set 2280 turn stats and ratio based airbrake grip
  
• Removed the acceleration stat decrease in drag mode

• Removed 3d pads from tracks that implemented them for 2280 overrides.
  
• Dropped the extra laps count on drag tracks to 5 (from 10)
  
• Shader replacement is now applied to all types of renderers on custom track load
  
• Fixed custom tracks containing mesh renderers with missing materials softlocking the game during track load
  
• Updated several tracks with 2280 exclusive physics zones to improve 2280 playability:
  
  • Cassandra Forward
    
  • Zephyr Ridge Reverse
    
  • Luna Forward
    
  • Luna Reverse
    
  • Ishtar Citadel Forward
    
  • Ishtar Citadel Reverse
    
  • Arrivon XI Reverse
    
  • Omega Harbour Forward
    
  • Omega Harbour Reverse
    
  • Utah Project Forward
    
  • Utah Project Reverse
    
  • Atlantica
    
  • Atlantica Reverse
    
  • Hydrome Bed
    
  • Arrivon Peak
    
  • Atacama Forward
    
  • Atacama Reverse
    
  • Alice Mountain Forward
    
  • Alice Mountain Reverse
    
  • Maria Tide Forward
    
  • Maria Tide Reverse
    
  • Vespera Heights Forward
    
  • Vespera Heights Reverse
    
  • Therma Fumos Forward
    
  • Therma Fumos Reverse
    
  • Freyr Falls Forward
    
  • Freyr Falls Reverse
    
  • Alto Overseer Reverse
    
  • Maceno Peak Forward
    
  • Maceno Peak Reverse
    
  • Vega Square Reverse
    
  • Thunderhead Reverse
  2280
  • Added an acceleration look offset when using the afterburner to the chase camera. This can be toggled using the camera's accel mod option.
    
  • 2280 now overrides floorhugger on floorhugger tracks, converting the track into silent maglocks.
    
  • Weapon absorption is no longer exclusive to 2280 and is now disabled by default
    
  • Instant track recovery is no longer exclusive to 2280 and is now disabled by default
    
  • Afterburner and pitlanes are now available in 2280 and are enabled by default
    
  • Barrel rolls are no longer enabled by default and are now marked as a cheat when enabled
    
  • Smoothed the grounder force in Survival
    
  • Airbrake grip is now reduced in Toxic and Apex
    
  • Airbrake grip is now the same as regular grip in Survival
    
  • Decreased airbrake grip spring speeds
    
  • Decreased turn falloff spring
    
  • Airbrake air resistence gain is now scaled with the ships drift
    
  • Swapped the order of rotation for the chase camera to fix vertical movement locks
    
  • Track pads are no longer updated to 3d pads automatically. 3D pads will still however be used if present in a scene. If Allow Mixed Pads is enabled for the track, both types of pads will now be enabled like with 2159 / floorhugger.
    
  • Fixed an issue with maglock physics which caused the chase camera to become rigid
    
  • Fixed a missing calculation when determining the chase camera angle for applying the spring. The camera will now feel more responsive as it reaches more extreme angles, and will also feel a bit smoother.
    
  • Fixed chase camera look offset snapping through teleporters
  Custom Race
  • Added option to toggle instant track recovery
    
  • Added option to select shield recovery mechanic (none, pitlane, weapon absorb or mixed)
    
  • Gamemode specific settings now have a dedicated header. The first section is now labeled general settings.
  Campaign
  • Added support for forcing AI and Player ship variants
  Multiplayer
  • Added option to toggle instant track recovery
    
  • Added option to select shield recovery mechanic (none, pitlane, weapon absorb or mixed)
    
  • Added ShieldRecovery and InstantTrackRecovery CFG options for dedicated servers
  Pickups
  • Absorbing pickups now plays the emergency pack use sound
    
  • Every weapon now has their own absorb values. These values are documented below.
    
  • Turbos are no longer inherently enabled in 2280
    
  • E-Packs are no longer disabled in 2280
  Pickup Absorb Stats
  These stat changes are intended to make pickup absorbing a more strategic mechanic where you need to balance being able to engage in combat and recovering shield energy. These stats are open for suggestions, please let us know what you think!
  
  
  Pickup

  Absorb Shield %

  Rockets

  6

  Mines

  6

  Plasma

  8

  Energy Wall

  10

  Cannons

  6 (reduces based on number of bullets left)

  Shield

  8

  Autopilot

  8 (0 if absorbed after being started)

  EPack

  25 (same as using it)

  Temor

  8

  Turbo

  10

  Hunter

  8

  Hellstorm

  5
  Engine
  • Added support for ship variants. These allow internal ships to be setup with multiple prefabs that can be switched between on the menu. Custom liveries are supported. Create a new folder for the base ship and append an underscore followed by the variants name you see on the menu.
    
  • Added support for track variant and courses definitions
    
  • Custom track cache information is now loaded into track entries using their file path instead of their display name (fixes information not being populated in cases where two separate track files share a display name).
    
  • Custom track cache information is now unloaded when the track it's linked to is unloaded
    
  • Virtual environment triangle splitting is now disabled for objects with static batching enabled
    
  • Fixed empty workshop categories being created when UGC is loaded without Steam running
    
  • Improved AI flares being clipped by the ship
    
  • Renamed Barracuda leaderboards to Highend. This triggers an immediate leaderboard reset for this category in this build onwards, and also impacts local records. A full serverside reset on Steam and GOG will be coming with the final release of 1.4.
    
  • UGC categories are now created at the end of content loading instead of during it. This helps fix some issues with content reloading where moving files around could previously cause categories to mess up.
    
  • UGC categories, and their contents, are now alphabetically organized to keep the result of content reloading consistent with a fresh boot.
    
  • Updated the games executable icon to the AGL logo
    
  • Fixed numerous ship sound issues when unpausing the game
  Options
  • Replaced Roll On Thrust Tap with Barrel Roll Input. This can be switched between Thrust Tap, Steer Wiggle or Both. The default value is Thrust Tap.
    
  • Removed Stunt Steer Roll option. This now respects the Barrel Roll Input option.
• Disabled maglock before the start grid on Basin Reverse (2280 fix)

• Added support for the new track variant and courses system to the the advanced track selector
  
• Reimplemented ship selection interface with a list design which supports ship variants.
  
  • Ship stats are now displayed as a segment meter for better visual feedback
    
  • Custom ships now have dedicated categories, instead of folders inside of a single category
    
  • The Barracuda livery scheme selection is now a separate selection stage after you pick the main livery
    
  • Holding a category navigation button down and then pressing the opposite category navigation button will open a list to select from. This can also be opened by clicking the category name.
• Changing track / ship in splitscreen now opens the ship selector and lets both players change their selection
  
• Pressing back in the ship selector when using the in-game change track / ship option will now back into the track selector
  
• Renamed Model B track category to Drag (parity with ship category name)
  
• Renamed Model C track category to Drift (parity with ship category name)
  
• Renamed select track / ship buttons to select content
  
• Updated all instances of "select track" and "next track" buttons with the full select content setup.
  
• Reordered the menu order of standard ships:
  
  • Standard teams -> DLC ships -> Prototypes -> High-end -> Extras
• The menu ship is now reloaded after refreshing content
  
• Fixed elements replaying animations if clicking spaces without selectable UI elements
  
• Fixed leaderboards breaking when downloading scores set with the Barracuda Model B or Barracuda Model C from before the ship merge (1.3.3 regression).

• Fixed custom ship selections being lost in Survival when restarting without selecting new content
  
• Fixed tap to roll inputs not contributing to the Stunt input cooldown
  
• The Survival results screen now respects the selected speed measurement option.

• Added 2280boost sound. This is now used as the 2280 speed pad boost sound, which has also been updated.

• Added Vonsnake - Always On Target
  
• Added Xpand - Rush

• Added additional slowdown to AI steering when exceeding toxic drag speeds
  
• With pickup absorption enabled, AI will now absorb pickups when below 25% shield energy and when dropping/firing weapons that they haven't used if below 75% shield energy
  
• Tweaked AI behaviors in 2280 to better balance them for the handling model
  
• AI racing line skill is now reduced when an AI exceeds the ships steering ability while not airbraking.
  
• Fixed AI piloting skill being affected by the number of spawned ships on drift tracks

• Added option to toggle barrel rolls
  
• The ship option now uses the ship selector instead of a dropdown list
  
• OBJs exported from the layout creator will now always use decimals for numbers instead of the character determined by the computers current language

• Added mod_openliverydir. This will open the custom liveries directory for the currently loaded player ship
  
• Added debug_scenename. This logs the name of the currently open Unity scene.
  
• Added info_generatetimetrialtargets. This generates a time trial report with campaign values for gold, silver and bronze targets.

• Fixed programatically generated results screen not displaying (Stunt, code mods)

• Added variant name to the peer inspector window
  
• Added track variant and course information to the content explorer window
  
• Added search to the content explorer window. For tracks, the search can be setup to match against display name, scene name and frontend name override.

• Updated with 2280 ship development credits
  
• Fixed credits returning to the menu when holding down the speed up button

Hey everyone! It's been a while since our last update on the development branch, and it's still going to be a while longer, so we want to give everybody an update on what we've been working on.

Please note that we currently don't have an ETA on when we'll be dropping 1.4 Dev 3, there's still plenty of work to be done.

The majority of work these past few months has been on a roster of 2280 ships. With the help of community members Brobama, Kabelsalat, MrX, Nathancubed and Vista, we've been hard at work giving each team a new ship that better suites the 2280 physics mode!

These ships are only cosmetic changes and do not alter physics stats. We're also not limiting where they can be used. Not only can they be used in 2159 and floorhugger, but you'll also be able to select them in the campaign!

Each ship will have the full livery set, including expansion DLCs and Bling Pack liveries. We'll also be working on new cockpits, although these will be made for an update beyond 1.4 Dev 3. Livery templates will also be made available for modders.

The goal with these ships is to evolve their design and give them a cleaner aethestic, which will be tying into the design of 2280 track environments. We already have a 2280 track in development for release with 1.4, but we'll be showing that off at a later date.

Here's a look at the new ships. We're still in the initial development stages for the Barracuda Model A, B and C, so you'll get to see those once 1.4 Dev 3 is out.



















With the new ships added, we needed a way to select them. The easiest option would have been to register them as new ships and display them in an ever growing flat list, but there's issues with the existing content selector menus we want to address and this was the perfect time to revisit them and figure out a better way to handle content selection.

Ships now support variants and tracks now support variant and route entries:

• Ship variants allow us to point the game to a completely different ship prefab. This ship prefab can be any ship, however internally we're just using this to create duplicates of the 2159 ship prefabs and slap different models into them.
  
• Track variants do the same thing as ship variants, but also have a second layer of variants called routes. Routes can also point to any loaded track in the game, but the intended use is for situations like Pines Complex where the track is 3 different courses bundled into one. A track variant in our internal use case is the forward and reverse versions of the track,

These additions allow us to compact how many listings there are in the menu. In our most extreme example, Pines Complex has gone from 6 different menu entries to 1, with additional inputs to select the specific version you want to play. This also means we've been able to merge the reverse track category into the standard track category, and cut the track listings in the Extras and expansion DLC categories in half by merging the forward and reverse listings into a single button.

Another improvement with the new menus is how custom ships are now handled. Custom ship categories are actually just a single category that gets broken down into sub-categories. This was reflected directly in the previous menu where you'd navigate to the custom ships category and then have to use different inputs to navigate the sub-categories.

The new menu unfolds those sub-categories so now you can just scroll through them as if they were normal categories. We had already implemented this for the advanced menu, so it made sense to also do that here. This also works nicely with the new category list feature, where you can press the category previous and category next inputs at the same time to bring up a list of categories to hop between.

We'll go into more detail about these new menus once 1.4 Dev 3 is released, but for now here are some screenshots of what they look like:




We may also look at implementing the advanced menu search functionality into these new menus. Doing this will allow us to make the advanced menu completely redundant so we can remove it and just have a single menu with all of the functionality.

• Sideshifting now has a per ship stat and has been reduced in strength significantly
  
• 3D pads are no longer automatically generated in 2280. Tracks will use the tile pads unless 3D pads have been setup.
  
• AI in 2280 have been tweaked to make them more competent
  
• The Model B and Model C categories of tracks have beeen renamed to Drag and Drift so they're in parity with the ship category names
  
• The NX2000 is no longer part of the standard ship leaderboards and is now in the Barracuda leaderboards (which have been renamed to Highend). We'll be doing a global leaderboard reset with the full release of 1.4.
  
• Vonsnake - Always On Target and Xpand - Rush added to the soundtrack. if you have the soundtrack on Steam, these have already been added to it.

And a bunch of other stuff that was already pushed out to the development branch a few months ago. If you're on our Discord server then the changelog for that is already available, and we'll include it as part of the 1.4 Dev 3 changelog here on Steam once that build goes out.

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!

• 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

We've recently updated the camera options to be per camera mode, instead of the previous physics mode based FOVs and global settings with random specific mode settings sprinkled in.

Every camera mode now has it's own FOV and offsets, and any mode specific options are now organised with the respective modes section in the menu. Because of these changes, the names of old camera settings in the ini file have been updated so everything will be reset to their defaults.

Part 1, this release, is the initial set of changes to the mode. We've laid the groundwork and have begun setting up ship stats. Let us know what you think!

2280s physics are now mostly separated from 2159, which has given us the opportunity to implement everything in a much cleaner and more modern way. Some parts of the physics like the ships thrust and various track bound related behaviours are still running on the 2159 code to keep that consistent, but pretty much everything else is new.

Part 2 will be focused on exposing the new ship stats to the modding tools and separating out game mechanics like weapon absorption to be available everywhere.

The goal is for 2280 to become just a physics mode, with the game mechanics becoming options which let you mix and match whatever you like. This includes being able to do things like have weapon absorption and pitlanes enabled at the same time in any of the three physics modes/

We'll also be working towards 2280 having leaderboards, and for this we'll be setting up 2280 to use the afterburner and pitlanes as the default configuration, like with 2159.

• 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!

• 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

1.4 is depreciating the legacy layout creator. It's still in the game and can still be used to create tracks, but has been tucked away so layout creator 2.0 is the focus.

The legacy layout creator can now be accessed by using the mod_legacylayoutcreator console command. Note that it isn't being removed entirely as this is a feature that's important for backwards compatibility.
If you're making mods, you can now download unity packages for development builds of the game:
https://github.com/Neognosis-Workflow/BallisticNG-Unity-Tools/releases/tag/1.4


All changes to releases towards the current major version will be documented on this release page.


The game's Lua implementation has been extended to ships!

These enable you to do anything you can imagine, from setting up additional cosmetics to adding new mechanics and physics! Like with custom track lua scripts, these are sandboxed so they're confined to only doing stuff inside the game.

Download the latest Unity Tools to get started with ship lua scripts.

Documentation:

• Creating Lua Runners
  
• Ship Functions Reference
  
• API Reference

Trkd (Track Data) files are a new addition to custom tracks which allows menu data to be provided with the track.

Trkd files are compiled and placed next to your tracks trk file. When present, the game will load everything it needs from the trkd, instead of going through the lengthy caching process.

Trkd's can also be embedded into Wtrk files, and will be automatically added / updated if they're next to the Trk when creating / updating the Wtrk.

It's safe to distribute both Trkd and Wtrks with embedded Trkd files to the current public stable release (1.3.3). Older versions of the game will just ingore the files.

Also note that while Trkd files are not required and the game will continue with the current cache process without them, we highly reccomended you start shipping them with tracks as they offer similar load performance to the old system but without the extremely long load time on the first game launch.

Download the latest Unity Tools to start building Trkd files.

It's now possible to reload mod content without needing to restart the game!

Use the new mod -> refresh content button on the menu to start the refresh. This will remove mods that have been deleted, register mods that were added and will also handle content being moved between folders.

If you're running the game on a Steam Deck or in Big Picture with the Steam overlay enabled, any text input required (setting your name, entering data for custom campaigns, etc) when using a controller will now prefer the relevant Steam based keyboard instead of our internal overlay!



BallisticNG now has a HUD scaling option! This setting is particularly useful for use with the Steam Deck or other handheld computers. Scaling ranges from 80-120%, which is setup to accommodate overlap with the vanilla HUD.

Just as a note, we currently don't have plans for menu UI scaling. Several parts of menu UIs are built with the scale they're already at in mind and can't be scaled without breaking.

• 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.

• 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.