It really has been a while this time. I'm gonna make this quick, because the changelog is pretty monstrous. Skip down for a tl;dr.
OVRLRD started as a hobby project in evenings and weekends around my day job as a programmer. I really didn't think anyone else would care about it, but since releasing in Early Access more than 3,000 people have bought the game - some of you buying it in an extremely rough state in order to give it a chance to become something better.
With so many promising VR projects withering on the vine, it's a real vote of confidence for someone to buy a game in Early Access, especially from a solo dev.
This is why I'm locked in a kind of sinister blood pact with OVRLRD's players, and why I decided last year to make this the best game I can make, instead of dropping it as a glorified tech demo and running off to sell something new.
This was, it turns out, not the best financial decision. You might be thinking "I knew it, classic Early Access game, here's where he says he's abandoning it". Well, the joke's on you, because I'm not!
However, the joke is actually on me, because I'm getting laid off.
This has changed the development environment. JUST A BIT. The timeline has come forward, since it's now quite important that OVRLRD starts paying for itself. This week I have swapped some amount of sleep for dev time, and I've finally wrestled the latest update to the ground. My plan is:
Finish writing this news post;
Apply for a few more jobs;
Hammer as hard as I can on the content anvil to get ready for 1.0, which is now absolutely, definitely, I-no-longer-have-a-choice-in-the-matter coming out this year.
This update represents the final part of an enormous rewrite and redesign of the game systems to support 1.0 - better AI, better physics, better visuals, better sound and better internal workings. It includes dozens and dozens of bugfixes, QOL changes and performance improvements, as well as a few fun new systems like dynamic fires and lightning storms.
It also brings the scenario editor out of beta, since it now supports campaigns, because I'm building the new campaign inside it.
I've been deliberately not-promoting the game for the last few months because it was in an ugly transitional state. I wanted to wait until it was really polished, but my new financial situation means it's time for OVRLRD to prove that it can fund itself; hence:
Dropping into OVRLRD after this update, you'll notice a few things:
Better performance - less stuttering, less lag, 80% faster loading.
Improved weather and time-of-day systems: thunderstorms light up the night and mask the sound of your weapons, starting dynamic wildfires which can spread and burn out vehicles.
Better visuals with flashing explosions, performant post-processing, searing flames and crisper, faster rendering.
Meatier, thumpier sound across the game, from mech footsteps to whistling artillery shells.
Stronger, deadlier and more reliable NPCs that can dome you from a mile away, hunt you down with airborne drones, actively seek high ground to draw a bead on you, and fall back in coordinated fashion when overwhelmed.
A very cool cinematic camera so you can really appreciate how good the new NPCs are at blowing your legs off. Press F7 when playing in non-VR mode. (VR mode cinematic cam coming soon!)
Many, many, many, many, many bugfixes.
Other work-in-progress stuff is in much more advanced state.
HOTAS support is cleaner and more reliable, with better compatibility and support for duplicate devices - dual-joystick HOSAS setups (MechWarrior Mode) now function as expected.
The Scenario Editor is significantly improved and supports entire custom campaigns, and is really fun to work with. Trust me - I'm using it every day to build out the new campaign!
Career Mode is coming along quickly, with support for ambush-the-convoy type missions as well as straight-up squad deathmatch. More mission types are getting added all the time, too.
And of course the campaign - this update includes a preview mission from the Guttersnipes storyline, which should give you a sense of where I'm going with this. (Of course, now that you have the mission editor you don't really need me for this, but I want to do it anyway, so there.)
This specific mission is a placeholder (a consequence of releasing this update early), with bad voice acting and possible instability, but this will soon change. To make up for this, I've overhauled all of the legacy campaign missions and they are now fully playable again - you may encounter some bugs, but they're still fun to blast through.
There's loads more I want to add, and now that the last of the overhaul is out of the way I'm back working on content again and it's coming along way faster than it used to.
I've asked players before to hold off on spreading the word about the project, because I knew it wasn't quite ready for a wider audience. That no longer applies. In fact, it's crucial for the future of the project (and the future of me paying rent) that OVRLRD now gets out there.
I'm getting laid off, so the update is dropping now instead of next month;
The update includes: dynamic wildfires, thunderstorms, better AI, better visuals, better sound, QOL improvements, HOSAS support, cinematic camera mode and hundreds of bugfixes;
It's important for above layoff reasons that you leave a review and tell your friends about OVRLRD.
To celebrate the 22 days of paid employment I have left, OVRLRD is 22% off for the next two weeks. That's 2% more than usual, on account of the laying off.
If you follow a streamer who you think would enjoy the game, tell them!
If you like the game, leave a Steam review! (This makes an enormous difference.)
If you're part of a community of mech sickos, give them a link to the game!
Remember that OVRLRD isn't just a VR game! It works really well in non-VR mode!
If you're a streamer, reach out to me on Discord and I'll try and get a free key to you.
If you're a hiring manager in need of a games or XR programmer........ hello
Join the discord
One last thing - I want to give a special thanks to those of you who volunteered to playtest and have shown extraordinary patience while offering hours of your time to help me hunt down and fix increasingly obscure and frustrating bugs. This project genuinely would have crashed and burned a long time ago without your help. Thank you.
That's all. Thanks for playing - let's get this stupid project to 1.0 and beyond together.
ADDITIONS
- Dynamic wildfire system. Some weapons and explosions can now start fires, which will spread and inflict damage.
- Standing in a fire will cause your OVRLRD to heat up rapidly.
- Fires can be fought with the new flame suppressant sprayer.
- Fire will ignite trees and damage or destroy units.
- Placeholder beta versions of some early new campaign missions.
- These missions are a test of the new workflow, and were created entirely using the Scenario Editor.
- Functional EKG readouts for squadmates on comms screen.
- New 'Lander' naval units available in the scenario editor. These can load and unload vehicles and OVRLRDs and transport them over water.
- Weather effects are back, now including thunderstorms with lightning. Flash effects can be disabled in settings. Lightning can start fires.
- New 3D cloud rendering system (toggleable for performance).
- New cinematic camera view for cool screenshots and videos (press F7 to toggle - still quite buggy in VR). CHANGES
- Implemented SteamVR compositor loading, mostly eliminating tracking loss during loading screens.
- If you have limited RAM or VRAM available you may still experience this.
- Batched scene loading logic for large maps, reducing Zaliznyy load times by 90-95%.
- Added subtle post-processing effects to make explosions more visually impactful, and to improve flares.
- Missiles now climb a short distance on launch to avoid trees and ground clutter.
- Tank treads and vehicle wheels now largely animate properly in response to motion.
- Improved NPC responses to distant threats.
- Significant UI and QOL improvements for the scenario editor.
- All fonts are bigger now and should be more readable.
- First stage of an ongoing combat AI overhaul. Enemy OVRLRDs can now:
- Seek out sniping vantage points and use them to great effect.
- Select active weapons intelligently based on environmental factors and combat status.
- Make use of utility weapons to, e.g. cover a retreat with smoke grenades.
- Intercept artillery shells and rockets using the I-beam, if they have it equipped.
- Significant improvements to NPC navigation. NPCs now avoid each other and path more reliably.
- Group fire better supports lock-required weapons. The group will only lock-on when the strictest requirements in the group are satisfied.
- For example, if you're firing a long-range missile with a short-range missile, you will need to be within the short range to acquire a lock.
- This is to incentivise Thinking as well as Blasting.
- Improved SFX for missiles, nearby explosions and received damage.
- Rain and snow now make it harder for NPCs to overhear shots and explosions, and detect missile launches.
- Your HoloHUD will now notify you and auto-tag any hostiles who target you. «If you see the flash, it's already too late»
- Redesigned main menu scene.
- Weather conditions have more physical effects. Rain reduces heat buildup and suppresses fires.
- Toned down raindrops-on-windscreen effect, it was getting in the way.
- Improved visibility in cockpit when lights are off, so you can at least see with NVGs.
- Reduced ability of NPCs to infinitely suppress you with the BAO-8. They will run out of ammo eventually, be patient.
-In future I plan to add information ageing mechanics so you can duck back into cover and flank them.
- Improved a number of particle effects throughout the game.
- Modified Zaliznyy navmesh - NPCs will now more reliably prioritise roads when pathing around the map.
- Replaced mech footstep audio effects with heavier ones.
- NPC mechs now look around while idle, checking out their allies and scanning for enemies.
- NPCs now not only overhear gunshots and explosions, but also bullet impacts, and will investigate them.
- Reduced tree density in Zaliznyy forests, so you can actually see what you're shooting at.
- Remove superfluous underwater terrains in Zaliznyy, reducing memory load by approximately 15%.
- Retuned mech cockpit audio to be a little more reactive.
- Adjusted vertical positioning of player to mitigate issues with calibration.
- Adjusted default joystick positions across all cockpits for consistency and more comfortable default reach.
- Further iteration on Zaliznyy environment, including new road system, better AI navigation and scenery.
- When selecting a platform in the hangar, platforms will show the name of the operator currently assigned to them.
- Replaced placeholder operators with less bad placeholder operators.
- Improved performance and rendering quality of map grid on sensor screen.
- Replaced weird pole sticking out of hangar elevator.
- Missiles now add one frame of launcher's velocity on start, to mitigate instances of rocketing yourself.
- Reduced over-the-top distortion effect on comms audio (old campaign audio files still need rebalancing).
- Rebalanced audio generally to reduce clipping of loud effects and increase explosion punchiness. FIXES
- Fixed extreme lag, stuttering and stalling when loading skirmish, scenario or career missions on Zaliznyy.
- Restored Ambush mission type - previously it would just spawn an enemy mech squad, now it spawns a convoy you have to destroy.
- Fixed a number of issues to do with starting and finishing career mode missions.
- Fixed time-of-day and weather conditions not getting applied in skirmish and career.
- Fixed a large number of issues with legacy campaign missions (like Overwatch).
- Fixed a ballistic math error that was making NPCs overshoot artillery rounds.
- Fixed a different ballistic math error that was making NPCs less accurate at long range.
- Fixed an issue where some graphics quality settings weren't being updated on option change.
- Finally fixed TGP sensitivity slider - sniping should be much easier now.
- Fixed a bug where idling NPCs would try to look at themselves and break their own necks.
- Fixed NPCs accidentally having double their intended FOV value. Mechs can no longer see directly behind them.
- Fixed an issue where volume settings did not persist between sessions.
- Fixed some incorrect text in skirmish menu (localization system needs a bit of work).
- Fixed an issue where map preview images were not showing in the hangar or on the strategy map.
- Fixed a critical bug with ground vehicle navigation, which was causing some NPCs to spin on the spot instead of moving properly.
- Fixed some bugs to do with continuing saved careers.
- Fixed a transform issue causing players to shoot 50m in the air when opening the calibration menu (sorry).
- Fixed a bug where NPC mechs would relentlessly chase and try to shoot down missiles that had already detonated.
- Fixed an issue where jeeps were applying their move force twice, causing them to go beast mode for no reason.
- Fixed a frustum culling issue which caused trees and foliage to pop-in and -out at the edge of your view.
- Fixed a bug where trying to change scene soon after loading a scene would softlock you in the loading screen.
- Fixed a quaternion mishap causing self-righting vehicles on slopes to briefly develop their own space program.
- Fixed debug 'toggle VR' option not correctly handling UI interactors.
- Fixed several issues with HOTAS and general input rebinding. This is an ongoing process, please report bugs.
- Potential fix for dual-stick HOSAS setups not registering inputs separately.
- Fixed an issue where one device would take control and zero out inputs from other devices.
- Special thanks to HOTAS and HOSAS users for your patience while I figure this out!
- Fixed many issues with the scenario editor. Please continue providing feedback, it's very helpful.
- Fixed a bug where ScriptedEventTriggers would not detect NPCs entering their radius.
- Fixed a bug where missile launcher weapons could be fired without a lock.
- Fixed incorrect foot placement and no jumpjet audio during leaps.
- Fixed a bug where repairing parts in Career mode would take your money and fail to repair.
- Fixed a bug where NPCs treated all routes as looping and never as linear.
- Fixed readability issues in hangar caused by some text objects ignoring dimming layers.
- Fixed a bug where enemy counts in objective readout forgot the initial number of enemies.
- Fixed a number of issues to do with ragdoll physics.
- Fixed an issue in mission editor where objectives would overwrite each other's properties.
- Fixed an enormous number of bugs all across the codebase. Seriously, so many.
- Fixed a nasty bug where you sometimes couldn't interact with UI in the hangar.
KNOWN ISSUES (Working on it!)
- Sometimes toggling the cinematic camera will cause FPS to tank. Toggle it again to fix.
- Some objects may flicker at the corners of your vision - this is an occlusion culling issue that will be fixed soon.
- The cinematic camera will behave weirdly in VR mode - stick to non-VR for now if you're making movies.
- Some HOTAS mini-joysticks will only register X or Y motion at a time in the binding menu. I am working on a fix for this.
- The 'Basic' graphics option may cause secondary cameras (such as the TGP weapon camera) to stop rendering.
- Some controllers may not track. If your controllers are not supported, notify me and send an error log and I will add them!
Don't forget to join the discord! OVRLRD OFFICIAL DISCORD!