This update, as with every update but PARTICULARLY this one, will probably have some big bugs that I've missed. If you're lucky enough to be the first to spot one, please let me know using ingame bug reporter so I can race to push the inevitable hotfix before anyone else notices. Early Access Gaming.
It's been a while! Yet again!
The last update back in June was a general infrastructure overhaul and mass of bugfixes. I've got my eye on a number of gameplay improvements and new content which I've been working on, but before that can happen there were two big things I really wanted to get working.
The first is something I've wanted for ages, and which I need for the new campaign work - a fully-featured, easy-to-use ingame scenario editor in the spirit of my favourite games from the 90s and 2000s. You can read more about the scenario editor in the last news post. Essentially, I rebuilt the old clunky 3D editor from the ground up, turning it into a 2D map-based editor which is much, much, much faster, easier to use and has fully-integrated workshop support, starting today.
Right now. It works right now and you can and should create and upload some missions immediately.
There's an ingame text guide to show you the ropes, but I know that's not everyone's bag so I also made a 20-minute video tutorial you can follow along here:
Here's some of the things the editor can do:
Create triggers, scripted events and logic flows to drive NPC behaviour, both allied and enemy.
Drive missions through objectives which can be interact with the logic flow to create narrative-driven scenarios.
Record, link and hook-up voice lines entirely in-editor, so you can write Ace Combat-style combat soap operas with your friends and share them with the world.
It's lacking in some more complex features and the megamap itself also still needs work, but since I'll continue to use the tool myself, players will benefit from any new features as I add them.
I hope you have fun with the editor - I suffered really enjoyed building it and I can't wait to see what you all come up with!
The second feature is probably one of the most-requested feature requests I receive. VR cockpit games usually don't support both HOTAS and motion controls, for good reason - it's a design and technical nightmare and introduces a huge amount of complexity for supporting different hardware setups. Experienced devs know that the payoff isn't worth the effort and it's better to spend your time elsewhere.
Luckily for all you flight simulator sickos, I'm not a clever man and I spent the last month and a half rewriting the input system to support any generic device. It's not 100% perfect yet: there will be gaps and bugs while I gather wider data on the devices people are using, and it'll take time to iron out all the weird ways different joysticks, throttles and gamepads interact with the game.
OVRLRD now supports HOTAS, keyboard & mouse, gamepads and motion controls, all at once, both in VR and flatscreen mode. If you want, you can setup a throttle and joystick, use those for some inputs, keyboard for others and your virtual cockpit controls for everything else. You maniac.
In-cockpit controls will scan through all their associated actions and take the most significant input from an 'active' control - so an IRL joystick can override an ingame joystick, but you can also set your throttle to 50% IRL, leave it at that, and then adjust it ingame without any of these values conflicting with each other. This is the intended (and currently observed) behaviour, so report a bug if you see anything different.
The setup was tested with a Logitech X56 HOTAS, so if you have that or something similar then it should work pretty well out of the box. You can rebind everything in the main menu, or through a (slightly awkward) mid-game menu so it's easier to get a feel for things as you change them.
Note: there are some known issues with this system so far - some sticks have mini-sticks attached to them, and these often send their data as separate X and Y values, so it's hard to bind them properly. I'm investigating this, and a few similar issues, and will hopefully have a fix soon.
I cannot stress enough how beta this is - please be free and easy with your bug reports (and your patience) because I'd like to support as many HOTAS setups as I can!
And also - if anyone manages to get OVRLRD working with a Steel Battalion controller please inform me immediately.
I fixed a bunch of quite bad bugs in career mode and campaign. Sorry.
You can now rename individual OVRLRD platforms in career mode, for Nuzlocke-style trauma.
There have been changes to data serialization - this means if you experience odd issues, they may be fixed by deleting OVRLRD's appdata folder. This is located in
C:\\Users\\YOURUSERNAME\\AppData\\LocalLow\\heisenbug
To celebrate my enormous relief at finally being able to go back to programming gameplay improvements instead of literally wrestling with joysticks, OVRLRD is 20% off for the next 14 days.
Here's how!
Leave a review! For a solo developer, positive reviews have an immediate and significant impact on sales of the game, meaning more stability for the developer and faster, better development!
If you know a community that would really love OVRLRD, post a link there and tell them it's under active development by a deranged programmer who will never stop.
Tell your favourite streamer that you'd like to see them give OVRLRD a try! A single stream is sometimes all it takes for a project to break out and find its audience.
Join our discord and invite your friends! If they're nice:
Join the discord
ADDITIONS
- Beta version of Scenario Editor.
- Beta Scenario Editor now has workshop upload support. Please upload your missions but don't be mad if they break!
- Beta version of control rebinding with HOTAS support.
- Individual platforms in career mode can now be renamed in a new UI for nuzlocke-style trauma.
CHANGES
- EDITOR: Improved layout in a number of places.
- First version of improved beam weapon FX.
FIXES
- Fixed an issue where campaign missions would spawn you in XZY position instead of XYZ position, often catapulting you into a black hole and killing you.
- Fixed HOTAS support with access to actual hardware. It should now correctly register input from throttles and sticks.
- Fixed an issue where mechs could get stuck in 'ragdoll recovery mode' and become incapable of motion.
- Fixed an issue where you could not command allied NPCs in career mode.
- Fixed an issue where 'destroy all enemies' objectives would miscount enemies and never complete.
- Fixed an issue with target analysis screen text rendering.
- Fixed an issue where quitting career mode from the HQ would not save changes made since returning from a mission.
- Fixed some missing bindings from the previous HOTAS preview support.
- Fixed an issue where freelance mode would only generate one mission.
- Fixed an issue where platforms and operators would not have persistent history for NPCs.
- Fixed an issue where entering Boot Camp would instantly kill you.
- Fixed an issue where the 'startup' objective type would display weird bunched-up status text.
- Fixed an issue where toggles rendered incorrectly in menus.
- Fixed an issue with grass rendering in the sky on Zaliznyy.
- Fixed some fatal issues that were breaking campaign and skirmish loading.
- EDITOR: Fixed a number of usability issues and bugs with the Scenario Editor.
- EDITOR: Fixed an issue which caused certain settings on objectives, events and effectors to revert when you selected an entity from the picker.
- EDITOR: Fixed an issue where changing the active microphone in the dialogue recording menu would break literally everything.
KNOWN ISSUES (Working on it!)
- 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.
- Sometimes the cockpit calibrator doesn't save joystick positions.
- Rarely, you may get very bad performance on the skirmish/career map. If this happens, reducing draw distance and increasing it again may fix it.
- Some UI elements that appear on MFDs may become 'pinked out', replaced with solid blocks of pink. Please let me know if you see this.
- The 'Basic' graphics option may cause secondary cameras (such as the TGP weapon camera) to stop rendering.
- Explosions and footprints may, on some maps, create snow or grass.
- Some controllers may not track. If your controllers are not supported, notify me and send an error log and I will add them!
- If you die, the post-death spectator mode places your hands slightly too far away from your IRL wrists.
- Sometimes, very rarely, the shaders will be completely broken on startup, with invisible terrain.
-Restarting the game fixes this.
Don't forget to join the discord!
OVRLRD OFFICIAL DISCORD