Crossfire - Upcoming changes, upcoming content

Ok, the new Order (NPC) ships are now fully functional and correctly spawn where they should. The pilotable version (event reward) will be done with the update right after this one (as I want to see how the event is working under real conditions first)

We are moving closer to a release of this update now.

Things still on my to-do list:

• Fixing a bunch of minor bugs... well... more like cleaning up a bit.
• Including the modular station parts for Renaissance (yes, I also decided to release this now)
• Balancing the first version of the new server event system
• a few minor tests and rebalances
• maybe testing the new method of switching from main story mission to bonus mission and back (dunno yet if I'll make it part of this update)
• writing the launcher update instructions

I stubled a bit into a crash issue these days in certain systems. Cause was a new plugin that I wanted to use to fix a issue with fonts.

Dunno really how to get it done without it yet.

But I made some progress on the Renaissance modular station parts. There are still a few minor issues to be taken care of but most of it seems to be working.

Btw.

Did the tradelanes always tilt to the side this way? This is not intentional.

There have been multiple complaints in the past about Nebulas being too transparent in CF.

The fog draw distance was increased by x10. I would consider to reduce it to x5... keeping transparency but essentially reducing it by 50%.

I can include it relative easily into the upcoming update but need a bit more feedback.

So what do you think?

its not about the draw distance of the nebula but the fog density

Freelancer 2024-05-07 19-19-10.png

It wasn't me. Dunno how that happened.

Joke aside.

The new update is almost read for release.

Atm I am still a bit busy working on the Bonus mission stuff and the return to the main mission issue.

Essentially I am trying to simplify the whole struture to something "simple" like this:

Bild_2024-05-09_180559254.png

I've done first tests and results are promising but not perfect.

The watchtriggers carry through to the end and would allow to return to the point where you have left the main story.

But that is unfortunately only the case if no savegames are loaded in the meantime. Savegames seem to "forget" the watchtriggers which explains why for some players returning to the main mission was perfectly possible while for others it failed.

I might have a solution for that in which I let savegames reload watchtriggers depending on their previous state and pass them through to the next save point. (tech babbel). If the tests are successful this might turn out to be the solution to finally fix this issue.

Furthermore there are going to be changes to the entire storyline of CF.

There are several thousand text elements displayed during the missions. ~400 of them are mission descriptions, personal logs, pop-ups telling part of the story, etc.

These ~400 story elements have been rewritten. This will not change the story as a whole but it will add further detail to the story, correct mistakes and provide a better reading experience with more variety and less spelling mistakes.

This stuff is all ready and done, just has to be included into the update now.

Additional change included is that the area in which the first side mission triggers now is 50% bigger, making the search less tedious.

That being said and done... the update would almost be ready for release.

Two more tasks need to be done.

1. creating the instructions for the launcher to distribute the update

2. creating a server version of this update (there are adjustments needed for it to run on the server)

So probably a release can happen somewhen next week.

The update in theory is ready to be released.

I am just doing a few last minute checks this evening and probably somewhen tomorrow the whole thing is being released.

It will be a pretty large patch and will require to reconfig the server and the anticheat. I never managed to do that stuff without errors on the first try so... yeah... I probably will lock the server for a few hours to do tests.

A few things to mention:

• I'll provide a patch list but it will be almost identical to the stuff I posted on this thread 1-2 pages before.
• Not all changes are mentioned. Minor ones just simply are not worth writing down.
• Shader presets have changed. What previously was the default one (preset1) is now preset7. Preset 1 is a new one with more accurate sharpening, better color accuracy and a lens effects. If you don't like the lens effects you can switch to the new preset 8 which is identical to preset 1 with the exception of disabled lense effects.
• The fonts color has changed. Due to various previous updates on different stuff the color was set to a yellow tone, used by the modern UI. This has overwritten the color options of all classic UI options. This is something I can not fix until a new full all-in-one release with installer is published. That is planned later. Right now I have set the font color to a neutral light-grey tone which should fit most UI variations. It's not perfect but right now the best option.
• Also fonts related is that the font size has been adjusted a bit to the values which are compatible with certain widescreen options. This time this adjustment will recognize which UI option was used during the initial installation (in this case it is possible) and will use corresponding fonts.
• The moddern UI loading screen has been made available also for all classic UI options. The original loading bar never worked well and the new one will fit much better.
• There are a bunch of undocumented changes to the CF storyline. Certain missions got slightly improved and there is some experimental stuff that most likely will be used more often to improve the story telling. Improvements of the story campaign is an ongoing topic.
• The new Nomad event is not active by default. Before I activate it I want to know if all the other new stuff is working correctly. Afterall this update is significantly bigger than most other mods.
• Not everything I wanted to include into the update has made it. I think it is best to release that stuff later when there is a bit more time. There is plenty of stuff that still can be improved to make CF even better. I have plenty of good ideas but unfortunately only limited time.

The server is back online. In theory everything should be working but in the end only tests will show for sure.

The server seem to run stable after the update and the only so far reported issue is related to using Alt+tab.

Regarding this issue I might need some further information and people testing stuff.

The thing is Ive been using alt+tab in FL pretty much 50 times a day without issues during the past months so this is a bit surprising. Even now I did not have an issue but maybe it is related to specific settings.

I personally used windowed mode (on the launcher settings). Potentially this alt+tab issue is limited to the fullscreen mode. This needs to be tested on muiltiple PCs.

Also information about which shader version is used potentially would be important.

Every bit of info helps and testing various of the launcher options in combination with alt-tab might help to identify the issue.

EDIT: my initial tests showed that the fullscreen mode might be to blame; anyone with this issue, pls switch to window mode and leave a comment if the problem still exists

My own tests showed that the problem only existed when running CF in fullscreen mode. Windowed mode worked fine. Thats why I did not notice the issue before.

Alt+tab on vanilla shader option resulted in black screen.

Alt-tab on recommended shader option resulted into a frozen screen (but still visible).

In both cases doing alt-tab 3-4 times again would unfreeze CF and it would run normally again (without closing FL).

But that hardly can be the working solution so I just uploaded an update which forces FL to run in windowed mode, no matter what setting is selected on the launcher.

This will prevent this issue from happening until a better solution is found.

The only side effect I can imagine that FL won't pause on Alt-tab in SP. In MP FL obviously never did. You still can pause the game in SP with the F1 menu.

The other reported issues with clan bases have been confirmed to be fixed.

Considering the size and complexity of the update I am surprised how smooth it went.

*sigh*

nothing without side effects

ok, I restored the fullscreen mode including the gamma, no longer forcing windowed mode

To prevent the freezing stuff the window mode no longer updates the visuals when FL is in background (when a different program is infront of FL). That means FL still runs and still is active and you might cruise 100k, but the screen will not update until you bring the FL window into the foreground again.

A compromise in lack of a better solution.

ok, since everything runs stable its time to move forward and take a look at what is next.

In the following weeks the new server event will be tested (without reward system) just for balancing reasons and checking if it would run stable.

Once done a reward system will be introduced and the event should run automatically then.

This requires a bit rebalancing ships which are going to be rewards. Not an easy task but nothing that will take ages.

The next bigger update will be the Blackstar story content since everything else that was meant in the original Blackstar fleet update already got released.

This story content will result in new bonus missions aswell as a 2nd automated server event similar to the Nomad planetkiller event.

Plenty of the suggestions posted a the ticketsystem also will in one way or another be turned real with that update.

Furthermore I have the intention to overhaul all asteroid fields in CF. For that I probably need some additional help (lots of work with lots of testing).

The update after that one might replace the FL render pipeline, either completely or as an option (dunno yet).

That means switchting from DirectX8 to OpenGL. For that however a bunch of issues need to be sorted out first.

This update will take a long time to complete since the amount of work is pretty insane. What that means in detail and what that might look like is something I will present later.