Ballistic NG - Wipeout fan project

[Wanzer]

I guess I am soon will have to include apologies for every post I make but I found a bug.
While W3O ships got flipped back to correct axis, now ships from first Wipeout are mirrored, I could guess same goes for Wipeout 2097 but since those dont have any signs its hard to tell.
Also preview thumbnails for those ships is taken from the front and not from the top like for all other ships.

[[APG] Darkmega.exe]

so, i tried to import the WO3SP Ships while following the tutorial, i've put the files on myships folder and nothing appears. (A small note: i'm using an ISO file, since this computer doesn't have a CD Drive to read the files on.) what am i doing wrong?
On annother note: yes, it's .(i've found special editions before on some websites, but they cost a bit too much... and they are hard to find)

Speaking of which, the drag ship file is ends in S0Y or SOY?

EDIT: I forgot to rename them. i should read the instructions more carefully...

[[APG] Darkmega.exe]

Annother thing, how can i port wipeout 2097/XL's Sounds to BallisticNG? can somebody provide me a guide for it?

[Axatar]

Annother thing, how can i port wipeout 2097/XL's Sounds to BallisticNG? can somebody provide me a guide for it?

check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmIhLBKCHro

[[APG] Darkmega.exe]

Hey the WipEout 2097 sounds are preety great! i just wished that we could remove the default Announcer with the soundpack. like blank sounds for him saying "Autopilot." and "Final Lap." For exemple. also we need a replacement for the "Warning." sound as well. it's kinda annoying tbh, i would prefer the 2097 style warings, saying what item is being used by a nearby Contender

- - - Updated - - -

On annother note: Can you use MP3 Files for custom songs? or just wavs? And can i get the a list of the original sound files? (for replacing for others ofc!)

UPDATE: just figured it out. about all of the things that i said on the previous messages. thanks anyway

[shotfan]

I was not sure whether to post my inquiry here or make a new thread, but I decided I do not need a new topic for this question:

I very want to play this game, but my GPU is too old for this, as it does not support DirectX9 (yes, it is VERY old). I plan to get a new one, on a low price, just enough to get Ballistic NG to run. Will GeForce 6200 suffice?
Other specs:
P4 2.40 GHz
1 GB RAM

Will such a computer be able to run Ballistic NG? And what kind of a performance I can expect? (I would be satisfied with steady 30 FPS)

[bigsnake]

You'd probably want 2GB of RAM just to be safe, but you should be okay with those specs. The pentium 4 would be the biggest concern since it's a single-core CPU, it would really be the only bottleneck when running BnG.

[shotfan]

Thanks for the quick assessment! I will order this card then. I will contribute some more to the thread/subforum when I finally get BNG to run

[Hybrid Divide]

I noticed yesterday that while racing on the first prototype track, if you use autopilot in the pit lane, you always slip the left wall as you exit the pit lane. Happens every time.

Thought you guys might want to know.

[chboing]

can't believe i just learn today about the existence of Ballistic NG. Looks like an amazing game ! currently downloading, can't wait to try
Didn't took the time to read the whole thread, is there a VR mode or is it something we can hope to see in this game too ?

[shotfan]

I have not played BNG yet, but I have a question: are there reverse variations of the tracks?

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

I don't think that is in the game yet, but maybe they'll put it in if enough people want that. I also do believe that there is a track editor.

Some tracks would require some very creative redesigns to their layout to support separate White/Black runs, or the integration of Mag-Lock, which would be difficult to do (though not impossible) while maintaining the style of the PS1 games.

[shotfan]

Finally, I managed to launch BallisticNG... I do not know how to express myself, really. How it is...?
Incredible?
Mindblowing?
Astonishing?
...yes. So much yes.
I am amazed to the utmost degree. A game with completely faithful recreation of a PS1 Wipeout gameplay, and with many more extras onboard. I never dreamed I will be able to play an updated Wip3out of sorts on my PC.
The physics are PERFECT. The bounciness, the floatiness, the drifting crafts (this achieved thanks in part to the "on-the-rails" camera), the grinding/scraping, the gentle way the crafts flow through the air on jumps, it is all there, just like I remember it!
Faithful, yet refreshed graphics. Quite a good, original (!) soundtrack (my favourite is Aquila: it would fit right in Sasha's selection for Wip3out, and I am a sucker for such melanchonic trance... it is trance, right? ) Quirky and balanced teams (this is more in vein of W2097 actually, since I remember that W3 had some just plain obsolete teams; but this is fine, I do not like an idea of making hard hierarchies of the teams). Zone mode analogue. And THAT speed... I am enjoying every second of this game to the fullest.
Seems that nostalgia had not lied to me - the fun in Wipeout was not a illusion borne out of pleasant memories, but really was a special quality that can be replicated with enough dedication. Wipeout lives again (in all but name)!
Thank you to all who made this game (still uncompleted!). I applaud you!

Now, this pseudo-review could came off as rather rambling I apologize for that, as I cannot order my thoughts well enough after the joy I experienced with BNG. However, I would like to comment upon some things. Only a couple of them now, since I do not want to turn this post into a wall of text
- Performance report: I launched this on Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz, 1 GB RAM, GeForce 7600 GS (I changed my ordered GPU in the meantime). Yes, it may be a bit unbelievable, but I can play the game with such an old configuration! (good thing for me then that you decided to go the retro route for graphics, bigsnake! ). However, this comes at a great cost: I am practically limited to the single contender modes (Time Trial, Practice, Survival). Whatever the reason, I cannot race with AI contenders, since my FPS drop from ~45 average to stable 3 if they are present. Hard luck. I am still immensely grateful that I can play some of the modes fine enough!
- Why there is no Turbo per lap in Time Trial? Because of the Afterburner?
- What happened to the Silverstream remake? Or to that Gare d' Europa, shown in v0.1 trailer?
- Might I propose a Duel mode? A simple one-on-one race. I want to have such a mode, since as I said, my rig cannot handle 8 ships simultaneously any good enough.
- Time Trial default targets could be added?
- I cannot access Stats in the main menu. Is there anything?
- Of what use is the Afterburner in Survival? Should it not be simply disabled?
- Out of curiosity: how are medals awarded? Only in Single Race and Tournament? How you are supposed to attain 50 of them?

One last thing: I have no idea how to use the downloaded ships. Say that I try to feature Nullcer in the custom ship selection menu. I placed its .ship file into the MyShips folder and opened it in Ship Importer, but I see no option to include it as custom ship at the ship selection screen. What should I do?

[bigsnake]

Glad you're enjoying the game

So quite literally just before posting this I've made some large optimizations to the game related to how often the game updates visual effects, it was happening several times a frame which would really hit hard on lower end PCs. I have that up on the game's dev branch on Steam if you wanted to try that out. I just updated the original post with instructions for that.

Why there is no Turbo per lap in Time Trial? Because of the Afterburner?

Yep, the afterburner is the main mechanic for boosting. If you play in 2280 mode then the afterburner is replaced with a turbo, which you can randomly get along with other pickups and if you're in time trial then you get one every lap.

What happened to the Silverstream remake? Or to that Gare d' Europa, shown in v0.1 trailer?

Those are long gone at this point, it's best that the game doesn't have any copyrighted material like that integreted into it because it would put the game on Sony's legal radar.

Might I propose a Duel mode? A simple one-on-one race. I want to have such a mode, since as I said, my rig cannot handle 8 ships simultaneously any good enough.

That's going to be part of 0.6 The race settings introduced in 0.5.2 will in the future have a slider for choosing how many opponents you want in the race from 0 - 7. There's also a campaign grid coming where there will be 1v1 events.

Time Trial default targets could be added?

That's not something planned to be added, but in the campaign grid mentioned above there will be targets you have to reach to get medals.

I cannot access Stats in the main menu. Is there anything?

Are you running the Steam version of the game? You need to be running it for stats, leaderboards and multiplayer. If you're not then I'd reccomend running that version since the non steam versions are now only updated with every major release and lack various features.

Of what use is the Afterburner in Survival? Should it not be simply disabled?

Yeah you're right, it should be disabled. It doesn't have any use at all other then draining your shields faster.

Out of curiosity: how are medals awarded? Only in Single Race and Tournament? How you are supposed to attain 50 of them?

At the moment medals are awarded per race. There isn't any sort of cap to it, you just get them. When the campaign grid mentioned above is finished the awards will be counted from those instead.

For the custom ships, the .ship file format is a really old version of the custom ship format that the game no longer supports. If you open it in the ship importer then save it again then it will upgrade it to the newer .shp file and it should appear in-game. I'd reccomend using the Steam Workshop to get custom ships though, since installation is literally just clicking a button.

[shotfan]

I am playing the v0.5 Non-Steam version. I used to have Steam, but I got rid of it a long time ago. Seems that I will reinstall it, as I am missing out on many things. Now I know why I cannot view stats or use ship and track importers.
That is unfortunate that you had to dispose of the track remakes, but I totally accept it. The consequences could be sudden and awful. Better safe than sorry.
There will be Duel mode?! Ha! Great!
TT targets are not important. But do you mean that there will be TT event in the campaign grid?

Also, some new things I want to mention:
- Cockpits! They deserve a SPECIAL mention (and I forgot about them the previous time)! I always yearned for them since their apperance in Wip3out! Now they are back, and each teamship gets a proper, unique cockpit for themselves! Now this is immersion! (also, piloting anything from the cockpit view is VERY difficult. This will take some time to master...)
- I think I found a bug: seems that Nova Split does not have the checkpoints set up properly. No matter the speed class or ship, as soon as you cross the start line, you will lose engine power and get eliminated when your speed falls to 40 Km/H (just like when you run out of check time). The case seems the same for the prototype track no. 0x003. Strange, since this does not apply to Arrivon XI, but I would need to check out all of the tracks. Was this issue fixed in a newer Steam version?
- Can you make the timer count down to milisecond? We probably do not need such precision, by why not make it so anyway if it is possible under Unity? (or was this also changed in a newer version?)
- I suggest a penalty for mindlessly pushing the thrust throttle to the full (?): your craft gets stalled for a good while (way slower than the the non-Quick Start launch) if the thrust exceeds 95% when the start countdown is complete. A trivial thing, but could effectively convey a message to any Wipeout/AG racing novices out there that this is game is NOT all about reaching high speed as soon as possible (some patience required )
- I think that the pause menu should have a slight delay (around half a second) between exiting and resuming the actual gameplay. It would be handy to have some time to adjust your fingers over controls, and not to be dropped into racing straight from the pause. Again - it is a trivial thing, but very important in such a fast-paced game like this (I remember that Burnout 3 did this, intentionally or not).

I think I will have to install Steam and test out the Steam/development version before I post more feedback and suggestions.

[Xpand]

Miliseconds are below the order of magnitude of the timestep of the physics engine, you'll just get biased times that aren't true. Since the timestep for the game's physics is around 10-20 miliseconds (60 FPS), you're never going to get milisecond precision on the counter, only hundreth of a second.

Think of it this way: You have a physics timestep of 0.01 seconds (smaller than the usual 0.01666(6) seconds most games use)

-The ship is some distance X behind the finishing line at t=40.05 seconds
one physics timestep later:
-The ship is some distance Y ahead of the finishing line at t=40.06 seconds

Y may or may not be equal to X

When did the ship cross the line, accurate to the milisecond? You can't answer this question with just that data. You might try to do an average of the two times and get 40.055 s, but the ship could have crossed the line at 40.057 s or 40.051 s.

To be more accurate you could do a weighted mean of the times by using the X and Y distances: estimated time=40.05*X/(X+Y) + 40.06*Y/(X+Y), but this would just be a useless waste of cpu cycles for something as trivial as having a ms accuracy that wouldn't even matter in most races, since the logic the game uses to determine your position as you cross the finish line is dependent on the physics timestep which only has a hundreth of a second accuracy.

[Hybrid Divide]

Those are long gone at this point, it's best that the game doesn't have any copyrighted material like that integreted into it because it would put the game on Sony's legal radar.

Sad to hear this but understand. Confused about one thing, though. I remember seeing a video from a much more current version of BNG that, in the description, talked about a Classic Track Pack for WZ. (I think it showed a version of Vineta K?) Is that still going to come out? Hope so. It looked good!

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

I hope so just as much.

Call the following a stupid idea if you want, but...

Maybe if the developers get enough money (through any combination of Kickstarter, Patreon and/or outside contributions), they could eventually rent a license for WipE'out" from Sony; while that would put the game on Sony's radar, it would also probably guarantee legal protection for it and enable official bundling of WipE'out" content.

Sony would probably be okay with BallisticNG as it is right now, since they said the same stuff about Rollcage and GRIP;
Rollcage Redux/Rollcage Extreme = "Yeah, you can do it. Just don't sell it."
GRIP = "Yeah, you can do it, just don't call it Rollcage."

As for a less crappy idea, I think the 2280 Mode should be split into a Mutators menu, in case players want to mix-and-match different [global] race settings.

Maglock: = On/Off
Camera: = Ship/Track
Hyperthrust: = Off/Replace Turbo/Allow Turbo
Turbo on New Lap: = Yes/No
Eliminations: = On/Off (Off = WO1)
Health Regen: = Off/[Specify Multiplier]
Weapon Cancel: = Off (WO1)/Drop/Absorb/Give Shield/Give Reflector/Give Turbo/Dual-Weapon (Rollcage style)
Shield/Reflector/Autopilot Duration: = [Specify Multiplier, different value for each]
Absorb Duration: = [Same function as above, but different value]
Speed Pad Strength: = [Specify Multiplier]
Turbo Strength/Duration: = [Specify Value for Each]

Just an example. You can come up with your own ideas. The "Give" when absorbing is an instant activation, inspired by Pulse/HD's Eliminator.

I also have one more idea, this one is actually a Track Concept:

In some European/Latin American/South American countries, there are actually canyons that are just FILLED with mist whenever the sun rises.

Track Concept: Clearwater Canyon
- At sunrise, the lighting is not very bright, so you could reduce unnecessary texture detail to save resources due to their reduced visibility. However, because what little lighting is present has a golden-red color, it would still have a very warm atmosphere.
- Because it's a canyon, you could have A LOT of verticality.
- The fog everywhere would mask render distance issues (even when you increase the render distance, it would just make the fog a little further away), and enable you to have wide, open roads that slowly broke off into multiple splits (hills and banked corners would make it a less jarring transition).
- There could be long, shallow turns all over the track, and tunnels that would use fog effects to fake an HDR-style lighting system; a dark fog inside the tunnel (and when you're entering it) to make it seem a lot darker than it actually is, with the illusion that your ship is producing soft light. As you exit the tunnel (masked by shallow corners and/or soft undulations), the black fog would be replaced with an orange-or-white fog to give the illusion of suddenly going out into bright sunlight, and your eyes needing to adjust. Bonus points if you can add ambient engine-reverberation effects to the tunnel sequence.

[shotfan]

Just got the Steam developer version. I will later post about performance I achieve with it.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Since I've yet to actually get a decent computer, I'd like to ask... What's the installer for the game like?
If it isn't one of those old-school installers (by the time of the final release), with concept art, music and/or snippets of backstory, I'll be a little bit sad.