Ballistic NG - Wipeout fan project

[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? :D ) 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! :clap

Now, this pseudo-review could came off as rather rambling :g 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! :D ). 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! :P
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! :o (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, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viccAo7XGBI) I'll be a little bit sad.

[bigsnake]

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, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viccAo7XGBI) I'll be a little bit sad.

The game doesn't have an installer, non-steam versions of the game just come in a ZIP file that you can extract anywhere and the Steam version is obviously handled by Steam


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

Really interested to see how that goes! I've had it running on pretty low-end hardware before at 60fps though some people still run into issues.

[Xpand]

It's whatever unzipping tool you have : )

Or if you're using the Steam version (which you should), it's the steam's download window.

[shotfan]

I ran into a big hurdle trying to launch the newest version: it freezes at the starting screen. Normally, the game would start after a few seconds of this screen, but now it does not respond, at all: Task Manager says so. Even worse, it now affects the Non-Steam versions I had installed and played beforehand! So now I have to force-exit the game after each failed attempt.
This only started to happen since I got Steam version. But what is even more weird, I managed to play this version (developer one) once earlier last night, but not for long (it was really late).
I thought it was the HDD issue, but I got rid of a few GBs and it did not help. Neither does reinstalling. I still have the same hardware.
What is going on?

[Xpand]

Try changing branches to another one. That's an odd problem. It might also have to do with Unity3D itself since it affects the non-steam version. Maybe the steam version's files are conflicting with the non-steam's and vice versa. I'm just throwing out hypothesis.

[shotfan]

All of the branches (standard, unstable, developer) behave the same way. I wiped out (heh) all of the BNG-Steam data and downloaded it again, and the same happens. I also deleted all non-Steam versions, and again nothing better. This is a mystery bigger than EG.r ;) Maybe it is Steam's fault? Some of its cookies?

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Try checking stuff in the registry.

[shotfan]

What do you mean exactly? Is the registry somewhere in the Steam files on my computer? And what I should be looking for in there?

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

No, as in the Windows registry. There is no Steam registry; every time you install a program on your computer, or change a setting that affects the entire computer, or something along those lines, there is usually something left in the Windows registry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ROLfd8RFo

I don't know entirely how the Unity engine actually works, but chances are it may have left some bad registry entries.

@BigSnake I know BNG doesn't have it's own installer, but I'm pretty sure that Unity Engine does, or at the very least depends on something that needs to be reinstalled.

[shotfan]

Seems this indeed was a problem with the registry files! I found the folder named '"Vonsnake" and deleted it. It contains my profile settings, yes? After that, the game started up properly. I needed to recreate my profile, but that is nothing. Thanks, Amaroq! ;)

Now, for the performance report:
Version: 0.5.2, developer branch

I played through Arcade Toxic races on Cassandra, Harpstone, Aciknovae, Zephyr Ridge and Luna.
Before the race start, the FPS reached around 15-20. Afterwards, it drops in few seconds to 3, and never goes up. I can even see the lap time progressing on each frame by .33, .33 and .34 centiseconds.
Dropping down the resolution to 640x480 does not help. Neither does the windowed display mode.
The track makes pretty much no difference. Cassandra has even lower than average framerate from the beginning, whereas on Luna I had around 35 FPS before the race started, but eventually I got locked at 3 FPS.
Still though, I managed to place 5th on Cassandra and 6th on Luna. In both cases I got a Wormhole and Autopilot to help me :D However, on Aciknovae the Wormhole actually transported me between the laps, without completing the current one! This gave me an about extra lap to complete, which caused me to suffer enough damage (in a G-Tek) to explode on the last corner before the finish :D
Also, such low framerate caused Cannons to fire only once per frame, which caused its rate of fire to slow down immensely, needing 10 seconds to spend all of the ammo supply! Seems like extremely low framerate messes up the input data.
Time Trial and Practice are fine, around 45 FPS with 1080p and no special graphic effects active.
Survival has lower framerate, a bit more than 30 FPS on Zephyr Ridge. Harpstone with its snowstorms drops this to 20, but this is still playable.
However, I tried out that first campaign event, which was a Cassanda race with 3 contenders. I got 20-15 FPS there, and I could win this race on the first try (the slowdown of the AI opponents on the final lap is very noticeable). A bit low of a framerate, but bearable. Might be worse to deal with on harder tracks.

So, it seems that my computer just cannot handle full grid races any good enough, and I will have to concede for the limited number of contenders. I am eager to see this as a Racebox option!

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Seems this indeed was a problem with the registry files! I found the folder named '"Vonsnake" and deleted it. It contains my profile settings, yes? After that, the game started up properly. I needed to recreate my profile, but that is nothing. Thanks, Amaroq! ;)

You're welcome~
To be perfectly honest, I haven't actually tried gaming on this computer yet. I'm going to see if I can get some of my old games working, first, then I'll finally get a chance to try BallisticNG.

[shotfan]

Three new things to report:
- The game still happened to freeze on the first screen. I needed to clear the registry again to get rid of it. It also seems that Steam has something to do with this issue, as the problem did not renew until I logged to Steam.
- I encountered a rather amusing bug. After completing the Survival event in the Campaign, then any event I chose in Racebox was a faux-Survival, which meant that the ship always accelerated and I heared the announcer counting Zones, but no Zone display. This also happened with a Single Race Campaign event, after which I tried Racebox Time Trial - and I found myself Time Trialing with three other ships! I also always returned to the Campaign grid after any Racebox race. Game restart returned the game to normal.
- Maybe I am stupid, but I still cannot figure out how to install custom ships into ship selection menu. I cannot even open them in the Ship Importer. I am using ships imported from the Workshop (https://steamcommunity.com/app/473770/workshop/).

[Xpand]

You need to move down on the ship selection menu to reach the other ships.

[shotfan]

I know that, but nothing shows there - when I switch onto custom ships row, then the ship info gets frozen, displaying the info for the standard ship I switched from. None of the ships I downloaded from Workshop work, and they all have .shp file format. However, there are older ships I downloaded via the mod sharing thread on this subforum (like FEISAR Fury ship), and they can be opened, but still cannot be saved. This guide (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=695625594) says that there is an option to save, at the top right inside the Ship Importer. I only see the save option at the top left, between "Load/New" and "Upload to Workshop" options, and it does not seem to do anything.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Where does BallisticNG store it's files?
You may want to open the compatibility mode settings for the different executables, and enable "Run as Administrator"; you should also try un-setting the game's folders and files as Read Only (a common problem on newer Windows versions)
http://www.guidingtech.com/4862/always-run-as-administrator/
http://www.sevenforums.com/system-security/53095-file-folder-read-only-attribute-wont-disable.html

Since it's the Steam version, I am guessing the game will store it's internal files under "C:\Program Files\steam\steamapps\common"
But it might also store settings under "My Documents"

[shotfan]

I have not responded for a long time because I was trying many things lately about the custom ships issue.
I tried to Take Ownership over the UserData folder. I also tried to change the attributes through Windows Command Window. Nothing works - the folder stays Read Only. Still the ship files themselves were always without special attributes, so I am not sure if this is the cause of the problem. My OS is Windows XP Professional.
However, I got to try out the custom ships!... but only in the Track Editor. Funny. I think I can load any ship there, albeit I am not sure. I will report if some ship does not load through there. By the way - can I load my custom tracks somehow through the track selection menu under Racebox?

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Maybe try unsetting Read Only for the entire Program Files folder. Or running the program as an administrator. It is also possible that the Read Only files are automatically-generated System files, like thumbs.db and desktop.ini (both are always hidden from the user)

It has been forever since I used Windows XP, so I unfortunately don't know what to really do about it.

[shotfan]

I tried unsetting this attribute on the Steam folder (my BNG is not inside Program Files), also via setting myself as the administrator, but it still reverts. I am not sure if this is actually makes Ship Importer not load the ships... maybe something deeper in my OS files is causing this problem.
And there are many ships I cannot load in the Track Creator either... I am not sure which ones, because the names there are a bit confusing. But I think this mostly applies to actual Wipeout ships. Original ships pretty much work fine (still only for the Track Creator though). Strange...

By the way: do you guys know that there is now a BNG subreddit? Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BallisticNG/

[HusarDPL]

Hi, I have a question: is it possible to turn off completely sounds from board computer like "mines", "plasma", "cannon" etc. - i've created a null soundpack, and placed it in folder where it should be, but it does not work. Games still informs me about weapon i've picked up.
I want to shut this off. Is it possible ? If yes, how to do it ?

[shotfan]

Ingame, go to Options/Audio. There is a Soundpack setting. You should be able to toggle your custom soundpack there.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

The computer voice would be a lot more useful if it actually told you what weapons were being used against you, to be completely honest.

[Wanzer]

The computer voice would be a lot more useful if it actually told you what weapons were being used against you, to be completely honest.
Doubt it since the only way to counter a weapon is to enable shield.
It doesn't matter If computer say "Warning rockets" or "Warning quake" or gun or plasma, you just enable shield and if you wait too long to hear the message you gonna get hit anyway.

On a sidenote, previously I asked what kind of filter you enabled because it was screwing skins, for example places where texture was cut and then merged on a mesh would have white lines and everything would look very blurry at an angle anyway.
Not sure whether you changed something but after the last patch problem disappeared and everything look nice and clean.
I think some texture filter is still enabled but it doesn't produce heavy artefacts as before which is nice.

Cant wait for next patch, good work on the game, it actually feels and plays like a real Wipeout.

[shotfan]

Doubt it since the only way to counter a weapon is to enable shield.
It doesn't matter If computer say "Warning rockets" or "Warning quake" or gun or plasma, you just enable shield and if you wait too long to hear the message you gonna get hit anyway.

Not really. With nimble enough craft (G-Tek/Tenrai), you could try to avoid Rockets, Plasma or Cannon by strafing. And fast enough craft (Nexus?) could try to outpace Missile or maybe Tremor with Afterburner. That is, if you have enough time to react. That is why I opted for simple weapon names callouts as a warning system, ala W2097 - you do not have time for anything else if you want to evade anything.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Plus, a warning for mines. And of course...
"Just when should I activate my Shield?"
"Energy Drain, huh? Time for a Deflector!"

And then there's the factor of people coming from Other WipEout games; Wip3out and 2048 are the only games in the series (to the best of my knowledge) that warn you about which weapon you just picked up, rather than which weapons are being used against you... and games like 2097 and WipEout Pure/Pulse/HD are the ones that brought the most players to the series... and as such, most people playing BallisticNG are probably more familiar with the proper warning system. (It is worth noting though, that while Wip3out had a generic "Warning!", 2048 didn't have a warning system period)

[bigsnake]

0.6 has a weapon warning built into the HUD. Whenever you're warned of a weapon you'll see the icon of the weapon at the top of the screen next to your current pickup icon. You're wanred of weapons a bit earlier too so you get a bit more time to react to anything that's coming your way.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

I rarely notice things on the HUD, though, since my eyes are usually drawn to what's in front of my ship. An option to enable a Weapon-Call audio warning would still be a nice thing to put in.

[HusarDPL]

Ingame, go to Options/Audio. There is a Soundpack setting. You should be able to toggle your custom soundpack there.

Yes, I've done it - do not work. Bug maybe ?
Second thing - i want to completely disable those computer announcements, like there will be in-game switch to turn it of.

[Wanzer]

Hi guys, wanted to give you first impressions on V 0.6.1.

First thing first, I love new wall grinds, finally those collisions been improved to the point they dont cause you to flip your ship upon touching the wall and generally become much more manageable.
Love new menus and as for now I havent had a CTD when browsing trough ships which happened previously with poly/texture heavy ships.
New filtering made textures look nice and smooth and whole game look smoother as a result.
Remade courses are looking and feel good, love those rain effects, while I wouldn't mind modern graphics, I think you really succeeded in making game look like a HD wip3out.
Many people trying to imitate the look fall into trap of making everything look either too sterile or cant handle repeating tiles, you really did it well :clap

Few small issues I encountered which are.
Racing against other ships still have those weird fps dips while ships are tightly packed, once they spread on the track the game becomes bit more smooth, in general 7 AI brings fps down.
Controls screen have "Quit" and "Save" button aligning with some of the controls so when you press "Quit" you edit "look back" button, if you dont have this problem it might be an issue of 4:3 screen format.

There are few more points I want to make but I'd like to play more before raising them.
In general I like what you did with that patch, cheers.

[HusarDPL]

So I have few words to say too.
First of all my "problem" with custom sounds gone since version 0.6 - i dunno if it is about version or i should reinstall game, but now computer voices are silent. Don't get me wrong, they are good, I just needed them to shut just for tests ;)

Second thing - less pleasant. Current 0.6 version is unplayable because of many framedrops. Game can "freeze" for 100-200ms in random moments. Previous build was much better...
You've broke something xD

[Wanzer]

Are those "freezes" appear only when you playing against AI?
For me previous version had many such freezes small and large, current have much less freezes when playing against AI but once in a while I still crash in the wall just because the game froze for a moment.
I tried to see whether it caused by AI picking/using/getting hit by weapon or something else but cant pinpoint it yet but, for me current version is still smoother.

[shotfan]

This seems to be a consistent phenomenon. There was a major optimization change in between v0.6.1 and v0.6.2, and yert still, on the newest version I also experience this sudden small freezes, even in one-on-one races (there are now such, starting with KolaKorp grid). I thought it was because of my olde computer, but seeing your posts, it seems not to be the cause.

[Wanzer]

I have a theory, I think those freezes occur only when AI flies over a weapon pad and the more AI pilots fly over the weapon pad/pads simultaneously (or close to each other), the more severe freeze is.
I just made a quick test and I think that's it, disable weapon pads and race against AI, fps is buttery smooth.

No idea how it works in game, I suspect some rng function but, maybe timer to prevent too many scripts for weapon pick up being run simultaneously could fix it.
Although after a ship passes weapon pad, pad should be disabled for a while so not sure what script is run then.

In any case, its also consistent with my previous finding that framerate is better when AI is spread on a track, makes sense they dont run over same weapon pad/pads all at once.

[HusarDPL]

Yes, it's exactly as you said guys - freezes occurs when race against AI, or ship hit the wall and few others things. I've changed graphic settings from highest to lowest, and set frames per second to 30 (for gfx card drivers too) - nothing helped.
The one small thing give a little game performance up - turning of the VSynch - in game and from drivers settings. But don't expect too much when you do this ;)

[Xpand]

It can't be graphics. The problem is CPU related. Most likely due to AI logic. We've already fixed a big problem with AI data destroying FPS before the 0.6 release, but since you still have problems I think these problems run much deeper.

[pichuscute]

Just wanted to pop in to say that this game has come a long long way, and I'm extremely impressed. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best post-Wipeout 2048 AG racing we've gotten (quite pretty, even), which is very impressive. The controls are spot on, and that's something even the Formula Fusion guys are having a ton of trouble with. Keep up the great work, guys! I look forward to seeing how this game continues to go!

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

I can't wait until this game can eventually make it to the Playstation 4.

[Copernicus]

Just gave the game a play today. It is extremely oldschool! Even down to the ping-ponging! I was wondering how much collision there is supposed to be with objects next to the track. I've been able to fly through walls and what not. I also have some criticism of the user interface. Currently after completing a time attack race the user has very limited options. You should add the option to jump to the track selection screen or the vehicle selection screen instead of booting the player back to the main menu all the time. Another criticism I have is concerning track design: I think it is too difficult to enter the pit areas. This is mostly caused by the fact you have them placed off the normal race line. It requires breaking or an extreme turn to make a pit entrance, and its easy to miss them. If my ship is low on energy (and about to explode) the last thing I want to happen is dying because of the maneuvering required to get into a pit area.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

If I had a dime for every time I got killed trying to enter the pit lane in Wip3out...

[mdhay]

Ooooh, hello. ;)10524

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Invalid link.

[mdhay]

Well that's unfortunate. Perhaps the screenshot's far too large to embed correctly.

To imgur! (http://imgur.com/a/KZX2k)

I'm still working on these, but I'm halfway through the roster already. They're all up on the Steam Workshop page now, and while they need some stat adjustments and better thumbnails (however I change those) they're very much flyable! Best suited to 2280 mode, though. ;)


Edit: the link to my workshop page: no point telling you if I didn't link to it! (https://steamcommunity.com/id/mdhay_wz/myworkshopfiles/?appid=473770)

[nu9get]

that's really cool

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

So, I took a look and noted that "Using WipEout Ships" instructions didn't mention WipEout 64 or the 2097 Weird Ships.

Also, could libopenmpt be implemented in later revisions?

[Xpand]

WO64 aren't supported (different poly types in the PRM format), but they're the same except Pirhana, which is in the Workshop so there's no point.
The WO2097 Weird Ships are in a different set of files entirely if I'm not mistaken and are also not loadable into the game (we don't actively search for that container).

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

Is there a way convert track/sound data, though? With an update to the code base, it might be possible to experience the sequenced music and the Velocitar track with BallisticNG ships, especially since the entirety of WipEout 64 is only 8 megabytes (which really surprised me, given the size of some N64 games and the data tracks of the other PS1 WipEout games, I expected it to be at least 32 megabytes)

Just yesterday, I actually introduced Wolfgun to BallisticNG, so that'll be cool.

[AmigoJack]

Is there a way convert track/sound data, though?Why not the easy way: make MP3s out of it. :)


WipEout 64 is only 8 megabytesThe majority of the loading time was only for uncompressing the music. Given that I don't really want Ballistic NG to hassle with supporting both that format and that technique - it's already a nice thing to import anything at all.


@Xpand: I noticed the W3SE crafts being imported correctly, but not available for use (locked) in version 0.6. Also earlier when nothing has been imported I dared to click "down" on the craft selection screen, which then stuck up in empty rows, no matter where I clicked and how much I got back thru the menus - I had to quit the game. Seems to be a minor glitch.

[scalliano]

I downloaded this via Steam last week and have been completely blown away by it. So much so that it is the reason I felt compelled to sign up to the forums so I could show my appreciation. One of the most phenomenal fangames I've ever come across and the mod support just makes it all the sweeter. Also, the first time I caught air and the BGM EQ filter kicked in had my jaw on the floor.

I kind of feel like I'm doing it an injustice by playing it on a HDTV, though :P

Can't wait for 0.7, keep up the good work!

[AmigoJack]

After playing 0.6 a while for now (and advancing in campaigns) I love this game more and more! There are a few things worth mentioning:
Using a USB adapter for plugging in Saturn/N64/PS2 game pads (https://www.amazon.ca/SATURN-N64-PS2-USB-ADAPTER/dp/B006ZBHXEO) works great - I can play with a PS2 pad and assign all original keys (it's a non-original game pad with 4 additional keys - these are not recognized, but nobody needs them anyway). Windows 7x64 recognizes this USB device perfectly. Trying to use NegCon would require me to manually edit any configuration file for the game (which one and how?) as it interferes with navigating thru the menus already (constantly pressing "up").
Yet I haven't grasped why each campaign starts with a race that is not the one then being the first and only to select from in the menu. Is there any background information I'm missing?
Winning a platinum medal is not announced after the race - I guess just the sound sample is missing.
Platinum medal isn't separated with a hyphen when selecting a race and looking at the details (while gold, silver and bronze are).
When having a race against 1 AI opponent only there should be no silver medal that can be won, as not finishing 1st has no further meaning.
Track "Luna" in "Survival" mode is too dark and the middle line on the track is missing as well (compare to i.e. one of the virtual/comic tracks).
The forcewall weapon starts a bit too narrow for my taste.
The missile weapon looks like it doesn't do that much damage - opponents seem to recover quite fast from it. Personal taste again.
In camera mode (after the race) the light trail of the crafts can be seen more often than they should (i.e. craft is not visible, because hidden by the environment like a bridge or tunnel, but light trail still shows).
When leaving one campaign and entering another the texts to the selection are not updated initially (still show what was selected from the previous campaign).
The last selection of the craft should be remembered - currently I have to browse to it each race anew.
Finally the quake weapon! THANKS ALOT!!
The bombs have a bigger detonation radius than I expect them to have. If this is accurate to the original games then it's okay. Or maybe the explode too early (speak: my craft would hit them anyway, but it just happens too early, as if my craft's collision detection is just a rectangle of its maximum width and length).
I really love the Spilskinanke/Manor Top like track interruptions - back in the originals, and here!
Are your soundtracks extractable/downloadable? The music gets better and better with each release.
I'm glad you keep at least two old versions of the tracks. If it's no big deal to you then just throw in the other old versions as well. Or am I able to import tracks from earlier versions?
Once I managed to have a persistent bug: when starting a race (accelerating your craft) as soon as I hit the starting check point I loose all speed and shield decreases as well, leading to an elimination (after that the voice announces "low shield energy") - no matter which track. Restarting the game fixed it.These are all meant as informational - after all the 0.6 release is one I can easily enjoy for decades! Yes, that one late (Moa Therma like) track is slowing down my game to death as well, making it unplayable. Doesn't matter - I just won't touch it. :)

[twenty90seven]

Some feedback - the ships tend to bounce off one wall into another wall like a pinball, this did not happen in Wipeout. In Wipeout if you hit a wall you would slow down with a thud, but not bounce into another wall. Intended as constructive feedback.

[JABBERJAW]

I believe that is the extra speed, or the acceleration of the ship after hitting, especially at ZEN, like the piranha the first few times you use it. Overall a great game

[HusarDPL]

After BallisticNG update 0.7.1 and 0.7.2 - i've spend many hours of playing and testing ;)
Results of things found I've posted on Steam in Bugs section. This post was edited to not make unnecessary mess ;)
Many thanks for the game, you doing a great job ! Keep it up :D

[Hybrid Divide]

Is there any way to add the Piranha II ship from WipEout 64 (from Steam workshop downloads) to the selection of 2097 ships? Those were what it raced against in WO64, after all. It'd just feel right.

Bonus points if it could be updated with a blue engine trail like the other 2097 ships. :D

Just a thought. :)

[scalliano]

^ It would also be cool to have an "All Ships" category in Racebox mode, allowing vanilla/PS1/custom ships to race together.

Also, don't know if this has been reported already (apologies if it has), but it would appear that custom tracks can't be added to Tournament properly. I set up a Tournament featuring all the tracks in the game and once I got to the custom tracks it ended up loading Rainbow Road over and over again.

One other thing, more of a request - is there any chance that in a future update we could have the old Omega Harbour and Utah Project tracks added to the Vault? I love the new versions (especially Omega), but they were still fun tracks IMO.

[Hybrid Divide]

Not sure if any of you have seen this yet, but the last bit is (to me) so damn funny, my abs hurt!

Someone used drag ships with Hyper Speed and 2280 Mode turned on. Hilarity ensues.

Skip to 1:45 if you really need a good laugh. :lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=576a7-ZkGLY

[trackripper]

Downloaded this yesterday, fantastic effort, love it. Just wondering if there was any chance of having an option to turn on 2280 physics for the campaign/the entire game? Being used to Pure, Pulse and HD/Fury, I prefer it more, just don't know if it's feasible?

[JABBERJAW]

Can someone explain to me how to download custom items? I had a couple items on my game, now they have disappeared and when I click on them, they do not download from steam.

[Xpand]

First and foremost: The game HAS to be installed in the default Steam directory. A bug (probably related with Steam itself) prevents workshop items from showing up if the game is installed elsewhere.

Second: You subscribe to the workshop item on Steam and it should show up in the custom ship/track sections in the game.

Third: Steam needs to be activated (read online or not inhibited by some other program) otherwise Steam's DRM will just lock the workshop items out, if you haven't moved them into the game's folder manually.

[JABBERJAW]

Thanks, I got it going. There is a new bug if I select a ship with my negcon where it will not select a custom ship, but if I select with a keyboard, it's fine. I love the piranha 2, nice job! Great feeling, very much like the real NTSC game with a wheel or a negcon. 64 with a controller is too jittery, and the pal version doesn't really cut it. Here's a very old clip with a wheel https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hlIXAHkJDlA It's a bummer though piranha 2 doesn't have more acceleration, it's about a second behind barracuda per lap. I like the feel of it better. Regarding tracks, there is a guy who made "Bloody Hell" and "Bloody Hell 2". I cannot find the second one anywhere. Did he just replace the original. The video he made of 2 is quite a track

[psilocybin]

Hi Jabberjaw, thanks for the comment. I replaced the first version of Bloody Hell with the newer one as the old one was a horribly designed mess. If Steam is playing ball it should have updated it automatically otherwise you may need to dig the file out of your workshop folder and copy it over to *BNG dir*\User Data\My Tracks\

If you can't get it to work for any reason get in touch with me over steam (I don't check here very often) and I'll see what I can do.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=903322925

[JABBERJAW]

I got it up and running. The piranha 2 was incredibly fun on it, lots of flying

[Racingfan]

Just set up 10 usd monthly donation :D

loving this game too much!

also the download link for 2097 anniversary pack is gone, what happend?

[bigsnake]

Thanks for the donation! Glad you're enjoying the game :)

A while ago the DLC system the game used for the anniversary pack was broken, not entirely sure why but an update to Unity caused it. To save the hassle the tracks were just implemented into the game normally, you can find them in the others section on the menu.

[Mano]

Neognosis really nailed the feeling of the old trilogy, great game! and thanks!

Im sure it will be getting more polished and tweaked as it nears the 1.0 version, but for an 0.8 stage it has the soul of the gameplay there.

Having it open to modding was great, i have dl all the classic ship mods, thanks to the modders too for those nice ships (finally, i could race the ships that are in the cover of the 3600 league!)

I have a few questions and suggestions, but i need to catch up reading about the game and the forums before i do that, and i will definitely be playing and following it.

Donating was an easy decision!.

[Ace3000]

I unfortunately haven't touched BNG since like 0.7, when a full grid of AIs still caused slideshow mode to happen on my system, which is no real potato, mind you. If that issue has been fixed in 0.8 or 0.8.2, then I may jump back in to it again.

[Mano]

Seems to run fine, i wanted to comment on that too:

I stopped playing XL because i got an LCD and the CRT tv was being used by my grandffather, well, quite a few years back, but the lag on old lcd tvs were brutal, specially when you are used to play on a crt fast and twitchy on phantom, and my timing was completely thrown off.

I always told myself to get another CRT tv but that never happened.

Now i can play BNG at 144fps on a 144hz monitor (havent tested if its really reaching that number but it seems to flow fast), without input lag problems and its lovely, its something that wasnt possible before even with emulators because of how the games synched with the framerate.

I also found out a way to set up my razer sabretooth controller (xbox360-pc) to play as close to controllable as i remember my negcon (I know, i know, heresy!!), it involves steering with the analog triggers

[Ace3000]

It's that my laptop underclocks the CPU for various reasons, yet it won't speed up when I'm playing BNG.

The very interesting thing is, I'm able to run other games with similar or higher system requirements just fine, meaning that the system can and will speed up the CPU, just for some reason not this game.

[YF19-sama]

I'm in awe with the game feel so far.
For me it's a dream come true so donation/patreon was a no brainer.
Finally we can get free from the hardware restrictions imposed by consoles and enjoy the openness and unlimited potential our PC's could bring.

Thanks to the passionate and skillfull members of the community who nailed some of the key the elements the old Wipeouts are praised for.

[[Crickets™]]

This game is a dream come true.

[skythian]

Really enjoying this game. Is there still a way to get into the beta or dev branches? Tried the code in the first post but it no longer works and I don't have a beta option in steam...

[Cheese_Pwnage]

These beta branches are now defunct. The game is currently on version 0.9.4 on the public branch and this is the only available branch to those who are not testers. Fear not, however. BallisticNG will be releasing on the 20th of December 2018 as update 1.0.

[Chill]

Hey guys, where could I go to support this? I still dont have a gaming PC or the time really to play much these days but I'd love to support a project such as this. Just out of pure admiration.

[Kabelsalat]

You could buy it on steam and/or join the community discord!

[JFthebestJan]

can i play it with my i3-7100, onboard graphics, 8gb ram, win10? if yes, i'll make a steam account just for this game alone xD

[bigsnake]

Do you know what the onboard graphics chip is? Likelyhood is you'll be able to play the game but depending on the onboard graphics you'll likely be capped at 30fps if you turn the resolution down. I have a laptop with similar specs running an Intel HD 3000 chip which just about scrapes 30 on the less demanding tracks.

[JFthebestJan]

intel hd 630

[bigsnake]

You should be able to run it but with frame drops. I can't give precise numbers but with my laptops HD 3000 chip just scraping 30 I imagine the HD 630 will get you a stable 30fps.

There's a demo in development but it's unfortunately nowhere near ready at the moment since it needs to be updated with many under the hood changes the latest releases currently have. Steam has a refund policy so if you created an account and bought the game to find out it's not playable, you can refund it as long as your tracked playtime is under 2 hours and is refunded within 14 days.

[JFthebestJan]

thx 4 your fast response, i'll gladly support your efforts with a easy paid 6.59€, that's the price here in GER. i'll upgrade my rig with a dedicated graphics unit some time in the future, 60fps here i come xD

edit: it's very playable, with slowdowns here and there. dropping the resolution should make it more stable, right?

edit2: very impressive stuff! im 2hours into the game right now, and i love it so far! will buy a graphics card just for this game, lol. the game recognizes the Logitech G29, but i cannot use it for some reason. it doesn't allow me to bind the steering wheel to the left stick controls...but DS4 will do for the time being ;) another question, how can i import the tracks from my wipeout original discs?

edit3: this game gets better and better the longer i play it :) 20hours into it right now, and i have to say it's THE must have game for every speed junky! speedlap ZEN with model b on overpass is faster than zone mode!!!! 1500+!!!!! faster than F-Zero, with wipEout physics AND sonic boom effect like extreme g! you cannot ask for more :D
i'll go to make alot of tracks when i start to understand the trackeditor. nordschleife 2280 will be one of them :mr-t

[Kabelsalat]

When's BallisticNG getting a Pizza Hut?

[Meg.A.Byte]

When's BallisticNG getting a Pizza Hut?

Pizza Hut will be exclusive on the Switch release.