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Pinback
(@pinback)
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Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 9066
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Another update for the game and with more to come. ASTROKILL - Steam News Hub (steampowered.com)

This update brings ASTROKILL into the modern age with the latest UE4 version (upgraded 4 versions from 4.23 to 4.27). An upgrade to UE5 will happen in the next major update! In the meantime, this update leverages the latest atmospheric lighting features from UE4 to add planetary atmospheres and improved stellar (literally) effects. I've replaced all asteroids and fragments in the game with higher resolution geometry and textures suitable for 4k gaming rigs. There's also a new heavy fighter that's playable in the Snare level. This fighter comes equipped with 3 turrets of a new variety. It has more of a Star Wars-y visual style compared to the other fighters. More fighters and frigates matching this style are coming (unless it's not well received).

The next update will take full advantage of the Chaos physics system, Lumen, and Nanite in UE5. With Nanite, I'll be able to eliminate most LODs. And, with Chaos, dynamic destruction of asteroids and ships will finally be possible. That means you'll be able to turn ships into a hundred bits of hot metal or carve out holes in asteroids with continuous gunfire. Cool stuff. Anyways, happy Easter!

Environments
  • Nearby stars are now rendered using Unreal's atmospheric lighting system
  • Added planetary atmospheres to nearby planets and moons (realistic, dynamic atmospheric lighting not seen before in AK)
  • Planets now have more spherical geometry (higher resolution)
  • Performed a lighting pass on all levels resulting in a generally brighter environment more suitable for space
  • Replaced all asteroids and fragments with higher resolution geometry and textures
  • Color-balanced all skyboxes to achieve a more space-y look (blacks are black and whites are white)

 

Gameplay
  • Added a new Beltor fighter (called the Goliath) that comes equipped with 3 new turrets
  • Created a new double-barreled, fighter-mounted turret (internally named the Weasel)
  • Changed the playable fighter in the Snare level to the Goliath
  • Adjusted the placement of static asteroids in all levels

 

Graphics & UI
  • Brightened and adjusted HUD-colors to appear more emissive
  • Shading-quality can now be adjusted from the graphics-menu
  • Added a thin circle to the center of the reticle to assist with aiming
  • Prograde and retrograde reticles are now smaller and no longer look like targeting reticles
  • Reticles and billboards will now blend additively when they overlap and no longer fade in/out
  • Missile-reticles are now thinner and smaller
  • Motion-blur is now auto-disabled when the in-game menu is shown (prevents menu from smearing)
Controls
  • Created a special actor to visually preview and debug joystick-mappings - features a crosshair mapped to pitch/yaw (should be centered in the circle), a 'thrust' bar mapped to forward/backward movement, a 'strafe' bar mapped to left/right movement, a 'lift' bar mapped to up/down movement, and finally a 'roll' bar mapped to the roll-axis
  • Reduced adjustable deadzone-range to an overly large deadzone
Core
  • Upgraded the Unreal engine from 4.23 to 4.27 (4 versions!)
  • Reduced size of Windows build from 2.6GB to 1.8GB (almost a gig smaller for both Windows and Linux builds)
  • Global post-processing is now easier to adjust on a per-level basis
  • Cockpits are now auto-spawned without needing to be manually placed
  • Improved and expanded upon the random-number library
  • Eliminated many unnecessary BP-interfaces

 

This post was modified 2 years ago by Pinback

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DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
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Joined: 8 years ago
Posts: 7856
 
Posted by: @pinback

Must give the game a go at some point.

Yes it definitely looks like its worth a play, I was just hoping the game was going to get to a 'finished' point so I can buy it.... I been burned a few times with games never making it out of early access so now I don't buy a game until its released.

But this last update did a lot of core stuff that should benefit this game for the future, and the developer mentions the next update will use Lumen, Nanite 😲 and the engine will be upgraded to UE5. So this should be one nice game to play once all these features are integrated.


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Pinback
(@pinback)
99 Star General Site Moderator
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 9066
Topic starter  

And Astrokill get another update to the game, seem to getting regular.

This update modernizes all menus and UI-elements within them (buttons, text-boxes, drop-downs, etc.). The UI in Astrokill has largely remained unchanged for years, since gameplay has received the most attention. Previously, the UI was mostly implemented in Blueprints. I've nativized the UI (converted to C++) and added the ability to customize colors globally. Now, when you choose a different color-theme, the entire UI changes colors to match the in-game HUD!

HUD
  • Minimap now has double-lined border and a transparent inner region
  • Reduced saturation of blue-tinted cockpit/HUD-elements
  • Reverse "x" icon is now a "friendly" color instead of red
UI
  • Modernized menus by "ironing out" buttons and other widgets
  • Increased transparency on all UI-elements to improved readability
  • Buttons now support 3 different behaviors internally (normal, toggle, or slider)
  • Redesigned sliders to be more readable and easier to click-and-drag
  • Nativized key-selectors (found in controls-menu)
  • Nativized text-fields (found in joystick-menu)
  • Colors on drop-downs now match rest of UI (previously white and difficult to read)
  • FPS-display in graphics-menu now fades to red when low and always shows 1 fractional digit
  • Renamed color-themes to Classic, Fabulous, and Mono
Audio
  • Reduced default music-volume by ~30%
  • Added UI-sounds for combo-box-selections, slider-releases, and text-field-commits

 

Core
  • Changed capture-mode to 'Capture Permanently Including Initial Mouse Down'
  • Changed lock-mode to 'Lock on Capture'
  • Mouse is now always captured on launch (bCaptureMouseOnLaunch in DefaultInput.ini)
  • Eliminated the need for several UI-related interfaces to reduce architectural complexity
  • UI-elements now leverage delegates (instead of interfaces) to share information related to theme-changes, press-events, key-down events, etc.
  • Upgraded font-assets to eliminate all font-related warnings from build

 

Controls
  • Mouse-cursor can now click via the Space Bar (allows one-handed operation from the keyboard)

 

Bugs
  • Fixed issue with default camera-perspective not being saved if selected from main-menu

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DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
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Joined: 8 years ago
Posts: 7856
 

Nice update, glad to start seeing consistent progress, I will be definitely eyeing this one come the summer sale. 


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