Evochron Legacy Version 1.788 Demo... file

Version 1.0788 includes the following improvements:

- Civilian ship textures updated for more vivid coloring.
- Asteroid normal mapping updated for improved detail and light response.
- Shaders adjusted to reduce upper contrast levels under bright light conditions.
- 'Very High' option added for Effects Detail to expand available/selectable range.
- 'Very High' option added for Terrain Detail to provide optional higher texture detail for planets.
- 'Very High' texture detail mode added to provide double detail level above 'High' for certain objects.
- OCRS now automatically deactivates when any console is open and also automatically activates when console is closed.
- Internal client value bypass system added for rare angle lock condition (provides improved rotational behavior at certain angles).
- New distant object rendering system added to provide colored points of light for in-system objects when they are far away.
- Windshield blast shield lighting updated to retain consistent illumination level during entire startup procedure.
- Quest and waypoint radar blips sometimes appearing outside of central radar display frame in mode 2 fixed.
- Slight delay added to player-to-player linked jump system in multiplayer for improved arrival alignment.
- 'Rename Pilot' option in Pilot Manager changed to 'Modify Pilot' to better indicate additional options.
- Revised high speed planet entry burning effect added, including ability to apply to multiple ships.
- Indicated FVL velocity of target would sometimes mismatch by a small margin in multiplayer, fixed.
- Revised multiplayer object interpolation and prediction system implemented for smoother movement.
- Object targeting system would sometimes auto-bypass if a ship wasn't nearby in range, now fixed.
- Hull atmospheric descent flaring now displays only when hull is directly effected by friction.
- Experimental VR system updated for improved movement response performance and reduced judder.
- Atmospheric friction hull damage level that applies once shields are critical reduced by 50%.
- Move option added when the borderless reduced windowed mode is active (via swscreen.txt).
- Smooth rotation system added for panning orbit camera controls in external view modes.
- Improvements to gun turret speed offset system applied to particle cannon shots.
- Multiplayer text chat color option for blue tones updated for higher blue level.
- Improvements to AI ship affiliation distribution when arriving in new systems.
- Field of view and aspect ratio sliders added to Resolution drop down menu.
- 3D Server program updated to accommodate required display module changes.
- Improvements to autopilot waypoint proximity based velocity selection.
- Subtle particle/streak effect added to jump drive sequence.
- Minor fixes.

Notes:

The new 'Very High' texture detail mode provides double the texture resolution of the 'High' mode for flyable civilian and military ships, asteroids, and the interior hangar/docking collar. The additional memory requirement is significant for this mode, so a video card with at least 2GB of dedicated video memory is advised for this option. The additional texture content increases the download size and install size by about 40-50 MB. For anyone developing custom texture files for the game, new 'veryhigh' texture filename indexes have also been added for the new optional detail level (in addition to the original 'low', 'medium', and 'high' levels). You can copy any 'high' texture file sets to include 'veryhigh' files to keep the maximum detail level the same when players switch to the 'Very High' texture detail mode, or optionally provide textures at a higher detail level. More details are available in the revised customizing kit.

The new distant object rendering system will render points of light out in the distance for planets, moons, nebula clouds, and stars that are close enough to be in the same system, but far enough away to not be rendered by the primary entity system. The distant object system will take over when objects reach that distance so there is still a visual cue among the background stars that an object is there even when it is several sectors away. And they are also rendered with a more pronounced glow effect to help make them a little more obvious. The coloring for each point will match the reflective/atmospheric properties of the object (ie planets) or the emissive properties of the object (ie stars). Even though you will now be able to see these objects at much greater distance, as the pilot, you'll still need to learn how to distinguish what is a fairly nearby planet or star object versus something that is much farther out in the background (likely much larger) and is fixed/static rather than a closer entity being rendered by the new system. One way to gauge this is to observe if/how a point of light moves or doesn't move when you move since at some distances and angles, their appearance can line up pretty closely with other points in the background. So learning to distinguish between such points can be a useful thing to practice.

To facilitate higher speed atmospheric dogfighting and travel, the damage level of atmospheric friction has been reduced by about 50%. This allows for significantly faster travel speeds in thicker atmosphere (ie lower altitude) conditions, allowing players who have been interested in dogfighting each other (particularly on private servers and LAN) to fly faster for evasion and wider turns. Other gameplay modes can also benefit from the faster travel speeds for quicker descents and escape. Short bursts of speeds up to 4000 or more can be achieved with energy shifted to shields and careful array augmenting.

When the borderless reduced windowed mode is activated with the swscreen.txt option, an icon ('+' symbol) will appear in-game in the upper right corner of the screen when the Alt key is held down. Click and hold on the icon with the mouse pointer to move the game's window frame around on the screen. This option, much like the reduced window mode itself, is somewhat experimental, but should be able to provide a way to move the game's window around while it is running on most system configurations.

You can now adjust the field of view and aspect ratio from within the game via the new sliders that appear at the bottom of the Resolution drop down menu. You can optionally reset the sliders to default value by right clicking on the slider bar for the option you want to reset.

The 3D server program has been updated to align with required changes to the display module for various VR and related functions. This will allow the 3D server program to run at the same time as the client on the same system, for those interested in running it that way. The old version of the 3D server program will cause the client to display an error message when attempting to launch it, but only if run on the same system at the same time. No changes have been made to the 2D server program as the updates were only necessary for the GPU enabled version. As with any server update, if you install this version, be sure to back up your text8.dat, factionmap.txt, and universemulti.txt files before installing it to retain your server settings, territory map status, and build modules.

The experimental/unsupported VR system has received revisions in attempts to improve movement response and also reduce judder. However, the framerate rendering performance is still very much system dependent. Evochron does not automatically reduce detail levels when the VR system is active. So if you select 'High' or 'Very High' settings, they will apply the same in VR as they do in standard display modes. If added performance is desired, simply change detail levels manually to try and achieve the level of framerate you prefer with the level of performance your system can deliver. That said though, the changes in this update should dramatically improve the VR experience in the game. Also, the vrsetup.txt file option for custom settings has been updated, here is the download link to the latest current sample file with the required options: Starwraith.com

A smoother rotation system has been added for orbit panning camera controls in external view modes that utilize those options. This helps soften the start and stop movement of those camera controls. The tapering level can also be customized via an external text file (create a file named 'vieworbitrate.txt' in the install folder and enter a value in the first line). The default rotation rate level is 0.1.