BallisticNG 1.4.1 Dev 1 is now available

Development of 1.4.1 is underway, and to kick things off we're starting with a major update to the layout creator!

Remember to check out our roadmap for a look at what we're working on for 1.4.1.

Playing on development builds

• Right click BallisticNG in your steam library and go to Properties

• Go to the betas tab on the window that opens

• From the dropdown select development. If the update doesn't automatically queue for download, restart Steam

• Once you have opened the game, the version at the bottom right of the menu for this release will read 1.4.1-d3

Layout Creator 3.0

Version 3 of the layout creator makes many changes that have facilitated the introduction of customizable hotkeys, controller support and many improvements across the board.

The layout creator was previously a mess of hard coded inputs among a sea of spaghetti code, so the first thing that needed changing was that.

We now have a tools system which has allowed us to make the editor much more modular and remove a lot of jank that came with the introduction of new features over the years.

Note that documentation on our readthedocs hasn't been updated yet. We'll be doing that closer to the release of 1.4.1.

Hotkey Editor

Now that everything is modular and has a structure, the layout creator finally has a hotkey editor!

Controller Support

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O8_N3yWI9s

With the tools system implemented, it became much more trivial for controller support to be implemented. With exception to the perspective orbit camera, the layout creator is fully functional when using a controller!

You'll need a controller that's supported by Rewired's gamepad template for this. If your controller works out of the box with the game then you have a controller that's supported. You can also refer to this table, where anything with the gamepad icon on the left hand side is supported: https://guavaman.com/projects/rewired/docs/SupportedControllers.html

Analog Stick Ease Power

Similar to the steer curve option for gameplay, the layout creator has an easing curve for analog inputs to help you stay precise near the resting position of the analog sticks. By default this is set to use a power of 3 which we felt works for Dualshock 4, Dualsense and Xbox controllers, but you can customize this:

• Open the menu (X for Sony controllers, A on Xbox)

• Navigate down to Set Ship

• Navigate right until you reach Set Analog Stick Ease Power

• 1 is linear, above 1 reduces sensitivty near the center of the stick, below 1 increases it.

Selection Spread Crosshair

As it's harder to be as accurate with an analog stick then it is a mouse, whenever you're selecting nodes the crosshair is turned into a circle where anything that's within its radius will be considered for selection. If there's multiple nodes within the circle, the node closest to the center dot takes priority.

Templates

The layout creator now has templates! When you first load into it, or when you start a new file, you'll be given an option to select one of four starting templates depending on the kind of track you want to make.

These templates provide an appropriate track width and play mode setting configs for each track type.

You can also create your own templates by saving a CTL file into the User/Config/Presets/Layout Creator/Templates folder.

The Sidebar

Additional tools were previously hidden away in windows that were accessed through the menu bar.

These have been moved into two