0.3.2.2 Input Update & Wear Changes

Good day, pilots, this is your dev speaking.

Today I've got the main branch release of the input system update. Thanks for everyone who jumped on the beta branch to help test and make sure that this major change went as smooth as possible. For such a sprawling change, things went fairly smoothly. This post has the headlines for anyone who wasn't following the beta branch updates, and a detailed changelog for this specific 0.3.2.2 update.

Input System Update

The entire game has been changed to a different input system with much better support for flight sim peripherals. If you had issues with your flight sim hardware before, those issues should be resolved and your device should now work with Lakehopper! (Please let me know if you're still having issues in this discussion topic here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/4209010/discussions/0/807974496347683301/)

This update will require you to rebind any previous controls you bound. Some devices will be partially plug and play, picking up the default axes automatically. There's a new rebinding UI, but I'm planning to overhaul this in the future to something that fits the game's needs better. The default keyboard keys for the rope, wrench, and flashlight have been changed. The new defaults are: Rope - R, Wrench - F, Flashlight - G. This is to put these tools on more convenient keys by default.

Thanks again to everyone who gave feedback about their input issues previously, and for helping me test this major change. If you want all the details, see the beta devlogs linked below.

Part Wear Changes

I've made a few changes to how parts wear to both improve the gameplay overall, provide clarity in what's going on, and give you more control.

First, I've adjusted the default wear rate to about twice as fast as it was before. Under normal conditions (not flying at full throttle the full flight), the most fragile parts (fuel cell stacks, followed by motor loops) should now be replaced every 4 hours of flying. If you're harder on the plane, this will be shorter. If you fly more efficiently, this will be longer. This estimate is when the part reaches 80% of normal performance, after which a part's performance will decline quickly. Parts still function after this point, but you risk in-flight failures or drastically reduced performance.

I've made some adjustments to when wear starts to appear on parts. Over time, parts will turn from shiny and new, to less shiny. It's a subtle change at first. Then, light dirt will show on the surface of parts as they begin to become worn. Eventually, dark rust spots will begin to show. When rust starts to show up, that's generally your sign to replace that part. This is currently the progression for all parts. Eventually part diagnostics will get more nuanced, but for now, rust = bad. This was always how this worked, but this wear will now show up earlier, and I fixed the appearance of this wear on the glowing loops.

Last, I've added a wear rate slider to the Gameplay Settings menu. Feel that the new default wears parts out too fast? You can slow it back down. Want a challenge, or just want to spend more time on the ground than in the air? You can make parts wear faster, up to 8x the new default. (This is not advised.)

There's much more I want to do here, but I saw a lot of questions about if this was even in the game. It was, it was just happening slower than even I intended. This should make this game mechanic a little more apparent and affect play more.

There's a few more optimizations & bugfixes noted in the changelog below. The full changelogs for the previous beta versions are here: View on Steam View on Steam Some examples of what part wear looks like at various stages:

Changelog

Major Changes

• AddedImprovements to how part wear happensThe new default wear rate is about twice as fast as previously.

• Tweaked wear shader: This will show signs of wear earlier than before.

• Added wear rate slider in gameplay settings: Adds an option for players to adjust how fast parts wear overall.

• AdjustedInput RevampThe input system has been changed to one with much better flight sim peripheral support. No huge changes in this specific version. Read the beta branch changelog for full details on this change. Related bugfixes for this version listed below.

Improvements

• Adjustments to terrain optimization strategy: tl;dr: performance will be smoother while the player is walking around on the ground.

  • Boring technical details: To avoid visual glitches, the coordinate system receives an update every few seconds while flying. The fewer terrains active when this update occurs, the less of a dip there is. In an attempt to avoid large frame drops while flying, the game enables and disables terrain that's off camera. However, enabling and disabling this terrain has a cost, it just helps spread it out over more frames, but it does have an impact.

  • Previously, this was active while the player was on foot, when these coordinate system updates weren't happening at all, but the game was still enabling and disabling the terrains. This caused unnecessary processing whenever the player looked around on foot. This system is now disabled if the player is not moving very fast. Frame rates while walking around on foot will be smoother. This system is still active while the player is moving quickly, such as when seated or walking around in a fast flying plane, or performing an impromptu skydive. However, while flying the plane, players usually look around much less, usually flying with a more static camera position. There's less enabling/disabling of terrains, and we don't see that performance impact nearly as much, but still get the reduced frame drops from coordinate system updates.

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where noisy peripherals would interrupt using the mouse in the UI. The game now only listens for UI specific inputs from gamepads and other input devices.

• Fixed an issue where the trim inputs were overly sensitive and were moving way too fast when held.

• Fixed an issue where camera/player look inputs were not working on the external plane orbit camera. (Speaking of, the new input system lets you bind POV hat inputs, so you can actually look around the cockpit while flying.)

• Fixed an issue where rust and dirt weren't properly showing on Bednorz Loop parts due to how they glow.

• Fixed an issue where the VOR gauge would start to glitch out after being rotated more than once in either direction.

Happy Skies!