This release has been a long time coming, but it comes with some massive changes. The Windows port now has the ability to render in HDR (High Dynamic Range) to support wide color range, and the rendering engine has seem some substantial improvements, with a new framebuffer pipeline with full-scene ACES tonemapping, Bloom effects, and Specular Anti-Aliasing to eliminate shimmering. There's support for new Color Blind Support modes, and Expansion Manager "Update All" and category filtering features for easier mod management.
We also now have the ability to fully configure and customize the keyboard controls, as well as handling non-US keyboards, and mapping keys to all those OXP equipment items. We've got new ways to use the keyboard on mission screens, and new ways to add keyboard links to built-in screens.
Plus, there have been significant performance improvements thanks to a new, optimized build using modern compilers, and the internal framerate caps has been raised to 240 fps.
As always, stability has also been further improved, with plenty of bugs from the previous version fixed. For the full log of changes, please refer to the version 1.92 changelog or the What's New page at Oolite's website.
But who want's to read about it? You want to experience it for yourself. Grab the download, launch your starship and get out into the universe. There's a legend out there with your name on it. Make it yours.
Fly safe, commander!
Changes between Oolite 1.90 and Oolite 1.92:
General:
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- Default shipset updated to include normal, specular and gloss maps.
- (Windows build) Oolite now has HDR Support, including the ability to take HDR screenshots and to make use of color spaces beyond Rec709, like DCI-P3 and BT-2020. HDR screebshot formats supported are Radiance HDR (.hdr) and OpenEXR (.exr). Default is OpenEXR. This can be changed using the key "hdr-snapshot-format"="[.exr][.hdr]" in the user defaults file.
- (Windows build) New shortcut included with installation for starting game in HDR mode.
- Minimum required OpenGL version is now 3.3.
- Added bloom effect, which can be toggled on/off with F9 key.
- Oolite now renders to a framebuffer, which enables post-processing effects, as well as full scene ACES tonemapping and gamma correction, before sending screen to be displayed.
- Full keyboard configuration now available in game.
- Added new visual effect when cloaked.
- Added Tokuyoshi & Kaplanyan specular anti aliasing to reduce specular shimmering as much as possible.
- Added optional Burley diffuse BRDF, currently dormant. To enable, define OODIFFUSE_ORENANYAR to 0 and OODIFFUSE_BURLEY to 1 in both standard and planet fragment shaders.
- Added colour blind support, available in game options screen.
- In colorblind mode, scanner blips of hostile ships are now drawn as X shapes instead of squares, to ensure easier recognition and enhance accessibility.
- In-game handling of non-US keyboard layouts.
- (Windows build) JavaScript library is now thread safe.
- Added ability to assign any key or joystick button to the "activate" or "mode" functions of primable equipment.
- Added ability to define any key combination for use on a mission screen.
- Added ability to check for any key combination on any standard GUI screen.
- Updated icon and splash screen.
- Default game window size now 1280x720 (16:9).
- (Windows build) Windows light/dark modes now honoured by the game window.
- Updated Joystick mapping screens to have a more logical arrangement, and added some sub-titles to differentiate sections.
- Switched to a new domain for the Expansion Pack Manager.
- Added a "fade to black and white" effect on game over.
- Added "sky-color-correction" to GNUstepdefaults file to all for filmic tone mapping to be applied to stars and nebula. 0 = no color correction, 1 = gamma correction only, any other value = gamma correction + filmic tone mapping.
- Change descriptions of the "fast activate" keys to be easier to understand.
- Added "start-script-limit-value" option to GNUstepdefaults file for control over startUp script time limit.
- Brightened up lasers.
- Improved sun rendering and reduced default sun glare amount.
- Implemented user-defined planet dark-side illumination color, when an illumination map is in use.
- Added an "update all" option to the Expansion Pack Manager.
- Updated atmosphere density rendering.
- Added game paused message to game options when in flight.
- (Windows/Linux) Physical and available system memory now reported in log header.
- (Windows) Required minimum OS is now Windows 7.
- Application startup command is now written to the log file.
- Implemented [-]-help command line option - shows list of available command line switches and compiler used to build the game.
- Internal framerate cap increased from 200 to 240 fps.
- OXZ Manager: Implemented filter by category.
- OXZ Manager: Leading whitespaces in text filters are now ignored for reduced confusion.
- Updated the wormhole cloud effect.
- Mouse flight sensitivity made configurable by editing the preferences file.
- Implemented new ECM visual effect.
- ECM now counts as a weapon for the purposes of the weapons on/off toggle.
- Pause and unpause game is now allowed in mission screens while docked.
- Since the console can be run locally as well as remotely, when the OXP paths are requested we now ensure that potential usernames contained within are masked (replaced by an asterisk).
- (Windows build) Oolite can now be built in such a way that generated files and folders can be created in the %localappdata% user folder rather than the root game folder. Default is still root game folderm however the alternative is a more modern approach that separates user data from program files in a clean way.
- (Linux) Oolite is now distributed as AppImage and Flatpak packages.
- Improved performance accross the board by utilizing modern compilers, libraries and optimizations to build the game binaries.
- Now using espeak-ng instead of legacy espeak for text-to-speech functionality.
- (Windows) OXP Verifier: We now identify the default OS app for opening .log files and use that to open the verifier log. We cannoot use Wordpad anymore because it was removed in the latest versions of Windows.
- Added the -nodust command line option, which skips rendering of space dust.
- Raised JavaScript runtime memory from 32 to 256 MB.
- The user defaults file name has been changed from .GNUstepDefaults to OoliteDefaults.plist.
- Savefile filenames can now be passed directly to the command line when starting up, making the -load parameter optional. This enables direct association of the .oolite-save file type with Oolite.
- Replaced trumblebox image with a new high-res one.
===========================
Modified Plists:
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- keyconfig2.plist is the new keyboard configuration plist. keyconfig.plist has been deprecated.
- planetinfo.plist: illumination_color added (used with illumination map in planet texture).
- planetinfo.plist: added air_density (default value 0.75).
- equipment-overrides.plist: "name" and "description" properties are now available for use in equipment-overrides.plist, as optional replacements for "short_description" and "long_description" respectively, so as to match EquipmentInfo specification.
- equipment.plist: hide_values allows an equipment item to hide the cost and install time values on the F3 Ship Outfitting screen.
- equipment.plist: purchase_sort_order allows the sorting of the F3 Ship Outfitting screen to be sorted independently of the F5 Status screen.
- equipment.plist: default_activate_key and default_mode_key allows a default key setting for the activate and mode keys. If, when loading, a conflict with another key is encountered, the setting will be ignored.
- verifyOXP.plist: added missing "exhaust_emissive_color" key.
----------
- Added world event consoleMessageReceived.
- Added world event guiSelectedRowChanged.
- Added world event guiSelectedRow.
- Added ability to select SDR (and, for Windows only, HDR too) tone mappers. To achieve this, the JS properties oolite.sdrToneMapper and oolite.hdrToneMapper are now available. Potential values for oolite.sdrToneMapper are "OOSDR_TONEMAPPER_ACES" (default), "OOSDR_TONEMAPPER_AgX", "OOSDR_TONEMAPPER_UC2", "OOSDR_TONEMAPPER_HEJLDAWSON", "OOSDR_TONEMAPPER_UCHIMURA", "OOSDR_TONEMAPPER_REINHARD" and "OOSDR_TONEMAPPER_NONE". Potential values for oolite.hdrToneMapper (Windows only) are "OOHDR_TONEMAPPER_ACES_APPROX" (default), "OOHDR_TONEMAPPER_DICE", "OOHDR_TONEMAPPER_UCHIMURA", "OOHDR_TONEMAPPER_REINHARD" and "OOHDR_TONEMAPPER_NONE".
- Added the oolite.postFX JS property. Takes as argument a number from 1 to 8 and applies a specific shader post-processing effect to the output image. Options are protanopia filter, deuteranopia filter, tritanopia filter, cloak effect, FXAA, old movie effect, CRT effect and ECM effect respectively. Set postFX=0 to return to normal state.
- Added the oolite.colorSaturation JS property, ranging from 0.0 (black and white image) to 2.0 (fully color saturated). Best results are achieved if this is kept below 1.5.
- Moved the timeAccelerationFactor global object under the oolite JS object. To adjust time acceleration factor via script now use oolite.timeAccelerationFactor.
- ship.canAwardEquipment now accepts optional additional parameter of "context", enabling checking of any context for the equipment item.
- Added player.ship.previousSystem property, which contains the system ID of where the player as jumped from.
- shipWillExitWitchspace and shipExitedWitchspace world events now include the jump cause parameter.
- Added beginGalacticHyperspaceCountdown player.ship method.
- Added global functions setExtraGuiScreenKeys and clearExtraGuiScreenKeys.
- Added registerKeys property to mission screen object, allowing additional key presses to be defined.
- Added planet.illuminationColor property.
- Added planet.airDensity property.
- Added Ship.setShipInfoForKey to allow for shipdata updates during the game.
- Added equipment.weaponInfo dictionary.
- Added equipment.defaultActivateKey and equipment.defaultModeKey, each are read-only arrays of the default key settings for the equipment item. Set to null if the values haven't been defined.
- Added equipment.installationTime and equipment.repairTime properties.
==========
- Prevented native code exception when too many choices have been defined for a mission screen than will fit on the current screen size.
- Fixed crash when attempting to display the planet the player misjumped from in the system information screen.
- Splinters that have a defined cargo will now spawn with that, instead of defaulting to minerals.
- Fixed issue where destination ID was not being passed to shipWillEnterWitchspace when the player is docked with another vessel.
- Fixed some JS errors in oolite-populator.js and priorityAI.js.
- Fixed issue where hyperspace destination on the status screen and the witchspace destination HUD element were not honouring the system concealment property.
- Added guard against NaNs in the atmosphere shader with large planets.
- Fixed "index out of range" error that can occur if a HUD did not define MFD's and player tried to select one.
- Fixed inability to launch Oolite properly from within the Windows command console in recent Windows versions.
- Fixed missiles for Fer-de-lance in shipyard.plist to match shipdata.plist.
- Fixed transition to black and white on death when TAF not zero.
- Fixed issue where escaping a nova would result in the destination system's sun having the same size as the nova system's sun.
- Fixed issue with ships that have forward mining laser refusing mining opportunities.
- Fixed crash in the tutorial caused by non-retained objects.
- Fixed issue where weapon spec in shipyard.plist not being applied to new ships.
- Fixed crash when scan_description was defined in shipdata.plist.
- Fixed issue where context was not being considered when adding weapons to player.ship.
- Fixed exception when nil would be passed as an object for a weapon sound when that weapon doesn't exist in equipment.plist.
- Fixed issue where viewDirectionChanged event was not firing for "VIEW_GUI_SCREEN".
- Added extra docking tip in the tutorial, reminding pilots to keep moving towards the rear of the docking back, until the auto-dock takes over.
- Fixed bad memory allocation of environment variable strings during startup under Windows.
- Mines spawned by script now get their owners properly assigned.
- Added protection for when addGroup fails to add any ships in the populator script.
- Fixed bug where misjumping from within a planet's atmosphere would result in death by overheating as soon as the player attempted to move.
- Fixed a bug where loading a game from the command line would result in an extra key press being required before keyboard input started getting processed.