Nominal Patch Notes — March 1, 2022
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
v1.2.2 Nominal Classic, Feature Highlight: Game Modifiers
As we enter March, I want to give everyone a glimpse into what has been in the works for v1.2.2 since the last update/announcement on February 7. Despite some much-needed vacation time, a lot has been completed or, at the very least, planned out. This announcement will primarily go into detail about the upcoming Game Modifiers feature, but includes some other fun bits of information.
Without further delay...
Update on the Status of the Update
As soon as the Optimization Update (v1.2.1) was pushed to the Testing Branch on Steam, work on v1.2.2 - Nominal Classic began. I hit the ground running on all of the planned features (see the roadmap in the previous announcement/storage page/the Offworld Systems website), and I also planned out a few more quality of life features that aren't on the roadmap for design/aesthetics's sake.
A huge shout-out goes out to the members of our Discord Community who helped me track down a lot of bugs, both newly introduced and old-and-hard-to-pinpoint. Thanks to them, I was able to fix a really decent number of bugs in the hotfix v1.2.1.1. So. the game is, quite literally, better than ever.
Though the hotfix took a few days of work away from Nominal Classic, it was well worth it. And, despite the time taken for the hotfix, a couple of the major features on the roadmap have been tackled! For this dev-update, I wanted to focus on one of those: Challenge Modes Game Modifiers.
Game Modifiers (Previously: "Challenge Modes")
Obligatory Disclaimer: The following information, art, assets, mechanics, etc. are still in development and are definitely subject to change both before and after going live on the Testing Branch.
To begin with, the Road Map still refers to this feature as "Challenge Modes," but I've taken to calling them "Game Modifiers" internally as I'm working on them. If this decision stays concrete through publishing to the Testing Branch, then the Road Map will be updated to reflect that.
I've changed this feature's name, because, in my perception, "Challenge Modes" implies individual modes that are used one at a time exclusively, and that those modes are prescribed, fixed, and immutable. Though this was a promised feature at the game's launch, the more I got down to actually planning it out, the less fun these prescribed Challenge Modes sounded to me. Why should I determine that the players can challenge themselves in specific, arbitrary ways? Instead, I decided on the name "Game Modifiers" (not to be confused with third-party mods). Where a Challenge Mode is prescribed and singular, a Modifier (again, to me) is something that can be turned on and off, tweaked, and utilized either individually or in combinations with other modifiers.
With that, the following list of possible modifiers was determined (details follow the image):
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As pictured, there are 27 possible Game Modifiers. Each affects a particular aspect of the underlying mechanics of Nominal. These modifiers are categorized into the following groups:
- Disablers: disable particular systems within the Odyssey Capsule
- Dynamic Modifiers: randomly affect components of the Odyssey, whether that be a complete failure of a single or more components, or an erroneous output from that component
- Modes: affect the round's gameplay at a high level
- Rate Modifiers: affect the rates at which values change for various systems
- Time Modifiers: affect the time intervals for various meta-gameplay mechanics
- Threshold Modifiers: affect the values at which hazards are triggered
Because I chose to make almost every core functionality/mechanic a modifier, some of these modifiers can conflict with each other. So, as shown, some modifiers are mutually exclusive, meaning only one or the other can be enabled at a given time. The mutually exclusive modifier pairs are as follows:
- Disable Annunciator Signs & Random Annunciator Sign Statuses
- Disable Dials & Random Dial Failures
- Disable MFD & Random MFD Readouts
These have been set to mutually exclusive as the inherent mechanic of both modifiers in a pair would negate one or the other.
Moving on: in addition to planning all of the possible Game Modifiers, that means extending the existing menu system to include a menu for enabling and tweaking them. So a new Modifiers Menu has been added from the Mode Select screen. (Note: the current plan is for modifiers to only be enabled once the player has met a certain, to-be-determined threshold, so that players are not overwhelmed right out of the box and have some familiarity with the game's flow before tweaking these values). Below is a quick glance at the current design of the new Modifiers Menu.
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I wanted to keep this system simple to digest and utilize, so it is currently presented as a simple scroll view where the modifiers are displayed by category. Modifiers that are just on/off use a simple checkbox, and those that are on/off and have associated values have a checkbox and a slider. Simple as that. There is also a main "Enable Modifiers" setting, so that players can quickly enable and disable modifiers between rounds without having to reset their saved Modifiers configuration.
Thanks to the changes in the Optimization Update, this data is saved in the /Config folder alongside player settings, so that the underlying JSON is accessible. That said, player's should note that, as with player settings, the JSON is validated against known good and bad values to ensure, as best as possible, that broken values do not occur and ruin the game's experience.
All-in-all, I think that going with these Game Modifiers instead of fixed Challenge Modes will enable players to really gear the classic experience to their liking, increasing the challenge as desired and reducing redundancy in play sessions.
If you looked at the list of modifiers in the image above and are curious about what each individual modifier does, here's a handy list. If not, feel free to skip down to the next section.
Disablers:
- Disable Annunciator Signs: disables all Annunciator Signs on the Annunciator Panel
- Disable Cabin Lights: disables the overhead Cabin Light
- Disable Computer: disables the ship computer completely; the screen will not be displayed and commands will not be executed
- Disable Dials: disables all Dials on the Dials pannel
- Disable MFD: disables the MFD completely
- Disable Panel Lights: disable the panel backlights
Dynamic Modifiers:
- Random Annunciator Sign Statuses: randomly changes the state of Annunciator signs
- Random Dial Failures: disables random Dials on the Dials pannel at random intervals; affected Dials may or may not start working again
- Random MFD Readouts: randomly displays erroneous statuses on the MFD panel
- Random Indicator Light Statuses: randomly changes the status of random indicator lights at random intervals; affected Indicator Lights may or may not start working again
Modes:
- Endless Mode: disables win conditions; failures trigger one after another, survive as long as you can
Rate Modifiers:
- CO2 Drain Rate: increases the rate at which the Co2 System fans drain Co2 from the cabin by a set factor
- CO2 Gain Rate: increases the rate at which Co2 builds up within the cabin by a set factor
- Engine Fuel Drain Rate: increases the rate at which Engine Fuel is consumed/drained by a set factor
- Heat Drain Rate: increases the rate at which Heat drains from the cabin by a set factor
- Heat Gain Rate: increases the rate at which Heat builds up in the cabin by a set factor
- Oxygen Drain Rate: increases the rate at which Oxygen drains from the cabin by a set factor
- Oxygen Gain Rate: increase the rate at which the Oxygen System fans pump oxygen into the cabin by a set factor
- RCS Fuel Drain Rate: increases the rate at which RCS Fuel is consumed/drained by a set factor
Time Modifiers:
- Time To Failure: sets maximum time (in seconds) after the round starts that a failure can occur at; this does not affect the minimum time for failure triggers.
- Time To Live: sets the Time To Live value, affecting the given time to solve failures before the round is over
- Hazard Time To Live: sets the Hazard time To Live value, affecting how long the player has to resolve hazards before succumbing to them
Threshold Modifiers:
- CO2 % Hazard: sets the percentage of Co2 in the cabin before a Co2 hazard is triggered; a lower value means a hazard is triggered sooner
- Heat High Hazard: sets the upper temperature threshold for the cabin temp before a High Temp hazard is triggered; a lower value means a hazard is triggered sooner
- Heat Minimum Hazard: sets the lower temperature threshold for the cabin temp before a Low Temp hazard is triggered; a higher value means a hazard is triggered sooner
- Oxygen % Hazard: sets the percentage of Oxygen in the cabin before an O2 hazard is triggered; a higher value means a hazard is triggered sooner
Baked-in Logger
One thing that has been completely implemented, and that will drastically improve the time needed to identify and remedy bugs is the baked-in logger.
As stated in the previous update, this logger is non-invasive. That means it's not logging any details about your computer whatsoever. While Unity has a provided logging solution, it's often not verbose and doesn't include important details, such as timestamps or the game's version. Unity's provided logger also logs to an obscure location in the user's AppData folder (on Windows systems). I've made a redundant, safe, and efficient logger that will provide valuable troubleshooting information for any errors and bugs so that players can easily know where the log file is ($SteamGameDirectory/gameLogs/$) and provide it to me when reporting bugs.
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As seen above, the logger includes the game's version, a timestamp, and tags for the log type to allow for easily identifying where something has gone wrong in the event of a bug, error, or failure. This may not seem like much, but I promise, as a developer, this will make a huge impact on the amount of time it takes for me to investigate, confirm, and fix any bugs.
Next Up
Phew! That was a long one! If you've made it this far, thank you very, very, very, very much! With the Baked-in Logger and Modifiers Menu implemented, next up is actually making the Modifiers do the things they're supposed to! I purposefully picked the Game Modifiers as the first major implementation in this update because of it's complexity and how much it will effect on the back-end. So, I'm currently working on getting that done. Once the Modifiers are completed, it's on to creating the rest of the key features for Nominal Classic, and then some other, smaller quality of life features. All in good time! A game update is never late, it arrives precisely when it means to.
Thank you all so much for your patience and support. I truly think the Nominal Classic update will make Nominal into the game it should have been all along and will bring a lot more shine, polish, and "juice" to the game that it really needs.
Shameless Plug
Has this ever happened to you: You really want to play Nominal with a group, but you don't have anyone to be your Mission Control (or pilot)? Join the Nominal Official Discord and check out the #flight-ops channel!
Has this ever happened to you: You love Nominal and you want to know the latest info and dev updates before they hit the Steam announcements? Join the Nominal Official Discord and check out the #capcom-announcements channel!
Has this ever happened to you: You ran into a bug in Nominal and you don't know how to let the dev know? Join the Nominal Official Discord and check out the #feedback channel!
Would you like to know more? Join the Nominal Official Discord!