This release focuses a lot of cleaning up the core engine code and moving parts out to C/++ libraries. It also includes a user interface for tooling based on dear imgui,
Shiny New Things
- MIT license for easier integration into your own projects
- LancerEdit, a cross-platform, modern editor for Freelancer UTF-based files which includes things such as...
- Collada-based mesh authoring support!
- System Viewer is now split out into the SystemViewer binary. The Launcher is now a pure engine instance without tooling.
- Greatly improved performance since 2017.10.
- Proper support for mipmaps in MIPS and MIPx nodes.
- Turrets assigned to station loadouts render
- Ship-mounted weaponry that can be aimed
- Considerably greater compatibility with THN scenes (still WIP!)
Windows Notes
This release for Windows requires both the 32-bit and 64-bit redistributables for Visual C++ 2012 and 2015. These are not included in the archive. For maximum compatibility please install both x86 and x64 versions
Links:
(EDIT: added 2012 for freetype, this will be simplified in future versions)
This release also requires .NET 4.6 which is not included in older versions of windows.
Link: .NET 4.6
This release removes the mostly broken DX9 fallback powered by ANGLE. Now OpenGL 3.3-capable hardware is absolutely required to run.
Linux Notes
Ubuntu/Debian users are best installing Microsoft's official Mono package from their repository for best performance and compatibility.
Link: Mono
Linux users are encouraged to compile their own binaries with the new system based on CMake/cake. This will reduce incompatibilities with the large amount of native code now used.
Known Issues
- Occasionally hardpoints are flipped inside out after editing in LancerEdit. I've yet to be able to reproduce this, so if you can reproduce it consistently please let me know.
- macOS support has been removed from the build system entirely. With Apple's deprecation of OpenGL this would require a dedicated maintainer to rewrite the graphics backend.
- Xwt is crap and broke my Crash Window on windows after I fixed it, so to get crash information you'll have to launch from cmd >:C