I'm happy to share that Reentry has been updated to version 0.9! This is mainly a bugfix, infrastructure and game mechanics update.

If you need to revert back to the previous version, you can use the 0.87-branch under the game properties/betas-tab.

Thanks to the Test Pilots, Community volunteers, contributors and alpha-floor testers. and everyone who has been a part of testing!


Adaptive UI
Massive changes to the User Interface system to make it more adaptable to various screen resolutions. Most of the user interfaces has been modified, but the look and feel should remain similar to what you are used to. Most settings related menus has changed to a single column rendering method instead of a dual column, so you will need to re-learn where some of the settings are located.

This has been a big pain-point for many, so I hope this improves things for those with both older screens, and ultra-wide screens.

Text-To-Speech System
I have received quite a few requests for a text-to-speech system. A new option (disabled by default) will use a voice synthesizer available on your system to read out the mission commands given during tutorials and missions. You can toggle the setting on the main menu:
SETTINGS -> Audio section -> Untoggle Text-to-Speech


Improved the Mercury Academy
The Mercury Academy is the entry-point to the game for many, so I have made a revisit to some of its academy lessons to cover basic game mechanics a bit better or differently. It should now better highlight the gauges and switches that are being discussed. The on-screen switch indicator that will show a dot in the direction of the currently highlighted switch will also work with this.



Improved Save States
I have continued to work on the save state system, especially focusing the complex nature of saving and loading a state in Lunar Orbit. If you have tried to save a state here when the LM and the CSM is in close proximity, like during docking, for then to discover that when loading the state, the two space crafts suddenly are a few degrees apart. This should now have been improved to be within fractions of a degree.

More Game Overs added
Flying a space craft is hard. There is a lot of things to monitor and check. In the 0.9 update, I have implemented some more Game Overs to Mercury. This includes suffocation of O2 is depleted, fires in various cases. I will keep adding more and more ways to fail and die in space, including Gemini and Apollo.


Pause Game
Pressing ZERO [0] on the keyboard will pause the game. A "PAUSED" text will render below the time and date UI to indicate that the simulation is paused.

Language Support
The major aspect of this update is all around language support. Most (but not all) important UI text elements is moved into a file-based lookup system. There is one system responsible for the User Interface, and another responsible for mission content and checklist content. Almost any mission and User Interface should now be translatable to any language you wish to support.
To test the language tools, I wish to set the target for 1.0 that A) the User Interface system to support both Spanish and Chinese, and 2) Mercury Academy will support Spanish and Chinese.

It is quite easy to translate the game. You can follow these guides to contribute, or to just make some changes locally on your own PC (without contributing):
https://github.com/ReentryGame/Languages

We are looking for help to translate the game, please reach out on Discord if you are interested!
Current focus is Spanish, French, Chinese


File based storage, Save Games and System Mechanics
Another major aspect of the 0.9 update is that the save games has been moved into a file-based storage system. This will allow Steam Cloud integration, so your save state is stored online, as well as taking a backup or moving your save to another computer.
Most of the game settings are located here, as well as progress. Another settings-file has been made for graphics settings. This should not be Steam Cloud enabled.
I have also started the process of enabling Steam Cloud Play to test the online storage and the Cloud Play services, including GeForce Now (hopefully, if it gets accepted).

Other
- More unit conversions from metric to imperial
- Option to disable the Highlight renderer so the blue box is invisible, while the Checklist Guidance UI (triggered by RUN) is still functional
- Added "Hold Countdown" to Gemini and Mercury (from cockpit)
- Fixed a Mercury Retro firing bug causing the mission script and cockpit shake to happen, even if the individual Retro Rocket No. 1, 2 and/or 3 was off.
- Option to disable the radio noise filter on voice radio communication (multiplayer)
- MOCR TV channel logic correction
- MOCR/MCC sitting animation fix (offsets still needs tweaking)
- Mission Accomplished text wrapping
- Fixed some P01 IMU alignment issues


Small note about 1.0

As we move into the 0.9 update series, you will mainly see game mechanisms and game system changes such as language support. Language support will be iterative as contributors submit their changes. If you wish to contribute with translation, please reach out! We wish to support as many languages as possible, even if it’s just the User Interface files, or various missions. The language system will fall back on English if it’s not able to locate a translation for the selected language.

Once we reach the 1.0 milestone, the game will leave the Early Access tag, and move into its journey towards 2.0. The main goal of 2.0 is to improve existing space craft implementations and their systems, add new capabilities to them, focus on multiplayer, Virtual Reality, and introduce new space crafts to the game. I will soon publish more information related to my plans for Reentry - An Orbital Simulator between 1.0 -> 2.0.

You can see a little video where I cover some of the new features and improvements:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMPKHObgMX0&ab_channel=Reentry-AnOrbitalSimulator


Thanks for playing Reentry!
// Petri Wilhelmsen