Biweekly Update - 12-18-2022 (Final biweekly update for 2022, progress report on v0.46)

Hey everyone, time for another update on how v0.46 progress is coming along!

Like the last few updates, this is going to be text-only. Our only goal right now is getting this update out as soon as humanly possible (but without killing ourselves with crunch), and we've already talked at length about all of the new things coming in the update, so let's get into it.

First off, the Lighting, Screen Size, and 360 Aiming updates are all at a pretty similar stage as they were in the last biweekly update. I did a bit of work on the 360 aiming, but the other two things are nearly complete enough to ship, so I've been focusing elsewhere, specifically on..

The UI update. This has been what I've been focusing on the most; reprogramming almost the entirety of the UI from scratch. There's a handful of code I was able to reuse, but most of it has been rewritten entirely. The process has simultaneously gone better AND worse than I hoped; the actual "implementing the new UI" part has been pretty smooth, but I'm not just replacing the old UI, I'm majorly changing the way CPE's menus are handled internally, to make them easier to deal with for me in the future, and that's where the problems showed up. There were a lot of issues I ran into during this process, the biggest of which was a bug in our rendering pipeline that took nearly two full work days to debug and fix, and that set me back quite a bit. There were some other minor issues too, but overall I'm pretty happy with the pace it's getting done.

There are 6 primary menu screens in CPE, after this UI rework: the Main Menu, Blaster menu, Status menu, Map menu, Database menu, and Options menu. Out of those, the Map and Options menus are BY FAR the most complicated, and the rest really aren't too bad. I started with the main menu, which is functional now but still needs work visually. After that, I focused on the Map menu, and that menu is *nearly* complete now - the only thing missing is the Map Notes functionality, which just hasn't been implemented again yet. I'm probably going to save it for last, since I could always release the map notes as a hotfix a day or two after the update comes out and it wouldn't harm the experience too much, but I'd like to avoid that if possible. I've also started on the Blaster and Skills menus, which are maybe around half done? They're probably going to be missing some of the new functionality that we want to have, like the bars showing your blaster stats, since that would delay the update a bit - for now, I just want to try and reach feature parity between the new and old UI, and the extra bits can come in the next update.

Overall, the UI is probably around 35-50% done. It's really hard to give an exact number, since a lot of it depends on how difficult the Options menu ends up being. 

Unfortunately, I do think we're going to end up missing the 2022 release window at this point. I'm still going to be trying my best to get it out in time, and like I said in the last update, we'll be continuing to stream 3-4 days a week, every week, until this update is done and in your hands.

The last thing I want after making you all wait so long is to deliver a half-baked update, so maybe missing 2022 would be a blessing in disguise? It'll give me more time to test and make sure all of these new features and changes don't break the game in unexpected ways, and it'll let us start off 2023 with a kickass update and some real momentum. Regardless of what ends up happening, though, I promise to keep you all updated.

This will be the last biweekly update for 2022, the next one will be on January 1st - if we DO miss the 2022 window, starting in January I'll switch to writing weekly updates again until the update comes out, on top of doing the streams, and I'll just start writing the updates to be short and to the point so they don't take up much of my time. That way, I can focus on getting the update out, and everyone can stay fully informed on how progress is going, even if you're not interested in watching the streams.

Alright, that's it for me today. With any luck, you'll see an update release before the clock strikes 2023, but if not then please know it wasn't due to a lack of trying. Seriously though, everyone, thank you SO much for being so patient and supportive. I know it's been a long time since we released a playable CPE update, but 2022 was an incredible year for our entire team despite that - we've been working on a lot of important stuff behind the scenes that will help the rest of development go much smoother, and I was able to do so much work on myself and my health, both mental and physical. Thanks to all of your support and eternal patience, I'm finally enjoying working on the game again for the first time in.. years, honestly. 2022 was a year very focused on me and my own needs, and thanks to that, I'm ready to start the new year off on a strong foot so we can really get development back on track. So three cheers to all of you, our incredible fans and supporters who make all of this possible! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and I can't wait to share some of the stuff we have cooking with you guys. Here's to making 2023 a kickass year for CPE!