First I thought January was going to be a slow month — but then I committed some more time into vonBiomes for a new major update, and it turned out quite comprehensive! The new version 16 now includes not only one new Biome for you, but also a range of new add-ons and improvements for Mechwarrior 5.
DOWNLOAD vonBiomes 16:
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What's new
New biome: Xenolichen
It is a strange world — overgrown by xeno-lichen, from large cups to ground lichen. The biome is relatively cold, and a new place for you to explore in your missions in the Inner Sphere and Instant Action. It also features the first random-dynamic foliage creation, which makes every lichen unique and each piece destructible on its own. See you on the Xenolichen worlds!
Background object randomization
One major goal of vonBiomes is to make all missions look and feel different and unique. Besides the integrated lighting system, this now extends to more randomization for backgrounds and scenery objects. There are now different huge background mountains on some missions, and for ocean tiles, marine stations and futuristic ships can appear on some coast tiles.
Lore integration and Mission screen updates:
On the mission/contract screen you can now find a "Lore Information" button. A click on it displays the Sarna.net page of the star system you are in right inside Mechwarrior! I have programmed a web service that extracts and displays the Sarna article for every solar system in the Inner Sphere on your requests and renders it for inclusion in the GUI. If you want to read up on the star system's history and other lore, you can now do that directly in game. One quick sidenote: sadly the page structure on Sarna is inconsistent, which makes it only possible to display the full lore, not filtered by e.g. by year. This means, we can only integrate the whole page content, but having the lore present is still a huge plus for sure.
Moreover, the planet the mission is taking place on is now more present. You have a small planet preview in the header, and also the solar system zooms to the planet your mission is taking place on in the background. This links the mission far better into the actual location. As a commander, you should know where to you travel soon, right? ;)
You can also hide the contracts interface to have a better look, and with another button, you can zoom back to the full solar system view.
Biome Overhauls:
The Basalt Pillars and the Rocky Desert biome did get an overhaul. The rock pillars are now more area specific instead of scatter across everywhere and can vary in size, and even shape. But most importantly, you can destroy them new with some effort — just shoot your way through if there are obstacles in your way! Hit points of the large rocks even scaled by their size.
Sky Update
Did you know there is one cloud type in Mechwarrior 5? While having that extended and visually improved already in the past, now I have added 7 different cloud masks, that are randomly used in the missions. Furthermore, added modifiers now change saturation and brightness values of the skies slightly and the system for sky color tints has been overhauled, adding even more to mission variety.
Full notes:
Optimization and randomization of City Backgrounds objects
New clouds! Set of 8 random clouds masks for your skies
Sky lighting: adjustments for brightness
Collision Fixes: Desert Rock, Desert Whale Bones, (test) Top Wall parts on SPC
Ocean scenery tiles with random objects
Mission Screen: Lore Integration: Each Solar System has direct access to their Sarna.net Article
Mission Screen: Planets are now present as preview and background
Large Background Mountain randomization and new mountains
New Biome: Lichen World
Canyon Bridge tile adjustments to better avoid rock in the way (testing)
Biome overhaul: Basalt Pillars: Pillar randomization + destructibility
Volcano Smoke updated (no green hue)
Biome overhaul: Rocky desert: Pillar randomization + destructibility
Cave Tile: some cleanup for rocks
Sky Update: different cloud types, random modifiers for sky color saturation and brightness, new extended system for sky coloring
What's next:
There are still some to-do's open from 2023, and since Solaris 7 and vonMission currently gets quite a Streamer/YouTube coverage, the next task will be to finally finish the Comet Run Custom mission and to try to add more to Solaris 7. Let's keep the fingers crossed! ;)
Also I would love to do more streams in 2024 on my YouTubes, so if you like please be invited to subscribe to the channel here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrBTtz2mYt1YbA7dPmmcsfw and tune in! 😊
Thank you very much for supporting the mod work, and ... Happy New Year 2024! 🥂
- Jonathan
PS: As usual, if you are not yet on the vonBiomes Discord, but want to stay in the loop, here is an invite! https://discord.gg/uvPGTtwcUH - Drop me a short message there and let me know you come from Patreon and I can add your special role with full backstage access. See you there! ;)