10 KiB
Project status
Prepared source snapshot: 0.1.0-alpha.1, 2026-10-03, with subsequent gameplay refinements described below.
This is a playable experimental client connected to the real game. It is suitable for technical enthusiasts who can follow the source setup instructions and help test supported versions. A broad public release and a portable compiled installer are still future work.
Implemented
| Area | Current behavior |
|---|---|
| Campaign | FTL runs its normal campaign, events, difficulty, combat rules, audio and saves |
| Ships | Dynamic local layouts, extruded hull presentation, rooms, weapon mounts, opposing bows in combat and stable movable encounter placement |
| HUD | Compact original status/crew panel follows the headset first at a fixed readable size; lower strip removed; clamps above the transformed hull/shield only when its movement would intersect the ship; full main menus remain head-relative |
| Navigation | Available actions only; actual sector map appears above/ahead of the pilot room and faces the viewer |
| Menus/dialogs | Main menus remain 2D; native shop/ship windows and event choices float in the encounter; BUY/SELL panels are retained |
| Crew | Native positions/tasks/selection, animated procedural race models, grab preview and native move orders; occupied crew face the viewer |
| Targeting | Weapon and beam room targeting, plus native mind-control, teleporter and hacking target routing |
| Systems | Dpad Up and a Navigation button open System Power; native capped reactor availability, storm loss and battery availability remain separate |
| Doors | Open/closed, locked, damaged/hacked state and thin tier-dependent armor driven by native strength |
| Combat visuals | Shields/super shields, weapon charge strips/pips, native firing/impact/projectile paths, native miss cues/pass-by presentation and enemy hull bar using locally imported vanilla art |
| Drones | Distinct procedural space/interior families with deployment/power state and placement by native render space |
| Hazards | Room fire and cross-shaped breach tiles, oxygen-dependent air wisps and surrounding asteroid, sun, nebula/storm and pulsar presentations |
| Room feedback | Native role icons and permission-aware condition colors; no floor health/status bars or counters; normal sensor fog still applies |
| Input | Steam Frame actions, generic fallback profiles, controller infographic, equipment-name/family/ammo action wheel and QWERTY rename keyboard |
| Lifecycle | Isolated game copy, fingerprinted hooks, separate hs_ftlvr_ saves, pre-launch backup and graceful save/exit |
Verification recorded during development
Latest HUD, wheel and launch corrections
The gameplay HUD uses a headset-relative pose whenever it has room. Collision checks include the transformed hull/shield envelope and the panel's swept movement, so looking down cannot carry it through the ship. The wheel now handles empty native drone lists without losing equipped weapon entries. Room-floor bars and counters are removed. Launcher corrections expose failures and keep runtime files local.
The current source passed 38 Python tests and nine Godot suites in the prepared FTL-Tabletop-VR folder. The suites include native empty-drone-list normalization, defensive wheel parsing, headset-relative HUD placement/collision checks and removal of room-floor bars. UI, controller and frame-transport suites used actual GPU rendering on the RTX 4060 Ti.
Actual RUN-DESKTOP.cmd --smoke and RUN-VR.cmd --smoke launched the isolated FTL process and Godot client, then exited successfully with clean client logs and no bridge errors. The GitHub Desktop checkout's RUN-FTL-VR.cmd --smoke alias passed the same combined launch/exit check. These smoke tests use desktop rendering; VR preflight passed separately. A copied save profile opened the current campaign, paused it and supplied actual Artemis Missiles and Burst Laser Mark II entries to a GPU-rendered wheel check; the drone-equipment collection was normalized to a list and bridge errors remained empty.
All four original campaign hashes remained unchanged; the original save prefix/settings were restored and Steam/lab executable fingerprints remained unchanged. These checks establish the desktop-wrapper and native wheel paths. Physical Steam Frame comfort, stereo performance and clean-machine setup remain unverified for these changes.
Preceding gameplay refinements
This revision introduced a compact spatial gameplay HUD retaining native status/crew controls, direct Power access, localized equipment wheel metadata, storm-aware free-power presentation, native miss feedback, cross-shaped breaches and per-room system condition presentation. Enemy system condition colors follow native information permissions. Detailed floor bars introduced in that revision have since been removed.
That revision passed 27 Python tests and nine Godot suites, including HUD-layout and damage-visual checks. Headless and Vulkan HUD checks covered crop/picking, fixed-size placement and transformed-envelope clearance; damage checks covered condition visibility, misses and breaches. Controller UI checks included localized equipment/ammo, bounded names, unchanged-content redraws and capped power/battery separation.
Actual native ion-storm state was checked: 8 installed / 4 usable reactor bars, 4 raw available / 0 usable free. Native equipped Burst Laser/Artemis titles and ammo metadata, enemy system damage/repair and breach tiles were checked. The real missed flag/event path was verified using a private native projectile and forced Evasion.MISS; this verifies integration, not random evasion rates.
Production combined Vulkan launch/save/exit smoke passed: exit 0, clean client log, no bridge errors and a disconnected bridge. All four campaign file hashes match the fresh pre-test backup; source and packed Lua match, QA fixtures are absent, both original/lab executable hashes remain unchanged and final process inventory shows no owned FTL/Godot processes. Physical Steam Frame comfort and complete campaigns remain open.
| Check | Evidence and limits |
|---|---|
| Real-game startup | Main menu, hangar, new game, event choices and combined client/bridge startup checked |
| Crew and doors | Native crew selection, room movement, station return, modifiers and upgraded door state checked |
| Navigation | Actual map opening, beacon selection, fuel consumption and new event checked |
| Weapons/combat | Player laser/missile targeting, enemy fire, shield/hull impact and native hull damage checked |
| Systems | Power operations for installed powerable systems, native mind control and teleportation effects checked |
| Hacking | Enemy room targeting accepted; attachment/effect completion remains unverified |
| UI | Native HUD during Tactical/map/store/event/ship modes; enemy-region transparency; BUY/SELL content; rename input and original fonts checked across development revisions |
| Drones | Native equipment/special/global lists deduplicated; actual combat and interior battle-drone state inspected |
| Automated tests | Current prepared source passed 38 Python tests and nine Godot suites; UI/controller/transport checks used actual GPU rendering |
| Desktop graphics | Vulkan rendering and model/UI inspection checked on RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB |
| Save handling | Current desktop-wrapper launch/exit and copied-profile native checks preserved all four original campaign hashes |
| Steam Frame play | Maintainer confirmed playability and substantial partial runs; latest changes need further hardware coverage |
The automated suite uses synthetic fixtures for many edge cases. A passing test does not establish that every race, layout, weapon, drone, hazard or boss encounter has been exercised in a campaign.
Performance: what the measurements mean
- The old Tactical texture path delivered about 6.30 updates/second in its measured consumer case.
- The raw RGBA path reached 29.09 in the same consumer case and about 27.89–28.60 in complete desktop scene checks, including an asteroid scene.
- Tactical uses 960×540 capture with a 30 Hz target. Jump/maps and native windows keep 1280×720. The independent native HUD targets 10 Hz.
- These are capture/texture-delivery measurements. They are not stereo headset FPS, motion-to-photon latency or SteamVR frame-time measurements.
Known limitations and remaining work
Before a wider player release
- Test setup from this standalone repository on a clean Windows machine.
- Measure physical Steam Frame readability, hand-screen steadiness, pointer latency and stereo frame pacing after the latest changes.
- Complete campaign coverage: Flagship phases, ship layouts/races, boarding, cloaking, beams/bombs, drones and hazard combinations.
- Verify hacking-drone arrival, attachment and resulting effect end to end.
- Check long-session transition/capture recovery and graceful shutdown under failure conditions.
Compatibility and polish
- The preparer accepts only the fingerprinted Steam Windows 1.6.14 input and official rollback to 1.6.9. Unknown executables are rejected deliberately.
- GOG PKG extraction works; the complete GOG executable/loader route is not verified.
- Other headsets/controller profiles, Linux/macOS and FTL overhaul combinations are not verified.
- Native game rules remain authoritative. VR hazard animation and some projectile/drone presentations are approximations, rather than complete reproductions of their 2D appearance or timing.
- HUD follows the headset until a collision would occur; a raised or oversized table can then push the panel above the ship. Retest that transition physically when moving/resizing the encounter.
- A source setup is supplied; compiled client distribution, export packaging and an end-user installer are not yet validated.
- Python uses pinned Frida/Capstone and minimum Pillow/NumPy versions. Other combinations need testing.
Useful next tests
Start with the supported setup. Report the exact game/loader/client versions, controller interaction profile, whether the problem occurs in VR or desktop, and steps to reproduce. For performance, distinguish stale Tactical textures from low headset frame rate. Use the issue forms and follow CONTRIBUTING.md.