Mario

On the BCMM side, we've continued polishing the project, with most of that work focused on testing and fixing issues found across various mod configurations. The Neo Cheyenne is a labor of love by Adonis, with additional texture, mesh, and hardpoint work by Blackrook32. The package also includes a lovely bridge for the ship, thanks to more great work by BR32. As always, BR wrote a short backstory for one of the…

We've completed our playthrough of the SP campaign as described in BCMM From Playtests to Engine Rewrites. We've also made additional fixes, improvements to how the game handles BIK files, and, as always, more performance improvements and general bug fixes. Since April's blog post, we stopped at the E6M3 playthrough video. Here are the links to the remainder of the campaign playthrough. Added transparent JSON…

The final stages of the singleplayer campaign playtest ended up becoming far more than a simple balancing or stability pass. Over the course of more than 100 git commits, BCMM evolved through new runtime systems, crash safeguards, rendering optimizations and engine-level rewrites aimed at modernizing Bridge Commander without breaking its original structure. The playtest we conducted was not a showcase or a simple…

A lot. Let's summarize what's been done: We started playtesting the stock SP Maelstrom campaign Numerous runtime fixes New smaller QoL features New NIF models exploring the limits of what the old BC engine can handle This prototype feature has now been balanced, and the results for the post-release phase will be highly dynamic and unpredictable. The latest tests conducted at the start of April produced different…

We've been busy since our last report - and while that usually means less frequent updates, it definitely doesn't mean there's nothing to share. We've been focusing on low-level fixes. Interestingly, one of these changes resulted in improved performance and memory stability as a side effect. This wasn't entirely accidental, but it was discovered while working on the large battle simulator, which made the outcome…

This month has been relatively quiet as we've been busy with real-life commitments. That said, progress has definitely continued behind the scenes. Here's what we've been working on. We've resolved several long-standing stock game issues that we've been tracking for years and had placed on the backburner. These include problems such as Mission Group Remove/Add call freezes and various CTDs. Cleaning these up…

A number of updates have landed in BCMM recently. This post provides a concise overview of what's new, with links to deeper articles where appropriate. This topic was covered in detail in a separate article, so if you haven't read it yet, I recommend starting there. What's worth reiterating here is that BCMM does not treat resolution as a literal rendering size anymore. Instead, the selected resolution acts as a…

If the UI feels cleaner and more readable than ever, that is not an accident. For the first time since 2001, the game has received new fonts -- but more importantly, it now has a UI that is actually designed for modern displays. This is not just a cosmetic change. It is something the community has been asking for for years. To clarify upfront: Crillee remains the default font and will continue to be the only default…

Bridge Commander has seen many widescreen attempts over the years, but most of them ultimately amounted to superficial patches. With BCMM, we decided to address the problem properly and without compromises. First, credit where it is due. AlphaYellow's widescreen fixes served as an important reference point and helped initiate more in-depth widescreen work in BCMM.…

We're back with our final progress report of the year. We're pleased to announce that we'll soon begin work on the final campaign for the BCMM SFC3 port, which should enter development shortly. Now onto our report. We've showcased something rare in games, and please note that this is purely a technical demo. It demonstrates live integration of ChatGPT\Ollama inside the game. A LCARS-style communication window…