Demo Patch 2.4: Optimized for Launch

Optimized for Launch, this is nearly as optimized as I can get the game's performance. Everything since 2.3.2 in one update: the game starts sooner, stops freezing on shaders and holds its frame rate, plays properly on the Steam Deck and a controller, and Titan Escort runs smoothly. It also brings your awaited forum requests: a Long Haul Titan Escort, a co-op campaign lobby, escort fire control, choosing how many mounts a refit takes, and a Hall of Fame for Forum Contributors in the credits (Thanks to everyone who contributed to making Engagement better, earn a spot or higher rank in the HOF by contributing more feedback to the forums!).

FASTER START

- The first launch no longer waits up to a minute and a half for the ship shader. The menu opens within seconds on a simpler version while the full one finishes in the background.

- The sky shader prepares in the background too, so the loading screen keeps moving, and the loading bar follows the real work instead of jumping at the end.

- Windows: the sky shaders take far less time to prepare on a first launch or after a driver update (the sky bake about four and a half times faster on our test machine).

NO SHADER FREEZES

- Changing graphics quality, reaching a new kind of planet or seeing a new effect keeps the current look until the new shader is ready, instead of freezing the game.

- The game no longer asks the graphics driver every frame whether a shader is ready. Each of those questions made the frame wait.

SMOOTHER FRAMES

- About three quarters fewer drawing settings go to the graphics driver each frame.

- A ship's plain parts are drawn together where the driver supports it.

- The target camera shows its picture directly instead of being copied twice every frame.

- With vsync on, Low to High now hold a steady 60 frames a second on our test PCs.

- With vsync off and no frame limit, the game stops at 240 frames a second. Running at several hundred kept the graphics queue full and caused freezes of up to a tenth of a second.

- With vsync off, when the graphics card is the limit, frames are paced to what the card can sustain instead of piling up. On our test PC this removed freezes of up to a second and a half at Ultra.

- On Windows, the shader versions the game used to build in the middle of a fight are built behind the loading screen and in the menus, from the second launch on. After changing quality mid-fight, the new versions are prepared over the next moments instead of in a later frame.

LIGHTER HUD AND MENUS

- The HUD is now drawn by the game's own renderer instead of a separate layer over it, on both the WebGL and the WebGPU renderer. It costs less to draw and no longer holds up the browser's graphics work, so frames come out more evenly, most of all on laptops. The benchmark compares it with the old HUD on your PC.

- The HUD redraws at most 120 times a second, reuses its labels as finished images, no longer uploads a new image for every changing number, and draws glowing numbers without a blur effect.

- Ship and wreck preparation in the menus runs off to the side instead of freezing them for up to a second, and the menus stop at 60 frames a second.

TITAN ESCORT

- The Hollow mothership has a lighter model at a distance, and the Titan and the mothership cast their shadows with their lighter models.

- Turret parts that used to be built the first time you saw them up close are built when the fight starts.

- Lobber fires: at most four fires at a time add the heat shimmer over the flames. It looks the same and costs far less with a field of fires.

- WebGPU: each ship part costs less to draw, which matters most with the Titan and the mothership on screen.

STEAM DECK AND CONTROLLER

- A Deck whose save came from an earlier version or from a PC moves once to the Deck preset (Medium, 40 frames a second) if it was on High, Ultra or an unlimited frame rate, and says so. Options, Graphics changes it back.

- The pause menu is split into four tabs: Ship, Combat, Fleet and Settings. LB and RB switch tabs on a controller.

- New option in Options, Accessibility: Ultimate on the controller. "Left stick click" fires the Ultimate with one click, and View + left stick click fires the torpedo spread.

- Back grips mapped to keyboard keys in Steam Input work beside the sticks: a key pressed within 3 seconds of using the controller acts without switching out of controller mode.

BENCHMARK AND PERFORMANCE LOG

- The graphics benchmark breaks down what its slowest frames spent their time on, names any drawing step that ran long, and says whether a slow frame met a shader for the first time, uploaded a ship model or rebuilt the sky.

- The report lists your graphics settings and your screen's real refresh rate.

- After each fight the game writes one line about its frame rate, the sector and your settings to the game log, so a performance report can come from real play.

NEW

- Titan Escort: Long Haul. Pick LONG HAUL on the escort banner and the Titan goes gate to gate through three sectors. Each new sector brings a fresh, tougher mothership, repairs her and gives her one refit: heavier plating, a sharper main gun, then a faster drive. Only the last gate wins the run.

- Co-op campaign lobby: while the host sets up a new campaign, the partner sees a lobby. The difficulty, the mode and the host's flagship are the host's to set and show greyed out; the partner picks their own flagship, starting module, wing, doctrine, Type B layout and paint on the same screen, and the host sees each pick at once.

- Co-op: your partner's flagship now flies their own doctrine and their own Type B layout, and a new co-op campaign fleet starts with their own drydock upgrades instead of the host's.

- Campaign: the new campaign screen now has the doctrine (with a CHANGE button), the Type B layout and the paint, like a sortie.

- Refit cards that add two or more mounts can take only some of them: pin the wells you want on the card's map, then pick the crossed circle. The levels still arrive, and the other wells stay free for another module.

- Escort fire control: the Lantern marks your flagship's target, and your shells and missiles fly faster at a marked target. With a Herald in your wing, your missiles survive the first point defence round fired at them, and half of them ignore enemy flares.

- The Picket escort carries an arc emitter under its keel, beside its point defence and flak.

- Codex and collections: each section shows how many entries you have found, and every entry not found yet gives one line on where it comes from.

- Fleet tab: each escort shows its damage per second this fight, and a fused escort shows its two parent classes and second pilot. The mega panel shows each joined module's damage.

- Perfect Harmony: a Legend officer with 80 sorties at their station can be harmonised on the Crew tab for 6,000 scrap and drops their habit.

- Manoeuvring jets: a combined turn fires the pitch and yaw jets together.

- Launcher doors: the torpedo battery's tube doors and the swarm pod's deck doors slide open just before a launch and close after it.

- Credits: a Hall of Fame names the forum players whose reports and ideas shaped Engagement before release. Thank you all!

- Steam library game icon now replaces the old desktop and installation icon.

- Twin Drives: a new refit card once your drive pods reach level 2. A real second set of pods goes on the matching aft well: plus 10% speed and turn, plus 15% boost, and the shield surge recharges 25% sooner. It takes that well, so the mine layer or cloak cannot go there.

- From level 2 the drive pods also show a matching pair on the free aft well, so the stern stays symmetrical without Twin Drives.

- Co-op campaign: your partner sees the keeper's stock while you trade and can suggest an item. You still decide what to buy.

- Co-op: elite salvage cache refits are shared evenly between both flagships.

- The Trident escort carries a level 2 lance beam on its aft well and cycles its turrets in 1.6 seconds instead of 2.4, so its 5 command points pay their way (3.8 to 13.3 kills per escort-minute in our tests).

FIXES

- HUD text no longer flickers on and off in big fights with damage numbers on.

- The Steam overlay (Shift+Tab, screenshots, broadcasting) works again with the Automatic renderer.

- Mouse buttons 4 and 5 can be bound to any control.

- Titan Escort always launches the escort, whatever mode you last picked.

- The module icons, enemy class marks and contact brackets are drawn again with the new HUD (missing in 2.3.11 and 2.3.12).

- Overwatch links between your escorts are visible at any distance and over bright hulls.

- The view and camera setup can also be opened from the Gameplay tab in Options.

If you experience any performance issues, especially Steam Deck, please let me know ASAP so I can make follow up patches targeting their fixes.