Development Update: KYBER Plugins, Feedback & Polishing

Important News - Playtest Applications Are Closing

From 30/08/24 at 00:00 BST applications to join the KYBER Playtest will close. To date, over three thousand players have applied to become playtesters. We have been blown away by the sheer enthusiasm you all have for the KYBER project, however, the small size and limited resources of our team means that not every applicant can be selected to partake.

Now is the perfect time to apply if you haven't already and we encourage existing applicants to review & update the information they have previously submitted. Use the link below to submit or edit a Playtest application:

Introducing KYBER Plugins - A Powerful New Modding Tool

KYBER Plugins are a versatile new tool for modifying the Frostbite Engine. This system utilises a Lua scripting engine, easing the steep learning curve associated with Frostbite modding.

For many years modders have asked for a more integrated and dynamic method for executing new logic that sidesteps Frostbite's deep intricacies, lack of documentation and proprietary block-based scripting system.

Typical logic modding in STAR WARS Battlefront II is performed by modifying Frostbite blueprints using the Frosty Editor. While both are powerful, blueprints have plenty of limitations. Our plugin system was inspired by VEXT, a scripting system for Venice Unleashed (e.g. KYBER for Battlefield 3).

The most fun KYBER Plugin we've developed thus far brings back the Battlefield spawning system, where the camera moves fluidly from the spawn menu towards the player spawn location.

Using KYBER Plugins, we created a simple version of the Gun Game gamemode. When a player kills an enemy their primary weapon is switched randomly, mid-gameplay, from a list of pre-selected weapons.

Creating new logic to support gameplay-bending modifications in the examples above traditionally requires modders to expend considerable time and effort. With KYBER Plugins modders can create new experiences significantly faster than before.

Below is a small code snippet demonstrating the relative simplicity at the core of the Lua script which powers the Gun Game plugin:

-- Retrieve the player object for the user "PlayerName"
local player = PlayerManager:GetPlayer("PlayerName")

-- Change their current weapon to the asset for the NT242
player:SetWeapon("Gameplay/Equipment/LongRange/NT242/U_LongRange_NT242")

We will have more to share on KYBER Plugins in the future. You may familiarise yourself with this feature by viewing an example of a "bot balancing" script here.

Implementing Changes Based on Patreon Tester Feedback

Our community of Patreon members has provided the team with extensive feedback crucial to achieving the vision for KYBER. They have been hard at work testing and breaking our systems yielding useful insights and nightmare-fuel screenshots of disfigured character models.

Let's dive into some of the changes we have implemented based on feedback from Patreon members.

Refining the Mod Page and Mod Browser Experience

One of the key aspects we have focused on is making sure the user experience is as accessible and intuitive, yet familiar to STAR WARS Battlefront II players, as possible.

Organising Mod Collections is now easier than ever; select the mods you wish to group in a collection, name the collection, and then save it. Mod Collections you create are available to select when playing offline, online and on the Host Page. Here you can see how to create a new Mod Collection then select it on the Host Page.

The Mod Browser has been reworked significantly. Mods and mod packs are now presented with accessibility in mind. Users are now able to browse for new experiences with ease, displaying new and trending content prominently, to provide quick access to popular mods. Newly published mods will also benefit from increased visibility to thousands of potential players.

There is still much to show you - and much more to polish. Work to refine the user experience is ongoing so there may be many alterations to the examples displayed above between now and launch day.

Development Update from BattleDash

Hi everyone.

What I do isn't as glamorous as a lot of what you see in these posts, but it's just as important. I maintain all of our backend services and the part of KYBER that negotiates with the game itself to do stuff for us.

I'm sorry things are taking longer than we expected. I thought V2 would be ready before now, and I was mistaken. Truthfully, when I started writing V2 I thought it would be done in a few months. That was two and a half years ago. Needless to say, I am bad at estimates. We've spent this time working on our plugin system, implementing lots of feedback from our patrons, and beefing up our tooling and infrastructure.

As always, we hope to start the playtest "soon™". I'd like to make an estimate, but, well, we saw how that went last time. The main blockers right now are testing of our 24/7 server tech and the management infrastructure we're building to host those servers, and some important fixes to our mod loader for older mods.

Burnout is strong in projects like this. Reverse engineering and the kinds of development we do are hard. There's only a few of us, and we do this in our free time. Sometimes we take week+ long breaks to recoup. Our end goal is to help this game live on, not pump something out that we aren't proud of, and I know that taking our time is worth it. We hope you understand, and we hope you're there when it's ready. Thank you for sticking with us.

A Small Quality of Life Feature - Host Page Hotkey

Many of us have become accustomed to using a unified hotkey to access the menus of popular tools such as Cinematic Tools and OpenGameCamera.

To quickly access the server Host Page during gameplay press the INSERT key.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading this development update. Stay tuned for more news and announcements on the horizon.
As is tradition, Soon™.

May the Force Be With You,
❤️ the KYBER team at Armchair Developers.

TL;DR
• playtest applications are closing
• KYBER Plugins - a powerful new modding tool
• implemented swathes of Patreon feedback
• mod page redesign
• mod browser redesign
• brief development update
• Patreon access to the KYBER Launcher is now automated
• implemented a hotkey to open the Server Management page

Stay up-to-date on all things KYBER by joining our Discord and following us on X.