News

24/07/2025 - TFTC Project Update - July 2025

Hello everyone, Angel here with a long overdue TFTC update post. I'm sorry I don't post update information on ModDB all that often, I tend to be far more active on our Discord server and my YouTube channel when it comes to news and updates, but this is definitely overdue on here! So let's get stuck in to whats been going on lately.

Almost nothing has happened in the last month because, well, I've been on holiday and pretty much noped out of anything work or hobby related, focusing only on my family and myself. This has been sorely needed for me because life has just been.... crushingly busy with my real life job which has been facing many pressures, then of course being a family man with a young child and finally on top is TFTC (which is itself might as well be a full time job!) and then finding things to do in my personal time to just wind down. So its a busy life and also found out some other personal stuff earlier this year so its just been a hectic, stressful year so far. What is important right now though is that I'm back now from my holidays, refreshed and ready to continue the important work of getting TFTC completed. So lets break this down further and start with where the project is right now.

TFTC 1.4 Installer Manager

Currently we are still working on v1.4 of TFTC to bring it to compatibility with the recently released XWAU 2025. This version will introduce the HD Concourse, engine stability and optimization improvements, updated sound effects, some updated weapon behaviours (more on this later), numerous fixes and major changes to some parts of the current Reimagined campaign. One of the biggest updates will be the installation process. XWAU 2025 introduced the Install Manager, this handy tool will do pretty much everything for you from downloading the required files, creating copies of your XWA installation and keeping track of any patches or updates. Patches themselves should be easier to push as well as a result of this. This will hopefully simplify what has become a bit of a complicated installation process over the years.

Palpatine Total Convertor Removal

Another major change will be the removal of the Palpatine Total Convertor and the separation of Classic and Reimagined into their own installers. This will mean you can no longer simply swap between Classic and Reimagined, but instead will need separate installations for them. This has been done to simplify things on our side as it was getting too cumbersome and difficult to maintain the Convertor tool without causing issues when swapping versions. By separating them, we can also do patch updates to either version separately. This may mean from v1.4 onwards, that version numbers might start diverging between Reimagined and Classic as patches are delivered.

TFTC Reimagined v1.4 Testing

Currently we are only testing v1.4 Reimagined. This was going well and was nearly ready before my holidays, but then I realised we had a pretty severe problem with some stuttering lag in the largest battles of B7M1 and B7M3 for Reimagined as you can see on the screen now, which caused a blocker to further progress for some time. The causes of this have finally been identified and largely mitigated but it is something I will need to bear in mind moving forward with larger battles and the upcoming Rebalance as well.

Engine Optimisations

Additional optimization and stability updates are also coming, which are part of XWAU 2025. This includes the addition of two new side-process executables that will now launch with the game. This addresses the more recent instability of the mod that started popping up more frequently in the last year with crashes happening more often than in the past. This was because we were essentially hitting hard 32-bit memory limitations which became exacerbated when we added the HD Concourse and their animations in v1.4 which caused a big spike in RAM usage, complicated by the engine itself not flushing said RAM properly when it was no longer needed, causing memory fragmentation and eventually a crash when you tried to load or reload a mission or some other loading transition. So these two new side-processes are 64-bit containers that perform RAM heavy calculations and then send those instructions to the XWA executable. Don't you just love creative workarounds? :)

Reimagined Gameplay Updates

Moving on to the actual gameplay content, 1.4 will see some significant mission changes to the Reimagined campaign, with several missions getting complete makeovers or redesigns that have been part of the Rebalance project, now transferred and modified slightly for the current balance system. This includes a completely brand new mission that replaces the current version of Battle 3 Mission 4. Previously this mission has you defending NL-1 from an assault, but now its been redesigned into something quite different. I'll let you find out what that is!

As mentioned earlier, there are also some updated weapon behaviours. This is only applied to Starship combat, but taking advantage of everything I've learnt in the last year or so with the tools I gained, I've applied some of this now to 1.4, but without any of the damage changes that the Rebalance contains. This is mostly restricted to specific mission profiles where ships will have greater ranges and also have more inaccurate fire. An example is that in B7M3 now, when Death Squadron arrive, it will rain down fire on Zaarin's fleet, but at very long ranges, making it largely ineffective. 

Other changes include a plethora of updated sound effects, some other updated visuals including the enhanced HUD when inflight. This adds shield and health bars to the side of the reticule as well as giving a crafts name and distance which means you don't have to glance down anymore to your CMD to see this information. This feature can be disabled easily if you don't want it, especially if you just want to immerse yourself in the cockpit readouts or you can go even further and tweak the position, size or colour of the bars yourself.

TFTC Classic v1.4 Laser Speeds

But what about TFTC Classic v1.4? At the moment, Classic is somewhat broken on 1.3.4a, due to the Missile Boat warhead launchers not working properly, so its important we fix this and bring Classic up to date as well with all the new features. One of these new features will be to bring all lasers to their OG speeds. This was tried briefly before we released TFTC back in 2021, but it wasn't as well received in testing. Now with the new tools, rather than being a complex EXE patch making it difficult to simply transition, its now a simple, global INI change and because of that, this can be toggled on or off. Bear in mind this does impact balance if enabled or not. Other than that, Classic will not get any other major changes.

And then what about the future with the Rebalance project? In case you're not familiar with the Rebalance, this represents a fundamental ground-up redesign of the games combat and gameplay to be more dynamic and interesting, with each starfighter getting its own unique feel, stats and role while capital ships become the deadly ships they're supposed to be but never were. This has been somewhat on pause the past few months as we work on 1.4, but before my holiday I just completed a huge update and refinement to all the capital ship combat and that is now reflected on the massive Miro board I have showcasing all the changes. I also posted a few clips of some starship versus tests as well. In the end, Rebalance will eventually become TFTC Reimagined v2.0 along with the remaining unfinished campaign missions. Once v1.4 is out, I will finally update the Rebalance alpha with a new version for compatibility and include all the latest capital ship updates which you can test yourself if you come join our Discord server!

Otaking Intro Update

Oh and one final thing for TFTC. Remember I said years ago that we were having a new intro cutscene made for us by Otaking? That is now finished and was delivered to me several months ago. Right now I have hired a talented chap who worked on Otaking's recent Alien video, to score the soundtrack for this cutscene and then we just need to add in things like sound effects and whatnot to it. So these clips you're seeing on screen is all you're going to get for the time being!

XWVM Alpha Release

And that I think covers all the news regarding TFTC at least. But there is one final thing I want to mention. A few weeks ago, the XWVM team released their first public alpha for the project and I very highly recommend you try it out. Its amazing work by the team involved and eventually will include TIE Fighter as well as X-Wing in its compatibility. Remember you need to own a copy of the original X-Wing for this to work, which I recommend you purchase from GoG. In the very long run, its highly possible that I will be able to transfer TFTC Reimagined to the XWVM engine, allowing it to be a complete updated and new experience. TFTC Classic meanwhile I suspect will simply be superseded by an XWVM version of TIE Fighter as a better option, since that will be much closer to an original, remastered experience of the original game since they can - for example - have all the character briefing rooms and dynamic texts which XWA doesn't allow for. For the TIE Fighter purists out there, it will certainly be more in line with expectations than what TFTC can currently provide - and I'm totally ok with that! Our version can stand on its own as just another way to play it.

And that my friends is that for this long assed update. I hope to do some livestreaming soon with TFTC development so stay tuned and do join our Discord server if you haven't already, I'm always happy to chat to the community and answer questions about the project! Until next time pilots, fly safe.