Planetary landings and animated spaceport characters arrive in the second playable preview of Without Frontier. Developer Noro has released version 0.3.0 of the Amiga space sim, which follows the trading and spaceflight tradition of Frontier: Elite II.
The preview starts in 2279 with a ship, limited funds and the Solar System to explore. Its planets follow their real orbits, with ports extending from Earth orbit to Pluto. The hyperdrive remains locked in this build, reserving travel beyond the Solar System for the full game.
The update introduces landing sites on planets and moons, including surface and underground ports. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto also receive individual colours. Meanwhile, ships arrive and depart around stations.
At the ports, faces rendered from MakeHuman models accompany conversations and negotiations. Characters blink, move their lips and change expression during bargaining, appearing pleased, annoyed or wary. Markets and shipyards handle business, while bars offer jobs, conversations and arcade machines.
Flight uses Newtonian physics, supported by a set-speed throttle, autopilot and time acceleration. Pirates, police, customs checks and fines feature alongside maps of the Solar System and surrounding stars. The preview offers English and Czech, with mouse controls covering all operations.
What your Amiga needs to run Without Frontier
Version 0.3.0 requires a 68030 or faster processor, AGA or RTG graphics, 8 MB of Fast RAM and a hard drive. The Aminet package specifies AmigaOS 3.0 or later. These requirements supersede the lower specification Noro discussed during early engine development.
The archive contains separate executables for the 68030, 68040 and 68060, with the setup program selecting the appropriate version. PiStorm and Vampire systems use the 68040 executable. Launch WithoutFrontierSetup, choose a screen and select Start. The included README.txt explains the controls.
Without Frontier uses a custom filled-polygon 3D engine with fixed-point calculations and handwritten 68k inner loops, requiring no floating-point unit. Graphics output supports AGA through chunky-to-planar conversion and RTG through Picasso96 and CyberGraphX.
Noro reports faster 68040 performance when drawing Solar System bodies, stars and the cockpit. Saves from this preview are not guaranteed to work with subsequent versions.
Noro has also reported producing AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS builds for testing. The wider development outline includes Linux and Windows versions, base ownership and upgrades, income from bases, online leaderboards and messages shared between players.
The project needs 2D and 3D artists, sound designers and musicians. For bug reports, Noro requests WithoutFrontier.log and WithoutFrontier_report.txt. Download the Amiga preview from Aminet or follow the AmigaPortal development thread.
