Northstar Radio 1.0

Version 1.0:

• Stronger suppression of the original radio: the stock Vice City radio and its on-screen station name are now fully disabled, so the game's radio can no longer play or switch underneath the plugin — including via mouse scroll, the radio key, and the controller button.
• Station name display fixed: it now scales with the game resolution, is slightly larger, and no longer shows a black box behind it when other on-screen text is present.
• Radio volume now matches the game: the new radio follows the menu's Radio Volume slider correctly (re-calibrated so it is no longer roughly twice as loud, and fully silent at zero). The radio pauses while the menu is open and the new level applies when you return to the game.
• New [NORADIO] section: list vehicle model IDs that should have no radio at all — no music, no police radio, no story announcements, and no ambient radio from that model in traffic. Takes precedence over [VEHICLES].
• Story radio announcements restored: the hurricane / bridge-status bulletins now play through the new radio system at the right story moments.
• Mission radio changes honored: missions that set a specific car-radio station now switch the new radio to that station.
• Original Vice City stations now start at the top of the broadcast on a fresh new game, while added/custom stations keep the randomized "already playing" start.
• New [STARTOFFSET] section: open a station at a specific point in its broadcast (for example Flash FM on Billie Jean, like the original intro). Applied to the new-game intro only — loading a save resumes the radio naturally.
• Fixed a bug where the radio could play over the loading screen when loading a save (and could resume a stale station before the player was back in a vehicle).
• Added a Visual Studio project file (NorthstarRadio.vcxproj) so the plugin can be built from source out of the box.
• The radio now goes silent during cutscenes and scripted mission scenes — including a cutscene triggered while you're driving — and resumes when the scene ends.
• The [STARTOFFSET] intro song (e.g. Flash FM on Billie Jean) now plays reliably no matter how long the intro cutscenes run, and continues forward after a radio announcement instead of resetting to the start.
• Audio ducking: the radio now dims while mission characters speak (mission dialogue) and during the "mission passed" jingle, then smoothly returns to full volume — like the original game.
• Fixed the [STARTOFFSET] intro song replaying when loading a saved game — the intro cue now applies only to a genuinely new game (even across a full game restart), and loaded saves always resume the radio naturally.
• Fixed an occasional crash when entering or changing vehicles (and when knocked off a motorcycle), caused by reading the vehicle before the game had finished seating the player in it.
• Vehicles now remember their station for as long as they stay loaded: leave a car or get knocked off a bike, come back any time later, and the same station is still playing (it previously re-randomized after about 5 seconds).
• A different/new vehicle now always starts on its own station (its [VEHICLES] assignment or a random one) instead of briefly carrying over the previous vehicle's station — how close the cars are no longer matters.
• New [SETTINGS] RadioAutoTune option: set to 1 to make the station you're listening to follow you into every vehicle you enter, regardless of distance (off by default).
• Fixed the original Vice City stations restarting from the top of the broadcast after quitting and loading a save — they now resume at a natural spot, and only open at the top on a genuine new game.
• New [SETTINGS] ScriptIntegration option: set to 0 to run the core radio without hooking the game's mission script (no story announcements, mission-radio changes, or ducking) — for total-conversion mods with a custom main.scm where that integration would otherwise crash on missions.
• The default controller button for changing station is now LEFT SHOULDER (L1 / LB) — Vice City's native radio button — instead of D-PAD LEFT.
• Fixed interiors that play their own ambient music/radio (clubs, shops, etc.) being silenced by the radio suppression — they now play normally while you're on foot inside an interior, with the radio still fully suppressed in the open world and in vehicles.