Infinity: Battlescape #HO

The-Force #181 Sep '17

Weekly Update 79 13-9-2017

Hey everyone it’s time for your weekly update. Last week we mentioned that Flavien was going to be resuming work on server-side collision detection. In the end he decided to put a bit more time into a variety of gameplay systems including the HUD, cameras, controls, etc and server-side collision won’t be addressed until next week. This could push the next patch back by a week or 2 but the extra layer of polish will hopefully make the additional wait worthwhile. On my end I spent the early part of last week working on finishing up text trimming. That effort got sidetracked by some website problems that popped up requiring my immediate attention. The rest of the week was consumed by stuff regarding the coming birth of my first child.

Pre-rendered image of land base defensive towers with placeholder weapons

On the art side work continues on the usual: land base, station materials, and destroyer geometry. As we’ve mentioned before those should be wrapping up over the next few weeks and then work will start on the final geometry pass for the carrier and the cruiser. Once the next patch gets released work will begin on different types of weapons and the art team will also be spending some time on weapon effects.

More in-editor station materials

That’s it for this week, until next time!

1

The-Force #182 Sep '17

Weekly Update 80 20-9-2017

Ladies and gentlemen, here’s your weekly update! We have some exciting stuff to show off this week. Flavien performed a 400 “player” stress test of the game with the new networking code using simple AI bots in a simulated “massive space battle”. The initial results were quite encouraging and I believe are best summarized in Flavien’s own words:

“man, I juste tested a 400 ships battle. this is insane. totally insane. once we have weapons in and polish it this is gonna be big. hard to hold back to not tell the world yet ^^. made massive improvements to the camera system too. it's starting to look like a professional product. the feeling of movement in the interceptor is pretty awesome. I hope I can get it right for the other ships too cause I'm mostly testing/tuning the interceptro so far. now the big question: once I add weapons/projectiles, can we still handle those big battles? we must find a way to it's just too awesome. no other game has such a feeling IMO.”

A simulated 400 player massive space battle

Can you feel the excitement!? I hope so because we’re legitimately excited. These screen shots don’t really do it justice but we aren’t planning on releasing any new video until after we ship the Alpha (I already blew his cover by telling the world). Naturally, this leads to the question of when will the next patch be ready so those of you with access can try it out for yourselves? Originally, the next patch was going to be nothing more than a direct port of the game to the new networking code however, over the last month, it has evolved into new networking code combined with a Whole Bunch of Stuff™. Flavien has assured me that he will be finished working on the Whole Bunch of Stuff by Wednesday and then will start on the server-side planetary collision detection – for real this time . Unfortunately, I caught the funk a week ago Monday and was sick for most of the week so not much new to report on my end.

We've added a mockup of the space whale bobblehead to the cockpit

That’s all for this week. In our next update I’ll talk about how everything we’ve been working on over the last ₈ months is finally starting to come together and while the extra wait has been painful we’re optimistic it’ll pay dividends over the long run.

One last screen shot of a simulated massive space battle

1

The-Force #183 Sep '17

Weekly Update 81 28-9-2017

Hey everyone it’s time for your weekly update. This week’s effort has primarily been focused on polishing things up for the next patch, fixing some crash bugs that have popped up, finishing the initial implementation of capital ship controls, and working on server-side planetary collision detection. The most exciting part of the last 2 weeks has been watching investments we made a year ago begin to pay off.

A massive space battle with lots of shooting

To back up a bit, when we launched our Kickstarter we hadn’t touched our networking code since the release of the Infinity Combat Prototype (ICP) back in 2007. In fact, we hadn’t done much of anything with our technology beyond working on the planetary tech since 2007 because high quality real-time planets rendered to scale are extremely difficult. For the prototype we showed off in the Kickstarter we hacked together a quick demo in about 6 months. Since we didn’t know if our Kickstarter would succeed every engineering decision made with the prototype favored a quick pace of development over runtime speed, quality, and security.

Another screen shot of a massive space battle and the space whale bobblehead mockup

Summer of 2016 is when we first began to realize that we were going to have to start addressing these issues sooner rather than later – starting with physics. Once the physics upgrade was completed we knew we had 2 major items remaining: networking, for both security and performance, and full-engine multithreading, which is required to be able to support 100’s of players. Full-engine multi-threading was started last November, our last patch was in January, and the new networking code was started in earnest in February. Unfortunately, finishing the new networking code and the full-engine multi-threading ended up taking significantly longer than we had anticipated, however, with the next patch right around the corner these investments are now starting to pay big dividends.

A destroyer in chaotic battle

Over the last two weeks we’ve been able to implement, within a handful of hours, game systems that previously would have taken multiple days. While it’s unlikely we’ll be able to make up all of the lost time our expectation is that the game will quickly start to take shape over the coming months. As we push toward the release of the Alpha our goal is to get to the point where we are releasing a new patch at least once every week. As the game starts to get more mature we want to combine these weekly patch releases with a large weekly playtest. To that end Flavien has started work on server-side planetary collision detection and our fingers are crossed that it doesn’t take too long to resolve. As we’ve mentioned before this is the last major blocker and once he’s finished we should be able to release the next patch shortly thereafter.

Pre-rendered image of land base connection pieces

That’s all for this week, until next time!

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clethaw #184 Sep '17

Ese trabajo del netcode es el importante, a ver el rendimiento que nos da luego en el cliente y en la realidad, esas imágenes full disparos y naves son espectaculares, y estar ahí en medio sería "la ostia". Luego estará el tema del framerate y la estabilidad del servidor/cliente claro, que en las screens eso no se ve

Pero al menos, en esas screens se ve MUCHÍSIMA chicha, si consiguen eso a buen framerate y sincronización, tendrán mis dies.

Asi a botepronto, en una de las screens he contado lo que parecen ser 70 naves interactuando y disparando. Este tipo de avances son los que importan, modelos, partículas y tal imho están en otra categoría inferior.

The-Force #185 Oct '17

Weekly Update 82 4-10-2017

Hey everyone it’s time for your weekly update! This week’s major milestone was getting the whole team playing the game with the new networking code. These internal playtests went smoothly as expected and, while there are still some finishing touches to be made later, the new networking code provided a solid experience. To push things a little further we then spawned 200 simple bots that just fly around shooting like crazy. At 4k resolution with Extreme detail enabled on a computer with a GTX 1080, an Intel 6700k, and 32gb of RAM the game was averaging about 30fps. Overall this is encouraging, even though planets weren’t enabled in the test, because we still have a tremendous amount of optimization work left to do. The game scaled gracefully by decreasing resolution and/or level of detail such that each machine we tested with was also averaging roughly 30fps with 200+ “players”.

An interceptor on the Blue team firing away

On the art side Kristian has finished the land base. He’s now working on putting together different land base layouts to create a palette from which land base configurations will be selected during the beginning of a match. Jan is nearly done with the bulk of the work on the space station materials however decals and fine details will still need to be added later. Dan continues his work on the destroyer and work on the remaining capital ships should be getting started within a few weeks.

The cockpit view of a large space battle

With everything looking good from our playtests last week the only remaining blocker, as we’ve mentioned before, is the server-side planetary collision detection. We still don’t have a good estimate for how long that could take but we’re hoping within a few weeks. Aside from all of that we also upgraded our forums and rolled out some minor updates to the website. That’s it for this week, until next time!

Some interceptors from the Red team spawning in a hangar bay

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The-Force #186 Oct '17

Weekly Upate 83 11-10-2017

Hey everybody, Flavien here, taking stead of Keith for the weekly update as he’s busy with the arrival of his first child.

As you know, we’ve been busy working on the next major patch for quite a while now. I’m happy to report that progress has been going pretty smoothly recently and that we’re seeing light at the end of the tunnel. This new version has taken a lot of development time, but includes some pretty heavy and fundamental architectural changes, especially in terms of networking, which will allow us to scale up to these hundreds-of-ships-at-once battles. In terms of gameplay it’s still pretty bare-bones, but we should be in a good state to iterate quickly towards an alpha release at the end of the year.

Battle test in atmosphere

For now, ETA for this new patch for dev-tier / stellar+ level backers is some time around next week. Planetary physics collisions is almost resolved ( I still need to implement some server-side code and do some stress test, but the algorithm is already functional ) but we’ll need a few additional days to implement some missing features and do a polish / bug fixes pass ( for instance I need to rework atmospheric flight mechanics and add back some thruster sound effects ). Keith has also recently been upgrading the website and installer dependencies.

External view can now be rotated around the ship

The art team has also started to gear up for the next patch, that will include a first basic version of capital ships ( with placeholder art and control scheme ). Some assets that have been in the works in the past months are being integrated into the project, including the new space station, factory and military base pieces.

Flying a Destroyer around a planet

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more information about the new patch next week. I’ll probably do a streaming session as soon as it’s out, assuming the server is stable. See you !

-Flavien

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The-Force #187 Oct '17

Weekly Update 84 18-10-2017

Hey everyone it’s time for your weekly update. It’s been another busy week here at I-Novae Studios. We had another playtest this last weekend, this time with planets reintegrated for the first time in months. Overall everything went smoothly and Flavien believes he may have already come up with a viable solution for server-side planetary collision detection. We found a couple of new bugs but nothing we can’t fix within a few days. In fact, the test went so well we’re pleased to announce that, as long as we don’t run into any last-minute blockers, we’ll be releasing the next patch this Saturday, the 21st of October.

A massive space battle over a planet!

Needless to say – this patch is a significant update – it contains months of work from both the art and the engineering teams. To summarize some of the changes: we’ve rewritten nearly our entire networking stack, added mockups for all of the capital ships, applied materials to most of the smaller ships and installations (still WIP), improved multi-threaded performance, added scorekeeping, implemented a basic in-game UI mockup, improved the flight model, implemented a basic damage model, added placeholders for simple voice commands, mocked up cockpit bobbleheads (no physics simulation yet), tested massive space battles, etc.

Staying close to my wingman as he fires at the enemy

Assuming everything goes smoothly this weekend with the patch we’ll announce our next Alpha backer “free play” weekend within a week or 2. We’re looking forward to stress testing the new networking code with Developer Access and then Alpha backers. This patch has been a long time coming, we greatly appreciate everyone’s patience, and after the next Alpha “free play” weekend we’ll be pivoting in a big way towards releasing the Alpha as soon as we can!

Catching some sun while flying around a planet

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UnLiMiTeD #188 Oct '17 Inocente

No conozco mucho este proyecto, ni tengo claro en que fase esta. ¿Hay ya una alpha o algo o aun nada?.

2 respuestas

brush #189 Oct '17

#188 La verdad es que ni idea lo acabo de ver hoy mismo en este post , pero por lo que ponen de que actualizaron x cosas parece que algo se podra testear

1 respuesta

Aeran #190 Oct '17 Cappasytado

Me gusta como trabajan estos devs , van puliendo lo básico más y más en vez de añadir cosas sin sentido ( guiño guiño ). Hay algún modo de pagar para tener juego con Alfa y demás ? Pinta genial.

1 respuesta

The-Force #191 Oct '17

#188 No hay Alfa aun. Originalmente debía salir hace un año xD. Si compras acceso Alfa como mucho tendrás acceso al fin de semana de juego libre que planean hacer en unas semanas.

#189 Los unicos que pueden testear el juego son los que compraron el Dev Access tier o superiores. Los que compraron Alfa solo tienen acceso a determinados eventos de fin de semana (solo han hecho uno hasta la fecha y hace meses).

#190 Si pero van demasiado lento al ser apenas 2 programadores y 3 artistas. Ya llevan mas de un año de retraso en sus predicciones.

The-Force #192 Oct '17

Este fin de semana ha sacado el parche 0.2.0.0 para los dev-access. El parche incluye netcode mejorado, dos cuerpos celestes nuevos, 3 naves capitales nuevas, un modo nuevo de control, equipos, leaderboard, Interfaz radial para realizar diferentes acciones, naves NPC, una mejor camara externa, rework del warp drive y alguna cosilla mas.

Stream oficial del creador del juego:

2 1 respuesta

clethaw #193 Oct '17

#192 Estos tíos van volando macho, si son 5 no ?

WTF

The-Force #194 Oct '17

Weekly Update 85 25-10-2017

Hi everybody, this is Flavien. First I would like to congratulate Keith on becoming a father ! Of course, he’s been pretty busy ( what an understatement ) this week with the arrival of his child. But although the timing was pretty bad, I’m happy to report that we successully released the pre-alpha patch 0.2 as we announced last week. So far the feedback from dev-tier backers has been very good and they seem to have a lot of fun with the new build. That being said, let’s have a look at the main features of the new version. A fan-made video is also available, thanks to SpaceJay:

Patch 0.2 main features

Scalable network refactoring: we do now support hundreds of ships / potential players in a single battle. This is no longer a far-distance dream; this has already been tested with our US-East server and seems to be working well, even with larger battles and no instancing.
AI / bots: the server is now populated by dozens of bots that fly around and hunt each other ( or hunt players ), around points of interests such as space stations. Bots are still experimental and not guaranteed for the release, but we feel like they add a lot to the game experience so we’ll do our best to integrate them into the final game. There’s also an AI commander that controls the flow of the battle and spends team credits to calls for reinforcements on hot battle spots.
Improved HUD / UI: while those are still placeholders for the most part, we’ve introduced a number of enhancements such as a chat, mission objectives, warnings, new target indicators and more. We’re aware that battle / teammates awareness is an issue, but we have a lot of ideas to improve it in the future. * * * Placeholder voice commands have been introduced, as well as wheel-based radial menus for various ship systems.
New content: a brand new icy planet is now available. Check out the pictures or the video stream below to have a taste of how it looks like. It’s personally become my new favorite planet There’s also a giant asteroid ( almost a miniature moon ) available around the gas giant.
Capital ships are now available: again, they’re mostly placeholders ( don’t forget ships are mostly unfinished and untextured )… but for the first time, players can experience them, and even try to fly them on a planet’s surface… which can lead to some pretty hilarious moments.

I streamed a presentation of the new patch last monday; if you haven’t seen it yet, you can see the game in action here:

Next steps:
Now that this pre-alpha patch is out of the door, which has sorted out most of the technical / refactoring issues, iterating on gameplay is going much faster. However, before we can deliver the alpha ( probably around Q1 next year ), we still need to add more content and gameplay:

Functionnal factories and land bases, so that players can attack / destroy / protect them. Those will generate credits for your team which then gets redistributed. The art for those is almost ready.
New weapons and missiles, as there’s only one weapon implemented in game at the moment ( generic blasters ). Also, auto-aiming turrets, which will make capital ships playable. At the moment they fire in a straight line, and they’re so slow that aiming smaller ships is impossible. But this will get fixed before the alpha is out.
A star-system map, showing the various objectives and hot spots, allowing players to coordinate with each others.
And of course, there will be a lot of bug fixing and polishing before we can deliver this alpha. More work on the atmospheric flight model ( which is pretty basic right in the current version ), more work on warping, shields, controllers, interface etc.
If you want to see more, you can head on to our forums where you can find more screenshots and videos of the latest patch. That’s all for now !

Cruiser controlled by a player, flying over the new icy moon

Reflections on ice at night

The-Force #195 Nov '17

Weekly Update 86 2-11-2017

New alpha+ play-test week-end !

Hey everybody. As we’ve done last January, we’re going to organize a new alpha play-test week-end next week. Anybody that pledged at the alpha (or above) tier level on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo is eligible to participate.

Starting date/time: Friday, 10th of November, 20:00 GMT // 21:00 CET // 15:00 EST
Ending date/time: Monday, 13th of November, 20:00 GMT // 21:00 CET // 15:00 EST

Destroyer flying over the new icy planet

Quick FAQ

Q. Where can I check my current access level ?

A. Assuming you’re logged into your I-Novae account, use this link: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape/Access116

Note that if you’re an alpha backer, it will show up as negative (red) until we launch the alpha week-end at the date/time given above. At which point, your access should go green.

Q. I do not have an I-Novae account, or did not link it to my Kickstarter/IndieGoGo pledge yet, how do I do that ?

A. Create an I-Novae account on our website using the same e-mail than you used for pledging: https://inovaestudios.com/7

If you already registered an account using a different e-mail address, you can simply add your backer’s e-mail to your I-Novae account here: https://inovaestudios.com/Account/AddEmail2

Once your I-Novae account is properly linked to your backer’s e-mail, you can verify that your reward tier is registered here: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape/Access116

Q. I linked my backer’s e-mail to my I-Novae account but no pledge appears in the access check page

A. You can contact us at: contact (AT) inovaestudios.com1

Please mention your I-Novae account name/e-mail, your backer’s original e-mail as well as your pledge/tier level. Note that Keith is currently busy with his newborn baby, so please give us some time to investigate your situation and answer; it might take many days.

Q. Once the alpha week-end starts, how/where do I download and install the game ?

A. A download button will appear on top of the Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape/26

Download the installer, then log in to your I-Novae account. In the launcher, you’ll see a button to install and play the game. Note that once you’ve launched the game, the loading times can be pretty long (many minutes) as we haven’t optimized these yet. This is normal, do not kill the process.

Q. Is there a community chat or something where I can meet other players, or interact with the developers ?

A. Yes, we have a Discord channel: https://discord.gg/0ZdJkZXn7z3Ij6tV9

A global chat is also available in-game once you’ve joined.

Q. What are the system specs recommendations to play ?

A. A mid-end current-gen computer or a high-end older-gen computer should run the game pretty well. For example, a 3.4 Ghz+ Intel (or amd-equivalent) quad-core + 8 GB of RAM + an Nvidia 970 GTX should allow you to play in good conditions (₆₀ fps) in 1080p.

For intensive battles/scenes in 4K, you might need a modern high-end video-card ( NVidia 1070/1080 GTX ).

Operating system: Windows 7 64-bits or above with up to date DirectX 11 drivers.

Q. I pledged for the beta, can I participate ? If not, when will I have the chance to ?

A. As we’ve explained multiple times in the past updates, development has been going slower than originally estimated, so the new estimate dates are around early 2018 for alpha release and mid-to-end 2018 for the beta release. During this time we’re going to organize more “open” test week-ends. This one is for alpha+ backers only, but starting next year, we’re going to organize play week-ends for beta testers too. Your time will come

If you cannot wait, you can still upgrade your pledge to alpha level or above in your account settings: https://inovaestudios.com/Account#products12

Other development news

Storage building asset WIP

In other news, we’re doing good progress on importing all the new factory / military base assets to the project and prepare them for integration into the next patch, which is currently planned for this week-end. It will also contain for the first time auto-aiming turrets for capital ships and experimental gimbal weapons. Note that it’s still a very early implementation, and we haven’t figured out the target selection mechanism for capital ships yet (atm it uses the current, single-target manual selection system of small ships), so in this first version it will likely feel pretty clunky to use.

The-Force #196 Nov '17

Weekly Update 87 10-11-2017

Alpha playtest week-end starts tomorrow !

Hey everybody. As mentionned last week, we’re about to enter the alpha playtest week-end. If you are an alpha backer and wish to participate, make sure to follow instructions provided in last week’s update Weekly Update 86 #195

Access will be granted tomorrow around 20:00 GMT ( 21:00 CET // 15:00 EST )

Please keep in mind that the game is still technically in pre-alpha, therefore we ask everybody to be patient with technical issues and manager their expectations: the game is still pretty bare bones (no objectives you can attack, only one weapon available…), assets are a work-in-progress (none of the ships are textured yet, the cruiser and carrier’s assets are still simplistic placeholders, same for particle effects… ).

If you like what you see during this play-test, make sure to spread the word and let your friends know about us. And more importantly: we hope that you enjoy your time and have fun ! Any feedback is welcome, and we’re hoping to see lots of cool screenshots, videos and streams this week-end ! Make sure to post all your feedback in our Forum

Patch 0.2.2.0

Last week we’ve released a new patch which amongst other things, adds military land bases to the game. See these pictures:

Bases (and other points of interests like space stations) are currently just static assets and you can’t interact with them. After the playtest week-end, we’re going to focus on these and add static defenses, which players can destroy. We’re also going to have a pass at destroying individual buildings (like the nuclear reactor providing energy) which is going to affect how the base works.

We’re also pretty soon going to introduce new weapons (with placeholder assets) and continue iterating on the gameplay. There’s still a lot before the game shapes up and is ready for the full alpha release.

Top-right corner: can you spot the land base as seen from this space station ?

On individual development news, between doing technical support and answering e-mails/PMs, Keith has found some time to fix the issue we encountered with patch 0.2 with our upload admin portal which failed for files over 2 GB. He’s also been working on various bug fixes for the installer and patcher, which should be made available right before the alpha test week-end starts.

On my side, a new patch is actually planned later today which should include the latest hotfix for crashes, reduce the bots AI difficulty and address some server side performance issues. Another patch will be released tomorrow, containing mostly polishing, bug fixing and balance adjustments (especially related to the AI and weapons).

On the art side, Jan went on a trip for a couple days, while Kristian is busy reworking some textures and adding more buildings for the factories and land bases. Jan should be back today and will be focusing on factories, however we are not sure they’ll be ready in time for tomorrow. I guess we’ll find out soon

2

The-Force #197 Nov '17

Weekly Update 88 15-11-2017

Our alpha play-test week-end has ended and I would like to thank everybody who participated. It seems like everybody enjoyed its time and had some great fun. The feedback has been extremely positive as usual and we’re happy with the outcome.

Many first-time players actually spent most of their time flying around and exploring the solar system, while others participated on the some of the big (50-100 ships) battles going around various points of interests. There was a couple of outstanding technical issues related to the installer (forcing a reboot after a Windows update) and the client (crashes related to the sound every 2-3 hours) but otherwise the experience was pretty smooth: the server was rock stable (not a single crash) although overloaded and the client’s framerate reports we got was also very good; a lot of people seemed to be impressed that they could already run the game at 60+ fps despite being a pre-alpha.

Of course there’s still a lot more to do, both in terms of tech/assets (we’re delaying the texturing phase until we can validate combat) or gameplay (we’re going to start adding more weapon types in the upcoming weeks, warping is still in a pretty horrid state, balance is off…).

A new high-quality fan-made video was recorded during this week-end showcasing the planets (in the first half) and combat (second half) thanks to SpaceJay:

I also streamed a bit of the event last Saturday, you can watch the replay here:

The-Force #198 Nov '17

Weekly Update 89 23-11-2017

Hey everyone it’s time for your weekly update. Last week mostly consisted of working on making improvements to the game from feedback we received during our latest Alpha backer free-play weekend. The biggest areas of improvement included HUD icons and situational awareness, simplifying warp, fixing a server crash, optimization, and some bugs we discovered in our backend infrastructure. Overall the game ran pretty good however its VRAM consumption is becoming a serious concern. On extreme detail the game is currently using _6.5gb of VRAM which is _81% of your available VRAM on a GTX 1080. This is a common issue during game development. For example, when I was working on Gears of War 2, the entire engine team had to focus on optimizing memory usage with only ₂ months to go before shipping for all maps to be playable. Infinity: Battlescape will likely follow a similar trajectory.

[Alpha Backer Image] A destroyer over a factory

Along with the aforementioned tasks we’ve also started work on the next major gameplay update – which will focus on weapons. Weapons will fall into a handful of broad categories: energy weapons such as lasers and blasters, projectile weapons such as machine guns and cannons, and missile weapons such as torpedoes and, well, missiles. On top of these weapon categories we currently have 2 major design goals regarding weapons. The first is that ammunition limits will be a serious consideration within Infinity: Battlescape and we want them to be in the general ballpark of modern aircraft. It will be possible to use up all your ammunition thereby leaving yourself with 2 choices: either re-arm at a carrier, land base, or station or become a kamikaze pilot and pay the cost of a new ship.

[Alpha Backer Image] A battle over the volcanic moon of Cinder

Secondly, one of the major selling points of I:B is massive space battles. We want to balance gameplay such that around 30% to 40% of participants will die within the first ₃₀ seconds once the shooting begins. Missiles will have the highest degree of lethality however they will be in short supply. The expectation is that at the beginning of a battle the first wave, which will primarily consist of smaller ships, will unleash all its missiles and a whole bunch of pilots will immediately die in a massive fireball. At this point the war of tactics and attrition will begin as each side switches to energy and projectile weapons while selectively firing any missiles held in reserve. Lastly, just because someone shoots a missile at you it doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to die. All ships will be fitted with some form of anti-missile countermeasures – which will also be finite. In smaller ships this will take the form of chaff/flares that help you evade missiles whereas capital ships will be fitted with anti-missile systems similar to what you see on modern warships.

[Alpha Backer Image] Ice worlds are particularly beautiful at night

There’s still a lot to say about weapons so we’ll continue with more details next week. Please keep in mind that weapons will require a tremendous amount of balancing and everything is subject to change in service to “fun”. That’s all for this week, until next time!

[Alpha Backer Image] On approach to an icy moon

The-Force #199 Dic '17

Weekly Update 90 29-11-2017

Hey everyone, it’s time for your weekly update. Continuing the discussion from last week we’ll be going into more details about weapons. To briefly recap there will be a couple of high level weapon categories: energy, projectile, and missile. Before I get into the details for each category I want to mention that our damage model has its own high-level categories including shield strength, shield HP, armor rating, and finally regular HP which represents the overall health of a ship’s superstructure. Last but not least there is one more variable to throw into this mix – the amount of ammunition you can carry for each of these weapon systems.

[Alpha Backer Image] An interceptor from the green team in the upper atmosphere

To kick things off I’ll start with energy weapons which come in two separate flavors: lasers and blasters. Lasers will be beam weapons similar to real life except that you’ll be able to see them because let’s be honest, lasers are so boring when you can’t see them. Lasers require enormous amounts of energy and therefore will only be available to capital ships and may come in different sizes. Blasters will be the equivalent of Star Wars style lasers and therefore have no foundation in reality. We just wanted a second energy weapon and we all love Star Wars so blasters, which can be mounted on smaller ships, is what we arrived at. Pilots flying ships heavily armed with energy weapons will have to be careful. On the one hand, you have weapons with an unlimited supply of ammunition in a game where ammunition matters, which is great if you’re going deep behind enemy lines. On the other hand, energy weapons draw from the same pool of energy as your shields and engines and depleting your energy can leave you extremely vulnerable. Damage attenuation from atmosphere and shields will be significant however energy weapons are largely immune to the effects of gravity. The weapon you currently see in the pre-Alpha builds of the game are blasters along with a mockup of our energy management system.

[Alpha Backer Image] Blasters being fired in combat over Cinder

Next up is projectile weapons such as machine guns for smaller ships and cannons for capital ships. These will more or less behave as you would expect. Shields are less effective against projectile weapons however atmosphere and gravity can negatively affect their accuracy and damage output. Ships will be able to care a moderate amount of projectile ammunition which places their long-term effectiveness somewhere between missiles and energy weapons.

[Alpha Backer Image] A large space station in orbit over a planet

Lastly, we have missiles which come in two separate flavors: missiles and torpedoes. You may be wondering, since our space ships can’t fly in water, what exactly is a torpedo? Within Infinity: Battlescape a torpedo is a large missile that has been designed to maximize damage output against heavily armored targets at the expense of speed and maneuverability. Missiles will be largely impervious to atmosphere, gravity, and shields. Combined with significant damage output they will be extremely lethal however they do come with their own set of weaknesses. For starters you won’t be able to carry many of them. If your ship is configured to rely entirely on missiles and you find yourself in a protracted engagement you may, after an initial burst of lethality, quickly find yourself completely combat ineffective. Missiles are large and dumb enough to be targeted and destroyed by anti-missile systems or confused by chaff/flares. Countermeasures are quite cheap and each missile that doesn’t reach its target represents a significant loss of resources.

[Alpha Backer Image] The view of the world below an orbiting space station

As always the standard disclaimer applies - everything described here is subject to change pending the outcome of playtesting and balancing. Next week I’ll wrap up our overview of weapons by spending some more time discussing some of the tradeoffs players will face when choosing different weapon/ship combinations for various gameplay scenarios.

2

GeO-Granada #200 Dic '17

en este juego se puede salir de la nave y hacer más cosas o es todo basado en combate espacial ?

Qué diferencia tiene respecto SC¿?

1 respuesta

The-Force #201 Dic '17

#200

en este juego se puede salir de la nave y hacer más cosas o es todo basado en combate espacial ?

No, no se puede. Es simplemente combate espacial a gran escala.

Qué diferencia tiene respecto SC¿?

SC es un MMO persistente en el que puedes pilotar naves, mientras que infinity:battlescape no es persistente, las partidas tienen inicio y final, y lo único que puedes hacer es pilotar naves.

The-Force #202 Dic '17

Weekly Update 91 6-12-2017

Hey everyone, it’s time for your weekly update. This week we’re going to discuss some of the gameplay ideas we have for weapons by going through a couple of different scenarios. To quickly recap we’re planning on implementing 3 broad categories of weapon: energy, projectile, and missile. Ships will come with a predetermined set of hardpoints which can be configured with different variations of weapons from those 3 categories. For our first scenario we will start with an interceptor on a recon mission. Sensors/radar are one of the least defined aspects of the game right now but one guiding idea we have is that radar will be dependent on line of sight – specifically it will be blocked by celestial bodies. Ships on the same team will share radar data with each other so you’ll be able to see around an enemy planet or moon if you have a network of scouts to act as relays.

A blue sunset over a desert planet

On a scouting mission you want to maximize for speed and radar capabilities – direct contact with the enemy is to be avoided at all costs. Interceptors don’t have many hard points so you must choose your weapons wisely. In this case a suitable loadout could be a handful of missiles, enough to give the enemy pause long enough for you to get away, along with blasters for their unlimited ammunition. In this case, due to the potential for being deep behind enemy lines without the ability to easily reload, energy weapons are probably a better last-ditch choice than a projectile weapon.

A lone interceptor on patrol

For our second example lets look at the destroyer – which is meant to protect cruisers and carriers from smaller ships such as the interceptor and bomber. A destroyer is designed to be outfitted with some combination of small caliber projectile weapons, missiles, and anti-missile systems. Where things get interesting is how you decide to allocate your hard points and for which type of weapon. A destroyer is frequently part of a fleet so maybe you can get away with more projectile and missile weapons since you can easily be resupplied from a nearby carrier. Perhaps you’re expecting to be a part of a prolonged battle and you can’t afford to be out of commission long enough to reload and therefore choose more energy weapons. Last but certainly not least how many anti-missile systems do you want? Each one comes at the expense of an offensive weapon.

An orbiting space station

Overall weapons can be summarized as trying to make the right set of trade-offs for the set of conditions you expect to encounter. We also want to allow players to make changes to their loadout in the field for certain types of ship by docking with the carrier. We may also have special types of destroyer and/or corvette that provide support in limited capacities such as reloading and/or repair – time/resources will dictate. Our goal is to make weapons easy to quickly get the hang of but somewhat difficult to master.

The-Force #203 Feb '18

Weekly Update 92 13-12-17

Hey everyone, it’s time for your weekly update. This will be our last weekly update for 2017 as the team is working on wrapping up as much as they can before taking some time off for the holidays. To that end the primary focus has been on weapons and turrets with the most attention being devoted to missiles. Our next patch should include significant weapon updates, which we’re looking at releasing sometime in January along with another Alpha backer “free play” weekend. Beyond that I’ll save the information on our 2018 roadmap for our initial set of weekly updates in 2018.

A panoramic view of the interceptor cockpit

On the art side the final geometry pass for the destroyer is nearly complete. Once finished the only remaining geometry work, aside from any polishing that pops up, will be for the cruiser, carrier, and mercenary operative interceptor. Out of the 3 of those ships we expect the mercenary operative interceptor will go pretty quickly, since it’s just a variant of the regular interceptor, so the bulk of the work will be on the remaining capital ships. Given their size it will likely take some time to finish them however once that’s complete all that shall remain is materials, special effects, and sound effects.

A panoramic view of the bomber cockpit

That’s it for now, we look forward to seeing all of you in the new year!

One of our developer access backers figured out how to turn on water

The-Force #204 Feb '18

Weekly Update 93 10-1-2018

Hey everyone, it’s time for your first weekly update of 2018! To recap 2017 started off with us launching our first Alpha backer weekend which was well received. After an initial burst of momentum, the frequency of released slowed dramatically as we proceeded to tackle the last high-risk items on our to-do list: re-engineering our networking, mitigating the ability of players to cheat, and improving performance through better threading on multi-core systems. This took a bit longer than we had anticipated which made the middle of the year a bit frustrating for the team as we couldn’t release any new patches with deconstructed networking. Fortunately, after we completed the networking overhaul, we were able to finish the year strong as our technology investments began to pay big dividends by allowing us to rapidly iterate in hours on gameplay systems that used to take days. We had our second Alpha backer weekend with the new networking code along with many additional improvements which was, once again, well received.

A closeup of the corvette

The final weeks of 2017 were spent fixing bugs from the Alpha weekend, working on capital ships, and implementing new weapons. Due to the holidays and, despite being spread around the world, half the dev team falling ill the second half of December and early January were quite slow. As of right now everybody is back feeling better and we’ve shifted our attention toward what we need to do for 2018. For starters we want to have another Alpha backer weekend to test out the new weapon code as soon as possible. This will follow the previously established release cadence where we first release the patch to Developer Access backers and, if everything goes smoothly, we will open the game up to Alpha backers for a long weekend within a week or two of the patch. It’s still slightly too early to provide a timeline for that patch but we hope to have more information shortly.

A carrier flying above Cinder

As we’ve mentioned before our goal is to release the Alpha version of the game in the first half of 2018. It’s going to be a much rougher release than we had initially planned but, due to the delays, we feel it’s better to get something “good enough” out as soon as possible. At a high level the remaining features are: getting all weapon categories mocked up for both small and capital ships, polishing capital ship controls, implementing the resource system, mocking up sensors, creating a basic main menu system, creating our first proper battlescape, adding win conditions, and improving warp. Due to the rough state of the initial Alpha release there will be a lot of work to get done for the Beta which we hope to release by the end of the year with a full release to retail sometime in the first half of 2019. It’s going to be a very busy year for us but we’re done with the major technical hurdles and it’s time to really bring Infinity: Battlescape to life.

The-Force #205 Feb '18

Weekly Update 94 18-1-2018

Hey all it’s that time again – time for your weekly update! As we’ve previously mentioned our primary focus at the moment is weapons. Support for machine guns has been added along with ammunition limitations. A quick balancing pass was performed on both machine guns and blasters however a lot more time will have to be invested in this over the coming months. We’ve also added different damage values for shields vs armor. Work has started on missiles/torpedoes however since they require a reasonable amount of intelligence there’s still a lot left to be done. We have yet to start on anti-missile countermeasures and of course we need to create bigger versions of these weapons for capital ships.

Land bases and factories can be quite large, spanning multiple square kilometers

An emerging priority of ours in the coming weeks is improving our download experience. Currently we are only using a single datacenter in the US to distribute files. Unfortunately, it frequently has disappointing download speeds for users outside the US and we’re working on integrating CDN support. We haven’t decided which regions we’ll use for our CDN locations but most likely we’ll have 1 in the US, 1 in Europe, and 1 somewhere in east Asia. On the art side work is being wrapped up on the destroyer with only the cruiser and the carrier remaining. Kristian also spent some time improving our HUD icons. Once the capital ships are finished there’ll be the bobbleheads, UI, special effects, backer rewards, and a final polish pass left to do.

The final geometry pass for the destroyer is nearly complete

As for the next patch we’re still waiting to make a bit more progress on weapons before we give an estimate on the release date. We touched on this briefly last week but the plan is to release a patch as soon as all of the weapons have been mocked up in the game. This will be an extremely quick and dirty implementation so expect lots of balance problems. Once we release the weapons patch, if initial testing with Developer Access backers doesn’t uncover any showstoppers, we’ll announce the next Alpha backer play weekend. That’s all for this week, until next time!

The-Force #206 Feb '18

Weekly Update 95 25-1-2018

Hey everyone, it’s time for your weekly update. Back in late October/early November, when we had our last Alpha backer free-play weekend, a number of issues with our installation process were discovered and then fixed. Unfortunately, when a patch was released, we encountered a previously unknown flaw with our web infrastructure that prevented it from being accessible - thereby putting the poor patch all by itself in purgatory. You probably didn’t notice, but we rolled out some improvements last week to our web infrastructure that resolved these issues which, of course, paves the way for our next patch!

The nearly complete geometry for the destroyer

Aside from work on infrastructure we of course spent a lot of time on weapons. The initial implementation of missiles, which is the biggest remaining blocker for the next patch, should be completed in time for the next weekly update however an exact date of the next patch remains just outside of reach. To round out our efforts last week, time was also spent on hardpoints, weapon loadouts, weapon balancing, new sound placeholders, discussing missile locking, discussing the design of re-arming and repairing, discussing improvements to warp, going over the core game loop, and finally our internal roadmap for the coming months. Each of these warrant their own weekly update so we’ll be going over them individually as we move forward.

A detailed view of the door going on top of the destroyer

On the art side the final geometry pass for the destroyer will be complete by the next weekly update. Dan has produced a new mockup of the carrier that we all really like and he’ll be handing that off to Kristian and Jan, who will also be working on finishing the cruiser, for further iteration. Dan will instead focus on finishing up the geometry for our bobbleheads and getting started on other backer rewards. We hope to release some screenshots of the new carrier within a month or two, we think you’ll all be pleased!

The-Force #207 Feb '18

Weekly Update 96 1-2-2018

Hey everyone it’s that time again, time for your weekly update! I’m happy to report the final geometry pass for the destroyer has been finished. We still need to do textures/materials however we’ve decided we’ll likely defer that until we’ve had a chance to do one or two balancing passes on the weapon systems. The reason for this is that it will affect the distribution of hardpoints and their size which could have an impact on texturing. The art team is now working on a broad set of tasks including the cruiser, placeholder particle effects, placeholder weapon effects, and some website improvements.

WIP final cruiser geometry

On the engineering side work continued on weapons as well as some website and backend improvements. We’re working hard to get that elusive next patch out as soon as possible however our missile locking system has ended up taking considerably longer than anticipated and is the primary source of the delay.

All of the ships with completed geometry passes

We’ve had a number of discussions regarding capital ship weapons over the last few days. Our current plan is that capital ship weapon systems, which a pilot is able to organize into different groups, can be aimed at a specific target and fired all at once - similar to games like World of Warships. Turrets that are not facing the right direction can be optionally set to auto-fire on targets within visual range or stay dormant to conserve ammunition and/or energy. Missile turrets will have slightly different behavior than other turrets. Since missiles are intelligent they can fly around the host ship to get to their target regardless of which direction they’re facing as along as the target is far enough away. They can also be set to auto-fire like other turrets. Obviously, the implementation of capital ship weapon systems diverges heavily from that of the smaller ships and won’t be properly implemented until sometime after our next patch. That’s it for this week, until next time!

The-Force #208 Feb '18

Weekly Update 97 8-2-2018

Hey everyone, it’s time for that weekly update! Once again this week’s engineering effort has been primarily focused on missiles. The locking system is nearly complete, though it will need a lot of balancing later, and the HUD integration is being wrapped up. Missiles have proximity detonation if they’re within a close enough radius of their target but their velocity prevents a direct impact. They can also be shot down by bullets or any other projectile, including missile on missile collisions, if you somehow manage to shoot one. Finally, we had an internal playtest to try out the new weapon code. Obviously, as an initial implementation, it’s still quite rough but getting all of the major weapon types mocked up in the game is a major milestone.

A screenshot of our missile logic simulator
On the art side we’ve got many different things in motion. Kristian is working on the final geometry pass for the cruiser which is beginning to come together nicely. Jan has been tinkering with weapon and shield effects. These are primarily placeholders but they give a good idea of the general direction we’re thinking of moving in and should be integrated in our next patch. Dan has been working on some stuff for our website, which we need to update soon, as well as the final geometry pass for the space whale bobblehead.

WIP final cruiser geometry

That’s pretty much it for this week. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel for our next patch and once it becomes available there will be a lot more to talk about.

The-Force #209 Feb '18

Weekly Update 98 16-2-2017

Hey everyone, it’s time for your weekly update! I’m happy to announce that I can finally give a timeline for the next patch – our plan is to release it by the end of next week (this includes the weekend). If everything goes smoothly we’ll likely announce our next Alpha backer test weekend within a week or two after the patch is released. The patch will contain the initial version 1 implementation of our new weapon code, though capital ship weapons and missile countermeasures will still be a work in progress, and a bunch of art updates. Weapons will require constant tweaking over the coming months and we’ll likely introduce additional variation as we begin preparing to transition from Alpha to Beta.

Playing around with different shield effects

Looking toward the future the most obvious next step will be improving capital ship weapons, adding support for countermeasures, and making warp easier to use. Once that’s complete our focus will shift to the resource system, radar/sensors, and re-arming/repairing – which represent the 3 major gameplay systems remaining to be implemented and are pre-requisites for the release of the Alpha. After that, when core gameplay is representative of the final product, we will start the Beta, which will be our polish phase.

WIP final geometry for the space whale bobblehead

As we mentioned at the beginning of the year our goal is to release the Alpha in the first half of this year followed by the Beta by the end of the year. The initial implementation of weapons ended up taking 2-3 weeks longer than we had expected but we’re still optimistic we can maintain that schedule. Regardless of the exact dates we release the Alpha or the Beta, the single most important thing for this to be a successful year is that by the end of it we have a fun game. If we need to have an extended Beta period in 2019 to polish everything up for final release so be it but we simply cannot be successful if we don’t have a fun game. That’s all for this week, until next time!

The-Force #210 Feb '18

Weekly Update 99 23-2-2018

Hey everyone, it’s time for your weekly update. This week’s focus has been on putting the finishing touches on our next patch – which we expect to release within the next few days. As we’ve mentioned previously this will be a big update with lots of new changes primarily concerning weapons. Once the patch is released we’ll post detailed patch notes but a brief summary is new weapons, creating weapon groups, and new HUD elements to support all of this new functionality. One issue that we may or may not be able to resolve before we release the patch is bandwidth usage by missiles. Currently it’s a bit higher than we want, and if we don’t fix it before the release of the patch it’s unclear what sort of impact it’ll have on our server, however we expect it to be sorted out sometime in the near future.

Backside of the WIP final cruiser geometry

On the art side Dan has finished up the space whale bobblehead final geometry pass, Kristian is making good progress on the final cruiser geometry, and Jan has been playing around with weapon effects. Everyone has also been working on getting last minute asset tweaks into the next patch. We made some optimizations to how certain types of textures get packaged for distribution which has reduced the download size of the game by 1gb – it’s now 2.x gigabytes instead of 3.x gigabytes. That’s all for now, I’m going to keep this update short and sweet as we’ll have much more to discuss next week after the release of the patch.

WIP explosion effect

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