I do not think so, got the updater working this morning.
Infinity Battlescape
- Thread starter Cosmo
- Start date
I do not think so, got the updater working this morning.
I-Novae Community Event - Saturday, February 16th 2019
Originally posted by I-Novae Hutchings - Developer/Artist - source
This event will focus on PVP gameplay, built around Squads (Player driven organization)
We’ll think about the different tools and features that would be useful while play testing. Think of it as a live brainstorming session with the community
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, February 16th 2019 : Infinity Battlescape Community MeetUp
Event Time…
20:00 Saturday, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
World time Buddy for this Event : http://bit.ly/2Ea6ebY
We are likely to stream the gameplay on the I-Novae YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/InfinitySupport/videos
Originally posted by I-Novae Hutchings - Developer/Artist - source
This event will focus on PVP gameplay, built around Squads (Player driven organization)
We’ll think about the different tools and features that would be useful while play testing. Think of it as a live brainstorming session with the community
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, February 16th 2019 : Infinity Battlescape Community MeetUp
Event Time…
20:00 Saturday, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
World time Buddy for this Event : http://bit.ly/2Ea6ebY
We are likely to stream the gameplay on the I-Novae YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/InfinitySupport/videos
Last edited:
Beta Game Patch - 0.4.1.0 ( Saturday, 16 February 2019 )
Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link
This is a “quality of life” patch for the BETA which aims at fixing some of the most urgent issues, and applying a small polish pass to the HUD. The capital ships control scheme also received another iteration.
Have fun and let us know your feedback about the game on our forums, thank you !
Full game patch changelog here: https://forums.inovaestudios.com/t/patch-and-updates-notes/2996/43
Beta 0.4.1.0 Feedback Thread
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link
This is a “quality of life” patch for the BETA which aims at fixing some of the most urgent issues, and applying a small polish pass to the HUD. The capital ships control scheme also received another iteration.
Have fun and let us know your feedback about the game on our forums, thank you !
Full game patch changelog here: https://forums.inovaestudios.com/t/patch-and-updates-notes/2996/43
Beta 0.4.1.0 Feedback Thread
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Last edited:
Some new screen shots from Beta Game Patch - 0.4.1.0
Kindly shared by Argopeilacos - on the I-Novae forums - source
Kindly shared by Argopeilacos - on the I-Novae forums - source
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Some new screen shots from Beta Weekend Game Patch - 0.4.1.0
Kindly shared by SpaceJay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Kindly shared by SpaceJay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Weekly Update #134: Beta Improvements
Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link
Hey everybody, time for a new update. Two weeks ago we released the beta along with patch 0.4.0.0. I’m happy to report that overall, the beta went pretty well. The server crashed twice during the launch, but the issue ( related to multithreading ) was fixed a few days later and the server has been perfectly stable since then.
Beta feedback
SpaceJay has posted a lot of new 4K screenshots which you can see in this thread: Wallpaper - Give Us Your Best Shot! (Image Intensive)
Playbenni has also released a fan-made video of the beta launch, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxQ1MrltSn8
Last week we released patch 0.4.1.0 with more fixes and improvements to the beta version. We’ve still got a long way to go; namely, the balance is still off, some ships are overpowered ( I’m looking at you, cruiser’s shields overcharge ) and some of the controls / mechanics are still clunky ( locking will get a revamp soon ). Some of the most important feedback we’ve gathered from this beta launch is that the game still has a too harsh learning curve. We’re not all that worried about it (yet), though, since we’ll be add tutorials and more in-game helpers at a later stage.
Upcoming development
As I mentionned last month, our top priority for March will be work on the UI and in-game menus. The goal is to have a first version of the star map and main menus somewhere around end of March.
Although UI has the highest priority, there’s also a number of important tasks that we’ll be working on in parallel. Here’s a non-exhaustive list the next 1-2 weeks:
We’re switching to FMOD for our audio library. Goodbye OpenAL, you served us well, but you won’t be regretted ! The main advantage of FMOD is the higher sound quality ( we can use 3D stereo / multi-channel sound sources, while OpenAL only supported mono 3D sources ) and the ability to apply real-time filters to effects. We might give a try to muffling distant sounds in space as an option - is that something you’d be interested in ? Please let us know.
And that’s pretty much it for the “coming soon” list. A new patch ( 0.4.2.0 ) is scheduled for the new Community Event, probably this week.
-Flavien Brebion
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Pledge Upgrade: https://inovaestudios.com/Account#products
Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link
Hey everybody, time for a new update. Two weeks ago we released the beta along with patch 0.4.0.0. I’m happy to report that overall, the beta went pretty well. The server crashed twice during the launch, but the issue ( related to multithreading ) was fixed a few days later and the server has been perfectly stable since then.
Beta feedback
SpaceJay has posted a lot of new 4K screenshots which you can see in this thread: Wallpaper - Give Us Your Best Shot! (Image Intensive)
Playbenni has also released a fan-made video of the beta launch, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxQ1MrltSn8
Last week we released patch 0.4.1.0 with more fixes and improvements to the beta version. We’ve still got a long way to go; namely, the balance is still off, some ships are overpowered ( I’m looking at you, cruiser’s shields overcharge ) and some of the controls / mechanics are still clunky ( locking will get a revamp soon ). Some of the most important feedback we’ve gathered from this beta launch is that the game still has a too harsh learning curve. We’re not all that worried about it (yet), though, since we’ll be add tutorials and more in-game helpers at a later stage.
Upcoming development
As I mentionned last month, our top priority for March will be work on the UI and in-game menus. The goal is to have a first version of the star map and main menus somewhere around end of March.
Although UI has the highest priority, there’s also a number of important tasks that we’ll be working on in parallel. Here’s a non-exhaustive list the next 1-2 weeks:
We’re switching to FMOD for our audio library. Goodbye OpenAL, you served us well, but you won’t be regretted ! The main advantage of FMOD is the higher sound quality ( we can use 3D stereo / multi-channel sound sources, while OpenAL only supported mono 3D sources ) and the ability to apply real-time filters to effects. We might give a try to muffling distant sounds in space as an option - is that something you’d be interested in ? Please let us know.
- More iterations on capital ships control scheme.
- Another balance pass, especially on ground bases and static defenses. We’re also revising hardpoints on various ships.
- We’ll be finally adding the missile, torpedo launchers and laser countermeasures on capital ships. Art assets are ready for this, but due to lack of time it couldn’t get finished in time for the beta.
- More improvements to the HUD / controls and revamping the locking system ( it’s been long coming ).
- Adding correct projectiles intersection hits with the mesh hull of a ship, instead of using the bounding box.
- Finishing the new AI battle system that was being worked on during December and January.
- And of course as usual: bug fixes, new minor features, improvements, HUD updates, some new icons, some experimental changes etc…
And that’s pretty much it for the “coming soon” list. A new patch ( 0.4.2.0 ) is scheduled for the new Community Event, probably this week.
-Flavien Brebion
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Pledge Upgrade: https://inovaestudios.com/Account#products
Saturday, 2nd March 2019 : I-Novae Community Event
Originally posted by I-Novae Hutchings - Developer/Artist - source
You’ll need access to the Beta to participate in this Community Event. See all the FAQ for the Beta Here
This event will focus on PVP gameplay, built around Squads (Player driven organization)
As with past Beta events, we’ll think about the different tools and features that would be useful while play testing. Think of it as a live brainstorming session with the community
Bots flying “formation” co-ordinating attack
Saturday, March 2nd 2019 : Infinity Battlescape Community MeetUp
Event Time…
20:00 Saturday, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
World time Buddy for this Event : http://bit.ly/2H483J9
We are likely to stream the gameplay on the I-Novae YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/InfinitySupport/videos
Originally posted by I-Novae Hutchings - Developer/Artist - source
You’ll need access to the Beta to participate in this Community Event. See all the FAQ for the Beta Here
This event will focus on PVP gameplay, built around Squads (Player driven organization)
As with past Beta events, we’ll think about the different tools and features that would be useful while play testing. Think of it as a live brainstorming session with the community
Saturday, March 2nd 2019 : Infinity Battlescape Community MeetUp
Event Time…
20:00 Saturday, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
World time Buddy for this Event : http://bit.ly/2H483J9
We are likely to stream the gameplay on the I-Novae YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/InfinitySupport/videos
Last edited:
Asked and answered, many times before....
Yes there will be a lot more detail, vegetaion and ground clutter.
Last edited:
There wil be a Sandbox/Exploration version with modding tools.
This game has to pay for the more elaborate, bigger game (with much more than pure combat).
It's a small team with limited budget. It is NOT Starcitizen.
Infinity Battlescape is scheduled to be released by the end of this year.
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Speaking for myself, I'll wait and I'll just buy it if it has something more than just "combat". But I'll always keep an eye on it.
Some new screen shots from Beta Game Patch - 0.4.1.0
Kindly shared by SpaceJay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Kindly shared by Argopeilacos - on the I-Novae forums - source
Kindly shared by SpaceJay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Kindly shared by Argopeilacos - on the I-Novae forums - source
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Last edited:
Beta Game Patch - 0.4.2.0 ( Saturday, 02 March 2019 )
Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link
This new patch for the beta version introduces the new audio system: FMOD Studio (goodbye OpenAL !) and as such, modifications to sounds are experimental and haven’t been fine tuned yet. If you notice any audio issue, please let us know on the forums, thank you !
The patch also introduces a new targetting system for capital ships and static defenses. MK4 Auto-turrets are now auto-tracking AND auto-firing. This means that you no longer need to manage these auto-turrets at all; they’ll select the most relevant target and fire at it automatically, even if you do not press the primary or secondary fire button. If you’re short on ammo and want to disable this behavior, simply toggle the MK4 Auto-Turret hardpoint group off in the weapons radial menu.
This patch also contains a major balance pass over the ships (especially capital ships weapons, hardpoints and sockets locations) as well as the bomber (the shotgun is now classified as MK2; we also added the Interceptor MK1 guns as an alternative primary weapon, which you can select in the weapons radial menu). We’ve also revamped all the credits rewards for scanning (nerfed), destroying installations (nerfed), passive resources generation (buffed) and active kills (buffed). Please let us know if the game balance has improved as a result, and report any major imbalance you can notice. Thank you and have fun.
Full game patch changelog here: https://forums.inovaestudios.com/t/patch-and-updates-notes/2996/44
Full game patch changelog here: https://forums.inovaestudios.com/t/patch-and-updates-notes/2996/44
Beta Game download here: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Pledge Upgrade: https://inovaestudios.com/Account#products
Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link
This new patch for the beta version introduces the new audio system: FMOD Studio (goodbye OpenAL !) and as such, modifications to sounds are experimental and haven’t been fine tuned yet. If you notice any audio issue, please let us know on the forums, thank you !
The patch also introduces a new targetting system for capital ships and static defenses. MK4 Auto-turrets are now auto-tracking AND auto-firing. This means that you no longer need to manage these auto-turrets at all; they’ll select the most relevant target and fire at it automatically, even if you do not press the primary or secondary fire button. If you’re short on ammo and want to disable this behavior, simply toggle the MK4 Auto-Turret hardpoint group off in the weapons radial menu.
This patch also contains a major balance pass over the ships (especially capital ships weapons, hardpoints and sockets locations) as well as the bomber (the shotgun is now classified as MK2; we also added the Interceptor MK1 guns as an alternative primary weapon, which you can select in the weapons radial menu). We’ve also revamped all the credits rewards for scanning (nerfed), destroying installations (nerfed), passive resources generation (buffed) and active kills (buffed). Please let us know if the game balance has improved as a result, and report any major imbalance you can notice. Thank you and have fun.
Full game patch changelog here: https://forums.inovaestudios.com/t/patch-and-updates-notes/2996/44
Full game patch changelog here: https://forums.inovaestudios.com/t/patch-and-updates-notes/2996/44
Beta Game download here: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Pledge Upgrade: https://inovaestudios.com/Account#products
Some new screen shots from Beta Game Patch - 0.4.2.0
Kindly shared by SpaceJay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Kindly shared by Argopeilacos and Spacejay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Kindly shared by SpaceJay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Kindly shared by Argopeilacos and Spacejay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Some new screen shots from Beta Game Patch - 0.4.1.0
Kindly shared by SpaceJay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Kindly shared by SpaceJay - on the I-Novae forums - source
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Last edited:
Saturday, 16th March 2019 : I-Novae Community Event
Originally posted by I-Novae Hutchings - Developer/Artist - source
You’ll need access to the Beta to participate in this Community Event. See all the FAQ for the Beta Here
This event will focus on PVP gameplay, built around Squads (Player driven organization)
As with past Beta events, we’ll think about the different tools and features that would be useful while play testing. Think of it as a live brainstorming session with the community
SpaceJay “Cruiser in Orbit”
Saturday, March 16th 2019 : Infinity Battlescape Community MeetUp
Event Time…
20:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Some regions have recently experienced “Daylight Savings” check the start time!
World time Buddy for this Event : http://bit.ly/2HtZ2cM
We are likely to stream the gameplay on the I-Novae YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/InfinitySupport/videos
Originally posted by I-Novae Hutchings - Developer/Artist - source
You’ll need access to the Beta to participate in this Community Event. See all the FAQ for the Beta Here
This event will focus on PVP gameplay, built around Squads (Player driven organization)
As with past Beta events, we’ll think about the different tools and features that would be useful while play testing. Think of it as a live brainstorming session with the community
Saturday, March 16th 2019 : Infinity Battlescape Community MeetUp
Event Time…
20:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Some regions have recently experienced “Daylight Savings” check the start time!
World time Buddy for this Event : http://bit.ly/2HtZ2cM
We are likely to stream the gameplay on the I-Novae YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/InfinitySupport/videos
Weekly Update #135: Audio Improvements and Ship upgrades
Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link
Hey everybody. As you noticed I somehow skipped the update last week, as I was busy working on the next patch. I wanted to make sure that everything that I would mention in this update would be included in the patch. We are hosting a new community event tomorrow at 20:00 UTC, see this thread for the details.
As usual I’ll be patching the game tomorrow a few hours earlier ( hopefully ) than the event starts.
Audio Improvements
We introduced FMOD in the previous patch. This patch is another step up on the integration of our audio library with plenty of improvements. First of all, quality improvements: we were generating too many 3D sound sources, too far away. I profiled a medium battle and realized we had close to 2000 sounds active at a given time. This stressed FMOD systems and caused high cpu usage, forcing some samples to get dropped… and generating a lot of crackling / noise issues. This wasn’t an issue when we were using our old audio library ( OpenAL ) as we were managing the lifetime of sounds ourselves and were cutting sounds too silent / far away from the listener. FMOD requires us to be smarter, so I ended up implementing a “streaming” system for sounds, especially all the 3D sounds attached to a ship ( like, dozens of looping thruster sounds ) which now get created / destroyed on-demand, based on distance to the listener.
As expected, this fixed most of the audio glitchess.
Another area of improvement is doppler. All sounds are now assigned a proper velocity which cause a doppler effect. It can still sometimes be slightly buggy when you approach a source at a high relative velocity, causing a sudden high pitch sound, but we’ll address that at a later stage. Overall, the doppler effect adds a ton to the sound ambience, as you can now hear incoming / outgoing nearby ships flying around you.
Finally, we introduced the “muffle” effect in space. A low-pass filter, simulating muffle is being applied to all 3D sounds. It is done dynamically, so sounds closer to the camera will be normal, but sounds will slowly get muffled the further away they are. The system takes into account atmosphere too, so a denser atmosphere will not muffle as quickly as, say, in deep space.
Overall, all these changes have vastly improved the sound system. Keep in mind the sound samples themselves are still placeholders, for most part. FMOD supports stereo sounds but our sources are all mono, so there’s still room for quality improvements once we replace the 3D sounds with the new effects in a few months.
Interceptor
Kristian has finished texturing the interceptor. Only two base skins are available at the moment ( Scoria and Havoc ) but we’ll add more skins at a later stage. The custom skins we had for the cruiser were done to validate the system. We’ll come back on producing more skins for all ships once we are closer to the release.
Scoria base skin
Havoc base skin
The next ship in line for texturing is the Destroyer.
Ship upgrades
The game now supports dynamically mounting / unmounting ship upgrades and internal equipments. We even have a command line ( for admins only ) to mount stuff on any ship. However, since we’re still lacking the UI screens, the ship default configurations are still static for now. In order to test the new upgrade system, we ended up implementing two new equipments: the long-range scanner, and proximity mines.
Long-range scanner
The long-range scanner is only available on the Interceptor. Open the ship systems menu ( V ) and you’ll see a new option to toggle it on or off:
The way it works is as follows. As you know, we already have an energy emissions system ( the little graph displayed on the top-right corner on the HUD ). It shows the distance at which your ship would get detected by an enemy and flashes in orange when you are being detected.
The long-range scanner allows you to get some information about long-range targets that haven’t been detected by you or your team yet, like enemy infrastructure. Note that in this patch, a base that hasn’t been scouted yet will have its name appear as “Unknown”.
The scanner acts like a spectrograph. Horizontally, you can see the distance of a signal. The scale is based on powers-of-10, so 10^3 at the middle is 1000 Km. The maximum range is 10^6, or a million Km. Almost 3 light-seconds and plenty enough to detect everything in a Battlescape.
Vertically, you can see the intensity of the signal. It isn’t linear either, but the scale doesn’t really matter here; just know that a higher amplitude means a stronger signal. The width of the signal is also important, although more subtle, and roughly maps to the arc angle of the signal. It’ll shrink at higher distances.
Note that the radar does not give direct direction information. You know the type of signal and you know the distance, but you don’t know if it’s in front of you or in your back. This is why there is an additional element to the scanner: a doppler effect. The signals will shift to green as you approach them and to orange/red as you get further away from them. The stronger the color, the higher the relative speed is.
Design-wise, the idea of the scanner is to introduce an element of player skill instead of making another “press-a-button-and-ping-the-entire-system” which you can often see in other space games. For this reason, we’ve also shifted the reward system related to scouting a base: the more difficult it is to find a base ( aka, shorter signal range and amplitude ) and the higher the reward, whereas in the previous versions, the bigger bases ( like Glimmerfall ) were the easiest to spot and were giving the highest rewards. Now, scouting Glimmerfall will bring less credits than scout, say, a small hidden factory somewhere on a planet.
Finally, the new scanner system isn’t restricted to bases. It can potentially scout haulers or other capital ships. So it is possible to see a signal where a battle is happening, although it might not have much practical interest ( if there’s a battle going on, chances are members of your team are there, so it’s already displayed on your HUD as indicators anyways… ).
Proximity mines
The proximity mine launcher is only available on the Destroyer. It has a capacity of 6 mines. Cooldown is 20 seconds.
If you played the Infinity Combat Prototype, more than a decade ago ( aah the nostalgia ), this should ring a bell.
Space stations are now protected by clusters of proximity mine fields. The number of mines in a cluster and the distribution of clusters around a station is randomized, and bigger stations will have a higher amount of mines. A single cluster can have between 2 to 5 mines but it’s possible to find a couple of random isolated mines too.
The Destroyer now has the ability to deploy mines. Once deployed, a mine will slow down and stand still, ready to get activated ( there is an additional delay of 10 seconds before a mine can be activated, so that it won’t detonate too close to your Destroyer if you were deploying it in the middle of a battle .
This is how proximity mines work:
Small clusters of mines around a space station
For the patch tomorrow there are a few additional features I’m thinking of implementing, assuming enough time:
-Flavien Brebion
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infinity: Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape
Infinity: Battlescape forums: https://forums.inovaestudios.com
Pledge Upgrade: https://inovaestudios.com/Account#products
Originally posted by I-NovaeFlavien CTO/President & Cofounder - source link
Hey everybody. As you noticed I somehow skipped the update last week, as I was busy working on the next patch. I wanted to make sure that everything that I would mention in this update would be included in the patch. We are hosting a new community event tomorrow at 20:00 UTC, see this thread for the details.
As usual I’ll be patching the game tomorrow a few hours earlier ( hopefully ) than the event starts.
Audio Improvements
We introduced FMOD in the previous patch. This patch is another step up on the integration of our audio library with plenty of improvements. First of all, quality improvements: we were generating too many 3D sound sources, too far away. I profiled a medium battle and realized we had close to 2000 sounds active at a given time. This stressed FMOD systems and caused high cpu usage, forcing some samples to get dropped… and generating a lot of crackling / noise issues. This wasn’t an issue when we were using our old audio library ( OpenAL ) as we were managing the lifetime of sounds ourselves and were cutting sounds too silent / far away from the listener. FMOD requires us to be smarter, so I ended up implementing a “streaming” system for sounds, especially all the 3D sounds attached to a ship ( like, dozens of looping thruster sounds ) which now get created / destroyed on-demand, based on distance to the listener.
As expected, this fixed most of the audio glitchess.
Another area of improvement is doppler. All sounds are now assigned a proper velocity which cause a doppler effect. It can still sometimes be slightly buggy when you approach a source at a high relative velocity, causing a sudden high pitch sound, but we’ll address that at a later stage. Overall, the doppler effect adds a ton to the sound ambience, as you can now hear incoming / outgoing nearby ships flying around you.
Finally, we introduced the “muffle” effect in space. A low-pass filter, simulating muffle is being applied to all 3D sounds. It is done dynamically, so sounds closer to the camera will be normal, but sounds will slowly get muffled the further away they are. The system takes into account atmosphere too, so a denser atmosphere will not muffle as quickly as, say, in deep space.
Overall, all these changes have vastly improved the sound system. Keep in mind the sound samples themselves are still placeholders, for most part. FMOD supports stereo sounds but our sources are all mono, so there’s still room for quality improvements once we replace the 3D sounds with the new effects in a few months.
Interceptor
Kristian has finished texturing the interceptor. Only two base skins are available at the moment ( Scoria and Havoc ) but we’ll add more skins at a later stage. The custom skins we had for the cruiser were done to validate the system. We’ll come back on producing more skins for all ships once we are closer to the release.
Scoria base skin
Havoc base skin
The next ship in line for texturing is the Destroyer.
Ship upgrades
The game now supports dynamically mounting / unmounting ship upgrades and internal equipments. We even have a command line ( for admins only ) to mount stuff on any ship. However, since we’re still lacking the UI screens, the ship default configurations are still static for now. In order to test the new upgrade system, we ended up implementing two new equipments: the long-range scanner, and proximity mines.
Long-range scanner
The long-range scanner is only available on the Interceptor. Open the ship systems menu ( V ) and you’ll see a new option to toggle it on or off:
The way it works is as follows. As you know, we already have an energy emissions system ( the little graph displayed on the top-right corner on the HUD ). It shows the distance at which your ship would get detected by an enemy and flashes in orange when you are being detected.
The long-range scanner allows you to get some information about long-range targets that haven’t been detected by you or your team yet, like enemy infrastructure. Note that in this patch, a base that hasn’t been scouted yet will have its name appear as “Unknown”.
The scanner acts like a spectrograph. Horizontally, you can see the distance of a signal. The scale is based on powers-of-10, so 10^3 at the middle is 1000 Km. The maximum range is 10^6, or a million Km. Almost 3 light-seconds and plenty enough to detect everything in a Battlescape.
Vertically, you can see the intensity of the signal. It isn’t linear either, but the scale doesn’t really matter here; just know that a higher amplitude means a stronger signal. The width of the signal is also important, although more subtle, and roughly maps to the arc angle of the signal. It’ll shrink at higher distances.
Note that the radar does not give direct direction information. You know the type of signal and you know the distance, but you don’t know if it’s in front of you or in your back. This is why there is an additional element to the scanner: a doppler effect. The signals will shift to green as you approach them and to orange/red as you get further away from them. The stronger the color, the higher the relative speed is.
Design-wise, the idea of the scanner is to introduce an element of player skill instead of making another “press-a-button-and-ping-the-entire-system” which you can often see in other space games. For this reason, we’ve also shifted the reward system related to scouting a base: the more difficult it is to find a base ( aka, shorter signal range and amplitude ) and the higher the reward, whereas in the previous versions, the bigger bases ( like Glimmerfall ) were the easiest to spot and were giving the highest rewards. Now, scouting Glimmerfall will bring less credits than scout, say, a small hidden factory somewhere on a planet.
Finally, the new scanner system isn’t restricted to bases. It can potentially scout haulers or other capital ships. So it is possible to see a signal where a battle is happening, although it might not have much practical interest ( if there’s a battle going on, chances are members of your team are there, so it’s already displayed on your HUD as indicators anyways… ).
Proximity mines
The proximity mine launcher is only available on the Destroyer. It has a capacity of 6 mines. Cooldown is 20 seconds.
If you played the Infinity Combat Prototype, more than a decade ago ( aah the nostalgia ), this should ring a bell.
Space stations are now protected by clusters of proximity mine fields. The number of mines in a cluster and the distribution of clusters around a station is randomized, and bigger stations will have a higher amount of mines. A single cluster can have between 2 to 5 mines but it’s possible to find a couple of random isolated mines too.
The Destroyer now has the ability to deploy mines. Once deployed, a mine will slow down and stand still, ready to get activated ( there is an additional delay of 10 seconds before a mine can be activated, so that it won’t detonate too close to your Destroyer if you were deploying it in the middle of a battle .
This is how proximity mines work:
- Mines from a defensive mine-field have an infinite life time. Mines deployed by a player have a 10 minutes life time, but can only expire when there are no nearby ships. Otherwise their life time is potentiaolly infinite too.
- Mines do a lot of damage. Like, a ton. Like, 10K damage. That’s almost 3 torpedoes. Due to their high damage, they also cause a lot of splash within a 1-km radius. It is guaranteed death to an interceptor that is too closer to an exploding mine. For capital ships, mines are a real threat.
- Mines are slow. Twice slower than torpedoes. They can easily miss or overshoot their targets. They only detonate on contact or near-contact.
- Mines have a high activation range: 40 Km. However they do not stack within a 25 Km range. This means that if two mine clusters are very far away, you can potentially be targetted by 2, 3 mines or even more !
- Mines only lock on massive targets. That means capital ships ( Destroyer and above ) or… other mines. Yeah, mine wars can happen. I’m looking forward to mines billiard.
- Since mines have a high activation range, the threat can be anticipated from 30 seconds to a whole minute before. If capital ships have difficulties with mines, it is recommanded they get help from interceptors to clean up the mines before they detonate. Mines explode on contact of anything, so a single missile will get ride of them at a high distance.
- Mines can detonate when firing at them from an Interceptor too. They have 1000 HP, so a few volleys should be enough to kill them. Beware not to be within a 1 Km range when they explode. They give a small credits reward too.
- Explosions now have shockwaves, that can “bump” nearby entities. It would be possible to have a chain reaction in a mine field, if the distance between mines was close enough.
- Mines are sneaky ! Their detection range is barely 10 Km, but as mentionned above, they’ll activate on a target up to 40 Km away. So they will likely lock on you, despite the fact that you can’t see them yet !
- We’re using the “crate” art asset as placeholder for the proximity mines.
Small clusters of mines around a space station
For the patch tomorrow there are a few additional features I’m thinking of implementing, assuming enough time:
- With safetely lock disabled, mines will no longer slow down and stop, but keep their momentum forever. With some skills it might be possible to use them as bombs, throwing them towards another capital ship, or bombarding a base on a planet ? It might be incredibly difficult though, but technically it would be do-able.
- If a mine does not have a target yet and are getting attacked by a ship ( on which they wouldn’t usually lock, because too small, like an Interceptor ), the mine will activate and lock on the attacker.
- Scouting mines via the scanner and maybe targging them so that they can be seen from a higher range later on.
- The community event should be fun. There are a lot of new things to test, and the full patch list isn’t out yet. See you in game tomorrow !
-Flavien Brebion
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