Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Strategy, Tactical, Indie
Infested Planet
Infested Planet Update 17 is Out
Welcome to the last scheduled patch before release! It's been a crazy ride to get here - thanks for coming along and testing the game in Early Access. I'll see you all on the other side of the launch wormhole.
Some of the changes in this patch went live last week, so that reviewers have a smoother experience.
Changes
Fixed exploit with buying weapons and weapon cooldown
Added importing profiles to Steam Cloud
Added vsync to graphics options
Tweaked campaign dialog button order
Added ability to skip tutorial missions
Added text tips to notices
Fixed notice pointer positioning
Added options hints
Added non-linear scaling to audio sliders
Added graphics optimization through alpha blending and testing
Fixed chopper UI vanishing with res change
Fixed grenading marines getting stuck bug
Fixed bug with assault targeting and movement
Update 16 is Out - Patch 0.85
This patch updates the look of the game with the introduction of shadows. They can be turned on and off in the options menu. Those of you who enjoy competing in the leader boards might also note that silver mode has been made easier.
The release for Infested Planet has been set for March 6th, so there's exatly 1 patch between now and then. It will probably be bugfixes and polish.
Major Changes
Added entity shadows
Added shadows graphics option
Prevented some mutations from appearing too early in random maps
Made growing defense towers more vulnerable to sap damage (for example, siege cannon)
Reduced silver challenge difficulty
Minor Changes
Prevented capture alert sound from being repeated quickly
Optimized retargeting for several entities
Added ability to hide dialogue UI
Added text announcement to recaptures
Revised campaign buff descriptions
Changed "grab mouse" to "trap mouse" in options
Tweaked challenge briefing
Changed leaderboard screen to go to global leaderboard if user is unranked
Added icon to game window
Added version number to profiles
Added ram amount to log
Bugfixes
Fixed mortar firing rockets at immune targets
Added additional checks to Steam Cloud loads, to prevent crashes
Improved script robustness for tutorials
Fixed leaderboards name fetching to reduce chance of [unknown] name
Infested Planet Update 15 is Out!
This update adds a large feature to the game - Weekly Challenges. I hope that you'll join me and other players in attacking the maps each week and seeing how well you compare to everyone else.
This update is the final large patch before the game releases. Future patches will be mostly fixes and polish.
Major Changes
Weekly Challenge mode
Improved random map generation
Steam Cloud saves
Minor Changes
Added a more flashy effect to officer inspiration
Tweaked Engineering tech to use ammo continuosly
Added Engineering tech out of ammo warnings
Increased health of medical pods
Made mortar more responsive to manual targeting
Changed Robotics tech armour bonus to a shield
Infested Planet Update 14 is Out
I went slightly insane in the last month and revamped several of the units, buildings and technologies in the game. The thrust of a lot of improvements is to un-complicate the units and the make some of the more obscure tech more attractive.
Campaign Changes
Reworked the "Preparations" mission
Slightly increased the difficulty of "The Return"
Reworked the "Anabasis" mission
Updated weapons tutorial to match new UI
Major Changes
Replaced robot pod with medical pod
Replaced medic class with officer
Changed medic hunters mutation to assassins
Revamped teleporters to act as reinforcement sources
Revamped mortar to fire rockets at 1 ammo cost
Revamped grenades tech
Removed dispersal tech and added robotics tech
Tweaked costs for regeneration and chopper tech
Folded dispersion tech station into regeneration tech station (now called Life Support)
Reworked engineering tech
Updated heli-drop tech to give inspiration instead of shield
Removed minigunner restriction on grenades and rockets
Dropped the price of marines to 4
Dropped minimum scout beam cost to 1 ammo
Decreased guardian health and slightly increased the damage
Reduced enraged alien damage
Increased minefield effectiveness vs enraged
Added infested medical pod to random maps and custom mode
Added ability to repeat some shortcut commands by holding down the key
Minor Changes
Made marine weapon show for dead marines
Added manual mortar targeting
Added "TEAM" button to select all marines
Added UI hint arrow when chopper strike is built
Fixed turrets firing at targets that are too close
Fixed turret targeting invalid targets
Tweaked hive immune message
Assigning marines to tow stuff now prefers marines without crates
Added DETACHED message floaters to towable crates
Improved marine AI when shooting at immune targets
Misc and Technical
Fixed marine targeting dead entities
Updated campaign mission layout
Changed loading screen background
Restored update timer to 2 weeks
Fixed siege gun text
Fixed resolution issues on windows with DPI modes enabled
Added more log messages to resolution switching
Fixed small lua bug in Memento Mori
Updated SDL2 version
Added a texture flag that stops caching in memory (for really large textures)
Infested Planet Update 13 is Out
Now that Infested Planet is in the polish stage, patches will contain a ton of small changes. For example, this patch has a billion different tweaks and fixes to missions and mechanics. Most effort went into polishing the missions in the middle of the campaign.
There are actually quite a few major changes that didn't make it into the patch, since they weren't ready yet. Get ready for the next patch - it'll have some major gameplay modifications.
OS X Version
Infested Planet now works on the OS X version of Steam. Please let me know if it works for you and whether you run into any issues.
Major Changes
Mine fields explode aliens without marine help
Mine fields don't use ammo any more
Increased marine spawning cost by 1
Helidrop buff: 10 sec of shield (up from 5) and -30% respawn time
Marines out of battle for a long time don't die from poison
Made infested marines more vulnerable to siege cannon
Siege cannon doesn't use ammo any more
Made all marines more vulnerable to concussion damage (mines + grenades)
Increased flamer armour
Made barriers vulnerable to rocket damage
Made rockets be fired even if barrier is in way
Completely reworked mimics - no more clones from those aliens
Mimics are now "Enraged" - fast kamikadze aliens
Slowed down clones
Reworked "Contact" mission
Reworked "Preparations" mission
Altered "The Return" and "Night and Day" to be easier
Revamped the way weapon purchase and recycle work (only 1 at a time now)
Bumped up the infested structure respawn time
Numerous tweaks to early campaign missions
Small Changes
Added esc-closing of build menus
Extended respawn period for infested structures
Made hive respawning and upgrades take longer
Made hives not respawn on top of marines
Made barrier mutation not trigger for vulnerable hives
Changed guardian colour to be more distinctive
Added bleed graphics effects to guardians
Added cheat code to unlock all campaign missions
Made towers randomly 100% vulnerable to scout and siege
Made hp circle colours for marines and humans distinct
Extended shield generator shield duration
Mortars start firing immediately now after construction
Increased flamer knockback
Upped starting BP in "The Return" mission
Moved some campaign shop items earlier up to tease the player
Swapped mines and mortars in the campaign
Bugfixes
Fixed crash bug with pathing outside of the map
Fixed scaling for static mimic aliens
Fixed audio glitches when shielded marine is under attack
Fixed loading narratives being cut off on some resolutions
Infested Planet Update 12 is Out!
Infested Planet is officially code complete! Everything that I wanted to have in the game when the beta started is here. Even better, there's a few months left where I can focus on adding extras and polish.
Achievements
You can now show off your Infested Planet skill to your friends with Steam achievements! For those of you who beat Terminus mode, you now have proof that you did. There are also achievements for beating campaign missions, extra mission goals and beating some mutations.
When you log into a profile and go to the campaign screen, you should get achievements retroactively for completed missions.
New Campaign Screen
Several months ago, one of the artists who did the Dawn of War II planetscapes made a new campaign background for Infested Planet. In this patch, I finally had the time to put it into the game.
The campaign screen has been revamped to be more intuitive and attractive. You can see all of your campaign missions at a glance, their progression and status. As an added bonus, the planet background changes as you play through the campaign.
Small Changes
Added terminus difficulty raid mode
Tweaked campaign structure (may break saves!)
Finished hatchery level skin and applied it to campaign levels
Added commas to raid mode messages
Added compatibility mode to graphics (for Intel cards)
Made spore mines not capture points
Added check for insufficient desktop bit depth on init
Added pause if Steam overlay is on
Added fast capture for last point in "Memento Mori" mission
Bugfixes
Fixed grammar mistake in endgame slideshow
Fixed typo in monochrome shader
Infested Planet Update 11 is Out!
This update has two big features and a couple small bugfixes. Here they are:
Keybinding
You've been asking for a way to change the keys, or perhaps to view what all of them are. Well, I've been listening and now the options screen has a new, spiffy keybinding menu. You can change the key setup for your profile and decide what the keyboard shortcuts are.
Hatchery Level Graphics
Infested planet already has caves and jungle map skins, but I wanted to have at least 3 in the final game. The third level skin is "Hatchery" and it will be used for the final levels in the game.
The hatchery graphics are not 100% complete - I'm going to be prettying them up in the next patch. Meanwhile, I thought that I should give you a peek. Those of you who have reached the last 2 levels will find that they look different now.
Bugfixes
Fixed infested and AI marine shaders (on some video cards)
Updated credits
Fixed structures remaining in limbo is their builder is despawned
Fixed green hive blood spray in the last mission
Infested Planet Update 10 is Out!
This patch marks a milestone, of a sorts. The campaign is finally complete! I will probably be tweaking missions all the way up to release, but nothing too drastic. I hope that all of you check out the final mission and let me know what you think of it.
Since I finished the bulk of the level design, I had time to do some fixes and improvements on the game. Small things that you've been asking for and were bugging me - this patch has a bunch of them
Here are the changes for version 0.79:
Major
Added final campaign mission
Added endgame slideshow epilogue
Changed Virulence mutation to send clone strike teams; renamed to "Hunters"
Mutation icons are now different for each mutation
Took out shield bullet reflection and ai hesitation to shoot at shields
Added Terminus mode to custom skirmish
Added malicious mutations mode to custom skirmish settings
Minor
Necrophage mutation now only works on player marines
Gave fusion shotguns a knockback
Reworked the way knockback works slightly
Made special attacks be cancelled if the mutation is disabled
Made marines in protect mode counter-attack when hurt
Made it harder to kill bunkers in mission 8 with scouts
Added script short-circuiting to weapons tutorial
Added another way to recycle (through weapon menu) to weapons tutorial
Combat tutorial now has a "how to spawn marines" section
Made the marine tab ui expandable
Added item cost to its title on build menu
Added exit button to main menu
Added auto-login for last used profile
Added fire puffs to burning human buildings
Restored damage effects to prop structures
Added blood puff impact to bullets
Added blood puff velocity to create better aoe death animation
Added swirling to most fire puffs
Bug Fixes
Fixed "getting stuck in walls" issue
Fixed recycle script bug in structures tutorial
Fixed human path aborting if bumped into something (was breaking clone strike)
Fixed some high resolution fullscreen ui issues
Reworked entity shaders to use latest OpenGL standards
Fixed issues if window size is different than the game asked for
Made the directional formation move less sensitive
Miscellaneous
Revised hive boss god mode
Added ability to load extra lua scripts; now used for hunters mutation
Updated ui text for virulence mutation to new hunters text
Updated ui text for minigun and reinforcements tech
Made weapon crate give more detailed info notice
Changed title of shotgun class from "FUSION" to "SHOTGUN"
Added "marine cost" note to that ui element
Made mouse grab sensitive to window focus
Added 4 more mutation spaces to the UI
Made text fields in main and profile menus clear when first key is pressed
Added username back to main menu and made the game title slide in
Disabled profiler in release mode
Infested Planet Update 9 is Out!
The second October update is larger than the previous one. I've been able to sneak in some improvements from the last mission of the campaign into the random game modes.
New Mission - Periapsis
The campaign is almost complete and here is the next-to-last mission in it. In this one, you get to face off against someone you've seen before.
For this mission, I was inspired to ask what a MOBA would look like in Infested Planet. Both you and the aliens have 3 bunkers that are pumping out squads of marines and you have to tip the balance in your favour.
The result is a mission that feels quite different from the other ones. You're not as worried about protecting territory, because the marines can do a decent job of it themselves.
New Random Difficulty - Terminus
Some of you have asked for modes more difficult than The Abyss. I think that's rather insane, but who am I to argue?
I've been working on some AI for the final mission of the campaign. Normally the mutations are picked randomly. Well, I wrote something to have the aliens look at your build and pick the most evil mutations that exist for that build.
It's horrible, scary and unfair. When I plugged this mode into Abyss mode, I was able to complete half the map before the aliens stomped me. Yup, it's hard.
For those of you who think Abyss is a walk in the park, try the new Terminus difficulty. It's available after finishing Abyss or in the skirmish mode browser.
Minigunner Buff
Most of the time I hear you talk about minigunners, you say that they're underpowered. I had a bit of think and I think that they could use a buff.
The first buff is that their shield allows them to survive even longer now - up to 75 seconds from 40.
The other change is that I changed the "BLAST" damage type to go through shields. This includes minigun bullets, the second part of the helicoper salvo and rockets.
This means that all of the things above can punch through the reflective shields. No more minigunners and clone minigunners standing there for half a minute shooting each other. This also means that you can nuke the clone minigunners with rockets if you have to.
Other Changes
Lowered alien mine radius
Added temporary shield to marines heli-dropped by "Reinforcements" tech
Expanded mutation UI to handle more mutations
Fixed objective typo in convoy mission
Changed ammo belts not to be dropped or picked up by AI marines
Made blast damage (rockets, minigun and helistrike) pierce shields
Upped the resilience of minigun shields
Fixed some human navigation bugs
Reworked scripted marine god mode to be more reliable
Changed prop building damage resistance (since it can be a target now)
Fixed audio issue with lots of barriers being killed
Infested Planet Update 8 is Out
A new mission is out for Infested Planet in the first October update.
New Mission - Tension
Remember how I said the last mission was the most scripting I ever did for Infested Planet? Well, Tension blows that out of the water.
This mission involves you and the aliens fighting over a pile of crates (remember the convoy mission?). I spent a lot of time programming the alien strike teams so that they would know what to do with the crates. They have to react to unexpected events, like you stealing a crate that the aliens were aiming for. I also added a new AI mode to marines that allow them to escort crate carriers.
The result is a tug of war between you and the alien team. You have to stop them from stealing your crates and tow your crates back to the base at the same time. Try the new mission out and see how you like it.
Other Changes
Since we are getting close to the end of the campaign, I went through the mission rewards and added some of the later technologies to the campaign missions. Previously, the only way to get them was to play the random missions, but now you'll unlock them if you finish the scripted missions as well.
