Hey everybody, first of all: Happy New Year! We're starting the year with a new patch which aims at fixing a lot of the bugs recently introduced in patches 0.8.X as well as some quality-of-life improvements. Now that the new ship upgrades/loadout system is in place, we'll be moving towards the player/team statistics screen revamp, the battle reports and introducing the new skill rating/scoring/leaderboard system as well as tuning the economy and match progression. There's no precise ETA for the next patch, although we're aiming at releasing it some time around the end of the month.
After these new features have been implemented, the next big major tasks will be to develop the squad/fleet management systems and some overdue AI improvements (making AI fly in formation, assisting the player, improving the missions system..). As you can see, 2021 is going to be a busy year..
General and gameplay changes
Added mass to weapons and rebalanced ship's empty hull's mass to be lighter so that default loadouts do not weight more with the new weapons mass (resulting in the same ship's speeds and accelerations)
Mass changes from loadout now affects rotation (turn) speed
Added new upgrade: Spinner. Increases by +25% the rotation (turn) speed, at the cost of aiming precision and taking more time to compensate angular momentum when turning back
Created a new default loadout for the Interceptor called "Hawk" which focuses on mobility (it has feather full, improved turbo boost and the spinner upgrade)
AI now has a 25% chance to spawn an interceptor bot with the Hawk loadout
Ship upgrades / loadout screen fixes and improvements
Fixed incorrect loadouts when taking over an A.I. ship or sometimes for random custom loadouts
Fixed warp entry's speed that wasn't affected by mass changes from custom loadouts
Added a digit of precision to various ship's statistics in the loadout screen
Changing a component category in the ship loadout screen now resets the component selection/filter in the 3D view (it was confusing that all hardpoints disappeared because the component selected was from the older category)
Fixed repair rate statistic being incorrectly treated as a negative instead of a positive change in the ship screen
The ship loadout's screen and deployment panel now remember the last selected loadout for a given ship class when switching the ship class (instead of resetting it to the main default loadout)
UI / HUD
Switching between internal and external camera mode with capital ships no longer changes the view orientation
The camera view is now properly reset to being behind the ship when deploying a capital ship (previously it used the previous camera's orientation at the time of death)
Reduced the size of the missile aiming lock circle (it was too large and was distracting)
Fixed target info's hitpoints not being displayed on the HUD when it was below 1%
Hit marker sound effects will now play even on low damage hits for consistency (sometimes it felt like you were not hitting the target at all, while in reality you did, but you were doing no damage to it..)
"Low damage output" alert will now be displayed as a warning notification when the damage output of your current weapon isn't sufficient to deal significant damage to the target (ex.: interceptor machine gun trying to hit a capital ship's hull)
Updated keybindings help screen (F9)
Reduced brightness of keybindings help screen so that it doesn't glow
Added a warning message when trying to activate the warp jam while it's still under cooldown
Fixed HUD's weapons aiming dots smoothing, which wasn't working outside the screen boundaries and sometimes caused the dots to suddenly jump back into it at an incorrect position
Added a gravity alert that triggers when propulsion's anti-gravity cannot compensate gravity anymore
Fixed carrier deployment icon (now uses a "C" icon instead of an "L")
General bug fixes
Carrier hardpoint layout fixes (their orientation was messed up, causing some turrets or missile launchers to fire through the hull)
Fixed static defenses on bases that weren't firing at incoming enemy targets
Fixed ramp-up factor slowing down the ship when reverting momentum during flight/combat
Fixed AMS lasers hitting a target through walls/assets
Fixed AMS lasers hit consistency as the laser beam switches between hits & misses (sometimes after a miss it did not resume hitting properly despite the target being in the line of sight)
Fixed a potential mutithreading crash bug on the server related to metal crates
Misc
German localization update (thanks to Playbenni)
Patch 0.8.1.0 Notes
Patch 0.8.1.0 ( Tuesday December 22th 2020 )
After we released the ship upgrades and custom loadouts patch a few days ago, we fixed a number of issues (some of which are pretty important) and added a polish pass over the loadouts interface. We also addressed some of the most urgent balance issues related to the two new weapons, the Halcyon and the Plasma Cutter.
General and gameplay
Introduced carrier spawns (compatible with other capital ships too) and updated station layouts to allow carriers to spawn at docking bays that have enough room for a carrier. Carriers will no longer spawn in space far away from stations. Note: we introduced a new icon to represent the carrier spawn. It currently uses the 'L'arge character, like other capital ships. In a future patch we'll replace it with a dedicated 'C'arrier icon
Starmap list now takes compatible spawns into account when displaying "deployable" vs "non-deployable" hints and icons. This means that if you're an interceptor trying to deploy at a base where all fighter hangars are destroyed but corvette bays are still intact, the list will now show "deployable" instead of preventing you from being able to deploy there
Reduced amount of chaffs on Interceptor to 10. This should make the chaff upgrade more interesting
Added a new upgrade: Efficient Booster. This upgrade reduces the booster's energy consumption by -30% at the expense of a small piece of the shield's recharge rate (-15%)
Doubled the amount of hitpoints on MK5 Flak canons, as they were too easily damaged in combat
Reduced Halcyon shot speed, range and damage. It still has slightly more DPS than gimbaled machine guns, but you'll need good accuracy to fully exploit it
Reduced range and damage on the Plasma Cutter (although less than the Halcyon nerf). Shot speed is unchanged
Reduced spread on Halcyon and Plasma Cutter, making them more accurate at larger distances
Reduces heat (Halcyon) and heat+energy consumption (Plasma Cutter) to allow firing them for a longer time
Fixed some Halcon and Plasma cutter settings which made their converging mode useless. The new settings should make it more easy to hit a target
Bug fixes
Fixed HUD icons being messed up at "low-quality" texture level
Fixed a bug with the deploy panel that didn't refresh the ship screen's upgrades/components panel after changing the selected deployment loadout
Fixed a propulsion issue caused by introducing a ramp-up factor at very low speeds. This made ships unable to take-off from planets when they were at zero/very low speeds
Fixed custom loadout's automatic weapon groups being messed / mixed up together sometimes (or even having missing weapons..). Weapons are still assigned to groups automatically, but we'll provide a weapons configuration screen in a future patch
Improvements and UI tweaks
"Not enough credits" flashing text on the ship screen was moved at the top of the screen instead of occluding the center; loadout credits text is now smaller to fit on a single line for large credits values..
Selecting a specific component's category in the ship's loadout panel will now filter hardpoints that match this category in the 3D viewport
Changed weapons hardpoints to a diamond shape (the hexagon was too close to a circle and be confusing)
Weapon's details info panel text is now colored the same as the weapon card in the upgrades panel
Fixed some incorrect weapon details that appeared in the info panel, like for missile/torpedo launchers
Added locking range information for missile/torpedo launchers in the info panel
Duplicating a loadout will now automatically pop up the rename window
Deleting a loadout will now pop up a confirmation window to avoid doing it accidentally
Icon tweaks (ex.: info panel's dots are now smaller; added an up/down icon to match whether an attribute improves or hurts a ship's attribute)
Misc
added final version of the new musical tracks with smoother transitions
added a new audio effect for the Plasma Cutter weapon
Patch 0.8.0.0 Notes: Ship upgrades and custom loadouts
Patch 0.8.0.0 ( Saturday December 19th 2020 )
Hey everbody. As you can see, we've increased the major version number for this patch. That's because this patch is probably the biggest/most complex of the year, and brings the long-awaited ship upgrades system and custom loadouts into play.
The implementation required some huge code refactoring so it is likely to have stability and balance issues, especially as we haven't been able to test all the combinations of ships and upgrades yet. Remember that this is only the initial implementation.
We'll add new upgrades and weapons on a regular basis in the coming months. We'd love to get community feedback on the new system: is it working well, is it confusing, is the loadout customization interface too complex or intuitive to use ? Are there upgrades which you find useless, or overpowered ? What other upgrades or weapons would you like to see ?
Let us know on the forums or on Discord and see you in game !
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Upgrades, loadouts and ship menu
Introduced the new ship upgrades(/components) system and its UI. The main idea here was to extend the hardpoints system not just to weapons, but also to internal hardpoints. All hardpoints are now restricted to a category of components that you can mount on them. For example, a "structural" hardpoint can only mount structural components, and not weapons or sensors. Some upgrades have size/class restrictions as well and might not be avaialble on all ships
The list of components available to your ship and their categories is displayed on the right-side panel
A "show mounted only" checkbox is also available next to the categories. The upgrades panel will only show components currently mounted on your ship's loadout
Hardpoints are now displayed on top of the 3D viewport. They can be hollow (hardpoint is free) or filled (a component is mounted on it). The icon can be a small circle for internal hardpoints, or an hexagon for external/weapons hardpoints. The color is green (hardpoint is free), red (hardpoint mounted) or yellow (selected)
Components can have dependencies on other components (requirements or incompatibilities). Components that are currently mounted are displayed in green. Available components (but not yet mounted) are in blue. Finally, components which you cannot mount (due to a dependency issue for instance) are displayed in orange
When hovering over a hardpoint in the 3D viewport, or a component in the upgrades list, the details/information about the component or weapon statistics gets displaying in the information panel at the bottom-right corner of the screen
Components have tech levels. These are currently only for information purposes only, however we're currently evaluating the possibility of introducing technological research done at military bases that would unlock new upgrades for your whole team
A loadout management bar is available at the top-right corner of the screen
The icons in order are: save loadout to disk (this will make the loadout available in future play sessions); duplicate the current loadout into a new one; rename the loadout; undo/revert changes to the loadout; reset/empty the loadout to a fresh start (all hardpoints become empty); and finally: delete the loadout (including from disk)
Note that default loadouts cannot be deleted. They can be temporarily modified, but if you do any change to a default loadout, make sure you undo/revert the changes if you're not satisfied with them. If you're happy with your changes and want to save the loadout, you'll have to duplicate and rename it first before the "save" option becomes available
In terms of content we introduced about 25 upgrades and components. These range from familar components (flight assist, targetting assist, warp jammer, repair and resupply fields etc.. ) to new upgrades that modify your ship's statistics (ex.: feather weight reduces its mass, giving more mobility at the expense of a hit points reduction). Storage upgrades provides extra ammo/chaffs/missiles. Weaponry provides upgrades to the ship systems in general, or a sub-category of weapons in particular (ex.: faster turrets rotation or increased AMS laser damage). Some categories are currently empty as we haven't implemented upgrades in them just yet (ex.: no propulsion upgrades are available yet)
We also introduced 2 new weapons: the Halcyon and the Plasma cutter. Both are converging weapons, which means that the weapon will no longer auto-aim at the target like the standard guns/blasters. As a converging weapon however, it will automatically adjust its firing angle towards the "depth" at which the target currently is. Those weapons require more skills/precision, and as a result have a higher DPS than the standard gimbaled weapons
Ship's 3D model now correctly displays the team's skin
Ship's 3D model now renders the loadout's selected weapons on the hull
Chat box is no longer visible on the ship or team menus anymore (for layout/lack of space reasons)
Updated ship statistic bars and values to show how the current loadout positively or negatively affects each attribute (ex.: +10% mass, -15% hitpoints etc..)
Added more statistics (ex.: recharge rates) to the ship statistics panel
Music and assets
Introduced new musical tracks in game as they were too repetitive, especially in battles. The amount of music in game was doubled (6 new battle tracks, 3 new ambient tracks, 2 new danger tracks). Credits and thanks go to our compositer, Markus Zierhofer (http://markus-zierhofer.com)
The music system now randomizes the order in which the tracks are being played (previously: it was sequential)
New station asset (a new docking bay module) for haulers
Loads of new icons for the new upgrades system
HUD and general UI
Updated layout of deployment panel: the design is now more compact and top 3 missions list was removed
Revamped locking system when a missile/torpedo launcher is selected: the 'aim' circle now dynamically changes it size based on the alignment angle towards the target. The new system takes into account your velocity and the target's velocity and distance, to show you a spinning 'lead' indicator/reticle. Orientating your ship on this reticle will maximize your chances of the missile/torpedo hitting your target. An arrow is also displayed on the aim circle to show you in which direction you should fire your lateral thrusters to compensate the target's relative velocity/direction
Revamped team scores in tab menu: removed the progress bar, now the scores appear on the left/right sides of the menu tabs. Icon is bigger, and the name of the team is displayed
Fixed "make target" bug in mission panel that sometimes didn't change the HUD's primary target
Closest spawn point button on starmap screen (while having opened the menu in game, not at spawn) now selects the corresponding base in the map or missions list panel. This button also becomes automatically disabled if the closest spawn base is being selected in the list
Fixed a clipping bug that stopped rendering the HUD radar ring or missile aiming helper when it's partially out of the screen (but should still be partially visible)
More HUD icons shoould have a black outline for readability over bright backgrounds
Fixed a refresh bug that still showed the base having deployable spawns in the star map after it got destroyed
Fixed a bug that caused ships standing in their spawn to display the hangar's spawn marker as valid (green) despite belonging to the enemy team
Nearest hangar's text marker helper on HUD now stops showing as soon as its base gets destroyed (previously: the marker only disappeared after the hangar module gets destroyed, which could be a dozen seconds later)
Scrollbars now appear thinner
Fixed last death position incorrectly appearing at (0, 0, 0) with a red icon the first time the player joins a server (hence never had a 'last death position')
Fixed Windows focus event that could result in accidental UI clicks (now, if the window does not have focus, the first mouse click that gives the focus to the game will no longer result in an in-game click)
Fixed truncated right & bottom borders around some UI panels/windows in resolutions <= 1080p
Fixed various UI layout bugs related to list boxes
Bug fixes
Fixed instant action deploy system which listed an AI ship that the player couldn't afford to take over due to not having enough credits (it was possible to click on the button, then the action got silentely denied by the server..)
Fixed carrier that couldn't spawn at large stations anymore
Carrier now spawn at station docking bays instead of thin air/far away in space
Fixed a bug that auto-repaired some modules (defense turrets, hangars..) right after they reached 0 hitpoints, forcing them to stay alive despite the base being destroyed
Fixed a bug that caused some far-away modules (like defense platforms) to stay alive despite the base being destroyed
Fixed random client crash bug related to HUD indicators getting deleted at the wrong time
Fixed an issue that prevented the closest resupply ship to appear outside the (close) visual range
Fixed FMOD crash due to listing and try to get driver information from disconnected/unplugged audio devices
Fixed a crash bug when mouse clicking right as the application is starting
Known issues
Ships have gravity issues on planets ( even the interceptor ). We added a ramp-up factor so that ship's don't instantly accelerate, but this results in a loss of sufficient anti-gravity acceleration to compensate for gravity on planets. We'll revamp the ramp-up factor to take gravity into account
UI and HUD icons are messed up in low quality texture mode. As a workaround, you can increase the texture quality to medium or high. We'll work on a hotfix asap
The prices of ships and their loadouts has inflated. We adjusted the economy in consequence, but this hasn't been throughly tested. It might be more difficult to earn enough credits to afford the better loadouts or capital ships than in previous versions. Feedback on the economy ( are you having difficulities with it, or do you find it more challenging in a good way ? ) is welcome
station/base defenses no longer fire at enemies. This is also a high priority for a hotfix
on custom loadouts, the weapon groups are automatically assigned and might not be in the ideal order (for example, you could have multiple groups for the same weapon.. )
In-Game "Meet & Fleet" EarlyAccess Event #16
Join us for some PvP action and gameplay. A patch is planned for later in the week, which will give us new things to talk about on stream prior to some casual / competitive gameplay.
Check our official Discord channel for in game communication. We'll be playing on the USEast#1 Server for this event.
Event Details
Saturday, Dec 19th 2020 : DevStream & Community Event 20:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Event Schedule
Cover the latest Patch Notes & check in on the state of development with Flavien Brebion
Gameplay ːsteamhappyː PvP & Co-operative play
See you in game!
In-Game "FleetMeet" EarlyAccess Event #15
Our last event saw some new pilots join the fray. Join us again for some PvP action and general gameplay discussion while we test out the latest build of Infinity: Battlescape.
Get a feel for the current state of ship to ship gameplay, co-operative engagement with other players, and a look at the latest updates we've been working on.
Check our official Discord channel for in game communication. We'll be playing on the USEast#1 Server for this event.
Event Details
Saturday, Dec 5th 2020 : DevStream & Community Event 20:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Event Schedule
Discuss new developments with the project.
Gameplay ːsteamhappyː PvP & Co-operative play
Fleet Formation Flights
See you in game!
Community Update #146: Loadouts and Upgrades
Hey everyone,
As you've noticed, we haven't released a patch in a few weeks. That's because we're working on what is arguably one of the most important / complex game systems in a while: ship upgrades and custom loadouts. Since it requires massive code changes / rearchitecturing, we don't have enough new contents / fixes to release a transitional patch. The good news is that the wait is almost over; the next patch is currently scheduled for the end of the first week of december, with maybe a follow-up minor patch focusing on bug fixes for the new system.
So, how does the ship upgrades system is going to work ? Originally, we were going for something that is capacity-based ( a bit like in Elite, with a max capacity of "cargo points" per ship that you could spend on various upgrades ). After working a bit more on the design, we decided against it. The main reason is that we still want the ships to focus on their assigned roles, and a pure capacity-based system would be too versatile ( as in: in a "bland" way, which would make all the ships feel the same in terms of abilities and what they can do ).
Instead, we're going for an extension of the hardpoints system. You're already faimilar with the weapons hardpoints; we're going to introduce new internal hardpoints, and all hardpoints will be assigned categories ( such as: weapons, electronics, structual, engines, etc.. ). These categories will restrict ( along with the hardpoint class we already have, such as MK1 to MK7 ) which upgrades can or cannot be mounted on a given hardpoint. Different ships will of course have different hardpoint layouts. This system means that we are in full control of the type and amount of hardpoints each ship has. Another advantage is that it'll allow us, at a further point, to extend the damage system so that even internal hardpoints can be destroyed.
The implementation of the new ship upgrade system requires a few steps:
Refactoring the hardpoint system to introduce internal hardpoints and hardpoint categories.
Implementing the network code that allows hardpoint configurations to be communicated to the clients.
Implementing modifiable ship attributes ( instead of just being constants ) that can be overrided by upgrades.
Implementing loadouts ( a list of what upgrade or weapon to mount on each hardpoint ), their config files, their validation by the server and using it ( plus consuming credits ) when a ship spawns
Splitting the current abilities ( ex.: scanner, warp jam, repair/resupply fields ) into proper upgrades.
Designing a bunch of new upgrades ( / and maybe some new weapons, as time permits ).
The ship upgrades + loadouts UI screen ( which will be in the ship menu tab )
On all these steps, we've already implemented ( or are close to completion ) on 1 to 4. 5 is the next step and 6 is at the design phase ( we already have a bunch of upgrades implemented, just to test the new systems ). Steps 5 and 6 should be done in a few days. The UI work ( step 7 ) is also the biggest one. It's not technically hard, but there's a large amount of complexity in the new screen. Here's a concept draft made by our artists, just to give you an idea of the layout and how it'd look:
The small cards in the 2xN format at the left will of course contain details about the upgrades ( type, cost, dependencies, main stats, etc.. ). There will also be an information panel with more details about each upgrade, which will show up over the chat box at the bottom left. As you install upgrades in your current loadout, the ship's stats might change and this will be reflected on the stats in the right panel.
Note that you'll be able to manage your loadouts ( creating new ones, saving, resetting ) via the icons at the top of the left panel. When selecting an upgrade ( in this draft, it's actually weapons classes ) the 3D viewport will highlight the hardpoints that can potentially receive this upgrade ( so there will be a filtering system to avoid showing a hundred hardpoints on a capital ship, for instance ).
As for the upgrades themselves, they will be described in an XML config file, which will allow modding in the future. Just to give you a quick idea, it looks like this:
Heat Dissipator I HeatDissipator Increases the rate at which heat generated by firing kinetic weapons gets dissipated when cooling down or overheating. Consumes a small amount of additional energy to help cooling the weaponry systems instead
This is just an example and will not necessarily be implemented as is in game. But here you've got a heat dissipator upgrade, which gets mounted on a structual MK1 hardpoint ( basically: for small ships ). It costs 25 credits, has no other upgrades dependency requirements, is passive ( the player doesn't have to activate it manually ) and does not stack. The names / descriptions will of course get moved to the strings localization file.
The most interesting part are the properties. Each property defines a "target", which is basically the name of a ship attribute that gets modified; a value, and an operation ( addition or multiplication ). So a "Mass" value of 1.05 with operation Mul, means adding 5% to the mass of the ship. The ship becomes slightly heavier.
Of course, we'll have to do a lot of balancing, especially as we introduce new upgrades. The first patch in december will have a limited list of upgrades, so that we can test the new system thoroughly. After that, we expect to introduce new upgrades regularly over the months in new patches, so it'll be a continual work in progress.
We welcome feedback on the new system and what kind of upgrades you'd like to see. More importantly, we haven't figured out yet the internal hardpoint layouts that will be avaialble on each ship. Of course, the amount of internal hardpoints on an interceptor will be more limited than on, say, a capital ship; so there will be a quantity relationship with the size of the ship. But beyond that, we ourselves aren't clear yet on how we'll structure these hardpoint layouts. How many would you like to see on an interceptor, bomber, destroyer... ? Where to place them, what categories should be available to which ship ? Just let us know if you have thoughts about it. I look forward to testing the new upgrade system in game with many players.. I think things are going to be.. interesting :wink:
Patch 0.7.8.0 Notes: A new Moon !
This small patch focuses on some important bug fixes related to planets, and introduces a new moon: Rygol, an arid Arizona-inspired moon full of canyons and terraced cliffs with a radius of 4250 Km and a green-ish atmosphere.
Introduced a new planet: Rygol. Note that the current Battlescape still only has 4 moons max, so not all matches will necessarily feature the new moon
Updates to new base locations on Sarake and Aresthia
Fixed incorrect (floating) hardpoints when mapping a defense (tower) module on a planetary surface (turrets were sometimes floating in the air far above their tower)
Fixed warp-in incorrect target location that lead an AI ship crashing into the ground after a ground battle started
Fixed planetary collision issues due to the difference of precision in some noise functions between cpu and gpu. It mostly affect Aresthia, the Mars-like planet, where some craters had invalid collisions (sometimes you'd hit a ghost hill far above from the ground)
Fixed haulers that sometimes had trouble engaging warp and leaving a dense atmosphere
AI ships now know when to overcharge their engines on planets where gravity is too strong for their mass
Corvette turrets will now keep auto-aiming at their target even when they're not the active weapon (this will minimize the re-targetting time when switching between turret guns / turret blasters)
Light weapons and MK4 turrets slight increase in max hit points (corvette weapons were very weak and easily destroyed by opponents)
Respawning will no longer open the starmap menu. It will now retain the previous menu that the player had selected in game
Fixed spawn marker colors for capital ships in docking bays (the markers remained red, as invalid, but should now properly be displayed as green, meaning busy)
Minor bobblehead/textures tweaks
In-Game "FleetMeet" EarlyAccess Event #14
The in-game AI can be a challenge for newer pilots, but there's nothing like going head to head with a human pilot. They're better at evading your hits, use countermeasures more often, use the environment to their advantage, and don't tend to back down if they think you've started to break... add co-operative play to the mix and things get interesting fast.
We'll be meeting up in game to review the latest patch notes on a DevStream, and then follow it up with a few hours of PvP combat. Get a feel for the current state of ship to ship gameplay, co-operative engagement with other players, and a look at the latest updates we've been working on.
Check our official Discord channel for in game communication. We'll be playing on the USEast#1 Server for this event.
Event Details
Saturday, Oct 24th 2020 : DevStream & Community Event 19:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Event Schedule
Review the latest patch notes, discuss any new developments with the project.
Gameplay ːsteamhappyː PvP & Co-operative play
We have posted these updates to both our forums, and social media pages in the past, but will be including steam events as we move forward.
See you in game!
Patch 0.7.7.0 Notes: Tug-Of-War Match Progression
This patch implements a new match progression system to act as tug-of-war, in order to focus players on a specific battle/location instead of spreading out over multiple battlefields. The changes are pretty experimental so might need urgent balance tweaks in a future hotfix or patch.
The way it works is the following: instead of having multiple battles run at the same time, we only allow one single battle ( AI-commanded directed ) at any one time. One team is attacking, the other one defending. If the attacking team wins, the objective gets destroyed and it can attack another objective again. However, if the team loses, then the initiative goes to the defending team, which then gets its turn to go on the offensive.
Our goal with this change is to focus the action on a specific battlefield instead of spreading the playerbase over multiple battles ( so sometimes players didn't even encounter each other due to participating to different battles ). The other goal is to make the battles feel more important - which is why we got ride of the critical vs non-critical battles system: now all battles are critical. Losing a battle as a defender means losing the base, period. As a side consequence, the rules should also be easier to understand, especially for new players. Destroy all enemy bases to win the match, that's it !
Feedback on whether the new system works or not is very much appreciated. This patch also contains a lot of AI tweaks, a new neutral color-theme for the menus/UI, a new panel to compare ships statistics, and as usual plenty of HUD improvements and bug fixes.
Gameplay & AI
Removed the concept of critical vs non-critical battles. All battles are now critical (the base will get destroyed if the enemy wins the battle) even if it's no longer explicitely said. This should help to reduce the duration of matches, but also feel like each battle has a stronger impact on the match flow
Removed condition threshold (<20% of enemy's) for match victory versus opposite team's score. It was an obscure rule to speed up the end of a match. Now a match will only end when very single enemy base has been destroyed
Increased countdown to battle ending from 10s to 2 minutes (battles were ending too quickly with no time to clean leftover ships, and sometimes the same battle restarted at the same location)
Changed match progression to act as a tug-of-war for battles. Only one battle is active at a time. When a team loses a battle, its opponent gets the initiative for attacking. As a result, the match ping-pongs between teams. However when a team wins an attack battle, it has the opportunity to attack again instantly
Static defenses on structures are now taken into account when showing a battle's victory odds to the player
Attacker teams now have a slight advantage in fleet's credits budget compared to the defender team's, to take into account that the defender team's slightly advantaged due to the static defenses/turrets/platforms
Shields no longer break down when they're depleted. Depleted shields now start recharging instantly. A critical hit has been added for shields being damaged instead (like other ship sub systems). It'll take 30s for shields being repaired
Energy no longer recharges at the same time as firing weapons in weapons overcharge mode. Weapons overcharge mode felt overpowered compared to the other modes, as if you fired in bursts, your energy was naturally recharging at full rate; so if you alternated between firing bursts, there was little downside to using this overhcharge mode
Rogue AI/bots will no longer accidentely reinforce/participate in active battles (they were interfering with the score calculations)
Reduced a little bit the probability of spawning AI capital ships in battles (this should make capital ships more valuable)
AI can now fire kinetic weapons when their target's shields are low (previously, shields had to fully depleted or damaged for a bot to start using kinetics)
Fixed too many AI ganging up on a single enemy. The ratio was previously 5:1, but is now limited to 2:1 (in ship's score worth)
Fixed AI ships getting forcibly killed by the server due to remaining in warp in for more than 2 minutes, which could happen for AI destroyers entering a planetary battle. The limit is now 5 minutes
Asteroid and planetary collisions Fixes
Fixed a bug which ignored projectile collisions on planetary surfaces (projectiles were passing through)
Fixed multiple collision issues/bugs with asteroids
Adjusted asteroid rotation speed (massive asteroids now rotate slower, almost unnoticeable)
Fixed a major resource leak issue in asteroid fields/rings, which could potentially cause slowdowns over time (collision bodies were not properly destroyed when the ring was unloaded)
Fixed planetary/atmospheric battles ships that were warping in too fast and colliding/dying on the ground before they could even get into battle
User Interface / Menus
Implemented new user interface / menus color theme (previously: the UI was using the HUD's color theme, so the colors were messy/all over the place. The new color theme is more neutral to the eye and coherent)
Added team assets to mission screen's info panel when selecting a battle. The victory odds are still shown as previously, but the panel now also shows the absolute credit's worth of assets owned by each team in the battlefield
Added new ship description and statistics panel in ship menu screen. This will allow to compare the different ships's statistics together
Fixed a bug related to textured brushes, which made some images flicker or appear incorrect in the UI (ex.: team selection menu background images were sometimes incorrect for a frame)
Fixed missing trailings length slider bar in sensors tactical screen
HUD Tweaks and Improvements
Added new HUD notifications for being repaired/resupplied (or, as a corvette, doing repairs/resupplies), either by an allied ship or in hangars
Updated spawn marker colors: they're now only blue for hangars that can fit your ship class (otherwise they're now red). This will make it more obvious to new players where they can repair/resupply
Added new floating text indicators on HUD to notify player of closest hangar or resupply ship (corvette).
Added a new floating text indicator on HUD to notify player of the the closest heavily damaged ally (so as a corvette player, you know who's in need of repairs)
Tweaks to HUD warnings/alerts: they're now colored as a function of importance/priority (info alerts are in cyan, normal alerts in orange, critical alerts in red)
HUD indicator tweaks (they're now more opaque)
Tweaked selected target's color so that it is more easily visible on the HUD
Added horizontal alignment to MFDs (ex.: mission MFD is now right-aligned if it's in the top-right corner of the HUD)
Changed bounty indicator icon
Added more explicit target-out-of-range alert if manually firing weapons at a far-away target
Locking targeting circle color is now shows up as green only if the ship's direction is aligned to its velocity. This will help firing missiles/torpedoes at targets within the circle
General bug fixes and Improvements
Fixed friendly fire warning not showing up when hitting modular structures
Fixed credits being reset to 0 instead of 50 when the match restarts
Assets and Visuals
Updated a dozen station modular assets with their upgraded visuals (better geometry, improved materials/colors, added ambient occlusion etc..)
Added ground (planetary surfaces or asteroids) impact projectile effect
Updated bobblehead models with new look and textures
Dust-particles effect now uses a non-uniform, more realistic density model (rings and close to thick atmospheres = higher dust density)
The dust-particles effect is now affected by the 'effects quality' setting
Modular structures destruction/explosion effects now fade off over time (previously, the small explosions never stopped and could become annoying)
Updated spawn/hangar modular markers (also, fixed the ones for ground bases)
Updates to spawns: dimensions tweaks, added new markers, added some new spawns in ground modules
Updated destruction materials and added some missing materials ( some modules, like HUBs, did not have destruction materials and did not appear destroyed to the players)
Audio
Fixed a major bug when initializing the audio device. It defaulted to 5.1 output, even for stereo users. As a result, if you were using a stereo device, sound quality was negatively affected. The game should now properly use your default audio device's setup and most users should notice a sound quality increase (especially if you were playing in stereo or 2.1)
Added menu option to change the output audio device on the fly (without having to restart the game)
Updated some audio effects after last patch's feedback (new AMSl laser sound effect, improved machine gun sounds, improved some projectile impact sounds)
Misc
Updated some default game settings (ex.: MFD layouts per ship, increased navigation targets from 30 to 50, .. )
Updated game's initial settings to better take into account quality level based of CPU speed and GPU video-ram
Moved default viewpoint in corvette slightly to the left (to be seated)
Community Update #145
Hey everybody,
As we recently finished releasing patch 0.7.6.0, this pretty much closes our months-long focus on the UI. The next patches will refocus on gameplay and related features, such as match progression, ship upgrades and the squad system. There is of course a lot more work to do on the UI, but it won't be the exclusive focus of any single patch and will instead be spread over the next patches as we were doing before.
We now have a Trello board for development tasks. If you're curious to see what we're working on / will be working on in the next few months, check it out.
The main ones are:
Revamping the credits system
The credits system is made of two parts: a "passive" part (the AI commander distributes credits every minute to all team members, based on team income from haulers) and an "active" (/skill-based) part (you earn credits by killing other ships or destroying modules). The problem right now is that the system favors too much the active credits, which basically makes the economy a footnote and removes the strategical aspects of the game. Most players aren't even aware of the existence of the economy and the AI haulers carrying resources between factory and bases, and that it's possible to attack them
Of course, improvements have to be made to the missions system too, to emphasize that haulers can be attacked (or should be protected), and to the ship upgrades (so that you have more options to find and intercept haulers in flight, which is currently quite tricky), so everything ties in together. But at least in the short term we are looking at addressing the credits system and rebalance it to the passive side.
The competitive leaderboard, team stats and battle reports
So instead of getting credits as rewards for killing ships, you'll earn something else instead, which we'll tentatively call SP (Skill points). Like in an ELO system, you'll start with a fixed number of SP, and you'll earn (or lose) points based on your actions.
We also want the new system to take into account more than just killing other ships, but accomplishing objectives and helping your team. For example, corvette users repairing/resupplying others will earn SP.
Your rating will be displayed in a leaderboard in the teams tab of the in-game UI. At the moment we're thinking of merging the teams together, to show a single competitive leaderboard with mixed teams. The leaderboard will also display player stats (SP, kills, deaths, assists, time played etc.. ). This screen will also in general show team assets, like the number of factories/bases/stations, their distribution/type, their income, the team's income per minute, etc.. Eventually this screen will become pretty advanced, with graphs showing stats over time.
Finally, the last component are the battle reports. We'll be revamping the battles progression too, but in terms of reports, we want to better signal to the player that a battle is ending and why. A lot of players are currently unaware that the battle they've participated in has ended, simply because they didn't notice/read the popups at the top of the HUD. We'll be showing a full battle report screen, with stats over time, your rewards, and of course the outcome of the match and how you were able to impact it.
Match progression
As the game is called "Battlescape" (a battlescape being a location of the solar system where the factions are competing, like a planet and its surroundings), we'll be introducing more Battlescapes to the game. In the first step, it'll simply be a new planet + moons over a different location, and once a Battlescape has been conquered (as we have a single one in game at the moment), the match will continue to the next Battlescape.
We haven't decided how the scoring will work yet, maybe we'll try to keep it simple and easily understandable like a best-of-N to win the entire match. Eventually we'd like the game to feature an entire solar system with multiple Battlescapes. As for traveling to another Battlescape after the current one has been conquered by a faction, you'll be able to undock at allied bases and respawn over the new Battlescape, or simply take a few minutes to manually warp travel there by yourself.
There will be changes to the match progression within a single Battlescape too. The current in-game match progression feels completely chaotic and unpredictable. We haven't made a decision there just yet, so posting your ideas is welcome. We'd like to keep the progression simple and understandable, even predictable, maybe with a graph or a series of nodes representing bases and showing where the next battles will take place. Of course we're only talking about the AI here: players will still be able to form their own fleets and coordinate to attack wherever they want.
Battle progression
We are going to get ride of the notion of "critical battles": all battles will become critical, as in: if the defending team loses the battle, it'll lose its base. This will likely shorten the duration of the matches, at least for the current Battlescape (this will eventually get compensated by adding new battlescapes to conquer).
We'd also like to improve the AI so that it physically attacks bases and their weak points; so by losing the battle, the enemy will naturally have free rein over destroying the base. This requires a lot of AI improvements, especially in terms of sub-systems targeting (needed for players too) and 3D pathfinding/obstacle avoidance.
Another thing we are looking at is staging the battles in terms of progression. We still need to implement base shields, with shield generators that have to be destroyed by smaller ships to disable the shields, to let capital ships attack. Other ideas include overhauling the defense platforms and turrets to pose a real threat to capital ships, so they would have to be disabled by small ships during the first stage before capital ships can warp in. At the same time, we don't want to set the game on rails too much, so everything described above would mostly apply to the AI, with players opting in to follow these objectives, or follow their own tactics.
Let us know in the comments below what your vision of a battle would play like under the new system.
The mission system + fleet AI improvements
The mission system is in dire need of an upgrade. Instead of just saying "participate to this battle here", it should provide you with a list of battle objectives which you can do or not. This should be ship-specific. For example, for corvette users the HUD should emphasize which nearby allied ships are in need of repairing or resupplying, and give you a reward if you do it (skill points). Interceptors would have to chase bombers, destroy turrets/engines on capships, destroy defense platforms/turrets on bases, destroy shield generators etc.. The difficult part here will be to provide a good variety of sub objectives so that it doesn't feel too repetitive.
In addition to that, we'd like to do a lot of AI improvements, the main one being fleet/squad formations. AI ships would regroup after a fight, form up in a small squad, destroyers stay nearby cruisers or carriers to escort them, and so on. We can even imagine the AI squad system to integrate players and/or follow player's orders, but to be honest that's a lot of work to implement, so this will likely be implemented step by step over the longer term.
New missions will be integrated to the missions system and screen. They already partially exist today, but will get more developed and streamlined. Within the next couple months, we'd like to refine at least the hauler attack/escort missions, the scouting missions (finding out where enemy bases are located) and the bounties missions. We'd like to see players be able to place a bounty on another player, and that show up as a bounty mission (probably time-limited) in the missions screen. We can add other mission types and variety at a later stage when the game is closer to completion.
Ship upgrades
Our goal is to implement the first version of the ship upgrades system by the end of the year. We'll split all the existing ship modules/weapons into upgrades (ex.: deploying mines, warp jamming, the scanner) and add some new ones (new weapons, missile types, and maybe electronic warfare).
Closing words
Squads/fleet system, directional shields, sub-systems targeting, hauler/carrier gameplay revamp, improved damage model, VoIP, atmospheric flight, persistent progression.. we'll try to fit in as many of these features between the bigger ones as we can. But there is no doubt that we will be very busy in the coming months and next year to bring the game closer to completion. Keep in mind that we're a very small team, so progress is going slowly, but we appreciate your patience and sticking with us. We believe that after implementing all these new systems and streamlining the experience, the game will be massively improved and become ready for a marketing push towards our 1.0 release.
