Our main priority for InfraSpace is finishing the terraforming endgame and improving quality. That means fixing bugs and working on performance.
If you take a look at our ingame roadmap, you'll see that after the terraforming update, we'll have finished all the guaranteed features as well as the extra features "Mod support", "Gondolas" and "Pipes". For version 1.0 we think it's more important to work on game quality and polishing instead of tacking on more and more features.
Currently I estimate that we'll be able to reach our target quality for version 1.0 after 2 or 3 more updates. Then we'll release version 1.0 and exit Early Access. If and how many features are then added after Early Access depends on how actively people are playing the game after the big release :)
Performance: Vertex Animation Textures
Speaking of working on game quality, we have already started tackling animation performance!
Animation has been a performance bottleneck for a while. A mature save easily features thousands if not tens of thousands of buildings, and for now we've just used the Unity default animation system. The trouble: it's actually putting a bunch of load on the CPU.
Building animations are not complex though: Each building typically only has one or two animations that either run or don't run depending on the state of the building.
We're planning to use a technique called "Vertex Animation Textures", where we design the animation with the Unity animator, but then bake the animation data into a texture and send it to the GPU.
Pros and Cons
The advantage: there is *NO* CPU load for running building animations and the GPU load doesn't actually change that much, since it's just texture sampling.
The disadvantages of this technique: buildings have maximum vertex limit and we can't use it to control particle animations or other, more complex shaders.
Since we don't reach the vertex limit anyways with most buildings and we can still use the CPU to control the more complex parts, the tradeoff seems like a good one to make.
We're finishing the implementation this week and letting our artists play around with it next week and we'll see how it goes!
Happy playing!
Friday Dev News #103 - Happy Holidays!
Hello everyone!
I hope you're ready for the holidays! First things first: We're collecting all bug reports that come in during the winter holidays and in the next year we're going to focus on fixes + performance + terraforming on the programming side.
Meanwhile, on the art side, we have a couple of ideas for additional city decorations that can be developed independently of the high prio points above.
Today I'm just gonna share two images:
Since InfraSpace is a traffic simulation game to some degree, we have been missing some parking lots for quite a while. What do you think about this concept for a futuristic parking lot?
Other ideas for additional city buildings include monuments, malls, and colored tiles that you can use to mark different areas of your city.
Finally there could also be some fun stuff like a crashed ufo ;)
Do you have more ideas for decoration buildings you'd like to see? Share!
After Christmas we'll get back to bugfixing and dev, until then I'm keeping an eye out for severe issues and which you all happy holidays!
Friday Dev News #102 - Post Update Fixes Released
Hello everyone,
thanks a lot for all the feedback so far! We already released 2 small bugfix updates on Saturday right after the release, and today you're getting another one:
fixed weird looking intersections (bug was related to new map size actually)
resources are no longer generated outside of the playable area on new maps
if you try to build a road into an intersection that already have enough roads, you will not be allowed (previously you'd build a second intersection at the same position)
fixed an issue regarding moving gondola stations while single gondolas were moving up the lines
fixed translation issues
Also, we added some small graphical updates:
grass now sways in the wind
grass now appears and disappears smoothly at end of view distance
no grass shadows for performance
finished a lot of new building foundations
If any more issues come up, let us know and we'll have a look. After Christmas we are gonna focus on terraforming + performance + bugfixing, but you'll hear more about that in the next posts!
Happy playing!
Patch 11.5 fixes Patch 11.4 save loading issue
That's what happens if you release your patch too quickly.
All saves created after the envrionment update should work now. If anyone still has save loading issues in Alpha 11.5 (check on bottom left of main menu), let me know!
Happy playing!
Patch 11.4.230 fixes Districts, Lane Config, Uranium Gen
Hi everyone,
thanks for all the feedback so far.
Small fix update:
Fixed districts painting
Fixed intersection lane config tool
Made sure enough highlands spawn on both sides of the river so you have enough uranium
Happy playing!
The InfraSpace Environment Update is out!
Hello everyone and welcome to the InfraSpace Environment Update!!
You have waited a long time for this and now it's here. The biggest changes at a glance:
4x bigger map!
Biomes: Dried river, highland plateaus, crater, inactive volcano, desert
Cargo Gondolas to bring resources across difficult terrain
Laser from your spaceship Antares to remove rocks and plants in your way
Because we changed the whole world, old saves are not compatible BUT you can keep playing the old version by switching to it in the InfraSpace Steam "Betas" settings for as long as you like!
New Bigger Map + Biomes
InfraSpace players want to play big and that's what we want to provide. The new map 2 times as long and 2 times as wide giving you a total of 4x the usual playable area which was already so big that almost no player was able to fill it completely.
With the new space upgrade we also put a lot of work into making the terrain itself more interesting. You will now find a couple of different biomes on your map:
While the dried river contains no flowing water, it's geology makes it a lot easier to reach underground water and methane deposits. The steep rock walls protect the area from both sun and wind and gives opportunity for mushroom-like alien plants to grow on the sides.
The inactive volcano used to shape the landscape in the area. Now, its unusual soil composition nourishes some strange alien fungi. Also, the inactive caldera is a good source of valuable iridium.
The highlands are some of the most alive areas of this planet. The soil is still full of nutrients because of the proximity to the previously not-dry river and the plants here get enough sunlight compared to the ones in the dried river itself.
The petrified crater is a very different biome: It seems like a large asteroid impact long ago has compressed the soil and it now can't hold much liquids at all and neither man nor nature can reach through the ground very easily. Any plants that grow here risk drying out and getting petrified in seasons with a lot of sun. On the other hand, the leftover asteroid material provides for some rich aluminum deposits.
Most of the area in the map is taken up by the desert biome. Much of it is empty to give you enough space to build your city, but there are some rock structures strewn throughout containing the most basic mineral resources, copper and iron.
Cargo Gondolas
With the new biomes, some of the places on the map have become more difficult to reach. You can now research cargo gondolas that will extend your logistics network to any type of terrain, no matter how rugged.
Cargo gondolas work like a train station in that you can connect a superhighway directly into the gondola station and each gondola will carry hundreds of items. The difference is that a gondola connection has only one start and end point and can go over any type of terrain - even across the large dried river!
Laser from Space
Some players dream of building a city like a factory, meticulously laid out in the most optimal way, destroying any kind of nature that gets in its way. But the new biomes contain a lot more rocks, obstructing your building efforts!
Worry not, because you have a huge space ship sitting in orbit. You are now able to repair Antares' laser cannon and use it to melt any alien rocks or plants that might get in your way.
Use the new targeting station building to guide your laser and queue the next objects for removal.
Mod Support
Mod support is coming to InfraSpace! We put quite some effort into this feature, so you can mod all kinds of things
you can simply change some config files - no special knowledge needed to change your game!
you can create new buildings and 3D assets and add them to the game
if you know your way around C# a little, you can change the very behavior of the game itself
you can decompile InfraSpace to see how it' s made
We made 3 example mods that new modders can download and check out, one of them adding a salt mine, just for fun!
Habitat Building Variations
During the update we also worked on just improving the base game here and there. One of these things are the new habitat building varations. Pictured below are habitat level 5 and 6 buildings. I think they upgrade the look a lot already and there is even more to come ;)
Graphics Optimizations + Bugfixes
Finally, the bigger map required us to delve into graphics optimization a fair bit, so we did just that. Especially draw calls and triangle counts of the base map were reduced a lot and once we add graphics settings to remove grass on low settings, InfraSpace should be playable on most hardware. Simulation optimizations are a different topic and will come next update!
We also fixed a bunch of bugs, the most important one being that the large adamantine drill now properly connects to methane pipes. Also, the storage of almost every building was increased to allow for longer travel times between production centers.
Happy playing!
Let us know if you have any issues, we'll check the forums and discord in the coming days for leftover bugs. We hope you enjoy the update - happy playing!
Friday Dev News #100 - Environment Update Next Week!
Hello everyone,
and welcome to edition #100 of Friday Dev News, updating you every single week for almost 2 years now. And it's time to celebrate because the long awaited Environment Update is due to release next week, Friday Dec 9th at 2pm CET.
We're on a good path to complete the update on time and have spent most of this week fixing bugs and getting the terrain and gondolas ready for playtesting to find any remaining issues next week. We'll run the playtests with a small group of people on our Discord server that are ready to search for any issues with the new features and talk with us about them.
Specifically this week we
finished integration of deferred rendering. This saves a lot on graphics performance
fixed a lot of issues with terrain gen to get it ready to play
hooked up the cargo gondolas to the traffic system so cars can take them
animated the cargo gondola containers
put the new laser cannon on the spaceship (used to remove rocks and stuff in your way)
Stay tuned for more posts and a full changelog next week. And of course, the update on Friday!
Happy playing!
Friday Dev News #99 - Environment Update Release Date!
Hello everyone!
it's time to finally announce the release date for the environment update!
We want to release on Friday in 2 weeks, Dec 9th, 2pm CET
Our plan is to finish all the features by next Friday and then spend a week with playtests and bugfixes. If anything goes wrong, we may move the release by one single week, but definitely not longer.
It's going to be good seeing you play with the new, larger map :D
Rendering Optimization
Our new map is 4x the size of the old map, includes lots of grass and small details and features a much more detailed background. For most of development, the performance of all that, was... questionable. This week, we've done a large performance pass over all the environment graphics and some building graphics and managed to reduce the amount of draw calls from 3.000 to around 500 with still more ideas to optimize further. We'll see how much better we can make it perform.
(note: this concerns only graphics performance. simulation performance for large cities (10k and more citizens) will be addressed down the road)
Grass Removal for Roads
Now that we have a lot of grass, we need to remove it when you build on it. Already made a lot of progress last week, but now it's dynamic when create and replace buildings and roads or when you move them.
Gondola Pole Placement
The new gondolas enable you to gain access to the volcano caldera and the dried river bed. But in order to make it work, we needed to create an algorithm that distributes the gondola lines over the rocks in a way that makes it look natural and make sense. Check it out:
Habitat Level 6 Variations
And finally one of our artists has been keeping up his quest to make the city look good with new variations for habitats level 6:
We all hope you're going to enjoy the update we worked so long on - see you next week for more details!
Friday Dev News #98
Hello everyone,
this week, we have 3 progress updates to share with you:
Grass Handling on new Terrain
Our new terrain is going to feature lots of grass and small stones for variety. This also means we need to remove them if you place down buildings and roads.
Gondola Construction Progress
The new cargo gondolas enable you to reach stuff through difficult terrain. Their build system is a little different than all the other buildings, because you always have 2 stations that are connected with each other and can only be placed at certain angles to each other.
(screenshot is still using the old terrain here)
Building variety
While the programmers are busy completing the update, Lasse has taken to improving the building variety and has finished all the habitat 5 buildings. Check out the new look:
Since the environment update has already been delayed quite a bit, I don't want to commit to a specific release date. (for sure before Christmas though!). But we are working on it and you can count on our posts each Friday to let you know how it's going.
Happy playing!
Friday Dev News #97
Hello everyone,
work on finishing the environment update is progressing. This week, I have 3 major pieces of news:
First, Ben finished implementing the save / load system for the new map in a way that is also compatible with the new laser that you can use to remove those objects. Next week we'll merge a bunch of this code together so it's all in the main code branch.
Sepehr has done the first steps for the cargo gondolas. If you don't know: Since we have volcanoes, highlands, and the dried river with sometimes inaccessible height differences, we need a way to get cargo from A to B. This is going to be accomplished by the new cargo gondola system where you place a 2 stations which then ship good over uneven terrain. We have finished part of the building logic. The remaining tasks for the gondolas are spawning the poles and wires between the stations (pics next week) and hooking it up to the traffic system.
Finally, there are some nice little art updates. Lasse has been using this time to create a burning effect for the plants that are destroyed by the laser, replacing explosions. And further he's created some more habitat variations to improve the look of the city. Pics below:
Happy playing and thanks for your patience for the update! I'm keeping up the news posts to keep you informed on the progress :)
