Infinity: Battlescape News

Hello everyone. In this patch we are introducing a new tutorial (Warp & Navigation) and revamped two major features. One major flaw of the game was that battles often became stale passed a certain point, when reinforcements dried out. In this patch, we've modified the reinforcements mechanics so that ships never fully run out. The 'final wave' now repeats every 3 minutes and guarantees that a minimum amount of small ships (interceptors, bombers and corvettes) regularly join the battle.

This makes it easier for the AI to finish battles on its own, and provides more targets or assistance to the players. As a result, this change has modified the delicate balance between attackers and defenders, so we might need to do further adjustments at a later stage. Let us know in the comments if you feel this is a step in the right direction and if the battles are indeed more interesting in their later stage.

Another major change was the addition of a new atmospheric flight model. Keep in mind that our ships have no wings (by conscious design) therefore flying in an atmosphere is mostly driven by drag and friction. The idea here is that you'll more easily take damage at higher speeds, potentially lose control if you fly and try to turn too fast, and burn your shield. It'll be very difficult to rotate your ship around (especially in the horizontal direction, aka. yaw, but easier if you roll & pitch). However, one advantage you'll get is that friction will slow down your ship much more rapidly, allowing some sharper corners to change course at a much faster rate than before. Overall, our goal here is to provide more differences between space and atmospheric flight. Note that the AI hasn't fully adapted to these changes, and may struggle to turn in atmospheres in some cases.

We've added a new re-entry effect (when your ship causes friction with the atmosphere), fixed various assets and bugs as usual. In our next patch we'll continue the polish pass and iterate on the AI commander and bots behaviors and balance.

-Flavien Brebion

• New Warp & Navigation tutorial is now available. It will teach the player how to deploy a ship, navigate and warp around a planetary system. It ends with a little bit of gameplay challenge with the instructor and the player responding to a strange distress call...
  
• All tutorials are now unlocked and available to play in any order
  
• Tweaks to existing tutorials: fixed incorrect hangar hologram color during Basic Flight take-off cinematic, switched team to Scoria to reflect the lore, changed instructor's portrait..
  
• Note: we're not happy with the quality of the instructor's voice over. We'll probably update it to a newer one when we're closer to the 1.0 release
  

• Reinforcement waves never run out. A minimum final wave of about 4000 SP's worth of small ships (~15-20 ships) gets deployed every 3 minutes. Capital ships are excluded. This prevents battles from becoming stale and taking forever to end, and provides more targets to players towards the end of a battle.
  
• Changed attack fleet momentum win/lose condition: 'momentum' was a concept too complex for players to really understand, and took too many variables into account. This has been simplified to the attacking fleet capital's power. It now only counts destroyers, cruisers and carriers. Wiping out the attacker's capital's fleet is now the objective of the defenders to win the battle, which is clearer. Attacker's objectives are unchanged (they still need to destroy the station's reactor or land base's power plants). Players are only taken into account in the attacker's fleet objective within 5 minutes of the battle start (if they join later, they can still play, but won't affect the objective bar)
  
• Tweaks to the AI commander's tactics and reinforcement ship's ratios
  
• Added a minimum cooldown timer to AI commander's switching tactics. Previously, an AI commander could switch back & forth almost instantly between tactics, which resulted in confusion for the bots..
  
• AI bombers can now spawn kinetic and energy torpedo loadouts
  

• Revamped atmospheric flight model: drag now more significantly affects ships, and prevents them from turning horizontally (yaw) at higher speeds. They also receive more damage (shield first) due to friction at high speeds. Drag increases by 2x when shields are down, and decreases by -50% in warp. Aerodynamic profile (angle to the wind flow, causing more or less area exposure) is taken into account in the friction calculations. Also keep in mind that air density varies on different planets, and is much stronger at lower altitudes (20 Km)
  
• Added atmospheric Re-entry effect to all ships
  
• Added a Planetary Free Flight script to the Workshop (players can directly deploy any ship in an atmosphere to fly around)
  
• Friction damage on the bubble carrier now affects shields before hull
  
• Added Aerodynamic Coating upgrade (reduces drag in atmospheres by -30%, available on small ships)
  

• Fixed match countdown popup staying opened on the main menu screen after a match has ended
  
• Fixed battle report not showing after the final battle of a match, before the match ends
  
• Fixed FPS & Stats on top-left corner sometimes showing as white boxes instead of text
  
• Increased max navigation and combat HUD target indicators from 200 to 500 (in the options menu -> Gameplay -> HUD tab settings)
  

• Fixed server freeze due to certain parameters in battlescape generation being too much constrained
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the set heading to be retained after dying & respawning with the capital ship control scheme
  
• Fixed a bug with respawning in a hangar on a planet that caused the ship to randomly move instead of staying properly aligned with the pad
  

• Updated Interceptor asset missing skin on lower LOD levels (resulted in popping between LOD levels with different skins)
  
• Reduced warp charge effect's brightness to avoid darkening the rest of the screen
  

Hey everyone, this is an intermediate patch focusing on polishing and smaller improvements. The sandbox mode got a couple of fixes & new gameplay mods, and three new Gas giant planets with new visuals were added to the game (at the moment, the medium-size solar system only uses one of them at once, but we're working on a full solar system that makes use of multiple gas giants & moons).

It is now possible to create new custom input profiles (wihtout having to copy files in your documents folder manually !) or to assign a specific input profile to certain ship classes only. We also have a bunch of bug fixes, menu/UI improvements and addressing some issues with attacking bases outside of the match loop.

Meanwhile, we're working on the next set of tutorials and the backend/infrastructure rework.

-Flavien Brebion

• Fixed unlocked weapons and upgrades in sandbox mode that were still checking the player's rank requirement
  
• Replaced variable sandbox gameplay mods by a slider instead of a bunch of check boxes, to simplify the UI
  
• Added a heat slider and a battle size (=amounts of ships per battle) slider for the sandbox mode
  

• Improvements to gas giant's visuals: new cloud noise, curls, hurricanes, more variety, etc.. Three new gas giants were added (Althea, Silenus and Eole)
  
• Input profile can now be customized per ship class. This means that you can use a certain profile (Keyboard & mouse) on certain ships and another one (ex.: a Joystick) on other classes. The switching of profiles happens automatically on-the-fly as you switch ship classes
  
• You can now toggle head tracking per ship class as well (Note: untested yet)
  
• Added a button to create a new input profile (from an existing one) in the keybindings menu
  
• Added a button to delete a custom profile in the keybindings menu
  

• Revamped sun's radiation damage: more warning time when approaching the sun from a distance, but more agressive damage before reaching its surface. This should prevent ships (even capital ships) from entering the sun's surface before dying, while giving plenty of warning time to smaller ships to turn back as they approach the sun
  
• Base shields now power up when there's at least 500 SP worth of nearby enemy ships (previously: it required 3 ships, independently of their class)
  
• Fixed an issue where the core reactors of a base could be destroyed even if no battle was happening (the reactor now takes no damage and a warning is issued)
  
• Off-battle defense reinforcements will now be more reactive, and spawn ships more quickly as an attacker comes near a base
  

• Fixed issues with the hierarchical display of some planets/moons in the starmap list. Sometimes some planets/moons/bases were not correctly linked to their logical parent
  
• Small visual improvements to showing planet names and orbits on the starmap. The names should now properly appear on top of everything else
  
• Added a "reset grid orientation" option to the right-click context menu of an entry in the starmap
  
• Mission menu now dynamically changes the campaign name to match the closest planet's (before: it was always "Rethe Prime Campaign")
  
• Default starmap view when there are multiple planets is now top-down
  

• Fixed a small potential server crash bug with EMP shockwaves
  
• Fixed a small transparency issue with the "skip" text on transmissions dialog
  
• Fixed a bug in the basic combat tutorial that made the instructor attack the target drones in stead of the player
  
• Fixed asteroids often being spawned with the same orientation in an asteroid ring, resulting in an unnatural look
  
• Fixed massive framerate issues when rendering HUD's warp tunnel while the target was very far away ( millions of Km )
  
• Fixed an issue with smaller, very far away planets that could potentially get streamed in by the client when approaching them, causing a freeze for many seconds. They should now be properly pre-loaded
  
• Gas giants quality is now dependent on the "planets quality" graphical setting (previously, it was using the generic "texture quality")
  
• Fixed a glitch with the rendering order of asteroid rings around a gas giant planet
  

• Added community Spanish translation (thanks to SrDarki !)
  
• Tweaked tutorials descriptions & tags
  

Greetings Everyone and happy 2025 ! We're starting this year with a new patch, featuring the new weapons presets controls. We added a free flight mode to the sandbox mode, and gameplay modifiers that can impact the game's challenge or rewards. Some of the modifiers can be used by new players to playtest various features by temporarily unlocking all upgrades/weapons, or enabling the "ghost mode" which prevents enemy ships from targetting you. Other gameplay modifiers can modify the stats of all ships (including yours) like adjusting the damage scale, projectile speeds or shield levels.

The weapons presets allow players to customize groups of weapons groups, named presets, in the ship loadout panel. In this new tab, you'll see a grid. The columns present presets, with a matching number at the top, and rows for weapons groups/abilities. The weapon or ability can be added or removed to the preset by clicking on the state at the grid intersection. For capital ship weapons, it is possible to click multiple times on the state to cycle through the various firing modes. The presets can then be invoked in game through a new radial menu (not: no default bound key, so if you're interested in this feature you'll have to bind a custom key) or directly through RightAlt + #preset ID. Note that you can also assign custom names to each preset. And to anticipate the question that a lot of people will surely ask: no, presets do not allow you to mix weapons groups of different types on small ships. Those still use the exclusive groups system. However, we changed the corvette to no longer have exclusive groups for manual firing modes, as automatic firing modes were allowed concurrently already.

The new ship loadout tab also displays ammo statistics, so that you can more clearly see how payload upgrades affect your ammo.

The EMP torpedo was reworked, and we've introduced a new dedicated kinetic torpedo. The standard torpedo is now an hybrid type, dealing slightly less damage. The specialized variants deal a lot more damage, but only on targets with the specific weakness (ex.: Kinetic torpedoes will deal very little shield damage, and EMP torpedoes will deal very little hull damage, whereas the standard torpedo can deal significant damage to both). A new EMP Field ability is now available for the Destroyer, with two variants: one focused on high-risk high-reward heavy energy damage, the other dealing a lot less damage but in a larger range can be used as defense against smaller ships or even incoming missiles/torpedoes.

We're still working on the polish pass (with no ETA for when the next patch will be) and will soon start on our next important phase: a huge backend/database rework, which will finally allow us to support accounts persistency accross servers and prepare the infrastructure for the game's official release.

-Flavien Brebion

• Added Free Flight game mode to the sandbox
  
• The sandbox environment's seed is now restricted to a 7-digits number
  

Added 12 gameplay modifiers to the sandbox mode:

• ghost mode makes enemy ships ignore you if you do not aggress them, reducing the risks of dying on the battlefield (note: you can still get killed by accidental splash damage or if you attack enemies..)
  
• elite mode increases the rank of all ships, making them more accurate and smarter
  
• SP rate modifies the speed at which you accumulate ship points
  
• hardcore mode increases your rewards, but you instantly lose the match if you die or suicide
  
• SP start at zero or maxed
  
• unlock all weapons or upgrades, allowing new players to test weapons or upgrades temporarily
  
• multi battles: allows a defense battle to happen at the same time than an attack battle
  
• damage scaling
  
• projectile speed scaling
  
• shields scaling
  

We'll add more modifiers at a later stage, but feel free to suggest ideas if you think you got an interesting one, thank you.

• Added weapons presets, which can be customized in the ship loadout tab
  
• Added a radial menu for weapons presets (note: no default key bound). Presets can be invoked directly by default with the RightAlt + #preset ID key.
  
• Added the ability to rename weapons presets (by clicking on the preset ID at the top of the grid). Those will show up in the presets radial menu
  
• Added payload (ammo) info in the loadout tab (Note: only shows the maximum ammo capacity, not the current ammo if you're spawned in game)
  

• Corvette weapons are no longer exclusive in manual firing modes (the automatic firing modes were already non-exclusive, so we wanted to unify that behavior and be coherent)
  
• Default cruiser no longer has torpedo launchers (we felt torpedoes on the cruiser were in an odd spot and were better staying dedicated to the bomber)
  
• Added EMP Field ability for the Destroyer. Two variants exist (EMP Field I and EMP Field II). The first one deals heavy energy damage in a 2.5 Km range, while the second ability deals medium energy damage in a 5.0 Km range. Only one of those abilities can be mounted at once
  
• Missiles/Torpdoes/Mines can now have their thrust & targetting disabled by critical hits
  
• Decreased extra missiles upgrade mass from +70% to +40%
  
• Increased extra torpedoes upgrade mass from +150% to +250%
  
• Reworked EMP torpedoes and added Kinetic torpedoes. Those are specialized variants of the standard torpedoes. They use a new damage model, where energy damage deals damage to the shield (as usual) but kinetic damage is weighted by the shield ratio to damage the hull. For example, a 1000 kDmg + 8000 eDmg EMP torpedo hitting a ship at 50% shield will deal 4000 shield damage and 1000
• 50% = 500 hull damage
  
• Reduced standard torpedoes damage from 6000 to 5000. They still deal hybrid damage (ex.: if the hit ship has 50% shield, the torpedo will deal 2500 shield damage and 2500 hull damage). This means that EMP and Kinetic torpedoes can deal up to 60% more damage than standard torpedoes if their target has the right weakness (low on shield for kinetic torpedoes, and high on shield for EMP torpedoes)
  
• Splash damage (= shockwave effects) no longer cause accidental griefing of nearby allies
  
• Fixed a bug that causes high-velocity targets to go through expanding explosions/shockwaves without taking any damage
  

• Text edits now properly scroll horizontally in the sub-window if the text length is too long to fit
  

• Fixed controller independent deadzones on non-paired X/Y axis (Note: X/Y axis were all paired even if the events were unrelated, like roll+accelerate. Now the game should automatically pair deadzones only for pitch/yaw/roll axes)
  
• Fix for infinite light (sun) flickering when there are other bright point lights in the scene
  
• Fixed XInput controller arrow button being detected as an axis when used in combo of another axis on an axis keybind (the arrow button should be a key modifier, not an axis itself)
  
• Fixed new shield impact effects sometimes not displaying properly on the player's own ship
  
• Fixed dependency of basic combat tutorial on advanced flight that was supposed to be optional
  

We'll be live on YouTube. Channel Link https://www.youtube.com/@Inovaestudios

Event Stream Link - https://youtube.com/live/IlPL0i-15QM?feature=share


Flavien and Dan will review of the latest patch notes. Key topics will include:

• Weapon State Presets - Quickly change all weapon group "states" to suit the situation you're in.
  
• Sandbox Gameplay Modifiers - Starting credits, unlock all upgrades, and more.
  
• New Weapon Class - Short Range EMP fields for the Destroyer. Attack and Defense variants
  

Small balance tweaks, bug fixes, and minor polish items will be mentioned where notable.
* Full Patch notes will be posted prior to our event.


Join us this Saturday for the in-game portion of the event!
We'll be playing on the USEast Server.

[h3]What to Expect[/h3]
Dev's will focus on gameplay relating to the latest features, in a multiplayer setting.

• Testing New Features – Devs will demo Weapon State Presets in live combat.
  
• EMP Weapons in Action – Learn how the new EMP Fields work on both offense and defense.
  
• Support Ship Revisited – Reviewing changes from the last patch and their impact on gameplay.
  

Your feedback matters! We actively read Steam community forums and engage on Discord.

See you in game!

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[h2]DISCORD INVITE[/h2]
Join the Discord for Fleet Comms, or use the in-game Squad comms to co-ordinate.
Discord Invite Link - https://discord.gg/wTeDTaK

We'll begin with a review of the latest patch notes.
Official Live-Stream on YT, links will be posted on discord prior to the event.

Following the patch notes review, we'll jump in for some PvP on the US-East Server.

Join us for some PvP and PvE gameplay, squad up or go solo, fleet up with capital ships, support the caps in a hauler, or dogfight with your favorite fighter loadout.



"We’re introducing the concept of Resource crates, which the Support ship must collect on a regular basis to replenish its Resource points, which are consumed by the repair/rearm lasers. Picking up resource crates also replenishes a certain amount of repair/rearm drones, which come in a more limited amount than before. Their effect is now applied over time instead of being instant. We also reduced the Support ship’s shield generation rate and amount of countermeasures (chaffs) to make it weaker to enemy small ships...."

Read the full update here,
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079620/view/4458093796908859539?l=english

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Join the Discord for Fleet Comms, or use the in-game Squad comms to co-ordinate.
Discord Invite Link - https://discord.gg/wTeDTaK

See you in game!