Infinity: Battlescape News

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..



[h2]General and gameplay changes[/h2]

• 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
  

[h2]Ship upgrades / loadout screen fixes and improvements[/h2]

• 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)
  

[h2]UI / HUD[/h2]

• 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")
  

[h2]General bug fixes[/h2]

• 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
  

[h2]Misc[/h2]

• German localization update (thanks to Playbenni)
  

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.

[h2]General and gameplay[/h2]

• 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
  

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

• 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
  

[h2]Improvements and UI tweaks[/h2]

• "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)
  

[h2]Misc[/h2]

• added final version of the new musical tracks with smoother transitions
  
• added a new audio effect for the Plasma Cutter weapon
  

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 !

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



[h2]Upgrades, loadouts and ship menu[/h2]

• 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
  

[h2]Music and assets[/h2]

• 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
  

[h2]HUD and general UI[/h2]

• 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
• Fixed various UI layout bugs related to list boxes
  

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

• 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
  

[h2]Known issues[/h2]

• 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.. )
  

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.

[h2]Event Details[/h2]
Saturday, Dec 19th 2020 : DevStream & Community Event
20:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

[h2]Event Schedule[/h2]

• 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!

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.

[h2]Event Details[/h2]
Saturday, Dec 5th 2020 : DevStream & Community Event
20:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

[h2]Event Schedule[/h2]

• Discuss new developments with the project.
  
• Gameplay ːsteamhappyː PvP & Co-operative play
  
• Fleet Formation Flights
  

See you in game!