Infinity: Battlescape News

This patch contains improvements, bug fixes and tweaks mostly related to the damage model changes introduced in 0.8.8.0. It should also improve client and server stability as 3 important crash bugs were identified and fixed.

Please also note that we decided to shut down the US West and Australia servers to consolidate our player base as these two servers sometimes saw no players for entire days or weeks. We may reintroduce them for 1.0 if there is demand for it.

[h2]Gameplay / Balance[/h2]

• Fixed warp interruption that was getting triggered on environmental damage even if the shields were at 100%. It will now only trigger when shields are depleted
  
• Fixed AMS laser not being affected by shields. Since they do no energy damage, AMS lasers will no longer affect any target that has shields up;
  
• Fixed damage model's energy depletion that happens when energy damage hits depleted shields. It should now be coherent for all weapon/damage types
  
• Fixed AI corvette kinetic/blaster turrets all firing at the same time, which players cannot do
  
• AI rank/skill level will now be taken into account for the reactivity time to switch between weapon types (kinetic vs blasters) on smaller ships (previously it was a constant time no matter the AI skill level)
  
• Added a reactivity/delay factor for taking the target's acceleration into consideration for turret's lead auto aim. This should make the turret's aiming less precise but still take their target's acceleration into account. The problem with not taking acceleration into account at all is that ships are constantly moving and adjusting their course, meaning that they're always under some form of acceleration. If turrets do not take acceleration into account, they basically have almost no change of hitting their target unless it's very close. That was the problem in the previous versions of the game. Now the turrets will try to estimate their target's acceleration, but with a delay, which should feel more human-like/natural, while still giving them the chance to hit a far-away target that moves in a predictable course
  
• Updated battle rating calculation after a battle ends: the number of points gained/lost is no longer symmetrical. The higher your rating, the more difficult it will be to increase it further. The lower your rating, the more difficult it'll be to decrease it further. This means that players with a very high rating will not be able to increase it higher all that much, but will easily lose their points when they die/lose in a battle
  
• Added 4 new propulsion loadout upgrades: lateral boost, forward boost, pitch boost and yaw boost
  
• Reverted converging angle rotation speeds on converging weapons (halcyons and plasma cutters). Increased their spread a bit to be less binary at distance; Increased their projectile speeds and max range (now 5 Km)
  

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

• Introduced fall backs if crashes do not generate a minidump/log file, as many users had reported crashes that did not generate a dump file in their documents folder
  
• Fixed a client crash related to a short desync between client and server information, which caused the HUD to look up for an icon that does not exist
  
• Fixed two server crashes related to the squad system when a player is leaving a squad or disconnecting from the game while still being in a squad
  
• Fixed "show input rotation forces" that could still get displayed on the tactical view screen, or in third-person camera. It will now only show up in first-person/cockpit view
  
• Fixed ship debris spawned upon despawning at a hangar/docking bay
  
• Fixed issues when loading obsolete/no longer coherent hardpoint layouts
  
• Fixed energy weapons that were able to pierce/bounce off hulls like kinetics when they shouldn't
  

[h2]HUD / UI / Controls[/h2]

• Fixed target selection utilizing hidden navigation cursor in joystick control scheme. Now utilizes the screen center as the reference
  
• Fixed dot reticle displayed at screen center when looking around with the camera or in TrackIR mode
  
• In the ship loadout menu, the details stats will be the default tab (instead of the ship's general info) if the player is sufficiently experienced
  
• Swapped social/squads and stats/leaderboard tabs in the main menu
  

[h2]Misc[/h2]

• Replaced repair beam impact sound effect with a new one
  
• French localization file update thanks to Argopeilacos
  

This patch mostly focuses on gameplay balance changes, including a major damage model update. Meanwhile we've started our gameplay redesign/revamp phase to tighten the match loop and improve the battle experience. We're not ready to communicate on these yet (we need to implement the changes internally first and playtest them) but as soon as we do, we'll make a major announcement. This means that the next few months are probably going to slow down in terms of public patches: we'll mostly focus on balance updates (the damage model change in this update will probably mess up with the balance quite a bit, and need further adjustments), bug fixes and UI improvements.

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]

[h3]Damage model[/h3]

The most important gameplay change in this patch is an update to the damage model. All weapons now deal both kinetic (versus hull) and energy (versus shields) damage. Weapons that were previously considered kinetic (ex.: the machine gun) will deal a lot more kinetic than energy damage meaning that kinetics are no longer the most effective way to weaken shields. In the same way, blasters can now damage the target's hull and even finish it off. The weapons stats and DPS were rebalanced so that a mixed composition between kinetics and blasters is viable, versus all-kinetics configurations that
we saw in previous versions of the game (ex.: 4 Halcyons on the interceptor). The most kinetic damage a weapon deals and the less effective it will be against shields, and vice-versa. The extreme example of this is with railguns and plasma cutters, which still have a high DPS assuming you're using them against the right type of target.

• Updated damage model for missile/torpedoes/mines explosions and splash damage: distribution of damage is now proportional to shield percentage (Ex.: at 50% shields, 50% of the total damage will be dealt to the shields and the remaining 50% to the hull)
  
• Updated ship loadout/info cards to show both kinetic and energy DPS. Revamped a bit the weapons info panel to be less cluttered and only show the significant stats (note: still a WIP, missing a description for each weapon)
  
• Updated AI to be smarter about weapons selection. They will now properly switch to other weapons when on cooldowns, over-heating, damaged or low on energy; expect the bots to frequently switch between kinetics and energy weapons on offense
  
• Collisions damage is now purely kinetic and will ignore shields
  
• Auto-firing AI turrets on capital ships will no longer ignore low-damagable targets if they have no better targets (previously, a kinetic turret wouldn't fire on a target with high shields and a blaster turret wouldn't fire on a target with low shields)
  

[h3]Weapons balance[/h3]

• Increased precision of all auto-aiming weapons (note: this will make capital ships more dangerous, be careful)
  
• Updated hardpoint class of some weapons (flaks are now MK4 and can no longer be mounted on MK5s; same for railgun turrets)
  
• Capital ships can no longer mount normal missile/torpedo launchers (only the array variants)
  
• Railguns have been rebalanced with a higher firing rate and the ability to hit targets from a higher distance (up to 8 Km) which could give it an edge over standard weapons (which typically have a max range of 4 Km)
  
• Capital ships MK4 repeater guns/blasters have been improved and should now feel more useful against small targets
  
• Capital ships MK5 turret guns/blasters were also previously in a bad spot. They now deal significant and almost continuous damage against capital ships
  
• Fixed gimbal turn speed and radius for Halcyons and Plasma cutters which was set far too high. They are now similar to other gimbaled guns
  

[h3]Ships balance[/h3]

These changes were done to further refine these ships into their respective roles:

• Removed all MK7 turrets from carrier (carriers are supposed to stay on the defensive side, therefore MK7s are not fitting their role)
  
• Significantly increased carrier's maneuverability (linear and rotational thrust) and small increase of speed cap (we felt the carrier was dragging the whole fleet behind in terms of movement)
  
• Removed 8 MK4 turrets from cruiser (we felt it had too good defensive small ships capabilities, which is supposed to be done by destroyers)
  
• Small updates to default loadouts for capital ships (due to refitting the hardpoint classes of some weapons)
  

[h3]Upgrades[/h3]

New available upgrades for ship loadouts:

• Shield regen II: Boosts the shield regen rate by +50% at the expense of reducing the shield capacity by -30%. While the shield capacity reduction seems a huge downside, the faster regen might be very interesting especially in combination of the damage model update that will make kinetic weapons far less effective against a quickly recharging shield
  
• Piercing ammo: Reinforced ammunition for kinetic weapons, negating a certain amount of armor plating points. Has no effect on targets without armor plating (like the interceptor) or shields
  
• Gyro boost: Boosts gyro thrusters rotational acceleration by +50%. Does not affect maximum turn speed, making turning your ship more reactive, not faster
  

[h3]Flight Model[/h3]

• Fixed flight model for roll in most control schemes: when going back to idle (you stop rolling the ship), the torque force did not go down to zero as fast as it could, taking slightly too long
  
• Removed ramp up propulsion factor in the flight model that often acted quirky. Replaced it by a speed cap when flying inside hangars (60 m/s) and garages (20 m/s)
  

We adjusted rotational thrust on small ships to better match the max rotational speed and feel a bit more responsive. This will mostly affect the roll axis:

• Slight increase (+27%) to Interceptor's roll acceleration and slight decrease (-15%) in max roll speed
  
• Large increase (+60%) to Bomber's roll acceleration
  
• Large increase (+50%) to Corvette's roll acceleration
  

[h3]Flight plan[/h3]

Flight plans are now functional when you're in a squad. The squad leader's flight plan is automatically shared in real-time amongst the squad members. The squad members can still show or edit their local flight plan, by toggling a mode in the right-click context menu on the starmap.

They can toggle back any time this mode to display again the squad leader's flight plan.

[h2]HUD / UI / Menus[/h2]

• Fixed starmap's filter options window which duplicated after toggling an option on/off
  
• Updated ship info panel (on the left side) in the ship tab menu. We cleaned the panel, split it into two tabs (one for general info, one for detailed stats) and revamped the way the stats show up as a bar (they will now all default to the middle, and show relative increases/decreases bonuses based on ship upgrades). We think this will make it easier to see at a glance what stats are affected by an upgrade
  
• Chat box now shows up in ship info panel in the bottom-left corner. The chatbox utilized a lot of layout space in all the menu tabs. We're considering removing the chat box from all these menu tabs, and instead replacing it with an icon that can be explicitely opened when you want to chat. This might get implemented in a future patch unless we see feedback that having the chat box opened at all time in all menus is requested from players
  
• Added options to show FPS, Tricount, Ping, Network stats and Input thrust in general settings
  

[h2]Input / Controls[/h2]

• Updates to input mapper and key detection: added new options for key combos in key bindings menu
  
• Fix for square vs circular-shaped joysticks axes
  
• Fix for paired axes when applying power curve
  
• Fix for deadzone in square axes corners
  
• Added a new Legacy control scheme specifically for mouse (was old Direct control scheme for mouse)
  
• Introduced a new control scheme specifically for Joysticks/Gamepads/HOTAS (was old Direct control scheme for joysticks). The game should automatically upgrade the old "Direct control" into this one when you launch the game with this patch the first time
  

[h2]General / Misc[/h2]

• Fix for Chinese IMEs (mouse clicks no longer work, Win32 message loop does not receive mouse events anymore)
  
• Tweaks to default input configuration for XBox controller
  

Join us for some PvE and PvP gameplay on the USEast Server.

There will be a patch this week. We've fixed some input issues related to joystics / controllers, and have been adjusting our weapons balance. A full list of patch notes will be published, and reviewewed during the stream.

Check our public Trello board for a preview of what this next patch may include.
https://trello.com/b/jNevKnfQ/infinity-battlescape


Streaming the event via YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNEHBrhTUN4P_ZxIy29DNQw


Saturday, March 12th 2022 : Meet&Fleet Community Event
20:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
USEast Sever, unless otherwise posted prior to event

In game VOIP is available within squads, Join the Discord (link in game) for general comms.

Hey everyone. This is the last big patch before the end of the year. This patch introduces the first iteration of the squad system (only as a flat list of squads for now, but in the future we want a full hierarchical system with wings and fleets).

This also includes voice-over-IP (VOIP). There are a lot of technical considerations behind VOIP, so make sure to report any audio issues you might encounter. Also of interest, this patch revamps the weapon projectiles effects (going from simple 2D billboards to 3D in most cases), an update to the bloom filter (there's also a slider to tone it down in the graphical options, if you don't like it), a new active ability for the corvette to repair targets at a range (the repair beam) and much more. One limitation is that due to lack of time, the waypoints system isn't squad-shared yet, but note that we've introduced a new squad-target mechanism (default: ctrl-T if you're the squad leader) that shares the leader's target with all the squad members.

As usual, please report any bug you've found and have fun. Most of the game systems have now been implemented into the game, so next year we'll be moving on to the major gameplay loop upgrade, introducing new shields mechanisms, rebalancing some weapons, adding orbital bombardment (nukes, already in WIP), the carrier revamp + new hauler, massive AI improvements (AI attacking bases, flying in squads..) and battles sub-objectives/staging. It will likely take the first half of the year, at least, to implement all of these. During the second half of the year we'll finally start the polishing phase, tutorials and mission editor, with a tentative release date in EOY 2022 or H1 2023.

-Flavien Brebion



[h2]Squad system[/h2]

• Added the squads menu to the in-game menu system (TAB)
  
• Players can create their own private or public teams, or quickly auto-join any squad that has an open position
  
• The first player to create a squad becomes its leader, and has leader-restricted management options over the squad
  
• The leader can promote another member as the new leader
  
• The leader can rename the squad, or write a new description that will show up in the squads list
  
• The leader can kick/ban a member, but also clear all the bans. Note that this is persistent only until the server reboots
  
• The leader can change the squad access rights (private/public)
  
• Note that it will be possible to password-protect squads, but this is not implemented yet (option is disabled for now)
  
• The player can mute/unmute any squad member. Note that this is persistent only until the server reboots
  
• Implemented the squad MFD to show the list of squad members, including name, distance, rank, ship class (colored by health status)
  
• It is possible to target a squad member's ship via hotkeys alt-1 (leader) to alt-8 (other squad members)
  
• Added a key for the squad leader to share a target amongst all squad members (default: ctrl + T)
  
• Squad members show up as icons + their name in the starmap
  
• The waypoints system is not compatible with the squads implementation just yet (but this is coming..)
  

[h2]VOIP Implementation[/h2]

• Added a control to select the recording device in the audio settings menu (the game will default to Windows's default recording device)
  
• Added a voice meter in the audio settings menu to see the recording volume level
  
• Added a loopback option in the audio settings menu, to listen to yourself talking
  
• Added the ability to mute players
  
• Added the ability to toggle voice chat/VOIP in the audio settings menu
  
• Added a push-to-talk option + a key binding. If left unused/unassigned, voice recording will be permanent. By default push-to-talk is enabled and the default hotkey is "C"
  
• Due to moving the push-to-talk key to "C", we had to move around the other radial menu keys. "X" is now the voice commands menu (previously on "C"), "B" is now the flight menu (previously on "X") and the formations cycling mode was moved to the "N" key.
  Basically we shifted all the radial menus one key to the right to leave room for the push-to-talk key "C".
  
• Added an audio slider for the sound effects volume, and another one for the voice playback volume
  

[h2]Balance / Gameplay[/h2]

• Reduced Flak canons generated heat by -20% when firing
  
• Reduced Flak canons spread by -15% (this should improve their precision a little bit)
  

Note: some technical problems were detected with Flak detonation, which due to the physics step does not always explode at the accurate/predicted target location. This will be investigated and fixed in a later patch.

• Introduced a new MK4 "weapon" ability for the corvette: the repair beam
  
• This beam can repair the hull or turrets of a selected target at a pretty fast rate
  
• Multiple beams can stack, however this will draw energy faster
  
• The beam repairs weapons at a faster rate than the armor/hull
  
• Added a "beam booster" weaponry upgrade that increases even more the repair rate, reduces the energy cost, at the expense of shields regeneration
  
• Fixed typos in AMS laser damage upgrade (this was overheating way too quickly, making the upgrade useless)
  

[h2]HUD / UI / menu fixes or improvements[/h2]

• Fixed modal dialogs that could be clicked outside of window to get closed (note: contextual menus can still be clicked outside to close them)
  
• Fixed quick mouse right-click (rotation) on starmap that caused waypoints context menu to open accidentally, it should now be more stable
  
• Damaged weapons can now be sub-target selected again (this is needed for the corvette repair beams)
  

[h2]Visual effects[/h2]

• Remade all weapons projectiles. The new projectiles are no longer simple billboards, and most of them have some extra 3D geometry to better show their shape in the distance, making them more easily recognizable in battles. They also have extra animations, twitling tails and more details, making them have a higher visual impact during battles.
  

• Improvements to HDR bloom filter: better fade off/range, better quality
  
• Added a slider to control bloom intensity in the graphical settings menu
  
• Revamped all
  

• Fixed smog streaks (smog particles being strangely aligned) due to a floating-point precision issue
  
• Fixed smog being sometimes rendered on top of other projectile/effects, hidding them despite them being closer
  
• Fixed bouncing projectiles not having a proper offset off the hit surface, intersecting geometry
  

• Added new Moon bobblehead (bobbleheads are currently randomized every time you spawn. Later they'll be tied to your account's persistent rewards)
  

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a server crash related to the mission system
  
• Fixed issue with mapping of ground bases that was repeated multiple times per second, causing some slowdowns/framerate stuttering at spawn times
  
• Fixed server crash bug if an admin tries to kill a planet/moon
  
• Fixed ships that could still fire their weapons during their death sequence
  
• Fixed collision issues happening between ships and geometry in the hangar/spawn locations
  

[h2]Other[/h2]

• Fixed localization issues in keybindings menu and weapons/loadout MFD
  
• More localization/strings updates for 0.8.6.0
  

Join us for some PvE and PvP gameplay on the USEast Server.

We are preparing a new patch for release this friday, Dec 17th, prior to the community event on the 18th.
Flavien and Dan will review the patch notes at the beginning of the livestream.

Streaming the event via YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNEHBrhTUN4P_ZxIy29DNQw


Saturday, Dec 18th 2021 : Meet&Fleet Community Event
20:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
USEast Sever, unless otherwise posted

In game VOIP should be available for squad members, Join the Discord (link in game) for general comms.