InfraSpace News

Hello everyone,

tomorrow we're releasing the big bonus update for our old game Founders' Fortune. After that, the dev team will shift their focus back to InfraSpace completely - this includes one extra programmer.

In the meantime, we can show you the 3D model for the magnetic field generator (textures + animation to be done):





The magnetic field generator is the final ingredient for terraforming: It's a monument structure you have to build once in order to get a magentic field to shield you from the radiation from the nearby star.

[h3]Targeting Station[/h3]

Last week we showed you the targeting station to adjust the giant laser from your space ship to destroy rocks in your way. The model and textures are done and Lasse is currently working on the laser itself.



[h3]Terrain Generation[/h3]

The river is slowly filling up with assets and our programmer Ben has started working with our artist Andreas to get the rest of the concept scene art into the procedurally generated terrain. More pics probably next week!



Happy playing!

Hello everyone,

when we designed the new map, we ran into an issue that has been there since the beginning of InfraSpace:

There is a sizable portion of the playerbase that just want flat, empty maps in order to be unrestricted to build their own utopia city - but if the InfraSpace environment was just an empty field, it would look boring to everyone else, especially in the beginning of the game.

Now we wanted to make the terrain more interesting and add different biomes and make it look good, but were afraid to add too much that blocked the player's vision. The solution: a huge laser from space.

Hear me out: Antares is your space ship and it's hanging out in orbit. You can repair its components and get some small goodies as rewards. We want to introduce a large component called the laser cannon that can be targeted towards the planet.



The laser will be able to slowly cut through the rocks blocking your way. It's quite powerful and dangerous, so you will need to build a targeting station to make sure it doesn't hit your city by mistake.

We can already show you the concept and the preliminary 3d model, but coloring and texturing is not completely done yet:







The river is the hardest biome to generate because it has such an organic shape that needs to look fully connected and consistent throughout the map. What I mean by that: Volcanoes can also have a complicated shape, but artists can just make a couple of volcanoes and we can randomly select one and place it on the map. But since the river shape is fully procedurally generated, we needed to spend some time we can place art assets properly without clipping or looking weird.

I can show you a programmer screenshot of the cliff edges along the river wall: It's missing a lot of plants and artist work, but once the walls are placed properly, the rest is not that hard to add.



Happy playing!

Hello everyone!



In preparation for the next big update, which includes modding, we created a series of modding tutorials for you to get started:

https://forum.dionicsoftware.com/t/introduction-to-infraspace-modding/3134

The tutorials cover:

• How to get started by downloading and running the example mods
  
• How to change simple game values and upload your own mods
  
• How to add new models, textures, and buildings
  
• How to use the in-game developer tools to learn about the game, test your mods, and cheat
  
• How to decompile InfraSpace and have a look at its code (allowed for modding and educational purposes!)
  
• How to make your own script mods and change gameplay in a bigger way
  

Last week I introduced you to the sensor tower which is going to unlock the next parts of the map. Back then it was just a concept, now we also have the finished model:



Implementation to be done.



After randomly generating rocks and plants in the desert and crater biomes, we have now turned to the river, which is a lot harder. It's shape poses more constraints on how the environment assets can fit without looking weird or clipping badly. We should be able to show you pics of it next week!



Since a part of the team has been working on the Founders' Fortune update for Sept 30th, the InfraSpace update will be some time after that. We try to be quick, but with modding, new environment, 4x bigger map, and terraforming, it's the largest update we've done so far. Appreciate the patience!

Hello everyone!



Now that we're increasing the map size, it's not going to all be accessible right from the start. Instead, you'll have to spend some time exploring the next tiles in order to unlock them - and that's what the new sensor tower is for!





Now that the biome distribution and terrain shape is done, we're finally filling up the environment with procedurally generated details, check out the progress pics:





This is the art concept we're using to build the generated terrain, for reference:



There are still some things missing like grass, small rocks, adjusting the terrain and light colors, the river biome, terraforming, etc. etc., but we're getting closer :)



Our company's first game is a colony simulator called Founders' Fortune. It's been finished for a while, but the community has been yearning for new content as well as polishing some small things here and there, so we're releasing a big update Friday, Sept 30th, 1pm CET.

This is the InfraSpace dev news section, so the important things for InfraSpace players are:

• We have spent some of our dev time taking care of our FF community, but InfraSpace is and stays the main focus of course
  
• Once the update is released, one more programmer will be free to work on InfraSpace
  
• If you're interested in Founders' Fortune yourself, check out the official post

As always, happy playing!

Hello everyone!

Today I'm going to be answering some frequently asked questions.
Currently, 3 out of 6 people are on vacation and the rest is working on a secret project, so the progress on InfraSpace wasn't that exciting in the last few days. The good news is that we're planning to announce the secret project next week and its completion will free up another programmer for InfraSpace! :smiley:



I think we already got somewhere between 50 and 100 requests to add Mac support for InfraSpace. It is coming, just not during Early Access! The reason is that we still want to focus on the main game, its features, performance, and bugs instead of spending that time playtesting and supporting different platforms.

This will change when we hit 1.0. At that point, we won't change the core of the game that much anymore (like adding a full new map and terraforming). And with fewer changes it becomes easier to support more platforms.

However, some people have got it working with Mac already using virutal machines and I have reason to suspect that after the environment update it will already be a lot more compatible.



A lot of people ask us if we can improve the traffic AI. This is a double edged sword: Sure, lane changing could be improved.

But if cars start avoiding traffic jams on their route, we run into a different issue:
If a player has designed a terrible intersection and it starts jamming up, cars would take different routes putting much more load on intersections that typically would be fine. Suddenly, more and more intersections clog up, the city becomes gridlocked and the player doesn't know where the problem actually started.

We may test a pathfinding variant like this to be configurable in the options, but currently I believe the time is better invested in traffic tutorials and letting player turn down the traffic difficulty if they don't want to deal with it.



Players have been asking for some kind of tool that gives you more control over the routes cars take and have been wondering if that's something we want to add. I just wanted to confirm, yes we're very interested in that even though it's not on the roadmap. Distribution centers are probably going to be part of the solution, we just need to figure out a design that's interesting, understandable, and not immediately overpowered. Players already have some control with the districts tool, but it takes some learning to be able to use it effectively.



With traffic lights, trains, and terraforming as the big endgame goal we're quickly reaching all the promised roadmap items and with pipes, mod support, and gondolas we're going to have a bunch of the optional roadmap items done as well.
Naturally, some players are wondering what will happen with InfraSpace once we have fulfilled all the Early Access promises and how long development will continue. This is the answer to our best knowledge at the moment:

• Of course finish all promised EA roadmap goals
  
• Also finish most of the optional roadmap goals (or replace them with other features players like instead, like maybe add distribution centers instead of natural disasters)
  
• Of course do a lot of polishing, bugfixing etc. for version 1.0
  
• Besides from that it depends a little bit on how well InfraSpace continues to sell and how much it's played, but I'm pretty sure we have the resources for 3-4 major feature updates before 1.0
  
• Probably we'll have at least 1 major update after 1.0 and then we'll see how it goes.
  

I hope this satisfies your curiosity to some degree. If you have thoughts on future features or what InfraSpace needs the most besides the environment update and polishing, let us know!

Happy playing!