General Alpha feedback and discussion

[hrobertson]

Have TrackIR running before you run the script in FreePIE.
In vJoy I have two devices. vJoy[1] is referring to device 2. To use vJoy device 1, change the code to vJoy[0].

You can add devices using the “Configure vJoy” application.

If you are not using vJoy for your physical joystick then you will probably only need the one virtual joystick.

To check its working run the Windows Game Controllers app. “Set up USB Game Controllers” in the start menu.
Select vJoy Device in the list and click Properties.
You should see the axes move in response to the TrackIR input.

Also, as per my comment above about the in-game head movement being limited, you should change the script from 16382 / 180 to 16382 / 90 to get the correct movement.

Once you’ve confirmed it’s working using the Windows Game Controllers UI, to setup Battlescape:
Launch DetectInput.exe from Program Files\I-Novae Studios\Battlescape\Dev\Profiles\Detect Input Tool as an Administrator and use it to detect what the game will detect the axes as. Then set them in your input profile XML.

Weirdly the game detects the x and y axis of my second vJoy device as button60 and button61 rather than axis0 and axis1 like my first vJoy device, but meh - I just map them like this:

<Input Event="SetViewYaw" Keys="joystick1button60" Type="AxisX" GroupID="4"/>
<Input Event="SetViewPitch" Keys="joystick1button61" Type="AxisY" GroupID="4"/>

Let me know how you get on.

[Sab1e]

A couple more thoughts.

• I do now agree that the time-to-death is too quick, particularly in interceptors. In a large fight, interceptors currently feel next to useless because it is so hard to evade (which is the point of a light fighter) and also hard to score kills. I would like to see interceptors be more adept at killing other fighters - perhaps we need another test of gimballed weapons?

• I have no awareness of who is locked onto me. Perhaps the enemy ship icons should flash while they are targeting me? Similar problem with incoming missiles - I have had no success yet with flares as I cannot tell where the missile is, I only have a bleeping sound. I would also like more awareness of the damage I am causing to my target - a small HUD diagram of my target displaying shield and hull status? I realise this all may come through HUD developments in future patches, but the first part about awareness is vital (though I hope it can be done in a minimalist way).

• At some point, we will need to think about the impact of joining the game, only to find your team is losing badly, as I just did. It’s disheartening to log in only to find that you have one ground station left that is under attack, and one space station just waiting for it. Good objective-based design and rewards for players could help mitigate this, such as bonus points for defending a base that’s under attack, or side-objectives that can still be completed separately to the main battles.

[BobHoskinns]

Gameplay ideas:

• human player delivery missions
  – smuggle needed supplies in war zones
  – trading, get what you faction needs and deliver
• engineering, fix the damage
• Cities!
• Weather changes

Track IR

[Slash78]

The issues I have with killing interceptors when I’m in an interceptor is 1) I’m a terrible shot and 2) I lose the cross-hair often in combat. I’m pretty sure they are working on #2.

Something I would like to see is shorter bursts from weapons. I wouldn’t want them to slow down the rate of fire, just a more limited effective rate of fire (though keep the high cyclical RoF).

[JonnyRedHed]

Question from ED forums

Where can I find the instructions for alpha backers to download the game?

[Playbenni]

This thread answers all alpha related questions

Infinity Battlescape Alpha

[Viejoviajero]

Hi, I am trying to install the alpha in a different drive than c: but cant see how, and there does not seem to be any info on this in the FAQ, any help?

[Playbenni]

Maybe this will help you:

How do I change the Install or Download directory

[Viejoviajero]

Hmm, no but thanks. That discussion acknowledges it as bug, but does not offer any help I am afraid.

Any ideas to make the alpha being installed where I want instead of c:?

[Playbenni]

Does it let you choose location and just places it in c instead or do you not even have the option?
I was under the impression that there was an option during installation to choose the directory, but I could remember it wrong.

[INovaeFlavien]

Yes, there’s an option to choose the install directory ( however some temp files will remain on C: no matter what, but the game itself should be in the chosen target install directory ).

[Viejoviajero]

Where is that option at?

I do not mind the temp files in c: but I have installed the launcher in my other drive already. The game itself insists in installing itself on c: with no option offered

[Viejoviajero]

I got it installing in my E: now so all good

[INovaeFlavien]

Allright, did you figure out what the problem was ? How did you solve it ?

[Viejoviajero]

Yes, good old “user is dumb”.

[whirsil]

Hi. Came up with some feedback eventually:

• Space stations (especially their capship docks) are extremely vulnerable to bomber raids now. A bomber can warp-in, launch a torpedo and get back to warp without even triggering the defences. A coordinated wing of bombers could obliterate all of the docks at the begginning of a match, as it seems.

• Can’t see a thing while attacking a nightside ground base. It gets too dark.

[I_Pliskin]

game’s nearly unplayable for me. Maybe it’s my hardware, maybe not.

Whilst playing, every 10 seconds or so, the client will spike to 100% CPU usage, causing the client to freeze up, and be completely unresponsive. It seems to be leaning pretty heavily on my GPU, and is eating ALL of my VRAM, it does this even on low settings, windowed, at 720P. on low, framerate is much improved, but everything looks like crap, and it still freezes.

My specs look like this:

Win7 Ultimate x64 SP2
AMD A8 6600k APU (quad core, black edition)
16GB of RAM
ASUS SRTiX GeForce 960 CPU (2GB VRAM)

[INovaeFlavien]

It’s very likely to be your hardware, in particular your GPU VRAM. 2 GB isn’t enough, even in low quality, I suspect. The amount of assets, textures, effects etc… is growing and eating all of that VRAM and we haven’t implemented streaming and optimizations yet. After beta we’ll dig into that and optimize the game, but be aware that a 2 GB VRAM GPU is very little to work with and will likely end up being at the edge of minimum system requirements once the game is out.

[I_Pliskin]

I figured as much. a MUCH lower spec card than mine (with 2GB of VRAM) is called for in the current minimum specs. However, as you said, the game is not optimized yet, as it’s still in alpha.

Perhaps, in the future, once i have better hardware, i’ll be able to properly experience this game. I do like where it’s going though, and don’t really regret my backing the project. i’ve been watching this whole infinity idea of yours for a LONG time. I still remember reading through all the lore on the old site, and admiring the assets that were on display back then. That was the game i wanted, and i’ll gladly continue to support this stepping stone to that inevitable end i hope to one day see.

[INovaeKeith]

I suspect what’s probably happening is your freezes are being caused by the GPU stalling on the virtual memory system paging data to/from disk. In other words, as Flavien already mentioned, we’re allocating more GPU memory than is available and instead of crashing the driver/OS are making it appear like more memory is available by temporarily caching information on your HDD. This process is called disk thrashing and is extremely slow. When you say your CPU usage spikes to 100% is that all cores or just some subset of available cores?

on low, framerate is much improved, but everything looks like crap, and it still freezes.

Even after we have a chance to optimize the game it is likely that, on low settings, everything will still look like crap. That is the tradeoff for running on low settings - we make things run faster by making them look worse.