Weekly Update #28

Battlescape
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Hey all time for another weekly update. When I announced last weekend that we were hoping to release the next patch this week I didn’t realize that Flavien’s new computer was arriving soon and it took him a couple of days to reinstall everything and transfer all of his data. Needless to say that meant we weren’t able to finish everything for the patch but it’s nearly ready. Alongside that our pledge upgrade system is coming along nicely. Accepting payments via credit card and/or Bitcoin is completed and all that remains is integrating PayPal. This also lays the foundation for being able to accept new pledges for the game directly from our website later on.

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Initial material pass on the NPC hauler

On the art side the big news is the release of new screen shots showing the initial material pass on the NPC hauler. There’s still quite a bit of polish left to do but so far we’re pretty pleased with the results. This is the first ship we’re getting production ready so it’s taken a bit longer as we’ve experimented with some new techniques and built up a library of reusable textures. Aside from that the finishing touches are getting put on the bomber cockpit and we’ll be moving onto the corvette cockpit within a few days.

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Another screen shot of the initial material pass on the NPC hauler

After the new pledging system is complete I’ll be getting back to finishing up some outstanding issues with the launcher and new installer as well as adding support for incremental patching. Once the next patch is out Flavien will finish up his networking improvements and, as we’ve mentioned before, sometime next month the both of us should be hopping back onto iterating on core gameplay. That’s all for this week!

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This looks so great!
… wait… do we know these planets?

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and are those clouds on the first one?

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Those are probably just a skybox in the editor. They look that way to me.

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Isn’t that the ocean planet from the trailer? The “clouds” are just landmasses?

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Shared to ED, SC and LTT and Descent Underground forums.

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That hauler is looking stunning! It’s going to be nice getting an ever-increasing number of textured models into the prototype. :slight_smile:

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omg great work i-novae team, i am your groupees too.

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:heart_eyes:

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The most important thing i am looking forward to is the networking / hit detection fixes. We have never been able to test true combat due to hit detection issues so far. This is a critical step, together with the implementation of phase 1 of the weapon systems. Ship manouverability feel, weapon feel and battle flow are all deeply connected, and the sooner serious iterations can start the better. Though for the scaled up battles we will probably have to wait till alpha, we are just too few testers for that yet.

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shiny :slight_smile:
…

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That first pic has the light source for the ship on the opposite side of that of the planet. :stuck_out_tongue:

But it looks great!

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Hah! I knew something felt odd about that image.
I’m guessing it’s just to test ambient lighting on the model?

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As always you guys have done a great job. Same question , is that the ocean planet with the cloud?

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Thats possible. I’m not sure which planet was used when these ibl images were created.

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Good work keep it up!!!

If ether planet was blocking the starlight the planet would be dark.
Oh and just what is the name if this system’s star?

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@INovaeJan didn’t want me to release it for that reason but I thought it was too beautiful a screen shot to keep hidden. Those are 1yr+ old IBL skyboxes in the editor which is why they look quite different. We need to update our skyboxes at some point :stuck_out_tongue:

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Can someone just check I answered this question correctly here: LINK. If not, fill in the gaps so I can edit my answer, ta.

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Looks pretty good, as you mention the evolution of the gameplay will become a lot more clear soon, after we finish improving the networking code to better handle latency etc.

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So its random at the start of each new match which team has what resoruces and holds X parts of system space and surface assets.

How will the start up of each game go, will orders have to be given to players from the game or a player commander? on how to deploy. Some protecting, some attacking mining and cargo ship lanes and on surface of planets and moons. Gas giant and Asteroid bases as well?

How will we all ‘know’ we must work as a team. Apart from losing through being disorganised. This part is a hard thing to pull together for online gaming with players who might not know each other. And running/flying around as lone wolf pilots, not being part of the team match.

Team Communication

How will players communicate all this at the start of a match. Will there be in-game VOIP comms and text chat ? Will there be lots of official Discord rooms to use, auto assigned to each match - i.e. with a commanders channel to issue orders to small groups or leader of small groups. Or same but with teamspeak?

I’m guessing by game launch Discord will be the thing of choice for VOIP.

Will the game have a few different text chat languages at launch, or will this be just English to start with. Maybe different language Discord rooms available for games created in non English speakers.

I would really like to use VOIP for I:B matches (English speaking). And also would love to see a ‘radio’ effects plugin for Discord emerge soon, now they have released the plugin API.

To add to that ‘Battlestar Galactica’ viper to battlestar comms radio effects vibe we heard in the re-imagined 2004 TV show. (ring modulation and single sideband radio effects)

Sort of like this example here (most likely done with crosstalk teamspk plugin)

  • I like to use the teamspeak plugin called Crosstalk to add in radio effects to everyone’s voice (not my own), with a little work can give you BSG radio effects. (ring modulation and single sideband radio voice effects)

But a Discord plugin that does the same, maybe more…would be real cool to have.

And have been trying to get the developer to take a look at doing the same for Discord. The Discord devs told me it would be possible now they released the plugin api… but the Crosstalk dev is not ‘yet’ keen to look at this. I continue to lobby him.

Main Crosstalk (and Beta) plugin on Github *always install from github for latest version.

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