Hey everyone it’s time for your weekly update. It’s been another busy week here at I-Novae Studios. We had another playtest this last weekend, this time with planets reintegrated for the first time in months. Overall everything went smoothly and Flavien believes he may have already come up with a viable solution for server-side planetary collision detection. We found a couple of new bugs but nothing we can’t fix within a few days. In fact, the test went so well we’re pleased to announce that, as long as we don’t run into any last-minute blockers, we’ll be releasing the next patch this Saturday, the 21st of October.
Needless to say – this patch is a significant update – it contains months of work from both the art and the engineering teams. To summarize some of the changes: we’ve rewritten nearly our entire networking stack, added mockups for all of the capital ships, applied materials to most of the smaller ships and installations (still WIP), improved multi-threaded performance, added scorekeeping, implemented a basic in-game UI mockup, improved the flight model, implemented a basic damage model, added placeholders for simple voice commands, mocked up cockpit bobbleheads (no physics simulation yet), tested massive space battles, etc.
Staying close to my wingman as he fires at the enemy
Assuming everything goes smoothly this weekend with the patch we’ll announce our next Alpha backer “free play” weekend within a week or 2. We’re looking forward to stress testing the new networking code with Developer Access and then Alpha backers. This patch has been a long time coming, we greatly appreciate everyone’s patience, and after the next Alpha “free play” weekend we’ll be pivoting in a big way towards releasing the Alpha as soon as we can!
Thanks, I wasn’t actually gone, my gf went into early labor last week but the hospital sent us home because she stopped dilating at ~1.5cm - 2cm and there she has remained so… we wait…
Looks awesome though, can’t wait to finally get my twitchy fingers on all the work from the past months. I hope the patch notes will be comprehensive so we know what to look out for?
As I’m busy with the real world and just generally out of touch with gaming for the last few years, I don’t frequent this forum often, but seeing this update made me realise why I fell in love with the idea of this game! It’s amazing that you’ve been able to create all of this with such a barebones team.
I’ve been waiting for infinity for quite a few years now so seeing battlescape being successfully developed is a welcome step along the way!
Although I’m an Alpha backer, I cannot wait for that patch too! Not only because after this patch work will focus on preparing Alpha release, but mostly because I’m very curious about all that changes that were made to the game.
Looking forward