Weekly Update #86

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New alpha+ play-test week-end !

Hey everybody. As we’ve done last January, we’re going to organize a new alpha play-test week-end next week. Anybody that pledged at the alpha (or above) tier level on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo is eligible to participate.

  • Starting date/time: Friday, 10th of November, 20:00 GMT // 21:00 CET // 15:00 EST
  • Ending date/time: Monday, 13th of November, 20:00 GMT // 21:00 CET // 15:00 EST

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Destroyer flying over the new icy planet

Quick FAQ

Q. Where can I check my current access level ?

A. Assuming you’re logged into your I-Novae account, use this link: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape/Access

Note that if you’re an alpha backer, it will show up as negative (red) until we launch the alpha week-end at the date/time given above. At which point, your access should go green.

Q. I do not have an I-Novae account, or did not link it to my Kickstarter/IndieGoGo pledge yet, how do I do that ?

A. Create an I-Novae account on our website using the same e-mail than you used for pledging: https://inovaestudios.com/

If you already registered an account using a different e-mail address, you can simply add your backer’s e-mail to your I-Novae account here: https://inovaestudios.com/Account/AddEmail

Once your I-Novae account is properly linked to your backer’s e-mail, you can verify that your reward tier is registered here: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape/Access

Q. I linked my backer’s e-mail to my I-Novae account but no pledge appears in the access check page

A. You can contact us at: contact (AT) inovaestudios.com

Please mention your I-Novae account name/e-mail, your backer’s original e-mail as well as your pledge/tier level. Note that Keith is currently busy with his newborn baby, so please give us some time to investigate your situation and answer; it might take many days.

Q. Once the alpha week-end starts, how/where do I download and install the game ?

A. A download button will appear on top of the Battlescape website: https://inovaestudios.com/Battlescape/

Download the installer, then log in to your I-Novae account. In the launcher, you’ll see a button to install and play the game. Note that once you’ve launched the game, the loading times can be pretty long (many minutes) as we haven’t optimized these yet. This is normal, do not kill the process.

Q. Is there a community chat or something where I can meet other players, or interact with the developers ?

A. Yes, we have a Discord channel: https://discord.gg/0ZdJkZXn7z3Ij6tV

A global chat is also available in-game once you’ve joined.

Q. What are the system specs recommendations to play ?

A. A mid-end current-gen computer or a high-end older-gen computer should run the game pretty well. For example, a 3.4 Ghz+ Intel (or amd-equivalent) quad-core + 8 GB of RAM + an Nvidia 970 GTX should allow you to play in good conditions (~60 fps) in 1080p.

For intensive battles/scenes in 4K, you might need a modern high-end video-card ( NVidia 1070/1080 GTX ).

Operating system: Windows 7 64-bits or above with up to date DirectX 11 drivers.

Q. I pledged for the beta, can I participate ? If not, when will I have the chance to ?

A. As we’ve explained multiple times in the past updates, development has been going slower than originally estimated, so the new estimate dates are around early 2018 for alpha release and mid-to-end 2018 for the beta release. During this time we’re going to organize more “open” test week-ends. This one is for alpha+ backers only, but starting next year, we’re going to organize play week-ends for beta testers too. Your time will come :slight_smile:

If you cannot wait, you can still upgrade your pledge to alpha level or above in your account settings: https://inovaestudios.com/Account#products

Other development news

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Storage building asset WIP

In other news, we’re doing good progress on importing all the new factory / military base assets to the project and prepare them for integration into the next patch, which is currently planned for this week-end. It will also contain for the first time auto-aiming turrets for capital ships and experimental gimbal weapons. Note that it’s still a very early implementation, and we haven’t figured out the target selection mechanism for capital ships yet (atm it uses the current, single-target manual selection system of small ships), so in this first version it will likely feel pretty clunky to use.

-Flavien

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The new assets look ballin’. Can’t wait for gimbled weapons and turrets too. Nice!
Question: Is the yellow container the same type of container that is used in the cargo ship?

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I’m really glad you didn’t use the word “free” anywhere in this update.

Gimballed weapons are cool and all but I really really dislike how often I loose track of the reticule when playing a game with gimballed weapons … I really prefer to have a fixed area on the screen where all the important information is present (like I often mentioned every time there’s information, like text and numbers, moving on the screen …)
Also. It limits maneuverability when using the mouse for steering and gimballed aiming at the same time.
Looking forward to trying it out though. Hope to try if using a Joystick at the same time can mitigate some of these problems.

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Yay… alpha playtest weekend :smiley:

If there is anyone among alpha backers who like me likes to procrastinate with installing Windows updates, I strongly suggest to install all of them now because game might require your Windows to be up to date. Last time during alpha play-test weekend I’ve spent a lot of time fighting wit updates (installing them, recovering from BSOD caused by those updates and installing more of them). And because all of those problems I couldn’t participate in meetup .

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For capitals, I understand gimbaled weapons as automatically tracking and shooting designated targets, so I don’t see any issue with limited maneuverability. It might come into play with the corvette maybe?

Edit: I missread, Flavien explicitly distinguishes turrets and gimbals.

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I guess it’s on for all ships … for testing purposes.
The cause of limited maneuverability is due to the input method.
I suppose gimballed weapons will use the “targed” (virtual joystick) control method and its secondary reticule.

When using this to aim your gimballed weapons and control the direction of your ship at the same time you’ll sometimes run into situations where this duality limits your possibilities for maneuvers.

For instance you want to accelerate, with your main thrusters, parallel to the target while still shooting that target.
If you try that with the formentioned combination of aiming and direction reticule you will turn towards your target.
Sure you wouldn’t be able to do that without gimballed weapons. Sure you can use your side thrusters to still achieve some acceleration in the desired direction but it’s a downside and there are other, somewhat annoying, examples.

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Gimballed weapons means something different I think. At least in Elite Dangerous gimballed weapons are weapons that have a small area around the crosshairs were they auto aim.
For example a circle around the corsshairs, as long as the enemy is visible inside this cicle the weapons will aim at the ship, once the ship is outside this circular area the weapons snap back to the middle/crosshairs.
Turreted weapons are weapons that completely aim themselves and have arcs of visibility, some turrets can aim 360 degrees horizontally and 90 degress vertically etc…

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A gimbal is a pivoted support that permits rotation around one axis.

A turret is usually a two-axis gimbal construct (rotation and elevation).

If there is a weapon that locks onto a target when the player aims “close enough”, then call them “proximate alignment lock-ons” (PALs) or “proximity lock-ons” (PLOs) or some such thing.

As for flying and shooting, the answer lies in crewed ships. One guy flies and the other(s) shoot. If there isn’t enough work for two players then one player can just hop between control modes. Shoot for long periods of time and intermittently set the ship’s heading.

Because Battlescape will not support crewed ships, then the answer for Battlescape lies in coordination. Let interceptors or other small ships act as fire directors. That is, what the interceptor fires at is fired on by the ship with all the guns. It could be implemented such that there are many fire directors that split up the guns so that they can be trained on many different trargets simultaneously. It’s not crewed ships, but it’s close.

Such an arrangement would only work when the interceptor and gun ship are in relatively close proximity. Given the speed of the fired shots, long distance fire direction probably wouldn’t work very well anyway.

I suggest this because I abhor automated systems in multiplayer games.

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TURRETS! That’ll give me a reason to properly test the corvette amongst other things… I’m going to reserve judgement until testing.

Great news about the Alpha weekend too!

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Uuuuu so embarrassed about my whining about delays or my whining will rech next level if i like game too much​:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.
Finally my desktop background won’t be just background!

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Nice one!
I’m free for 2 weeks, starting this weekend!

Also my birthday is on the 12th, and I won’t be having people over.

No Sir!
Me, I be testing turrets and partying in SPAAACE!

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Happy Birthday! :cake:

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Hoping you’ll all be there!

…and remember: Follow Flavien and wonderfully magical things will happen!

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alpha-weekend!!! And i actually have time this weekend, so i’ll be there! :slight_smile:

Unless…:

Oh no, i haven’t updated windows for a year or so… let’s hope for the best :smiley:

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iirc there’s one file that’s a requirement for IBS to run, I think it’s an optional one, but I don’t remember what it is. It was mentioned before, I think right when the proto was released.

You’d probably ought to update windows anyways. :wink:

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is it that one?
It’s the only one i could find, and it was stated, that they wanted to include the file in the installer, so that might have happened already:


anyway, if IBS doesn’t launch then i’ll update :wink:
And i guess it wouldn’t hurt to update my nvidia driver… will do that next week

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I believe that was it. There’s an optional update somewhere that if you hadn’t updated in years (like I did), it might complain that it was missing and the game wouldn’t run. I don’t know if it’s still a problem, but I’d still eliminate that as a potential issue, just to be safe.

Also, kudos on your search-fu! :wink:

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The asset picture looks awesome! Can’t wait! :heart_eyes:

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PS

Can the Devs move to Japan so I can have more timely updates? :upside_down_face:

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I should be off that weekend so I may be doing a live stream if allowed.

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