Infinity: Battlescape update for 16 March 2023

Patch 0.9.6.4 (Thursday 16th March 2023)

As you may have noticed, for the past 3 months we've been experimenting with a bunch of major gameplay/balance-related changes on the PTR (beta branch) test server. We focused on improving the feeling of flying with small ships, making them more nimble as many players were hoping for. The interceptor in particular has received a massive linear thrust buff. As a result of small ships (interceptor, bomber and the corvette to some extent) being more maneuverable, we significantly nerfed the turbo boost on all these ships and removed the "jolt" boost. We also introduced asymmetrical thrust to add depth to the flight model and removed the ability to form up on an enemy. A simplified damage model was introduced for propulsion (losing thrust as your ship gets more damaged) and we improved various issues related to the spinal cruiser's canon.

However, all these changes might have introduced some new balance issues, especially in relation to weapons (some of them might need an accuracy boost to better track the more nimble ships now). As usual, any feedback on these changes is appreciated so do not hesitate to let us know on the forums or comments. As for the next step in development we are looking at a patch in 1-2 months for the first iteration on the carrier gameplay changes and, hopefully, a new planet/moon. Once this is done, we'll probably consider the core gameplay near completion and move to finalizing the rest of the game/content.

Interceptor

• longitudinal linear forward thrust massively increased by +100% (x2)
• longitudinal linear reverse thrust is now asymmetrical (-40% of forward thrust)
• horizontal linear thrust increased by +20% (still symmetrical)
• vertical linear upwards thrust increased by +100%
• vertical linear downwards thrust is now asymmetrical (-30% of upwards thrust)
• speed cap increased by +20%
• rotational thrust increased by +50% (pitch, yaw)
• removed turbo boost initial jolt
• turbo boost provides a constant +50% thrust bonus (significant nerf, down from +250%)

Bomber

• longitudinal linear forward thrust massively increased +90%
• longitudinal linear reverse thrust is now asymmetrical (-25% of forward thrust)
• horizontal linear thrust increased by +60%
• vertical linear upwards thrust increased by +120%
• vertical linear downwards thrust is now asymmetrical (-25% of upwards thrust)
• speed cap increased by +10%
• rotational thrust increased by +25% (pitch, yaw)
• removed turbo boost initial jolt
• turbo boost provides a constant +75% thrust bonus (significant nerf, down from +150%)
• increased turbo energy cost per second by +25%

Corvette

• longitudinal linear foward thrust massively increased by +70%
• longitudinal linear reverse thrust is now asymmetrical (-10% of forward thrust)
• horizontal linear thrust increased by +60%
• vertical linear upwards thrust increased by +40%
• vertical linear downwards thrust is now asymmetrical (-15% of upwards thrust)
• rotational thrust increased by +40% (pitch) and +40% (yaw))
• swapped rotation speed cap between pitch and yaw (the ship will now turn faster on yaw than pitch)
• removed turbo boost initial jolt
• Note that turbo boost thrust bonus remains unchanged (+100%)
• increased turbo energy cost per second by +50%

Gameplay

• it is no longer possible to get in flight formation with an enemy
• it is now possible to accelerate over the combat speed with flight auto-assist (previously holding forward was capped to max combat speed)
• implemented a simplified propulsion damage model based on HP damage (-25% thrust between 15% and 30% HP and -50% thrust below 15% HP)
• removed ability to share credits or ship points between players
• removed GyroBoost upgrade on all ships (it would be redundant with the rotational thrust increase changes)
• removed speed cap option

Spinal cruiser's canon

• added auto-zoom to spinal canon's charge
• added 3 seconds of warmup to charge sequence (not affected by propulsion dampening)
• spinal canon's charge sequence is now exclusive to other weapons firing
• increased damage by +25% (25K damage per shot)
• improvements for network jittering when firing the spinal cruiser's canon
• added a charging progress bar on HUD when firing the spinal cruiser's canon
• fixed being able to charge the spinal cruiser's canon in invalid match state (starting/ending match)

General Balance changes

• reduced torpedoes max locking range to 50 Km (down from 100 Km)
• increased base defense's MK10 Orbital Canon aiming precision and range (to 150 Km, now equal to the spinal cruiser canon's)
• interceptor's shield regeneration rate decreased by -20% (to 1 SP/sec from 1.25 SP/sec)
• increased corvette's heat capacity by +16% (to 350 from 300 heat points)
• decreased Phalanx/CIWS heat generation per shot to 3 (from 4 heat points)
• increased min warp entry speed (~66% of combat speed on all ships)
• added a per-ship warp speed coefficient to better tune warp speeds per ship
• loss of propulsion while warming warp now also applies to longitudinal accelerations

HUD / Controls

• reduced depth scaling for HUD indicators, to make markers scale more naturally with depth. Also applied depth scaling to selected target's marker. Increased transparency over distance to make distant targets more easily noticeable
• camera zoom is now applied to third-person camera modes too
• weapons aiming direction dots are now smoothed before and not after projection on HUD, which should remove the "latency" in their movements when moving the virtual head around (or with TrackIR)
• added thrust buff/debuff change below throttle indicator on HUD (ex.: loss of thrust when damaged, or thrust increase when boosting)
• renamed some MFDs to be more clear (ex.: EW is now Ship Systems, Chat is now Comms; System is now Notifications)
• increased HUD's default number of navigation and combat targets since small ship indicators are now smaller on screen at a distance

AI

• increased AI aiming precision on small ships (small ships being more mobile, they also need to be more dangerous for the game to not get more boring)
• AI capital ships are now allowed to fly 15% below the max base defense's range

Other

• experimental network change to improve stability of players input queue
• added ship debris/wreckage for all small ships as well as cruiser (Note: all ships should have their unique destruction/debris now except the carrier)
• added smoke trail behind ship debris