Silica News

"Commander, this is [REDACTED] reporting in. Several incoming hostiles detected, approaching fast, requesting backup... Holy sh... Mayday! Mayday! Unit [REDACTED] just took a hit and is going down! Need immediate assistance! Several squid-like bogies are closing... [SIGNAL LOST]"
-- Last transmission of the Aerial Covert Ops team

A pleasant morning or afternoon to you all!
An update has just been released focusing on optimization as well as the addition of the Squid, a kamikaze alien unit that is intended to counter human air units, though serves the purpose against ground units as well.
Some balancing changes have also made it in while the focus shifts to the planned, sweeping overhaul of AI. This will continue for some time, so stay tuned!

Without your support the game would not be half of what it is today, so a very personal thank you from the team.

Take care and see you in the skies of Baltarus!

Gameplay:

• Added: Squid alien unit
  

Technical:

• Added: Linux Dedicated Server support
  
• Changed: Upgraded to Steamworks.NET version 20.2.0 and Steamworks SDK 1.57
  
• Fixed: Movement values were normalized leading to reduced turning speed in vehicles
  
• Fixed: AI pathfinding could get broken when soldiers decided to go for cover
  
• Fixed: Linux-related screen size issue caused console spam and broken build
  
• Fixed: AI Commander did not use human air units
  
• Fixed: AI Commander did not use alien air units
  

Controls:

• Added: Support for alternate keybinds and validation
  
• Added: Sneak key to alien air
  
• Changed: Resetting binds uses global binds as defaults if they exist
  
• Changed: Bind validation revamp
  
• Fixed: Various input related bugs
  
• Fixed: Alt shift no longer resets sensitivity
  

Performance:

• Optimized: AI Commander construction placement raycasts multithreaded
  
• Optimized: Fog of war textures for non-player teams only created when needed
  
• Optimized: Team losing target no longer causes frametime spikes in unit/structure heavy scenes
  
• Optimized: Character controller spherecasts multithreaded
  
• Optimized: Update FPS hand animations only for the locally controlled soldier
  
• Optimized: Turret aiming raycasts multithreaded
  
• Optimized: Hovered vehicle jets only modulated when closer than 100m
  
• Optimized: Air vehicle jets and vfx only modulated when closer than 200m
  
• Optimized: Check risk of friendly fire algorithm
  
• Optimized: Animator deactivation on distance
  
• Optimized: GetBaseGameObject, GetHighestParent and GetDamageManager now uses cached results
  
• Optimized: Cached AIAgent, UnitCameraController and CrosshairInfo in Units automatically
  
• Optimized: Camera, CrosshairInfo and AIAgent precached references to all units
  

Multiplayer:

• Fixed: Player score incorrectly incremented by number of players
  
• Fixed: Day/night cycle switching to day suddenly when a player joined
  
• Fixed: Players remained on a team at the end of a Strategy game restart
  
• Fixed: Voice chat no longer worked at the end of a match
  

Balance:

• Changed: Fighter bullet range from 4000m to 600m
  
• Changed: Fighter bullet speed from 800m/s to 1600m/s
  
• Changed: Dropship bullet range from 2500m to 1000m
  
• Changed: Gunship bullet range from 2000m to 1000m
  
• Changed: Thorn Spire targeting range from 500m to 650m
  
• Changed: Hive Spire targeting range from 300m to 450m
  
• Changed: Hive Spire shots range from 800m to 550m
  
• Changed: Dragonfly side-strafe speed to 25% of forward
  
• Changed: Dragonfly rearward speed to 50% of forward
  

FX:

• Improved: Light Quad engine sounds
  
• Improved: Heavy Quad engine sounds
  

Dear Silica Community,

Summer has arrived in the scorched deserts of Baltarus, bringing with it the Steam Summer Sale. Get Silica for 20% off for yourself or your friends and experience the unique crossover of FPS and RTS, where up to three factions battle for control over the battlefield.

This offer is available from now until July 11th.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1494420/Silica/

Already have Silica? Why not try other discounted games from Bohemia Interactive?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/221100/DayZ/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1874880/Arma_Reforger/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/107410/Arma_3/

And if you are a fan of DayZ, don’t forget to wishlist the newly announced expansion, Frostline:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2968040/DayZ_Frostline/

"I was there; I had seen it. The lining of the cyst burst to reveal a creature of horrific visage. No eyes to behold, yet a lust for violence to match the greatest of gladiators. It strode through the biotic mass from whence it came, then turned directly towards us. There was but a moment's pause, then; carnage. Without warning, a powerful beam eviscerated Corporal Adrian, borne of the monster's prominent posterior. We fled, but the Behemoth persisted. I recall a violent impact, and then... nothing. But I was fortunate; crushed beneath a mound of dirt and rock, I remained concealed while my detachment was devoured in the night. By daylight, I had made it back to base..."
-- Captain Geiger, lone survivor of the Advanced Forward Reconnaissance Team

A warm summer welcome to everyone!
Today's update introduces numerous fixes, improvements and importantly, a new control keybinding system. Additionally, the Behemoth has received a much needed rework, bringing it in line with other units that have received such. This was a side-step to the current, main focus of improving respawn mechanics and AI collision avoidance, but was highly requested.
Several recurring multiplayer issues have also been addressed, as well as further improvements to performance.

Thank you again for your support and have a wonderful week!
See you on the surface.

Gameplay:

• Added: Full controls keybinding system
  
• Changed: Behemoth appearance including the addition of a tail-like appendage
  
• Changed: Behemoth now fires a beam instead of ball-insects
  

Balance:

• Improved: Scorpion acid ball range increased and AI aim calculation fixed
  
• Improved: AI will fire on Scorpion when its tail is visible over an edge
  
• Improved: AI will fire on Shocker when its tail is visible over an edge
  

Performance:

• Fixed: Memory leak related to deleted units staying in memory
  
• Fixed: Pathfinding memory overhead for units that are destroyed but not deleted
  
• Optimized: Precomputed terrain physics material indices for all maps - Stops the huge up to 10s spike at the start of every match
  
• Optimized: Impact decals now fade on GPU instead of CPU
  
• Optimized: Animated units use lower quality animation when far from the camera and completely disable animation when very far
  
• Optimized: Terrain pixel error settings increased on lower terrain detail settings
  
• Optimized: Harvester pistons updated only on change
  
• Optimized: Balterium decals disabled all at once instead of individually
  
• Optimized: Audio effects' volume and pitch changed only for audible sounds
  
• Optimized: Vehicle ground particle FX updates limited to 100 instances per frame
  
• Optimized: Clearing of map team layer changed to Array.Clear() instead of a loop
  
• Optimized: Caching of construction site values, updating on change instead of per frame
  

Technical:

• Fixed: Don't cull BaseGameObjects when the camera is inside them
  
• Fixed: ServerSettings.xml could not be saved bug that could occur while it was being read
  
• Added: Server communication ports now in ServerSettings.xml
  
• Added: GameSettings.xml and ServerSettings.xml may also be placed into game files root folder and are used from there, if present
  
• Added: Logging of large, unexpected changes in day time
  

Multiplayer:

• Fixed: Player names were sent as part of initial player list packet, filling it up when max bytes was reached
  
• Fixed: Server did not consider connecting players for maximum, allowing more than maximum number to join
  
• Fixed: When server or client receives any data from client or server, heartbeat is considered received, fixing some disconnects
  
• Added: Logging of player name change/init on server
  
• Added: 'Spawn' console command now has optional input team and position/rotation (use 'Camera' command for current cam data)
  
• Fixed: 'Spawn' console command flooded packet when called on admin client to server
  
• Fixed: New server log naming did not work on Windows, failed to create log
  

Debugging:

• Added: 'Lights' console command to toggle hiding of lights on game objects for debugging purposes
  
• Added: Logging of floor area (in m^2) when logging navmesh recalculation times
  
• Changed: Server.log now renamed to Server_YY_MM_DD__HH:SS.log to ensure dedicated server history is maintained
  
• Fixed: Stream Writer did not log the calling function
  

A lovely afternoon everyone,
Further optimizations have just been pushed into main, focusing on the larger alien structures which could drain performance. In some cases (late game with many alien structures) this could be up to 20 FPS.
Thank you everyone and have a wonderful weekend.
See you on Baltarus!

Silica V0.8.53

Technical:
Optimized: Alien Spawning Cyst colliders no longer scale with animation, which caused massive physics CPU usage
Optimized: Alien Spawning Cyst glow spheres share materials in animation, which caused high GPU usage
Changed: Console command 'Team' now supports 'None'
Fixed: Memory leak when reloading AI navigation mesh
Fixed: Level load issue where client reported to server it completed loading earlier than it should have

A wonderful Tuesday afternoon to you all!

A new build of Silica has just been released, this one primarily focusing on addressing a new memory leak that led to the game utilizing a massive amount of RAM over time.
In addition to this, a plethora of balancing changes have been made, lowering the health of many units and structures, while at the same time increasing health regeneration of smaller alien units. The Headquarters has also received formidable defenses, in the form of heavy turrets, that ward off most early base rushes.
Another welcome addition is the introduction of improved friendly fire avoidance, where a weapon will not shoot at an enemy if it risks inflicting a decent amount of damage on a friend. This will certainly go through multiple iterations into the future, but means that Rocket Launchers will no longer try to take out that one Crab on the Harvester.
So, please give the new changes a try and as always, feedback is very much appreciated.
Thank you for your support and see you on the surface!

Silica V0.8.52:
Technical:
Fixed: Growing RAM usage over time
Added: Vehicles and turrets do not fire (per weapon) at enemy targets if they are likely to cause friendly fire above a tolerance
Added: Culling of structures/units when off screen
Fixed: Queen could be instructed to nest in a dead Nest

Balance:
Added: Heavy Turrets to Headquarters
Changed: Increased health regen for all small alien units
Changed: Rifleman cost changed from 60 to 30
Changed: Rifleman build time changed from 15s to 10s
Changed: Scout cost changed from 30 to 5
Changed: Scout build time changed from 10s to 5s
Changed: Headquarters cost changed from 4000 to 9000
Changed: Heavy Turret cost changed from 2000 to 1500
Changed: Turret cost changed from 1000 to 750
Changed: Crab health changed from 500 to 300
Changed: Horned Crab health changed from 700 to 500
Changed: Dragonfly health changed from 300 to 200
Changed: Firebug health changed from 9000 to 5000
Changed: Hunter health changed from 6000 to 5000
Changed: Shocker health changed from 500 to 400
Changed: Shrimp health changed from 300 to 150
Changed: Bio Cache health changed from 4000 to 3000
Changed: Colossal Spawning Cyst health changed from 120000 to 80000
Changed: Grand Spawning Cyst health changed from 60000 to 40000
Changed: Greater Spawning Cyst health changed from 30000 to 20000
Changed: Lesser Spawning Cyst health changed from 10000 to 8000
Changed: Hive Spire health changed from 5000 to 3000
Changed: Thorn Spire health changed from 5000 to 3000
Changed: Nest health changed from 60000 to 50000
Changed: Node health changed from 500 to 300
Changed: Air Factory health changed from 300000 to 200000
Changed: Barracks health changed from 100000 to 80000
Changed: Headquarters health changed from 200000 to 150000
Changed: Heavy Vehicle Factory health changed from 300000 to 200000
Changed: Light Vehicle Factory health changed from 100000 to 80000
Changed: Radar Station health changed from 100000 to 80000
Changed: Refinery health changed from 300000 to 200000
Changed: AA Rocket Turret health changed from 8000 to 10000
Changed: Heavy Turret health changed from 12000 to 14000
Changed: Turret health changed from 8000 to 10000
Changed: Bomber health changed from 24000 to 15000
Changed: Dropship health changed from 12000 to 8000
Changed: Fighter health changed from 7000 to 3500
Changed: Gunship health changed from 5000 to 2500
Changed: Bunker 01 health changed from 10000 to 40000
Changed: Bunker 02 health changed from 5000 to 20000
Changed: Bunker 03 health changed from 7500 to 30000
Changed: Bunker 04 health changed from 5000 to 20000