Lost Skies News

[p][/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for all your great questions following last week's release date announcement.[/p][p]
[/p][p]We've taken some time to compile them all and hope this helps to address any concerns you may have. Your patience is greatly appreciated, we believe we have created a very rounded and captivating experience with Lost Skies. It's an incredibly exciting time for the team and we can't wait for you all to experience the full release. [/p][p]
As a final preview we'll be releasing the final 'Skywatch' before launch later this week, where we'll give you a more detailed look at what we've been working on and the scope of changes in the release version. Stay tuned! ❤️ [/p][p][/p][p]Lost Skies Release Date FAQ[/p][p][/p][p]What key features or level of polish define this as the 1.0 full release versus Early Access and was this timing driven by the game's readiness or by any external factors?[/p][p][/p][p]Our plan for Early Access had to change along the way. In April we encountered some development challenges with fundamental core tech (more on that below). We also still had a lot of features and content in development for 1.0. This led us to a clear decision: shift our entire focus from smaller EA patches to delivering a comprehensive 1.0 launch. As a small independent studio, allocating our resources efficiently is critical, and we believe this was the right call to make within our set timeframe. This dedicated time allowed us to improve stability, fix key bugs, and build the well-rounded experience we’re now ready to release. We're proud of the result and look forward to you playing it.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Since there weren't as many EA updates as planned, what game-breaking issues have been addressed, and is the plan to fix everything else in this one release?[/p][p][/p][p]After releasing one major content update and four hotfixes, we made the decision to bundle all subsequent content and tech updates into the full release rather than continue with smaller patches.[/p][p][/p][p]Our highest priority for this release was resolving the most critical game-breaking issue: any potential for progress loss![/p][p][/p][p]Alongside that major fix, this version also includes fixes for dozens of other bugs reported by the community, spanning all systems from inventory and upgrades to puzzles.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Are fixes for networking and progress loss coming in the full release, and will there be a progress wipe?
[/p][p]As outlined in the Steam Post, our biggest priority was to address networking issues and potential progress loss. This work will be completed for full release, making the game stable and reliable in the long run. Due to the scope of these fundamental changes, we’ll have to perform a full progress wipe, including all characters and worlds. [/p][p][/p][p]Please refer to the linked post by our Principal Developer for a more in-depth dive into this issue.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Could you give an overview of the new content added for the 1.0 launch? For example: will there be new regions and bosses, weather wall crossings, or new creatures?[/p][p][/p][p]Here are some of the major changes we’re most excited for:[/p]

• [p]The game world has been expanded from one region to four. The original Outskirts region has been split into three separate regions, and a new fourth region (the Midlands) has been added.[/p]
• [p] All of these regions have been significantly expanded to contain roughly 30 islands and are now separated by new weather barriers, including windwalls and stormwalls.[/p]
• [p] A new boss type (the Arbiter) has been introduced. Arbiters are smaller than Heralds and are designed to create more frequent sky combat encounters.[/p]
• [p]Each of the new regions will also contain its own unique Herald boss.[/p]

• [p]New ship parts (sail controls, new engines, decorations, and more)[/p]
• [p]New hostile creatures like Thornets and Harpies[/p]
• [p]New resources and materials that unlock additional crafting recipes[/p]

[p][/p][p]We will provide a visual showcase of this new content in a special edition of Skywatch later this week.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]What kind of balancing work went into 1.0?[/p][p][/p][p]We have performed an extensive balance pass on all major systems ahead of full release.
[/p][p]A primary focus was ship progression and based on the incredibly useful feedback we have received from Early Access, we observed that the stats gained from ship levelling and different materials were not affecting ship performance in a meaningful way. This area received a major overhaul - now those rare materials are going to provide a substantial boost to your ship.
[/p][p]The levelling cap for all ship parts is now 50, allowing you to really invest in your favourites.[/p][p][/p][p]This is in addition to sub-component random stat rolls. Propellers, barrels, wing tips, etc., can now roll with a variety of stats, allowing you to swap them out on your ship parts to really customize the stat distribution. Some sub-components even come with brand new stats, such as Energy Efficiency, which will reduce the energy cost for that ship part![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]What does the future of the game look like after launch? Do you have a roadmap, and are there plans to fund and develop new content like more islands and regions down the line?
[/p][p]Our immediate commitment is to support the launch. This includes releasing hotfixes for any urgent issues that may arise and developing a 'Day 30' patch to address early player feedback.[/p][p]
While our team are very dedicated to the game and have many ideas for the future of Lost Skies, we are not the biggest team. Post Day 30, the development of major new content is dependent on the commercial success of the full release and its public reception. We need to see how the game performs and how many players it reaches before we can establish a formal long-term roadmap. The community's support will directly influence what comes next.
[/p][p] [/p][p]Could you share the team's perspective on the upcoming full release? Specifically how does the team feel about the current state of the game and how many people are still actively developing Lost Skies?[/p][p][/p][p]Like any development team we'll always have more ideas we'd love to add to the game. That said, we are genuinely proud of what our small team has accomplished for the full release.[/p][p]
The scope of the game is significantly larger than it was in Early Access and we've focused on stability while fixing dozens of issues reported directly by the community. We're a mix of nervous and excited for everyone to jump in and see the changes for themselves. We sincerely hope the launch goes well and that our team has an opportunity to continue working on the world of Lost Skies. 😅
[/p][p][/p][p]Will Lost Skies be player-tested before full release?
[/p][p]We’re planning to share 1.0 build with our amazing OpenDev community the week before release, then we have a short buffer to review all feedback with the intention to implement this in the September patches and beyond![/p][p]
[/p][p]What are the plans for multiplayer servers? Specifically, will players have the option to set up dedicated or PVP servers and will there be a way to increase the player limit in a session?[/p][p][/p][p]To set clear expectations for the full release on September 17th, dedicated servers, custom server rules (including PVP or increased player cap) will not be included at launch. The player limit will remain at 6 just as it is in Early Access.[/p][p][/p][p]We understand that these are important features for many players. While a firm plan for them depends on how well the launch goes, we want to be transparent that our team is very keen to develop these options, and we know that PVP options are important to some of our community. Between EA release and 1.0 our focus was delivering the core PVE experience we promised to players and making the game as fun and stable as possible. It's high on our list of things we'd love to work on post-release, if our strong and supportive community continues to grow (which is our hope!).[/p][p]
[/p][p]Will players be able to create their own world layouts with custom islands on Full Release? [/p][p]Similar to the previous question, this is still something we feel passionate about because the ultimate goal is to create a fun and evergreen sandbox for players to enjoy for years to come. However, this is very much a stretch goal.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]How will we support modding post-launch?[/p][p][/p][p]We want to be clear that we are very pro-modding. The work from our modding community has been fantastic and we plan to continue supporting them just as we are now.[/p][p][/p][p]In these final weeks before the full launch, we are in direct communication with mod creators to help them prepare for the update. It's a two-way street: they are also collaborating with us to make sure their mods are stable and don't cause extra bugs for the community. Our shared goal is to make sure your mods don't break on launch day.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Some reviews for Early Access highlighted frustrations around the new player experience. Have you updated the tutorial or the starting island experience for the full release? [/p][p]While we haven't fundamentally changed the game's introduction we have focused on refinement. A number of bug fixes and quality-of-life updates have been made to ensure the starting experience is more stable and polished for the full release. While we understand the concerns here we simply don't have time as this would be a major change. [/p][p][/p][p]We are planning on working on visual guides with members of the community to help mitigate any issues that come up. Keep an eye on our socials for these. [/p]

• [p]Youtube[/p]
• [p]Twitter[/p]
• [p]Bluesky[/p]
• [p]Instagram[/p]

[p][/p][p]Will new regions be added to Island Creator?[/p][p][/p][p]While there are no confirmed plans to expand on the Island Creators at this time, it's something we are prepared for.
[/p][p]We have already developed concepts and art assets that could form the foundation of a new region. However, our primary focus was getting the game set for full release. We'd love the opportunity to expand the world of the Island Creator further in the future.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Will there be more tech trees for each culture and civilization?
[/p][p]Full release will feature the Saborian tech tree which has been expanded since the Early Access release.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Will Lost Skies be Steam Deck verified?[/p][p][/p][p]Our main priority for the full release had to be the game’s core stability and finishing all the launch features. We’ve made good progress on Steam Deck optimisation, but getting it officially verified had to take a backseat for now. We know it’s important and we believe we're not far off, but we have to make sure the main game experience is as solid as possible first.[/p][p][/p]

[p]We're incredibly excited to launch our new Island Creator Contest and see the incredible islands you can create. This is your chance to make history, leave your mark on the Skymap, show off your creativity, and win some incredible prizes!

Using our FREE Island Creator tool on Steam, we want you to build the most amazing island you can imagine. Think epic themes, clever layouts, hidden secrets and beautiful vistas. Your call, go crazy.

This is a Two Phase contest. Phase 1 is the submission phase, Phase 2 will be all about community votes.

How To Enter (Phase 1)

Phase 1 runs from Monday 4th August til Monday, 18th August at Midnight PDT.

- Head to our Gleam page to officially enter and agree to the Terms of Service
- Download the Lost Skies Island Creator for free on Steam, if you haven't already!
- Get Creative! Design your island. We are looking for submissions in the new Midlands region specifically. Give it a cool name...
- Submit your creation! Once your masterpiece is complete, publish it to the Steam Workshop and post the link in our dedicated submission channel on Discord.

At the end of Phase 1, our team will review all the incredible entries and select a shortlist of the Top 10 islands to proceed to the community vote!

The Community Vote (Phase 2)

Phase 2 runs from Tuesday, 19th August to Tuesday, 26th August at Midnight PDT.

A poll featuring the Top 10 islands will be created in our Discord. This is where you, our wonderful community will vote for your absolute favourite to crown the champion!

The Prizes!

We've got some truly legendary loot for our winners!

1st Place: An Nvidia RTX 5070 TI Graphics Card + 5 Lost Skies Early Access Steam Keys!,[/p][p]2nd Place: An Xbox Controller* + 3 Lost Skies Early Access Steam Keys!,[/p][p]3rd Place: 3 Lost Skies Early Access Steam Keys!

Winners will be announced on Wednesday, 27th August.

This is all about celebrating your creativity.

We cannot wait to see what you build. Good luck! May the best island win!

[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

[p]We're immensely grateful for the thousands of players who have played Lost Skies and for the amazing feedback you've provided during our Early Access journey so far. After a series of targeted hotfixes, we're excited to release a substantial update that directly addresses what you've told us. This patch is packed with dozens of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements, focusing on stability and polish.

It also introduces some exciting new features from our public skymap that we hope our community will be thrilled to explore. There are still a few known issues that we are working on, please see details on these at the end of the patch notes.

[/p][h3]Key changes in this Early Access Update:[/h3][p][/p][p]Stability & Polish First: Our top priority is improving the core experience. This update squashes dozens of bugs and addresses key stability issues to make your journey smoother. We are committed to continuing this focus as we push towards our 1.0 launch.[/p][p]Full Key Rebinding: Customise your controls to climb, glide, and grapple your way through the skies.[/p][p]NEW Community-Crafted Islands: Explore a dozen new islands in the Outskirts region, all built by our awesome community in the F2P Lost Skies Island Creator. [/p][p]NEW Map Table (V1): The first version of our map table is here! Get a bird's-eye view of all islands to help you chart your course and make navigation easier than ever.[/p][p]NEW Comfort System: Ship layout now matters! Place furniture and decor to increase your crew's comfort, but keep them clear of discomfort sources like engines and other machinery. A happy crew will earn a powerful ‘rested’ bonus for their travels.[/p][p]NEW Quality of Life Improvements: We've added highly-requested features like the ability to name storage chests.[/p][p] [/p][h3]Patch Notes[/h3][p][/p]

• [p]\[NEW] Full Key Rebinding[/p]
• [p]\[NEW] Comfort System[/p]
• [p]\[NEW] Balance pass on combat[/p]
• [p]\[NEW] Map Table (V1)[/p]
• [p]\[NEW] Added a dozen new islands to the Outskirts map.[/p]
• [p]\[QOL] Added storage naming.[/p]
• [p]\[QOL] Added a potential fix for the ship disappearance - more info on the core tech work we're doing to fully prevent any progress loss HERE.[/p]
• [p]Reexported several islands created by the community with some tweaks from creators.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where the client couldn't see parts of a ship if the host built the ship on a different island than where the client is.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where items added to chest by host would be visible to clients upon joining a session.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where splitting stacks in ship storage/makeshift storage sometimes would make it lose resources.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where discovery popups would keep appearing on the screen.[/p]
• [p]Fixed several instances of chests not unlocking correctly after solving puzzles.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where players couldn't navigate through the crafting queue if there were 2 or more stations that have items in the queue.[/p]
• [p]Fixed multiple issues with object colliders across Outskirts region islands.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where schematic or weapon level would sometimes not display correctly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where placing Founder DLC Schematics onto the hotbar would soft-lock the toolbar.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where item level would sometimes reset on dropped items.[/p]
• [p]Fixed several instances of SFX cutting out.[/p]
• [p]Fixed several issues with inventory management where items wouldn't move correctly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where players could move items into their Stash tab from their inventory.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where Storage containers would in rare cases duplicate their content.[/p]
• [p]Addressed several potential causes of occasional game crashes.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Known Issues:[/h3][p]
Crash on First Load[/p][p]We have had a report from our amazing Open Development community regarding a new crash on first load, after the starting splash screens. We’ve not been able to internally reproduce exactly, but a potential fix for such issues would be manually removing the game data files, and re-installing via Steam. This is opposed to uninstalling via Steam as in some circumstances not all of the game data is removed. [/p][p]Please note. This will not affect your game saves. 

After uninstalling, ensure the “Wild Skies” install directory is empty, especially the “LostSkies_Data” folder here:[/p][p]
Where this does not fix the issue, please reach out with “crash.dmp” and “Player.log” files from the “%localappdata%\\Temp\\Bossa Games\\LostSkies\\Crashes” if you have them.

[/p][p]Alternatively if there’s no log there, please grab your “Player.log” file from “%localappdata%low\\Bossa Games\\LostSkies”[/p][p]
Existing Crashes[/p][p]We’ve also had reports and limited internal reproduction of potentially 2 other crash bugs;

The first and most frequent is players returning to the main menu. We have some leads on the cause of this issue, but investigation is still ongoing.

The second is a rarer crash during gameplay which is much more elusive.

Controller Support[/p][p]Controller users are currently unable to access their stash or assign items to the toolbar.  Although gamepad and controller aren't officially supported right now, we have a hotfix coming in the next few days.
Full PlayStation controller support is WIP, not currently available.

Other/Misc[/p]

• [p]Players might see what other people are doing on other distant islands.[/p]
• [p]‘Save to menu’ can be sometimes unreliable when re-joining worlds, it's recommended to fully restart the client before rejoining the world.[/p]

[p] PLEASE SEE HERE FOR A FULL LIST OF KNOWN ISSUES[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p][/p][p]
[/p]

[p][/p][p]Welcome to Skywatch #27[/p][p]
Greetings Awoken! The team has been hard at work since Early Access, processing all your amazing feedback and channeling that energy into the next phase of development. We’re making some big strides in expanding the world, deepening gameplay systems, and adding some terrifying new creatures to the skies. Let's go![/p][p][/p][p]Core Tech & UI Improvements 💻[/p][p]Vlad has been busy improving the technical foundations of the game. He’s been refining the UI, improving how the game understands what the player is looking at, and implementing better gamepad support. He’s also been making it much more intuitive to navigate the player inventory with a gamepad.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Crafting & Player Systems 🛠️[/p][p]The crafting system has also received some love! We're exploring alternative views and new categories to make finding and crafting what you need a smoother experience.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Olly has been undertaking a massive review of food and its effects. All 80 food items have been analysed and given a unique buff or debuff. He's also been diving deep into game difficulty, using player feedback and in-game data to create a secret calculator tool! This formula helps us balance NPC stats and damage to fine-tune the time-to-kill and overall challenge of the game.[/p][p]
Performance Optimisation ⚙️[/p][p]Andy has been focused on performance, specifically tackling the memory strain caused when the environment loads. His work aims to make the experience of discovering and exploring islands much smoother for everyone.[/p][p][/p][p]Design Deep Dive 🗺️[/p][p]Luke and Tony have been collaborating on some significant improvements to core gameplay systems, giving players more diverse ways to play.[/p][p][/p][p]Randomised Ship Part Stats[/p][p]To mitigate the issue of lighter ships always having an advantage, stats on ship components are now randomised! - Huge apologies! Our design team are telling me this is not the reasoning behind the randomised ship part stats. Please see the actual reason below. - Adam

* UPDATED - Until now it didn't matter what propellers you used on your engines, or what barrels you used on your cannons - it was purely a cosmetic change. Going forward however these sub components now come with random stat rolls, allowing you to find the perfect combination to enhance and modify your ship parts. Sub components can even roll with unique stats that cannot be found on ship parts.

This introduces a new challenge of hunting for schematics and parts with the best possible stats. Different schematics will grant different stat ranges, so you'll have more options to create your perfect build.[/p][p]
[/p][p]The Comfort System[/p][p]Luke and Tony have also been working on the comfort system implementation. In short, the more effort you put into decorating your ship, the more rested you will become! Furnishings like plants and other nice items will grant a buff while you're on board. As you can see in the video, walls will also affect line of sight for these comfort zones.[/p][p]
[/p][p][/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Ship Core Upgrades[/p][p]A small but mighty improvement: when you move your ship's core, any attached core upgrades will now move with it![/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]A Host of New Creatures 🐲[/p][p]Olly has been designing a menagerie of new creatures to populate the skies, particularly for the upcoming Region 4 biome.[/p][p][/p][p]Cave Bug Hulk: A monstrous scorpion-like evolution of the Cave Bug.[/p][p][/p][p]Atterbane & Harpie: These new flying beasts hunt in family groups of adults and juveniles. Harpies are blind but have incredibly sensitive hearing; they will circle overhead and dive at any sound you make.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]A core theme for Region 4's creatures is a new poison mechanic. The Atterbane, for example, will leave a lingering cloud of poison gas when it dies. This was such a great idea that we're applying it as a theme to all mobs in Region 4![/p][p][/p][p]AI in Action 🧠[/p][p]Danny has been bringing these new creatures to life, programming the AI that will have you watching your back in Region 4. Check out how cool these new mobs look, especially with the poison-on-death effect![/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Art Showcase 🎨[/p][p]The art team has been creating some stunning new assets for the 1.0 release.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Lara has designed a range of beautiful new player masks and ship parts.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Meanwhile, Klaudia has been working on some incredible new boss-tier enemies: the Arbiters, Heralds, and the truly intimidating Harbinger. As you can see below, these formidable foes will have segments that break off as you deal damage![/p][p]
[/p][p][/p][p]Skytravel & World Building ☁️[/p][p]As we build out Region 4, Andy has been working on the awe-inspiring weather wall that separates the different regions of the world. Just look at those lightning flashes![/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]This all comes together on the new world map, which is being updated to accommodate Region 4. Speaking of new regions, keep an eye out for more island creator contests in the community soon![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]It's a Wrap![/p][p]Phew, that was a lot! We’re incredibly excited about the direction these new features are taking the game, adding more depth, challenge, and variety to your adventures. Thank you for your continued support and feedback![/p][p][/p][h2]>>>Join the Lost Skies Discord<<<[/h2][p][/p][p]See you in the skies![/p][p]
[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

[p]

Greetings Awoken

It's been a minute since our last update, and we wanted to say thanks for hanging in there with us. We've been deep in the workshop, so to speak, and we’re excited to finally come up for air and show you all the things we've been building for Early Access.

Right now there is a huge emphasis on bug fixing and removing as many issues hindering the experience on the tech side as possible. We are eternally grateful for all the amazing feedback, reviews and bug reports. This information is super important at this stage as it helps us to make the game as stable and problem-free as possible ahead of full launch.

Feature-wise there is the much-anticipated map table, which was part of our roadmap. V1 of this will be the lightweight version, this won't track progression on each island yet, but will display all islands in the area to make navigation much easier!

Additionally, we've introduced a new comfort system. Some items boost comfort (e.g., decorations, furniture), while others have a discomfort value if close-by (e.g., engines). This means you'll need to think about separating different areas of your ship to maximize your crew's well-being and earn a "rested" bonus!

We are adding some quality of life improvements including full implementation of key rebindings, renaming storage and an option to disable screenshake.

The team has also been working on another big balance pass on health and damage, to improve combat experience in more difficult areas.[/p][p]
We have been refactoring parts of storage/inventory, specifically to fix issues with moving items or losing them when splitting stacks, upgrading schematics & reloading the game.[/p][p]
Alongside these improvements there are a few other highlights which we will cover in our latest Skywatch later this week. As well as all the work we are doing towards full launch.

[/p][h3]The Elephant in the room - Lost Progress [/h3][p][/p][p]The biggest thing our tech team is solving is definitely the potential loss of progress that affects some players, this has been a really tough egg to crack, with many variables at play. Of course we are working to resolve this completely before launch, but we'd like to go into a bit more detail so you can understand what is involved.[/p][p][/p][p]As the problem is such a complex challenge, it’s best to hear this info from the Developer’s POV. Here are Tom’s Dev notes on the issue.[/p][p]
Lost Skies has a few problem areas that need to be addressed in order to become robust at scale (for larger worlds / entity counts / higher player numbers).

These are the issues that present some form of instability or excessive network traffic :[/p]

• [p]All players are always checked out for everyone playing. This means everything players are up to no matter where they are on the map, is synchronised over the network. This creates excessive state sync for players that could be on other islands so the data is not relevant to you.[/p]
• [p]Ships have a similar issue, they are always checked out for everyone, but one reason for that is their initial state is quite large so accepting a minor spike in network traffic once per ship spawn was preferred. However, they are expensive to have around on the CPU as they are made of hundreds of objects, especially when players start experimenting with multiple ships.[/p]
• [p]World Save data: This is a big one. There have been reports of data loss, corruption and worlds ending up in a volatile state when reloading from saves. As it stands, saving of all world data is handled by the host of the session, which makes sense. But save data for individual entities is grouped per island. So when a save event is raised, clients on islands the host is not on have to send huge amounts of data back to the host including every entity on the island, even if 90% of it has not changed.[/p]
• [p]Island-based checkouts: All network entities on an island are permanently checked out when you are on that island. We have the concept of an 'island authority' client. That is the person who is in charge of all the entities spawned by the island. Some areas do utilise distributed authority like trees, certain puzzle elements, etc, but AI for example, is all controlled by the client chosen as that island's authority. The main reason for this is data consistency, as all buildables, AI, critters, loot etc, is part of the island data that is saved, it all needs to be maintained by a single owner that then sends back the data to the host (or just saves locally if they are host). We suspect these large multiple packet sends of save data from multiple people all coming back to the host can be problematic, especially on an exit game event. As clients may disconnect before the save data has been sent completely due to it taking multiple frames to send everything.[/p]
• [p]There's some other miscellaneous things, like large message service sending ship data to every player regardless if they already have the ship checked out, so by the time the 6th player has joined, the ship data is getting sent from the host to 6 players, even though only 1 needs it this becomes pretty detrimental, imagine a 6th player joining a world that has 10 ships, that would be a long time without state sync while the commands are being sent/received.[/p]

[p]
[/p][p]The solution for all of these has taken a while because they all touch on low-level systems that affect each other. You can't make AI selectively despawned or distributed authority on the island without first changing how the island data is saved for example.[/p][p]The work is ongoing but I can share with you the work in progress and the plan for 1.0[/p][p]
Players now have a moving live query so they can inform the replication server which objects it cares about that it does not have authority over. (Such as other players) and their state will not be sent over the network if they are outside the query. [/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p]

• [p]The more entities that get moved over to a distributed freeform model (rather than all things attached to an island having authority by a single client), the more benefit from this live query change. AI is largely working, but ships have the issue of large data within their save data so having them despawn and respawn regularly would use more bandwidth than we want, so we are actively working on optimizing ship data sizes at the moment to make this feasible (certain things like Heralds and sky whales will stay as global entities so you can see them from afar and are part of the skyscape. Bandwidth optimization will happen where it can at large distances)[/p]
• [p]I am currently moving all of our save-data from our large per-island data storage to a KVP database where each entity is its own entry. The idea of this is that all entities can be stored for every island as individual database entries, we can easily have 200,000 entities or more in a single world without any data issue and the best part is we don't need to update everything as the world save is not this gigantic blob of data. We can just update small batches of entities as we need.[/p]
• [p]The next video shows a simulation of a 50 km-sized world split into 750-meter cells and entities are loaded straight from the database, and saved when the cells are unpopulated by players. Entities are only simulated when they are in a populated cell, else authority is dropped and their state is written to the database on the fly.[/p]

[p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
Viewing and debugging world data is now much simpler thanks to tools like LiteDB Explorer: [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]For 1.0 the plan is for all world-data to be moved to a database model, and generalised into these tables :[/p]

• [p]World meta-data[/p]
• [p]Generic Entity Data (ore spawners, ai, death loot, buildables, critters, etc now no longer linked to an 'island')[/p]
• [p]Ships[/p]
• [p]Shipwrecks[/p]
• [p]Island-specific data (1 entry per island : Loot seed, removed trees, puzzles state, etc)[/p]
• [p]Boss Data[/p]

[p]
Once this is handled, the host will be responsible for all spawning based on cell queries into the database from all remote players, these will then be authority switched to the player that requested them. when they drop into unpopulated they will be abandoned, then at a regular interval, the host will loop over the abandoned entities and save their state to the database. This fixes many of the issues with players leaving before sending the save data they are authoritative over, it will also be more incremental and because of the database structure, any corruption in a single entity will not destroy the whole world.[/p][p]Further more, I also plan to utilise the state sync within the replication server (rather than relying on remote players to send data of everything on an island back to the host when they exit the game or leave the island), as the replication server is aware of entities and the state it can use that to augment the saving and reduce bandwidth further. This will be applicable for 90% of entities, but a few have non state synced data that will still need to be sent (Inventories of storage and ship data for 2 examples) we either have to find a way to fit the data into state sync for these things, or still keep large messages for those. - Tom

Thanks for reading. Expect a new Skywatch later this week.

[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]