McDROID News

I fixed the DLC bug and waves bubbles not popping, in the process.
Also, after talking and playing co-op with one of you, I decided to make a little experiment: always on co-op. You can access it in the BETA>public beta and if it works I'll push it to the co-op branch or maybe *maybe* the main branch.

Report all bugs (bugs?!) following this post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/252970/discussions/1/2792748953544942324/
If you want to chat and talk next game and choice of tech, join me here https://discord.gg/uvMETkX

Why this update after so long? Well I got a surprise for ya!
As you all know McDROID is very taxing even on a powerful PC. Now imagine how mad someone would have to be to port it to a mobile console like, say, the Switch... it would just melt. Well lucky you, I'm mad and you're getting the sweet fallout of this mad enterprise: improved engine, improved graphics, improved controls and no more bug (really). And if you want to participate and get some goodies, Go there: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elefantopia/mcdroid-switch?ref=ajekey

Now let's get on the juicy bits, the changes, "so many of them":
[h3]CORE[/h3]
- upgrade to Unity 2018-LTS 64 bits which is more stable
- switched to Facepunch Steamworks which is also less sucky
- fix nullrefs that was slowing down the game to a crawl when many missiles were launched, so level 13 is playable, meaning it'll kick your buns in glorious 100Hz
- half of the code has been pulverized in the ether which feels good as now I can maintain it.
- fixed recycling that would spawn the wrong item, which was funny but not funny
- removed allocation in AI so those hiccups are gone, better than a cup of water
- removed multiplayer from this branch [EDIT] this new branch is in n-e-o & old coop is in the main branch
- faster overall goodness
[h3]GAMEPLAY[/h3]
- added a real NORMAL difficulty level between TODDLER and SOULS, friendlier for the humans
- removed navmesh island = no more stuck enemies out of reach that prevented win condition
- [DLC] fixed MJ special Halloween now reaches end condition = you can now win against the zombies
- fixed in certain conditions, deployable bots didn't persist from NORMAL to CHALLENGE
- fixed the cables of the Research Lab
- turrets rotate at their speed even during DIRECT CONTROL unless mounted.
[h3]GRAPHICS[/h3]
- Lobzilla now aims with its snout, also the spitters which is both cute and more deadly
- the snot-vomit they lob at you looks much more snot like, with chunks
- redid the lighting to match the new lightmapper's surface characteristics and rebaked everything
- new post processing stack = faster, crisper antialias
- redid the reflection shader = looks more anchored in the scene
- added transient lighting in teslas -- this might cause slowdown if you have 30 teslas, let me know
- fixed person animator controller that you see in the Halloween DLC level
- switched all materials to new instantiated shaders = faster in most cases.
- replaced HardSurface shader with something custom that works on all hardwares and eats up less GPU.
- Berry freeze now animates and makes a sound.
- improved laser visual
- removed some LOD which caused problem with the new lightmapper
- sculpted new cliff
[h3]AUDIO[/h3]
- switched all short sounds to ADCPM = uses less cpu on load whilst maintaining a small footprint
- channel count bumped up to 64 fixing many audio glitches
[h3]INPUT[/h3]
- gamepad now uses a combination of selective spherecast then raycast to provide much easier targetting, this is also ported to mouse targetting
- gamepad DOWN now opens the rail menu
[h3]EXTRA[/h3]
- news info and newsletter subscription in title screen

I really hope you enjoy! And if the default difficulty level is too hard click on this:



If you read all the way, here is a bonus: the long version of the trailer, with some goofy bits of how we made the music, interview and the PAX EAST mega giant 108 foot, the 24 foot display display.
https://youtu.be/KaedoBcLYSM

The other day I wanted to play co-op but no one was on the server so I looked on the photon website and was shocked:


A maximum ccu of 3 means that if you want to play co-op, you need to sync with your friends via steam chat. This means that the auto discovery and other complicated lobby features are no longer useful and co-op in general is beyond marginal.

Co-op code doubles my dev time and it is so intertwined with the gameplay code that it depletes my sanity so I keep breaking it.
Here is an example with net code:

Now without net code:

Read more here https://elefantopiainc.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-trap-of-multiplayer.html

This + marginal use = it makes no sense to keep the net code so I took it out of the main dev branch.

I Zima Blued McDROID.

As I pulled the code out it was heart breaking because I realized how much effort went into it, there were truly clever bits to make your experience seamless. After a while of working on the now-lean code I have no regret. It is SO MUCH easier and now I can focus on gameplay, fixing long standing bugs, it feels good.
I'll soon post the result of tons of alterations on a new engine and you'll see how much better everything runs.

What I can do for those who love co-op is keep the servers up until another project needs it and keep the co-op build in the co-op branch so if you want to play with your friends you all can switch here.

[Additional info]
In the comments, @lukz brought up a good point and after trying to defend my logic I realized that he was right : this is missing a data point. So I tried to find the answer with this graph:

My interpretation, (apart from the elephant in the room) is:
Very rarely is co-op being played and ...

... I think that this spike of activity on Sunday were friends synching before playing co-op.
So this confirms the conclusion: servers are so dead that players have to sync together to enjoy that and so having co-op build on a separate branch is acceptable compromise given how hard dealing with the net code is.

@lukz got me thinking: could there have been a way to revive multiplayer? Forcing it on everyone was something we explicitly avoided during development because we presumed that it would alienate players to have some jerk connect to their game and sell all your turrets in the middle of a zergrush.
But this is only a presumption, yet it was sealed in stone like the holy commandments!
The probability of this happening is high but MP on Steam is friend-filtered so it would be only your friends who can be jerks, which is always good fun.

[Experimental]
I removed the co-op button and now PLAY is CO-OP, in the co-op & public beta branch

Imagine how cool McDROID would be on the Nintendo™ Switch!



It's a mountain of work to optimize and balance this game for the Switch so I'm starting a Kickstarter to raise money. It launches on 07-07-2020.

If you have a Switch and want to help out, click on the preview link and then on [Notify]
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mclaurent/mcdroid-switch

Thank you!

Bugs can be cute, some eat your strawberries and others won't let you play co-op.

So I pushed an old build that used to work fine in co-op.

To access it, go to McDROID properties in Steam, click the beta tab and chose the co-op build.



Make sure your friend also play this build or they won't connect to your game and let me know if this works here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/252970/discussions/0/2257935717970766341/

On another note, if you own a Switch or know someone who does, I'd apreciate if you shared the Kickstarter campaign with them: Switch Kickstarter