v0.17.122
Hi everybody! This update is a big rendering tech update, with some new features thrown in as well.
[h3]New in this build:[/h3]
There are *lots* of GPU rendering improvements in this update, and also a lot of CPU-side improvements, but I feel like there's a lot more work still to be done on the CPU side.
My plans now are to finish up work on the Party Update, and then really focus in on those CPU performance improvements that are so needed as games get larger!
Thanks for your patience with this lengthy update, everyone!
[h3]New in this build:[/h3]
- [h3]Painting Terrain![/h3] Terrain types are now "paint on" like monster zones, instead of being locked to a grid. (this also speeds up load times by a fraction of a second, but nobody except for me cares about that! It saves about five seconds in the non-optimised development builds that I usually use)
- [h3]Where did I leave that quest giver??[/h3] The Region Information Window now has a "Contents" tab which shows you a list of every building, monster zone, and NPC placed in the region, along with their status. Click on one to send the camera directly to it.
- [h3]More network diagnostics[/h3]The Region Information Window (shown when you select a region) now shows the amount of network bandwidth coming into the region, the amount being usefully consumed within the region, and how much is being lost to overheads from WAN nodes and similar network devices.
- [h3]The Eponymous Inn[/h3]Buildings and monster zones can now be given unique names - select the building or zone and click on its name in the Information Window.
- [h3]Rendering Speed Improvements[/h3]Hugely speeds up shadow rendering (now takes about 10% as long to render as before), and substantially speeds up drawing everything else as well.
- [h3]Simpler shaders for lower-end graphics cards[/h3]Adds optional "simple" shaders, which switches the game to draw using traditional video game lighting, instead of modern PBR lighting. I'm hopeful that this will make things run better on some of the lower-end integrated graphics chipsets I've been seeing (and which we still don't officially support). Simple shaders can be selected from the 'Video' tab of the options dialog.
- [h3]One for folks whose keyboards aren't quite as tiny as mine[/h3]Adds support for forward-deletion using the 'delete' key during text editing.
- [h3]Flight paths display the correct price![/h3]Fixes displayed costs for placement of flight paths to include the ending flight point, when an ending flight point would be required at the cursor's current position, and to correctly not charge you for the placement, if you can't afford both the flight path cost and the cost for any required flight point.
- [h3]A fix for the infamous "infinitely thinking giants" bug![/h3]Fixes players sometimes failing to log out when they chose to unsubscribe, which left them static and stationary on the map (and sometimes the wrong size).
- [h3]Is the water supposed to be so.. chunky?[/h3]Fixes a bunch of shaders to continue animating smoothly even if the game is running nonstop for a long enough time (multiple hours) that floating point precision starts to be lost.
- [h3]Regarding conga lines...[/h3]Improves road following behaviours, making it less likely for players to walk single-file along roads.
- [h3]Get a hold of yourself, soldier![/h3]Made an AI adjustment to make subscribers slightly less scared of being near monsters (-0.1 -> -0.05). Should make certain of the more timid subscribers less hesitant to venture into monster zones to do quests or gain levels. (this seemed to mostly affect 'Explorer'-type subscribers, in my experience)
- [h3]Saved game list updates[/h3]Fixes save game file list to refresh correctly after deleting a save. (Fixes a crash bug some folks ran into where they first deleted a save and then tried to load that same save, because it hadn't been removed from the UI even though the file had been deleted)
- [h3]Game data correction[/h3]If the game tries to load a file which doesn't seem to exist, we now notify Steam that it needs to re-verify files before the next run. (I suspect these reports were due to people moving around or deleting game data)
- ...and a whole lot of other miscellaneous bug fixes!
There are *lots* of GPU rendering improvements in this update, and also a lot of CPU-side improvements, but I feel like there's a lot more work still to be done on the CPU side.
My plans now are to finish up work on the Party Update, and then really focus in on those CPU performance improvements that are so needed as games get larger!
Thanks for your patience with this lengthy update, everyone!