Solace Crafting News

The largest change in this patch is the way that special effects like fireballs and explosion are handled over the network in the case of multiplayer. I still need to make some small adjustments, but it's much more performant than what it was previously. I've also added custom output logging that will start a new log file every 3 hours for dedicated hosts, and turned auto-reboot (6 hours) on for the official BKG beta server.

Because of the change to special effects, I'm delaying the live patch for another day to make sure this doesn't impact anything unexpected as it's very late and I couldn't test everything I wanted to today.

v 0.6.1.13 2019.12.11
- Updated language files
- Added custom log file outputs to dedicated servers
- Added the option to specify a query port for Steam to query dedicated servers with
- Improved spell effect handling over networks
- Fixed the close button on the player list not working
- Fixed some sounds playing universally
- Fixed a bug with server port settings being ignored
- Fixed health pools not updating when leveling up in multiplayer
- Fixed skill points spent not updating immediately in multiplayer

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta. The beta is not available to 32-bit users.

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

A player recently voiced their concern of how I haven't been working on single player recently, I wanted to address that openly a bit. I am planning to continue working on multiplayer for the next two weeks, to try and get it as stable as possible for Christmas. If things go well I will add the multiplayer tags and information to the Steam store page. Single player development, which will from then on include multiplayer development as one, will continue as normal after that.

The first pass that I made at multiplayer last year around this time was like learning a new language and caused a lot of head scratching and headaches. It took several months just to get things connecting and then I burnt out. I made a second pass at multiplayer earlier this year and was able to get things "working", but again, I got swamped with upgrading so many different things using skills I was still not very familiar with and burned out pretty hard.
This time around I'm finding that things make a lot more sense to me. I've made small improvements to a lot of the basic back and forths between the client and server with this patch, and honestly most of the "manual labor" type of work is out of the way.
There is still a fair amount of tiny things like, skills upgrade not showing that they've upgraded immediately, and interface "callbacks" like that that I need to improve/get working this week, but the game is starting to run pretty normal in multiplayer mode. The public server I'm renting has been up for over 24 hours without a hitch, though there are certainly still some known bugs to tackle.

Having said that, what I'm doing now with multiplayer is really just catching up to where single player is. Once multiplayer is in a better position I will not necessarily return to single player, but continue developing the game to work in either mode. Single player is really just a "host" that doesn't allow anyone to connect to it anyway.
Wrapping your head around the idea of a single object being on 3-12 different computers, each with different levels of authority, and what they should be doing with the data provided to them starts out very daunting and confusing, but I've a much better handle on it now, and can code things from here on to work both in and out of multiplayer, rather than upgrading things from single player in clumps.

I wasn't feeling well the later half of last week and didn't post, though I did silent patch beta a few times, whose patch notes are included below. As there are some live bugs fixed with these patches I will be looking to patch live shortly, regardless of multiplayer progress.

v 0.6.1.12 2019.12.09
- Added an "autoRestart" field to the server configuration file, defining minutes to auto-restart, the default of 0 meaning disabled
- Fixed resource scanners not accepting the proper resources for range upgrades
- Fixed right-clicking on items in multiplayer
- Fixed splitting stack in multiplayer
- Fixed bow/equipment change errors in multiplayer
- Fixed non-procedural towers in multiplayer
- Fixed hunger in multiplayer

v 0.6.1.11 2019.12.07
- Added notifications for players joining and leaving multiplayer server
- Disabled Unity Anonymous Error reporting for multiplayer hosts
- Improved detection of reboot worthy errors for multiplayer hosts
- Fixed not being able to reselect buildings placed on floating islands
- Fixed returning to the main menu disconnecting Solace Crafting and Steam

v 0.6.1.10 2019.12.03
- Map data for multiplayer clients is now stored locally
- Fixed schematics not letting you adjust their level, tier, rarity, and material
- Fixed schematic made items not displaying materials
- Fixed doors, hatches, and shutters throwing harmless errors on multiplayer
- Fixed spider's nests, hornet's nests, and scale bug nests not spawning properly on multiplayer

v 0.6.1.9 2019.12.02
- Fixed tear/monoliths not showing up on the map
- Fixed multiplayer map data requisiton
- Fixed phantom resources on multiplayer

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta. The beta is not available to 32-bit users.

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

It's been less than two weeks since our last live patch, so there's not a ton of new "content" in this patch, but there is a whole ton of fixes, mostly multiplayer, which is still very much a work in progress, and actually afflicted with two pretty serious bugs right now. I will be setting out to fix those right after this!

There were a couple minor issues with the prior live patch that warranted pushing this patch live, namely town building repositioning throwing errors and the possibility to pull T-1 resources from a storehouse. This patch addresses those, an inability to make rare upgraded resources (steel, etc), and also moves the language files to a visible folder for quick replacement and testing for community members that are kind enough to help improve the translation files in languages they speak. The multi-lingual system is still a work in progress in that not everything is yet "plugged" into it.

Happy crafting!

Edit: Added v 0.6.1.9

v 0.6.1.9 2019.12.02
- Fixed tear/monoliths not showing up on the map
- Fixed multiplayer map data requisiton
- Fixed phantom resources on multiplayer

The condensed patch notes are as follows:

v 0.6.1.8 2019.12.02
- Added background music that will start playing randomly when above ground during the day
- Added cave ambiance
- Upgraded resources can now be upgraded using rare base resources
- Language files moved to "Solace Crafting_data" in the application folder
- Fixed repositioning buildings throwing errors
- Fixed a bug with town resources coming out as T-1

The most recent beta patch notes are as follows:

v 0.6.1.8 2019.12.02
- Upgraded resources can now be upgraded using rare base resources
- Language files moved to "Solace Crafting_data" in the application folder
- Fixed "withdraw tier" not updating the first tutorial
- FIxed the main menu settings interface not turning off the mode select
- Fixed a number of item display problems including not being able to change the rarity of advanced materials

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta. The beta is not available to 32-bit users.

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

This patch is still largely focused on multiplayer though I didn't quite get to finish two major things that I'm working on, mostly the way that map and resource data are transferred to clients.

There are however quite a few bug fixes that have been added into beta since the last live patch. Despite the remaining problems with multi-player, I'm hoping to push this build live pending some more testing to be sure that there's nothing in particularly game breaking, such as the tailor's cap bug that came in with the last beta patch.

The repositioning of town buildings was not saving villager data properly, causing errors to be thrown in some cases. This also caused villagers to be re-rolled with each placement. This patch should fix that so the same villager returns in the case of repositioning and without any errors.

Farming was doubling vegetables in the case of sleeping in a bed while they grow, and they were returning T0 regardless of where/what was planted. The current system, though we will be going through some changes in the near future with farming as a whole, will reduce a seeds tier to match the tier of where it's being planted if the tier of the soil/planter is lower.

v 0.6.1.7 2019.11.30
- Fixed a multiplayer tower bug
- Fixed planted vegetables and herbs multiplying while you sleep
- Fixed planted vegetable harvests not award the proper tier
- Fixed repositioning buildings throwing errors
- Fixed players that had learned the "Tailor's cap" recipe being unable to craft since (temporary) removal of the recipe

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta. The beta is not available to 32-bit users.

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Recently I patched into the beta our first original piece of music, made by the duo known as Pixel Noise. You can take a listen to it and read a bit about what they had to say about the track and their vision for future works in regards to Solace Crafting on our Patreon page:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/31916443

There are also a variety of new buildings pieces in the works and hopefully much more to come!