Solace Crafting News

This patch brings the current live branch up to pace with beta along with today's most recent changes. There may be some new small bugs I admit, I changed quite a bit of code regarding harvesting, and am heading to bed for 8 hours after I post this. But if there are any new bugs they should be small and I should be able to patch them up first thing in the morning.

Long story short, I want to get the live branch caught up with the current changes to beta before the Steam seasonal sales start up as there are some pretty obvious improvements to performance.

I also recorded a short video today detailing what I've been up to the past few days and where I'm taking all of this (testing new cam/mic... don't think I'll be using them):

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Basically, there are still some client side optimizations that I'm working on, but there are also a variety of developer side upgrades that I'm working on while I move towards adding new items and recipes in. With this most recent patch I've rewired the HarvestableObject class that used to be spread out to HarvestableTree, HarvestableThis, HarvestableThat, etc., with lots of ifs ands and buts into a single smooth flowing script with exposed variables so I can setup each type of harvestable object as detailed as I like.

While doing this I've added a number of new items such as feathers, fur, chitin, and others, which don't actually yet have icons for them so you will get a temporary question mark icon for some of the newer items, but again, I will link those up tomorrow.

I'm simultaneously working on some monster AI updates to better control what they're capable of dropping and am looking forward to adding in a few new mobs this week as well. After cleaning up and improving the AI scripts a bit I'm hoping to add some basic skills like a snake bite or a fire ball, with the ultimate goal of adding more flavor to combat before proceeding forward with new types of encounters, locations, and monsters.

Also, if there is an influx of new players on the BKG server it might crash as I have an ongoing theory there isn't enough RAM to support more than a couple players. If that proves to be the case, and it crashes this week, I will look into upgrading it.

Condensed live patch notes:
v 0.7.0.8 2020.11.25
- Upgraded pathfinding navmesh generation system to prevent a variety of pathing problems
- Increased resource respawn check to collide with towns and encounter instead of just player buildings
- Revamped all harvestable resources to a new system of management
- Fixed object spawning giving priority to objects alphabetically (causing wolves to be rare for example)
- Upgraded to Unity 2019.4.14
- Enabled incremental garbage collector
- Disabled network object proximity checks for clients/single player
- Added a random offset to network object proximity checks to keep them from happening all at once
- Increased near and far terrain pixel error forgiveness considerably
- Spred building loading out across frames
- The default storehouse town building now uses an actual structure that can be modified after placing which allows for the placing of crate boxes to increase storage
- Town "ranks" are now upgraded by a specific building for each rank
- All town buildings can now be built custom and assigned with summoning circles
- Facilities are no longer used to assign custom town buildings
- Town population limits removed
- Several new town buildings are still works in progress with no current functionality
- Town buildings are now capable of requiring an amount of inspecific funiture
- Town buildings are now capable of requiring specific pieces of furniture
- Town buildings are now capable of requiring other town buildings built first
- Structures now require a minimum number of building pieces to be assigned as custom town buildings

Latest beta patch notes:
v 0.7.0.8 2020.11.25
- Upgraded pathfinding navmesh generation system to prevent a variety of pathing problems
- Increased resource respawn check to collide with towns and encounter instead of just player buildings
- Revamped all harvestable resources to a new system of management
- Fixed rain collision
- Fixed some instances of building pieces colliding with acceptable pieces preventing building them
- Fixed town hall not building
- Fixed the anonymous error reporting toggle in the main menu not loading the saved setting (though the setting was saving properly)
- Fixed settings scrollbar on main menu settings not working
- Fixed the current resolution text not updating after changing resolutions
- Fixed a multi-player specific error related to swamp mushrooms

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

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

Take the Solace Crafting Fall Survey 2020

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

I'm very to glad to have heard from several players that the game is running much smoother since yesterday's patch. There were some new bugs and still some old that I'm working on, and will continue to do so this week.

One problem involved a tweak with the way that objects are spawned as there was a problem involving the alphabetical order of things. This may cause objects to appear where previously there was nothing, and may upset resource scanner data, a system that currently saves relevant information from areas when you visit them.

v 0.7.0.7 2020.11.18
- Fixed the area being loaded/teleported into loading twice
- Fixed crates being picked up from a once but no longer storehouse throwing an error
- Fixed new villager types being labelled as "Null"
- Fixed new villager types not showing their stats nor upgrades
- Fixed object spawning giving priority to objects alphabetically (causing wolves to be rare for example)
- Fixed some fruit trees not being harvestable
- Fixed a lot of animals/mobs going invisible in single player

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.

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

Take the Solace Crafting Fall Survey 2020

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

This patch is going out to beta first with quite a few changes aimed largely at optimizing the general frame rate and trying to keep it steadier while loading in new terrains and objects as you move. Optimization is kind of an unending process, there's always more you can do, but I did find and polish quite a few little dents in the machine. There's still a number of different things I've written down that I'd like to improve, but there's a lot more to be done and I think this was a good pass at things. There may also be some new small bugs due to the Unity upgrade.

One thing to note about this patch is that screen resolution is now set in-game, but only currently via the main menu settings. I'm going to expand the settings window in-game to include resolution options, as well as other performance affecting settings as the opening splash screen is no longer built-in to Unity 2019.

I also made a video last week talking about why I chose to stop and make a pass at performance though posting it now is ending up making it a bit odd timing wise:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

In any case, there might be some things I need to address with the new patch, but for the most part I'm looking to focus on bug fixes for the rest of the week. Hopefully I can clear out all of the non-cosmetic, at least, bugs before moving forward. I do want to make another video talking about that, and hope to be posting it tomorrow, and maybe even making that a weekly thing for Patreon.

v 0.7.0.6 2020.11.17
- Upgraded to Unity 2019.4.14
- Enabled incremental garbage collector
- Disabled network object proximity checks for clients/single player
- Added a random offset to network object proximity checks to keep them from happening all at once
- Increased near and far pixel error forgiveness considerably
- Reverted grass to Unity's
- Spred building loading out across frames
- Fixed planters not going in and out of inventory properly in MP
- Fixed neighboring terrains not matching their LODs causing visual holes from a distance
- Fixed arctic wolves not spawning

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.

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

Take the Solace Crafting Fall Survey 2020

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

This patch is mostly a number of bugs off of the new bug tracker, I'll push most of these to live in a near future update.

v 0.7.0.5 2020.11.03
- Fixed storehouses not saving/loading properly
- Fixed servers not sending changes to spawn settings causing resource spawn location discrepancies
- Fixed multiplayer client cave generation stalling
- Fixed some monsters loot hitboxes not enabling for multiplayer clients
- Fixed the cursor not coming on after pausing
- Fixed certain ambient sounds not responding to the ambient volume controls properly
- Fixed facilities not fully locking 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.

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

It's been a weird year, I don't think anyone would argue against that. For me it's also been a weird few months as I fought hard to get the new world generation engine out and working. On top of that it's been a weird couple of weeks here recently. I actually started having trouble swallowing and was unable to eat my dinner without taking a drink with every bite for a couple weeks. After confirming that there's nothing wrong my neck, they told me I'm probably just stressed out of my mind. I've been taking a nerve relaxant for a few days now and dinner has become much less stressful, so I am grateful for that.

So what's causing my stress? Is the big question I've had for the past few days, and I think the majority of my "stress" really stems from a lack of organization. I get e-mails, I get Steam notifications, I get private messages, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, every day. Often times these are questions, sometimes they're bug reports, sometimes they're friendly suggestions. Some of the information I receive takes weeks to respond to. I've had some suggestions in the "suggested-features" channel in our Discord server for over a year now. Not to mention 130,000 lines of code that I page through daily trying to make Solace Crafting better and better without breaking something I may have written back in 2017.

Indecision is definitely a big part of that as well. Should I go back and fix this old chunk of code? It might take six hours, and it might break something that could take another 3-4 hours to debug. Should I start looking to add a new feature knowing it will take at least a couple weeks to implement? Sometimes the mix of indecision and new information pouring in every day feels a big overwhelming, to the point that it looks like my body wasn't dealing with it as well as my mind/heart are.

In lieu of which, I've spent some time reevaluating what's most important to the game in its current state, but always want to bring the community on board in giving me ideas and guidance as to what version 1.0 really needs to be, and what path we should be taking to get there.

To do this, I've setup two things:

1. Solace Crafting Fall Survey 2020

Please feel free to write as much as you can in the "anything else you'd like to add" box, I do read all of them, or get a conversation going in Discord. I don't always participate in or respond to every conversation in Discord/Steam, but I do read all of them even if I'm late to the party.

2. Solace Crafting - Bug Tracker

I've setup a bug tracker on bitbucket. Up until now I've been manually keeping track of bugs in Discord, and it's gotten a bit out of hand. Bitbucket isn't necessarily my favorite for bug tracking, but it does allow anonymous logins and/or logging in with a Google/Microsoft/Apple account, which I think is important to ensure people willing to post bugs don't turn away the moment they're asked to make a new account. Some of our Discord users have already migrated the majority of the bugs listed in Discord onto the tracker, thank you for that. I'm hoping this will help me keep bugs better organized, and it certainly has shown me that I was indeed starting to lose track of them. The "Bug Tracker" also allows for the posting of, as well as commenting and voting on suggestions.

From here on it seems as though there are two general paths to choose from, though both lead to the ultimate goal of version 1.0.

[h2]Path A[/h2]
I continue to add new features following the roadmap.
0.7.1: Expands on town buildings and functionality
0.7.2: Randomly generated towns
0.7.3: Town quests and unlock
0.7.4: Villager equipment, clothing, naming, skills, AI
0.7.5: Town defense

0.8.1: Improve monsters pathfinding. Add procedural monster generation and monster abilities
0.8.2: Improve combat math. Rework adventuring skills
0.8.3: Improve and add new dungeons and encounters

0.9.1: Broad scale optimizations
0.9.2: Improve animations
0.9.3: Finalize language support, add full controller support

[h2]Path B[/h2]
I work to polish and solidify that which is already in-game before moving further down the roadmap. I prioritize content that interacts with and expands on already implemented content.
0.7.1: Broad scale optimizations
0.7.2: Improve animations
0.7.3: Improve monsters pathfinding. Add procedural monster generation and monster abilities
0.7.4: Improve combat math. Rework adventuring skills

0.8.1: Improve and add new dungeons and encounters
0.8.2: More recipes/materials/enchants/drops

0.9.1: Expands on town buildings and functionality
0.9.2: Randomly generated towns
0.9.3: Town quests and unlock
0.9.4: Villager equipment, clothing, naming, skills, AI
0.9.5: Town defense

0.9.9: Finalize language support, add full controller support

Through talking with players here on Steam and on Discord I'm leaning towards Path B more than I ever have. There's a "people pleaser" in me that is constantly trying to get something out every week so to keep my customers (that do pay for my dinner and electricity, thank you so much!) from burning me at the stake. Then on the other side of the mirror I'm usually fine with big names delaying their release dates, because I want them to get it right. I'm not sure what it is inside of me that wants to try and please people quick and fast, but it's definitely a good thing that I've recognized it and am now keeping an eye on it. I do believe that in general quality is more important content, but still, with gaming, fun is number one.

That was a wall of text. I almost made it into a video, and do plan to do a video just talking about my thoughts of where we are and where we're going. In any case, we've had an open discussion on the direction of development for a few weeks now. I'm hoping to further that conversation with this post, and hope to reach a conclusion I can latch onto and not look backwards with, at least for a few months. Please do share you opinion on the different possible paths, and thank you in advance to everyone that fills out the survey!

Kyle Postlewait