Dev-Com
Greetings members of the Accord!
In our last dev-log, we mentioned that we are moving the entire project from Unreal Engine 4.27 to Unreal Engine 5.3. We are happy to announce that it was a full success, not only we were able to improve performance, but we also used this opportunity to implement all the fixes, changes and improvements we wanted to add but weren’t able to because of the fear of damaging the save files.
As we mentioned in the last dev-log all saves before this update will be unusable, as the entire game engine has changed how items, buildings, and even entire levels are ID’d in the game, completely breaking all saves. Our hope is that we have made enough improvements to the save system to make sure players won’t lose any progress in the future.
We managed to implement over 260+ improvements to the background code of nearly every possible feature in the game, from dialog system through mission system all the way up to the base building and NPC.
Some players are worried that Penkura will stop working properly on older systems or their performance would drop significantly after the Unreal Engine 5.3 transfer. We worked over 2 months straight to make sure we bring same or better performance to our community. This included a lot more work than we originally planned but we are happy to report that performance is even better than it was on the Engine 4.27.
Penkura is tested on 2 computers:
The first machine is 12 years old computer that contains GPU GTX 660 and i7-2600 CPU 3.40Ghz.
The second machine is a bit newer, a 6-year-old computer that contains GTX 1080 and Intel Core i7-6700K 4.00 GHz.
Penkura on Unreal Engine 5 works without any problems on both machines.
We will provide more details on each test we took in our upcoming dev-log and provide information on the main problem we encountered while converting Penkura to a newer engine for those that are interested.
We also receive questions about DLSS and its use in Penkura.
For the moment Penkura is not using DLSS system. We do plan to add DLSS to Penkura but first we want to make sure we are providing the best possible performance with old fashion game optimization. The moment we feel that it’s the best we can provide at the current stage of development, and/or improving would take months of work for a minor 1% -/+ gain, we will start to work on the implementation of DLSS to Penkura, which of course will be optional.
Now, let’s talk about the changes we made to the game.
As of this patch, we added fatigue system to the game. The Fatigue system will allow players to sleep based on fatigue level, rather than restricting sleep between 21:00 (9 PM) and 06:00 (6 AM). Lack of sleep will of course end with negative buffs to the player, at the first stage it will trigger the “tired” state, which will slightly slow down player movement. If the player won’t lower his fatigue (by energy drinks, or medicine) it will change to the “exhausted” state, which will lower the movement speed even more, and it will weaken the player limiting his carry capacity.
We are also adding a new monster to the game. The strongest in the Metos family, the Royal Guard. The biggest and strongest Metos which spawn specifically at brood area and near the Metos Queen (which we will be added at a later date). We strongly advise not to challenge these rare creatures.
We are also implementing a new type of handheld items called throwables. For the moment these will be flares which will provide a nice source of light in dark areas of the game. In the near future, we plan to also add distraction gadgets and of course explosives.
With the handheld addition to the game, we are now allowing you to throw any item that can be picked up using the middle mouse button. To add even more to the system, we will be changing the behavior of some items when damaged to allow synergy with both systems. For example, from now on Battery-ST1 when shot will spend its entire energy in a violent burst that will damage anything in a close proximity.
With the project moving to Unreal Engine 5 we also used this opportunity to convert animations scripts to use Multi-Threaded calculations to smooth switching between different animation types, drastically improving their blending. Thanks to the multi-threading we are able to move some of the heavy math from the main thread to another layer which will not only improve performance but also lower the amount of frame spikes players may encounter.
Speaking of frame spikes, thanks to the massive amount of code improvement or how we call it lowering the “development debt” we eliminated nearly all the frame spikes, frame drops, and frame lose. We are very happy and proud of this work. This is something we wanted to do for a long time and finally had an opportunity to do so.
We wanted to add even more content with this patch but with the amount of changes made to the code, this required us to slow down for at least 2 weeks and make sure that everything works properly.
Unfortunately, all the code is done by a single person and the entire game is also tested by the same person. That means that there are certain things that were missed, that require fixing. We will keep an eye on any report made by the players, and we will once again test out all the systems from the ground up. In the upcoming dev-log we will, as mentioned , above provide much more detailed information on tests made on Unreal Engine 5, changes made to the game and our plans for the very near future.
As always, for more information regarding the latest technical support, patches, and updates please join our Discord Community. LINK ----> https://discord.gg/2ukYHQm
Till the next Dev-Com over and out. Penkura Main Branch Adjustment -------------------------
⊞ Bugs | Errors Fixes ⊞
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◈ Metos spawner didn't properly check the maximum amount of possible Metoses in a close proximity, ending in the creation of more Metos than allowed.
◈ Ore Refinery sometimes didn't properly display its content on the main screen.
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⊞ Improvements | changes | additions ⊞
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◈ Moved entire project from Unreal Engine 4.27.2 to Unreal Engine 5.3.
◈ Added new item:
- (Damaged) Battery-ST1
- Med-Adhesive
- Standard Flare
- Emergency Flare
- Signal Flare
- Laser Scalpel
- Small Medical Plate
- Large Medical Plate
- Bio Sample Container
- Basic Medical Kit
◈ Added a new monster to the game Metos Royal Guard.
◈ Added Fatigue system to the game
◈ Fatigue is now visible on the Bio-Ring
◈ Sleep is now dependent on the fatigue of the player. (The player can go to sleep at a minimum of 50% fatigue)
◈ Added new positive effect to the game:
- Well Rested.
◈ Added 2 negative effects to the game:
- Tired
- Exhausted
◈ Added new UI elements to RTS mode.
- The player is now able to see buildings that are being constructed, halted, or require dematerialization.
◈ Added 13 new sound effects for items.
◈ Added new animations to Metos Warrior.
◈ Battery-ST1 can now be damaged, and on destruction, it will violently discharge its energy.
◈ Added 21 new player animations to improve blending (making player animation movement less stiff).
◈ Added shake effect when using Portable Geological Extractor.
◈ Added new dialog lines for Sara.
◈ Recreated half of the Temple Base.
◈ Improved spawn code of all items in the game. (removing minor hitches when items are being spawned).
◈ Player is now able to throw any item that can be held using the middle mouse button.
◈ Distance of thrown item is determined by player speed + item weight + item amount.
◈ Portable Geological Extractor can now damage living things if used at a range of 3 meters.
◈ Improved Portable Geological Extractor user interface.
- PGE now showcases a rough estimate of cluster content.
- Improve interface visibility
◈ Completely recoded building spawn system, removing all collision errors, invisible assets triggers, or not properly loading all the assets within the building.
◈ Improved building hatches spawn and connection checks. (removing minor hitches when buildings are being spawned and moved to the correct position).
◈ Improved save time by roughly 30%.
◈ Improved UI indication and sound effects when discovering new locations.
◈ Optimized save files, lowering their size by 15%.
◈ Added water to the game, and water interaction (for the moment only sound).
◈ Added 4 new sound effects related to interaction with water.
◈ Improved Depth Fog render quality, very bright objects will now be properly saturated by fog.
◈ Improved Dialog UI to make it a bit more readable.
◈ Updated Save/Load system UI with new built-in debug messages.
◈ Improved Save/Load Level transition UI.
◈ Added Lens Flares to the game.
◈ Added option to disable Lens Flares in the Game Options.
◈ Ore Extractor will now consume 6 energy lowered from 8 in normal extraction mode, and 15 in Extensive extraction from 23.
◈ Improved ID check of all buildings in the game, and their components, improving load time.
◈ Bio-Recycler will now provide around 65% of bio-chemicals from organic matter rather than 50%.
◈ Some items can from now on have a fraction value (for example 0.01 Bio-Chemical rather than fix 1).
◈ Improved post-processing effects (improved sharpness, coloring, color blending) / (minor performance boost).
◈ Improved foliage spawn system.
- Spawns flowers, and mushrooms much smoother, and further away from the player.
- Removed background calculations for object respawn. (minor performance gain).
◈ Increased Metos Drone spawn rate by 70%.
◈ Lower the Spawn health range of Metos Drones from 6-15 to 5-10.
◈ Muscle density DNA will now improve player melee damage.
◈ Improve melee combat, (the collision trigger of the actual hit is now equal to the size of the weapon/fist).
◈ Item weight (IP cost) balance changes:
- Solid Construction Component from 8 to 6.
- Crystalized Construction Component from 8 to 10.
- Xavoc Crystal from 1 to 0.8.
- Refined Polan Crystal from 2.5 to 2.
- Vivi from 9 to 7.
- Expired Vivi from 9 to 7.
◈ Construction cost changes:
/// Crystalized Construction Component
- Refined Polan Crystal from 5 to 4
- Refined Xavoc Crystal from 5 to 4
- Noble Metal Bar from 8 to 6
/// TRX Ammo
- 1 Solid Construction Component changed to 2 Heavy Metal Bars
- Noble Metal Bar from 2 to 1
- Bio-chemical Ercore from 5 to 10
◈ Change the name of items:
- Metal Bar to Normite Bar
- Metal Ore to Normite Ore
- Noble Metal bar to Aristolite Bar
- Noble Metal Ore to Aristolite Ore
- Heavy Metal Bar to Therium Bar
- Heavy Metal Ore to Therium Ore
