This patch pushes the 0.6.4 branch that has been on beta for quite some time now to the default live branch. There are tens of thousands of new and rewritten lines of code making it the most difficult thing that I've honestly ever done. Adding systems one by one in the earlier stages was much easier then going back and rewriting thousands of lines to completely remove a third party tool that I had been using from day one, replacing it with my own custom systems built specifically for Solace Crafting. Is this the end of optimization? Absolutely not. Optimization is generally believed best kept towards the end of the development cycle, but the world generation was taking far too long and getting worse as the amount of content in game grew, prompting me to take on one large chunk of optimization earlier than previously intended. Animations, monsters, the skill and attribute systems, and the interface are still schedule for some heavy rework on the development roadmap, but none of them will be as code intesive as this complete rewrite of world generation was.
So what's new? 1. World generation. World generation is now divided into three stages: chunks, sections, and areas. An area is a 128m square piece of land where actual objects, tree, entities, and buildings are spawned. Previously there were only chunks and sections, or "terrains," which meant that the world loaded in 1024m square sections, which is 64 times the land mass of a 128m square area. Not only that, but the tool that I was relying on to handle the actual generation of objects has some cyclic issues where it was running over the same sets of data many times per iteration during its calculations. On my machine, which is not top of the line by any means, I was loading a world pre-0.6.4 in around 45 seconds, where now I can load a world in roughly 3 seconds. There are of course still a number of improvements and features I plan to add into these systems over time. 2. Compression. Prior to this patch I was using a free compression tool that ultimately proved to have some problems. And by problems I mean, sometimes it just didn't work, causing data corruption and lost progress. It didn't happen to everyone, nor all the time, but still, it was inexcusable, and this patch makes use of an actively supported paid compression system to zip and unzip save files on the fly. 3. Cloud saves. Previously I was writing a file per terrain, per chunk, per map tile, and even per cave section. This resulted in hundreds of tiny files, which Windows, Linux, and Unity are absolutely fine with, but it seems that the Steam Cloud really does not like. The bigger the file count got the longer the cloud syncs were taking, and often locking up Steam entirely while it scanned through the files one by one. Instead, files are now much more self-contained within each "chunk" which is roughly 8km square of game world. This drastically reduces the number of files per world, hopefully to the effect of much faster cloud syncs. Old worlds are in no way able to be upgraded to the new save structure. This is something I try hard to avoid, but in this case the file structures are just so completely different that writing an "update" method would have been very difficult. Because of this I highly recommend you delete any old worlds to stop Steam from trying to cloud sync them. Note that player saves CAN be upgraded. This also means that if you really want to you can create a new player in 0.6.3.29, fill their inventory up with things you want to carry into a new world, then upgrade the player save to 0.6.4. I will leave a public "beta" branch open called "0.6.3.29" for this purpose if anyone wants to do that. Tedious, I know, I'm just going to be starting a new world, but the option is there if anyone really wants to.
What's next? The polishing of minor bugs present in the new 0.6.4 systems is an ongoing process and I very much appreciate bug reports both here on the Steam forums, and on our Discord (link at the bottom of this post). The next steps on the rough roadmap are as follows: Version 0.6 - Fishing - Cooking Version 0.7 - Villages - Villagers - Quests - Town Upgrades / Defense Version 0.8 - Monster Skills - Combat rework - Skill system rework - Jobs and Classes Version 0.9 - Optimizations - Multi-lingual system finalization I'm also always working on a number of things that don't really fit into any specific category on the roadmap, such as new encounters, new recipes, new buildings, and new unlocks. I'm also interested in heavily improving player animations and switching to a root movement system prior to 0.9, though don't have a definite spot on the roadmap for when it will be implemented. I feel compelled to apologize for how long it has taken me to get this patch to where it is. The world and just life in general has been pretty strange these past six months! I hope everyone is being safe, staying healthy, and doing what excites them. Your support and participation in the development of Solace Crafting is extremely appreciated! Condensed patch notes from 0.6.3.29 to 0.6.4.31: v 0.6.4.31 2020.09.09 Major changes: - Complete re-write of world generation, save file management, file compression, and object management - Updated Unity to 2018.4.23 Multiplayer: - Enabled leyline teleporters in multiplayer - Updated floating islands to multiplayer - Updated caves to work in multi-player - Updated farming to work in multiplayer Interface: - Added the ability to bind "modifier" keys: shift/alt/control, to normal controls if held down for 3 seconds - Added a "mouse smoothing" setting to the in-game control settings - Disabled map "unlocking" based on player proximity World Generation: - Floating islands are a bit smaller and easier to navigate now - Widened caves and reduce their maximum depth - Increased the size of small and medium ores Crafting: - Added bonus slots to bags, backpacks, and chests for higher rarities - Increased agressive animal rarity settings General: - Increased breath refill rate - Changed melee attack angle checks to ignore height Bug Fixes: - Fixed resource scanners not loading their range properly - Fixed leyline teleporter upgrades - Fixed the crafting window preview adding crafting skills twice resulting in a stronger looking item than would actually be crafted - Fixed crystal and obsidian golems throwing an animation warning - Fixed crystal and obsidian golem ragdolls - Fixed stone and earth elemental torso textures losing their tint after being killed - Fixed right-clicking to equip a sledgehammer causing a bugged sledgehammer to appear in inventory - Fixed the /stalkRewardMultiplier console command not being recognized - Fixed Dashing Strike and Trap Back not working in multiplayer - Fixed the "Levels per kilometer" setting not being used properly in some methods - Fixed wood roof not lining up properly - Fixed the jump after placing a town building - Fixed cave heat lingering even after leaving heat zone - Fixed temperature zones not applying in multiplayer - Fixed environmental damage not applying in multiplayer - Fixed storage chest and sign color and labels not updating immediately in multiplayer Latest changes from the most recent beta patch: v 0.6.4.31 2020.09.09 - Disabled map "unlocking" based on player proximity 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!