Release Video

[previewyoutube=arugEJB9k1k;full][/previewyoutube]

Graphic Performance Improvements

The change of the rendering and added realtime lighting had impact on the performance. The minimal ship already hit a very high amount of verticies, so it was needed to improve that. I added LOD support to the system, so when zoom out, so the model swaps to a less vertecies version. I created for most of the expensive models some LOD versions and added them and could push the vertex count for the starting scene >50% down. It should have a big impact on big ships, due to the content of the container took a lot of verticies.

More Interior and rooms

The Air Buildings and the Generator has been converted to the new interior system, so they can be placed as the other buildings. In addition, the style of the starting satelite has been adapted to fit to the buildings.

Tutorial and Achievements

The tutorial has been updated to cover the customized buildings. Its now requesting to build one lifesupport backup building instead of the 4 specialized air modules. To fix some issues with the starting generator being damaged, its now the dock, that is damaged. It has no relevant implications, so its an easier target for the start for being repaired.

Other new Models

The new Resourcebox. No wood anymore, but steel and also added a small light, to be maybe used later for the fillstate.

Resource Merging

Due to its now possible to have partial resources for the construction, there was also a way needed to merge them together again. For now, i added a merging mechanism that starts, when a storage is full. Its than merging all resourceboxes with the same resource as much as possible together. Later i plan to add this as a storage option like the "Throw out when full" Option and add a manual "Merge" button.

Building Templates

Due to more and more buildings are converted to the new templating system using the interior, the template choise is moved to the Buildmenu. This makes it searchable and easy choosable. Its shown as a kind of tree-structure and showing all details of the building while hover over it.

Internal improvements

Most of the UI Logic has changed by using now Prototype Entities instead of GameObjects. Due to this the GameObjects are not lying around, so no performance impact anymore from them. With that, the game initialisation process could be changed to be more clean and easy. The other setup has been also simplified by more generic systems. All of that is also needed for a mod support later. The new change had some performance impact to the tests so it took ~15min to run all of them. To fix that a cache has been added pushing the usual 1.2s initialisation time down to 200ms by reusing the first init data, so they run now in 5min.

Other smaller changes

• Improved Detection if the Cursor is over a menu element
• English locale improvement (Thanks to BurritoBotV3000)
• Removed Big Dock due to exceptions (Thanks for report to BurritoBotV3000)
• Fixed problem with SaveLoad properties could lead to illegal states (Thanks for report to BurritoBotV3000)
• Changed logic for autoselecting interior to work also for machine room
• Fixed new bug dismantle when buildings with customers (Thanks for report to BurritoBotV3000)
• Fixed problems where moving persons on very high speed are the wrong position.
• Improved internal Animation calculation for more performance.
• Removed GridStructure from some buildings to look nicer (Thanks to Melodie)
• Fixed shadows are wrong on highhest zoom levels
• Prevent some rounding errors to stable the simulation.
• Handle Exceptions while loading a broken savegame
• Autosave in general checks for thrown exceptions (Thanks to Ichao)
• Fixed Shadows are wrong in loaded games
• Fixed wrong shown values
• Added Resource users to resourceBoxes popup (same as for other containers like electricity or air)
• Fixed extrem vertex count for Icon-Meshes
• Fixed Person Pathfinding not working in a special case
• Fixed shortcut for directly start planning a building using enter in searchField
• Added a hint to the building rotation in the totorial (Thanks to "Gideon_Medic")
• Photovoltaic Panel visual fixes
• ProblemText now better eadable

[ 2022-01-21 12:37:32 CET ] [ Original post ]