Ahoy, Tinkerlanders!
First of all, I want to give a huge thanks to everybody that took a minute to check out the 'experimental' branch. We've gather so much feedback and bugfixes. So much that we've done close to 100 bug fixes and changes in just a few days!
We've heard your concerns, and we are taking steps into improving all the rough edges Tinkerlands has. So we are very happy to share that the new multiplayer protocol (that has been proven to work better) and the new collision systems are now being pushed to stable. Along with a lot of bugfixes and other cool changes, like the automated crash report tool.
Let's take a quick look into the big ones:
New Multiplayer Protocol
This might sound like jargon to you, but this just means that we are using a different system to handle multiplayer (while still being the same for the player) that is more stable and more friendly with firewalls, VPNs and others. This change will most likely improve your connection stability while playing online, specially in the Asian region.
We will still be monitoring performance and feedback in any case. And talking about feedback...
New Report Tool | Automated Crash Report
We know it's a hassle to share crashes and feedback, even more if you don't use Discord or the Steam forums. That's why we've been working on an automated crash report system. After getting a crash and re-opening the game, you will be asked to send the crash report — and the best thing is that you only have to press 'Send' and all the crash info will be delivered to us. This has been proven an extremely valuable tool in the 'experimental' branch, allowing us to reproduce bugs much more easily, which translates to faster bug fixing on our end.
It's worth mentioning that if you've had a crash that made you lose items, you can send us a message over Discord or the Steam forums and we help you recover the lost items, and maybe tell you a terrible joke (non-negotiable).
New Collision System
Last but not least, the new collision system. We've heard over and over that the game feels cluttered with objects and that navigating the world can be painful. This was mainly due to the player having a grid-based collision system — which makes the player collide in unusual ways depending on the object.
We have now moved to a mask-based collision system for the player, meaning that collisions will be now much more accurate and navigating the world should feel much smoother. The feedback from the 'experimental' branch about this change has been overwhelmingly positive, but we will be hearing feedback from you as well!
Old Collision System (Grid-based) | New Collision System (Mask-based) |
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Patch Notes
Finally, here are the patch notes for this update. This time we haven't included new content as we've been focusing on bug fixing and the new features mentioned above.
NEW
New collision system.
New steam networking protocol.
New automated crash report handler.
Improved ingame report tool.
New chest logic.
CHANGES
text color updated.
text color updated.
Report Tool now includes whether the user uses mods.
Report Tool now properly shares map files when playing online.
Report Tool now updates the player file before sending it.
Items generated by harvesting interactables now have randomized speed and direction vectors.
Increased Ghostlands tombs collision box size.
Torches (and other non-solid interactables) can now be placed at player's position.
Character now gets unstuck instead of breaking interactables when blocked after changing region.
Character now gets unstuck instead of breaking interactables when blocked by after harvest interactables (i.e: trunks).
BALANCE
reduced defense improved from 0% to 25%.
buy price reduced from 5g -> 1g.
sell price reduced from 2.5g -> 50s.
NPCs no longer get an amity hit when evicted (manually or accidentally).
Trichroma Minibosses spawn now has a minimum of 3-minute cooldown after being killed.
BUGFIXES
Hook logic now uses the correct player move logic.
Disabled NPC hover interaction if NPC is in a different region.
Shadow Spell casted from enemies should no longer be visible in different regions.
Wolf Mount now disabled the tundra debuff icon.
Updated objFXSpark to use custom variables to avoid crashing.
Chests are now properly locked when opened and cannot be used to craft.
flag is now properly reset after placing an item in a chest.
Fixed banshee cutscene not using all candles.
Fixed phoenix not doing their rotation move.
Fixed Death Mask loc in languages other than english.
Fixed crash when trying to access non-existing enchant data from an item.
Fixed light position not being properly adjusted for zoom values different than 100%.
Fixed containers not being properly destroyed.
Fixed VBuffer grids tying to be accessed out of bounds.
Fixed out of bound grid accesses while generating a world.
Fixed non-solid collisions with new movement (i.e: spikes).
Fixed ship's mast collision box.
Fixed ship's navigation wheel collision box.
Fixed ship's boundaries collision box.
Fixed ice collision box.
Fixed box storage interactable collision mask.
Fixed a memory leak related to the old lighting system.
Fixed player unstuck logic.
MULTIPLAYER IMPROVEMENTS
Clients no longer can open multiple chests at the same time.
Shadow Spell should no longer be visible in different regions.
Clients can now properly summon bosses with the transmutation cube.
Summons NetIDs are no longer mixed in multiplayer.
Pets NetIDs are no longer mixed in multiplayer.
Automated-crash reports now include all players positions.
Fixed ingame report tool crash when reporting from ingame in multiplayer.
Fixed a crash when bombing outside the world size.
Fixed buffer overflows when mining interactables.
Fixed buffer overflows when building interactables.
Fixed spectre knife crash if client disconnects while it exists.
Fixed random crash when interacting with puzzle mirror.
Fixed random crash when interacting with puzzle mirror shooter.
Fixed random crash when interacting with chests.
Fixed chests getting stuck If host interacted with an already opened chest.
Fixed a crash with chests that were opened by a player while the game saved.
Fixed dynamite trap crashing in multiplayer.
These changes should reduce crashes and make online sessions more reliable overall. Thank you again for helping us hunt down the weird stuff and please, keep the reports coming! With the improved in-game report tool and automated crash reports, we can now reproduce and fix multiplayer issues much faster.
Yours,
The Tinkerlands Team