This week, while working on the server browser, our programmer noticed something inefficient that could be dramatically optimized. The server caculated a timestamp for every colonist for every frame. The server runs on 50FPS, so with 500 colonists that means 25,000 timestamps every second, and that number quickly increases as you get more colonists.
The issue has now been fixed. The server now calculates a timestamp only once at the start of the frame, regardless of how many colonists you have. The fix should be especially useful for multiplayer servers with lots of players and colonists, and hardware that's bottlenecked by the processor. But it should help in singleplayer as well: even in SP, there's a server running in the background.
The patch will be included in 0.6.1, the update that also contains the new server browser!
Something that has been less optimized in the past week is us. We both got hit by something flu-like. Simultaneously, the Netherlands faces a sudden and record breaking heatwave. Two weeks ago, we were still wearing multiple layers of clothing under our winter coats, and now it's 27 degrees Celcius / 80+ degrees Fahrenheit. That's pretty hot for us northerners. It's currently cooler in Greece!
To compensate for the short Friday Blog, here are some cheats that can help you have some fun during the weekend. In the chatbox (T), type:
/cheats on
/setflight true - Press F to fly, press F again to stop flying. Press Q to go straight up and Z to go straight down. Shift to fly faster.
/loot [itemname] [#] - For example, /loot planks 100 to get 100 planks. When you use /loot water, please don't blame us after flooding your own world ;)
/lootall [#] - Receive the specified amount of all blocks in your stockpile.
/time add [#] - Skip # hours. For example, /time add 12.
/debug research1 - Instantly unlock whatever you are currently researching
/debug researchall - Instantly unlock all science
/teleport [x] [y] [z] - Teleport to the specified coordinates. Press F5 to check your coordinates. For example, /teleport 0 50 0 will teleport you to the jungle.
Bedankt voor het lezen en veel plezier!