Issues with the Base System

We have been experiencing various issues with our base system ever since i re-coded it back in late 2018. We had serious performance issues before the re-code because a lot of our base parts used to have a component called „BoltEntity“ on them.
The BoltEntity is part of the Bolt Networking Engine and is responisble for synchronizing data among the server and clients. More BoltEntites on the map meant less frames so we reduced the amount of BolEntites by creating a sub-system that handles data on a micro level and reduced the need for BoltEntites by 1000%.

This sub-system has been a trouble maker ever since. We had invisible baseparts, visible base parts but without colliders, doors that could not be opened, crafting stations that put items into other people‘s bases, bases that switched owners mid-game, base parts that could not be removed and many other bugs.
All of these issues are finally fixed and we are now at a point where the base system is as solid as a rock or as one of our staging testers put it: „in all these years i have never seen it so stable“.
I know putting this quote in here is like patting myself on the back but i am very excited that my system is finally running smothly after putting so many hours of my life into it.

Mechs

We simplified the old mech health system where every part of the mech had it‘s own health by assigning each mech with just one health property. Now each mech has one health bar and armor slots. The armor plates absorb all damage until they break and then the mech itself takes damage.
The old system was prone to bugs and was flawed in it‘s design so a new system was long overdue.

The player is walking a lot in the initial stage of the game. He is walking from one ore to another or from one creature to another.
We added the Hover Bike in order to reduce this dead time between actions, which is a cheap and fast way to traverse the map.

We also introduced a system that limits the amount of vehicles a player can place. The server can only handle a limited amount of vehicles. This helps massivley with the performance of the game.

Mobs

The Alpha-Nest-Creature is now back in game. Every creature nest is guarded by one of these creatures. They have a range attack in form of spitting acid and a melee attack.
This makes the creature nest removal much more challenging.

Diagnosis

I wrote an extensive diagnosis tool while trying to debug some of the above mentioned base sytem related bugs. This tool helps us a lot in finding bufs as it can diagnose all base parts, mechs, mech weapons and the ore system. The desperation to fix our base system lead me to write this tool but honestly i should have written something like this earlier. It helps alot when tesing the game.

Next up

The highest priority at the moment lies in bug fixing so i will spend most of my time debugging and fixing bugs which our loveley testers are finding daily. I will also finalize the android system in the upcoming weeks so look out for that and we have some interesting game changes in mind that will improve the overall experience.

- Julian