Some of you told us about occasional disconnects or crashes in multiplayer matches. We couldn't reproduce them ourselves, but we took a good look at the network code in general. As we know, there is quite a bit of tidying up to do. Please also refer to our Welcome to Tank Wars: Anniversary Edition thread for this, particularly the section regarding online play. Hoping to have already achieved some improvement, we have tackled the following:
Network improvements
- Searching for servers in Internet mode is more reliable now, and established connections are more stable.
- Far less network traffic in hectic moments: the game now bundles its updates, and the terrain sync at the start of each turn shrank to a tiny fraction of its former size. So go ahead and fire those Dirt Blasts, the line won't clog up anymore.
- Host and clients check whether they are running the same version of the game, and they now tell you if they aren't. So please make sure that everyone updates.
Bug fixes
- Searching for servers in Internet mode a second time could crash the game. Not anymore.
- If host and players got out of sync during a match, the game could crash or, in rare cases, freeze. It now recovers instead.
In addition, we have added a few checks for preconditions and postconditions, including corresponding log output. Should further issues arise, this might help pinpoint them more precisely. So, if you still run into any trouble, please let us know, ideally along with your log file. Have fun!