<Known Issue: The build of PAMELA was created with a custom version of Unity, meaning that on certain computers Windows SmartScreen flags the application as "Unknown". This is completely safe to disregard - once the fix is ported to a production version of Unity this will no longer be an issue.>

The day has finally come - the Unity bug blocking level streaming has been resolved! We recieved a surprise custom build of the engine on tuesday, at which point we immediately dropped everything else we were doing to jump on it and verify the fix.

Level Streaming - How it Currently Works

After a lot of testing and investigation these last 2 days, we feel confident that it's stable and ready for you all to jump in! One clarification on how the system works: during loading, it still counts up through "Loading Area: Arcadia, Origin Station, etc." as the bar fills up. This is because some base geometry is still loaded for all areas; we're planning on setting these up to be streamed as well, which should now be possible in the latest version of Unity and will further improve loading. All that being said, ALL of the props and dynamic objects in the game are now streaming, so you should no longer see a massive freeze at the end of loading like you did before!

Feedback, and Next Steps

We haven't done a ton of benchmarking before/after integrating streaming, since we've been focusing mainly of getting this ready for you guys, so it would be awesome to hear your experience in terms of load time improvements, performance, crashing, etc.! All of our testing in prototype scenes pointed to some significant improvements so we're hoping that translates to you all having a much smoother experience from now on.

As noted above, we have one last level streaming optimization that we'll be looking at in the near future which was previously impossible due to the Unity issue. This would even further reduce loading time and improve performance, at which point we'll be moving fully onto some huge new content and story updates. We're planning on having a proper roadmap ready to share in the next few weeks from now, so stay tuned for that!

Physics Optimizations

Aside from level streaming, we recently identified some physics optimizations in our Player hierarchy and certain props, which reduces a solid chunk of our physics overhead. This optimization is also included in today's update.

Power System Tweaks

Last but not least, we squeezed in some Power System tweaks. Find the full details below - the main goal is to make the system more rewarding, providing better benefits if you make the effot to fully repair a District!

Let us know how this update works for you in the comments. Thank you again for the patience all these months while we've been waiting on this fix - we're beyond thrilled it's finally been resolved so you can all dive in!

Features

• Level Streaming of Props and Dynamic Objects - Hundreds of thousands of objects are no longer being loaded up from, and are instead loaded in/out as needed during gameplay. This means faster loading times, improved performance, and for some of you, we are hoping it should reduce crashing.

Balance/Improvements

• Physics Hierarchy Optimization - For those of you familiar with Unity lingo, we've cleaned up a lot of unnecesary rigidbodies on player objects, as well as certain props throughout the world. We also did a pass on simplifying collision meshes for various props. Together, these fixes should reduce overall physics cost by a significant margin.
• Reduced Bleeding effect duration and damage by 50%
• District Power Tweaks
• Full Power is no longer available unless 1 Cyanotube has been repaired
• Repaired Cyanotubes now decrease District power consumption by up to 100% if all are repaired in an District
• Full Power now reverts to Emergency Mode if District energy falls below 10% while power is active
• Improved respawn logic for Cyanotubes and Battery Backups
• Power Stations now show Cyanotubes repaired in their corresponding district
• Fixed some naming issues on Power Stations and Power Switches

Fixes

• Added a missing collider to some walls in Arcadia