Voxel Turf
Voxel Turf 1.0.16
Version Date
Oct. 6, 2017
Patch Notes
Patch Notes: Version 1.0.16
EDIT: Patch is live
EDIT 2: Hotfix is live: Restores the "convert to base" button for already owned vacant lots.
The main major change is that you can't buy land outside of bases. This is because people were buying up all the vacant land on MP servers and scaring away new players. Instead you can just press the "convert to base" button on a vacant lot to make it your base.
Another major QoL change is that rescuing the Bank, Gun Shop and Jewellery store from bandits in missions is no longer a "Crime". You'll get immunity from minor crimes while rescuing them, the immunity region is bigger and last for 5 seconds after completing the objective.
Finally (for 1.0.16), the AI Base Attack strength has been nerfed in Medium and Easy difficulties. In both Med/Easy the strength has been capped at Level 2/Level 1 and the requirements for the AI to launch multiple attacks have been raised.
1.0.15 is finally done. I attempted to decrease VRAM consumption but ATI was like "no memory optimisation for you!". They slapped my Half-Float solution out of my hands then stomped on it. But at least 1.0.15 gives improved handling of the memory it does use. It implements a "GPU" panic mode when it detects low free VRAM which makes it aggressively unload out-of-draw distance terrain. It also implements a dynamic draw distance, so if you wander into a particularly built up area you don't have to put up with a persistant frame rate drop. Finally it also implements a gradual upload of geometry data to prevent bursts of geometry data causing stutter (again this was mainly affecting ATI cards).
1.0.15 also does some network optimisations and gives the server more configurability, though settings/server_prefs_1003.txt
VERSION: 1.0.16 - 06/10/17
- [Exploit] - You may not buy land outside of your base range. This is to stop griefers buying up the entire map in MP. This is a serverside change
- [Misc] - If you lose a base in a war you forced to sell OWNED lots (vacant/hills/roads/etc) in range that aren't in range of other bases. This doesn't include owned buildings. This is to prevent people putting down bases then buying up the map then removing the bases.
- [Feature] - Pressing "t" to open the chat console will show all the previous messages (that fit on the screen).
- [Misc] - Greyed out the "Convert To Base" button when you are at your base limit
- [Misc] - Greyed out the "Buy Lot" button when the lot is out of your base range
- [Misc] - Removed the "Sell Lot" button for bases
- [Misc] - Enforcement costs now quintupples between 10 and 60 bases. Fromula:
– baseCountMulti = clamp((baseCount - 10)/10, 1, 5);
– newEnforcementCost = baseCountMulti * oldEnforcementCost
– Again, this is temporary until I make meaningful money sinks (polution and traffic mechanics + civics). This is mainly to slow down a few players in MP annexing the entire map. Players at this stage are typically still swimming in money anyway
- [Misc] - Mission objectives that give you crime immunity (such as bandit killing missions) now give you crime immunity 16m away from the lot containing the bandit
- [Misc] - Mission objectives that give you crime immunity now give you immunity for 5 seconds after completing the objective
- [Misc] - Mission objectives that give you crime immunity now give you immunity to the "armed robbery" crime if the objective is to rescue that lot
- [Misc] - "Establish a Base" and "Establish a Protection Racket" are no longer Co-Op missions
- [Misc] - The "Establish a Protection Racket" mission in the Tutorial now sets your reputation to 5 if it is less than 5 so you can actually complete it
- [Misc] - The "CDF icons guide" now appears in the main game if you are less than level 2
- [Misc] - AI Base Attacks are capped at Level 2 on Medium difficulty and Level 1 on Easy difficulty
- [Misc] - AI Base factions require 5 bases to launch 2 attacks on Medium difficulty and 6 to launch 2 on Easy. The formula:
– N_SIMULTANEOUS_ATTACKS = floor ( sqrt ( nBases - difficulty ) );
– Where difficulty = 2 on Easy and difficulty = 1 on Medium
- [Misc] - Your relative coordinates in a lot are dislayed in the F3 screen. Useful for modders making lot zones.
- [Bugfix] - You can't buy bandit bases anymore and have them still be bandit bases
- [Bugfix] - Fixed load game screen scrollbar
- [Bugfix] - Fixed tourch/flashlight being turned on/off while typing
- [Bugfix] - Fixed some lot zone player position rounding issues
VERSION: 1.0.15 All
- [Bugfix] - Fixed client CTD when:
– Rapidly switching between special buildings
– Entering an office tower spam area.
– These were both due to the same multithreading race condition
VtClient Memory management & performance:
Note: None of these situations should be encountered in normal gameplay! This is for situations where you drive into an office tower spammed region, or if you're playing on a potato and the game becomes unplayable
- [Misc] - Draw distance reduces in stressful situations
- [Misc] - When the client hits 70% VRAM usage it'll enter a panic mode to save the remaining 30%:
- It'll stop creating LoD chunks
- It'll aggressively unload chunks not in the draw distance
- It'll exit panic mode when below 50%.
- If the client hits 100% VRAM usage it gets a lot more aggressive
- [Misc] - The client will stop building chunk meshes that are significantly out of your draw distance. This is to stop all your VRAM being eaten
- [Misc] - If you're at the "Rendering Chunks" screen and GPU panic mode engages it'll take you right into the game
- [Misc] - Moved geometry upload to after swapbuffers() because ATI likes to wait (and pause!) for vsync to upload geometry, causing microstutter.
- [Misc] - Geometry upload is now done asynchronously for far-away chunks. This reduces microstutter, the tradeoff is that far away buildings may flicker when first loaded.
VtServer:
- [Misc] - When connecting to a server, city downloading progress is displayed (instead of displaying a frozen "Downloading Chunks 0%" which makes players think that the connection is buggered up)
- [Misc] - The server will allocate more bandwidth to players if there are only a couple on the server.
- NewBandwidth = (2/(nPlayersConnected^2) + 1) * OldBandwidth
- The number "2" is a define. Edit settings/serverprefs_1003.txt and set "Bandwidth multiplier"
- If the server detects packet drops with a player this "bonus" is set to zero (NewBandwidth = OldBandwidth)
- This is change is because the default server configuration is a little pessimistic and doesn't scale with player count
- [Misc] - You can specify the spawn/despawn distance for AI cars and civilians in settings/serverprefs_1003.txt
Balance:
- [Misc] - The gunshop now has a customer demand of 600 (down from 1200).
- [Misc] - The (unmodified) income per person for a building is now capped at $400 (this is to prevent LexxyFox's giant steel cubes of infinite wealth)
QoL:
- [Misc] - Slider for mouse sensitivity now goes down further
- [Bugfix] - Fixed AI factions declaring war on allies and war allies
- [Bugfix] - Fixed "nn" appearing in loading screen tips
- [Bugfix] - Fixed AI declaring war on their allies