As you’ve heard from metadept and omni, I’ve been working on a *complete* rewrite of the tile rendering engine.  The old code was a nightmare of huge repeated hard coded blocks of logic, had long standing bugs, was *dog* slow, and was actually 3 systems running in parallel (one for regular materials, one for platforms, and one for neighbor based tiles like pipes).  I’m nearly finished now with a brand new system, replacing the old complicated set of systems with one simple(r) rule based system that is about a 10th the size in terms of lines of code.

Even though the new renderer is running the new tile neighbor rules system for every single tile every single frame, the fullscreen cpu usage of starbound has actually gone *down* by about 30%*.  The next step is to add caching of chunks into the system so that the geometry for each chunk is re-used for future frames if the chunk has not changed (the system was designed from the start with this in mind).  This should further reduce the cpu usage *dramatically*.

This isn’t committed quite yet, as there are some small missing graphical features which would freak the artists out like not color shifting the materials properly and messed up preview tiles.  Once those small issues are fixed, and caching is added, it can be committed to master.  I’m hoping I can finish this up by early tomorrow, and I should have some better performance numbers then.

(*) The 30% figure is partially due to the new tile rendering system and partially due to some other related changes which also improve perf, it’s hard to tease out which is which.

Happy Tuesday, guys! I’ve got some more exciting publishing news– last one for a bit, actually, but it’s exciting stuff!

Halfway is a turn-based strategy RPG taking place a few hundred years into the future. Humanity has branched out and begun to colonise new worlds and until now, they were alone.

In Halfway, you take control of a small team of survivors faced with a violent invasion onboard the colonial vessel Goliath. As their leader, you will guide them through the dark and cramped corridors of the ship in an effort to reclaim control of your ship.

If you have any hope of surviving, you’ll need to fight for your life, face your fears and outsmart the enemy!

Halfway will be released on Steam and Humble Store next Tuesday, 22 July 2014 for Windows, Mac and Linux with modding support in the form of a campaign editor coming out soon after release. The game will cost $12.99/£9.99 with a -10% launch discount. Go check out their new website and participate in discussion over on their new forums. :)

Key Features

• Tactical turn-based battles are at the core of Halfway. Use cover, position, equipment and skills to your advantage in your battles.
• Unique characters: Your team is formed of unique characters you pick up along the way. Each one of them brings their own story, skills and experiences to the journey.
• Find yourself in the middle of an engrossing story-line. Step by step you’ll uncover the mysterious events that took place and what it means for you and all of humanity.
• Mod support coming soon! Map and campaign editor soon to be released.

Halfway was developed by Robotality– an independent game development studio founded at the beginning of 2013 and consisting of two brothers, Simon and Stefan Bachmann. They’ve worked together for the last year and a half to produce a fantastic (and gorgeous!) strategy game. Check out the launch trailer:

More information:

Halfway Website
Robotality Blog
@Robotality on Twitter

Halfway on Steam

Today’s been a typically busy Monday so we didn’t get around to making any flashy GIFs, but here are a few highlights of the day’s development:

• I’ve been fixing bugs with flying monster behavior, working with kyren to make some big improvements to the Lua entity queries, and playing around with skill balance for small monsters
• Kyren is continuing her rework and optimization of the tile rendering system
• OmnipotentEntity is updating and improving the status effect and character status system
• Supernorn added some new, more military-styled human armors
• Armagon added more microdungeons to improve underground variety
• GeorgeV is still working on some major progression-related art that I probably shouldn’t spoil
• …lots of other bits that I’m sure I’m forgetting. Good night, everyone!

EDIT: Didn’t see Omni’s post when I wrote this so there’s some overlap, but better two posts than none I suppose!