'Normal' Update
As I move out of the hectic bug fixing and problem solving of last week, we come to the first 'normal' update.
A lot of the things in this update have been user suggested and help patch some of the current holes in gameplay. One of the big hassles while playing the game was spawning. Previously spawns were not bound to ships so people would find themselves tumbling to their death while respawning without any way back! Luckly, the new spawn system should fix this. You can now bind spawns to ships. If they are moved, moving or unloaded. You will still be able to spawn right on it with the spawn stone you were bound to previously. On top of this, if you destroy a spawn stone your spawn will now be correctly reset to the spawn platform in the middle of the map.
Fixed Maps
The next big change is how maps are generated. They are now fixed size and pregenerated at server startup for the first time. What this means is that servers will run much faster after the initial generation. This helps greatly in reducing the CPU load from generating land mass and also helps define rarity to goods. It also means in the future there can be a lot more complex and cool things that can be done with the map generation, since it has a wider view of its features than on a per case instance, which previously was the case. You can set sizes on server startup with a empty world file. The official server has been running a map size of 8k for the last week and is more than big enough. This took about 10 minutes to generate and is a good reference for those who want to run a server to go off. The unfortunate side to all this is that you will need to delete your previous map from the GameData/World folder of your server if you want to generate a new map. However you do not need to delete players, ships or items. If you choose to keep your current one you will find that it will no longer generate out further.
Skins
You can also add your owns skins for your character over at: Skynations.net
This one of the major things people were asking for during the first few days after release and it is now available. Just login, download the default for a template and get painting! Then upload it so you can flaunt your mad pirate style at others.
On Saturday 22th of June at 10pm GMT we will be running a team deathmatch on "Official Server" called battle royale. Which should be a lot of fun. Everyone is welcome and you can get more information here.
Finally the Change log
There has also been a bunch of balancing tweaks and bug fixes. You can check out the changelog below.
Client Changelog 0.114
Features/Gameplay
- Added updater to client. When client tells you its out of date simply click Update at the top of the login screen.
- Added forum link to login.
- Added player skins. Login and upload yours at: Skynations.net
- Esc now closes the inventory as well as ‘i’(default).
- Dropped items of the same type now magnetise together and combine stacks. Their collision has also been optimised.
- Your spawn can now be bound to ships and will move with them. If you destroy a spawn stone you’re binding to that area or ship will be lost.
- Reduced amount of particles in explosions.
Balance
- Nerfed repair tools by 50%.
- 1 Unrefined iron now makes 2 iron.
- Mass generators now cost 4 iron instead of 8.
- Steering block now uses copper in place of iron.
- Iron Cannons now cost 2 iron instead of 4.
- Storage crates cost 6 planks instead of 12.
- Item Kits now cost 2 copper instead of 6.
- Logs now make 3 planks.
- Players now temporarily start with spawn blocks.
- Halved plank blocks health.
- Ships rotation speed has temporarily been largely increased.
- Ships vertical speed has temporarily been largely increased
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Bug Fixes
- Fixed UI sometimes being responsive when the game window is in background.
- Ensured Item sculpter is not accepting keyboard input during normal play.
- Fixed lighting remaining after breaking lanterns on chunk boundaries.
- Fixed missing surfaces when removing blocks on chunk boundaries.
- Fixed exploit where you could dupe items in inventory.
- Fixed exploit duping items in chests.
- Fixed sliding issue, hopefully.
Server Changelog 0.117
Features/Changes
- Made teleport messages private.
- Added command /ts shipid which teleports you to a ship of given id.
- Added command /bs shipid which brings a ship to you of given id.
- Added /protect to prevent the chunk you are standing on from being damaged.
- Added /unprotect to revert the chunk to being normal.
- Rewrote entire island generation system and refactored the code. Worlds are now generated at a fixed size on first start up. This gives a massive performance boost as areas do not need to be generated on reaching them.
- The world can be generated at any size you like. But the larger, the longer it will take to generate initially.
- Chunk files are now a lot smaller. For comparison previously a world of 8k squared would be around 1.8gb, it is now 80mb.
- Default time compression is now x10 faster. Day and night cycles will last 24 minutes by default.
- Time compression is now settable in Server Settings.xml with the tag 10
Bug Fixes
- Fixed spelling mistake with teleports.
- Fixed kick, ban, unban, tp, bring and admin commands not working with spaced names.
- Fixed the ‘jumping’ or black hole bug where you would get stuck in invisible spots jumping.
- Fixed stacks being deleted when placing items over current fuel items in mass generator.
- Fixed a bug in which repair tools sometimes did not repair proper amount.
