StarMade 0.0831: Multiplayer Stability & Performance (Video) news

Hello and welcome to StarMade,

Multiplayer Tests

The recent growth has made it possible to test StarMade (especially multiplayer) on a larger scale. We purposely tested with worst case conditions: The server was run on a normal Mac, which also ran a client, and had a slower Internet connection. People had pings of around 200 ms, which revealed a lot of bugs and bottlenecks in performance and scalability in multiplayer.

We worked hard the last days to get the server as stable as possible. StarMade multiplayer is full multiplayer, so you can do everything you can in singleplayer.

We had tons of fun swarming out to new worlds, claiming planets our own and defending it against 'intruders'.

I managed to significantly improve performance of both server and clients by rewriting functionality which didn't scale into new systems, that allows much more scale, as well as provide a lot more performance.

List of Bug Fixes & Performance Upgrades

• fixed bug that would crash the game when controllable blocks where placed overlapped in advanced build mode
• fixed bug that caused blocks not being auto-connected in advanced build mode
• fixed mix up of docking module with building module
• clients no longer compensate for lag on objects in other sectors
• requested segments from other sectors are no longer re-requested on timeout
• fixed little performance hole in the camera system
• fixed multiplayer leak, that causes an overflow of requested segments
• fixed possible deadlock in high-ping multiplayer
• fixed possible crash when connecting radar jammer
• balanced loading of connections in loaded ships to eliminate lag
• balanced buffered connection transfer module to eliminate lag
• HUD indications in free mode now show manned ships
• fixed ship AI to attack in sectors when spawned from wave
• fixed navigation panel list
• fixed glitching camera when zoomed out
• fixed lags caused by excessive log output
• fixed lags when spawning new ships caused by checking for position to spawn
• fixed crash entering build module on planets
• increased editing distance
• fixed memory leak by particle collision controllers (made them scalable)
• fixed memory leak by particle draw controllers (reusable data)
• removed big chunk of thread overhead
• build module now available for planets
• fixed fast sector travel admin command

What comes next

I'm sorry, that the economy update has been delayed, but optimizing and bug fixing will always get prioritize over new features. In my opinion, features aren't fun in an unstable or slow game. Since the server is relatively stable now, I will do my best to get the economy, as well as lots of other new features on the way as fast as possible.

Thanks for playing StarMade,
- schema