4:20pm EST - With a new month and forced wipe just around the corner, the team has some awesome stuff in store. Before we get into that, I’d like to touch on a thorn in our side...

Server performance

For the past several weeks, server performance has become more and more of an issue. Things run great the first night of a wipe, however, once entity counts rise into the six figures, we’re seeing severe drops in server side FPS. This results in delayed actions for players, lag, and outright crashes.

The larger the player count, the more affected the server. This is not an issue of hosting resources, we are simply pushing the limits of the game/engine, and with that, there is some pushback. We’ve been working with the developers to get them save files and data dumps so they can profile the issue(s) and put some optimizations in place. This is an ongoing process and it may take some time until performance is boosted again.

In the meantime, if performance on any of our servers takes a dump, unscheduled wipes may occur. As always, I’ll keep you up to date on how this progresses. Now, onto the fun stuff...

Mo’ snow!

With spring near, Andre is upping the cold by increasing the area of arctic and reducing the tundra. No examples on this yet, as it is wrapped up in the save142 branch, however, that should be merged in shortly.

Holster display

Adding on the sash functionality from last week, Helk is working on getting weapon models to display on players backs. I think it’s a huge deal to be able to see what people have on their person, and I’m really excited to see it in game. This, too, is on a separate branch still. Expect more details and pictures on our Thursday update summary post.

Wind flutter

Expect a bit more movement from bushes and the like this week as wind flutter has been added to foliage. This is part of a new foliage system arriving with the map changes this week, which hopefully provides some client optimizations and maybe a bit of new eye candy. More on this in our Thursday update post (once it’s all merged in).

Bone frag world model

Continuing work on adding world models for dropped items, Alex has added bone fragments. It also looks like wolf skulls are not far behind, but they are not quite in yet.

Other stuff

• Fix for vending machines being destroyed when walls nearby are upgraded
• Increased nobuild zone around trainyard