How is performance now vs. ~December?
jpinard
Join Date: 2016-09-17 Member: 222373Members
Join Date: 2016-09-17 Member: 222373Members
I know performance is going to be addressed in fall just before official release, but I was wondering for the veterans here how you think performance stands with the Silent Running update vs. where we were in December when just using your Sea Moth for extended periods of time would degrade performance, every base module past medium size would hurt it, along with power tracking, new zones in the exo-suit etc. I can't seem to find if the removal of terraforming was completed and if this made a nice big impact on mid/late game performance?
Some of you may recognize me from late last year as I was a frequent poster and concerned individual with the collapsing fps, so I took time off from the game to let it mature, and then my illness for super bad which makes it hard to even play a game nowadays. That's why I wanted to know if it was a lot more playable before trying to invest a lot of time and strength into making this work for me. Thanks for bearing with a way-too-lengthy post to ask a simple thing.
Some of you may recognize me from late last year as I was a frequent poster and concerned individual with the collapsing fps, so I took time off from the game to let it mature, and then my illness for super bad which makes it hard to even play a game nowadays. That's why I wanted to know if it was a lot more playable before trying to invest a lot of time and strength into making this work for me. Thanks for bearing with a way-too-lengthy post to ask a simple thing.
Comments
The exosuit - for me at least - is a performance killer and often suffers from extreme lag (Especially when turning).
The Seamoth I think is slightly better than before, but that may just be me - and as long as you don't build the Storage Compartment on it.
I've built some rather large bases recently, didn't notice any hits there.
This is on a thrity-seven hour save file, but everyone's experience is going to vary. I'd say it's "somewhat better, but far from perfect". I haven't had any crashes yet though so that's a plus?
What is this issue with the Seamoth and storage compartment you mention? Also the terraforming spawn thing. Is that in creative mode? If I stay in normal story mode and don't do that, would it keep performance better you think?
Thanks for answering and helping. Really appreciate it
From what I've heard, there's been a bug with the Storage module you can make. So having it there and sticking stuff in it would end up lagging the game out over time and the more you use the thing. That's what Jack said in one of his videos, and I've noticed it as well in the past. I don't know if it's still an issue though, since I've mostly been running with the Cyclops in this file after relocating my base to the Blood Kelp Islands.
That's a misconception people commonly make I'm afraid. It's not the Terraformer item itself, it's not whether or not you use it or how much you use it... It's the fact the coding in the game is still there. That's why Digging Sand is no longer a thing - the very mechanic itself existing in any form is what they're trying to remove. How much of an impact cutting it will have though, we'll just have to wait and see.
Wonder why they still keep terraforming in the game. Oh well better enjoy it while we still have it
I can't say too much about that since I don't know anything about how they've coded the game, but I can say that - in general - removing large features like this typically isn't a "Select line of code, hit Delete" sort of operation to remove it. Something as far reaching as the Terrain Deformation mechanic likely would stretch across a large part of the game and how things load or are unloaded and might even affect AI pathfinding and decision making logic. I mean the Leviathans can already clip through terrain because they load in at a distance where collision detection on the terrain hasn't yet loaded in.
So removing this mechanic would require scouring over a lot of different parts of the game, not only to make sure that rewriting one part of it won't royally shaft another part of it, but to make sure that there's no residual minor things left over (like a PDA entry talking about it, or a blueprint remaining, etc).
I haven't tinkered with Unity or game coding in a while, so take what I say with a grain of salt - but I'm pretty sure that them removing Terraforming Mechanics entirely isn't something they can do overnight. At least not safely and without introducing its own bucket of troubles.
Well it's not the Terraformer itself they're too worried about. In fact they seemed to want to salvage the model for something else, and have been thinking about what it could be used for (Maybe planting flora into the terrain outside of planter boxes? A very old version of subnautica suggested that "might be a thing someday" so it could be an idea!) but what they're really trying to get rid of is the Terrain Deformation mechanic itself.
Some versions back you could Dig Sand, which was a form of Terraforming you could do with no tools at all, but only in - as you can guess - sandy terrain. You could dig out big swaths of the Safe Shallows and Dunes that way, given enough time. No Terraformer needed. Crash Fish deform the terrain when they explode, and the Rock Puncher was going to be built around terrain deformation in mind.
When they made the decision to remove Terrain Deformation - not just the terraformer, but the entire mechanic of terrain deformation - they put the Rock Puncher on the chopping block because the mechanic it was going to revolve around was being removed. Today we can't Dig Sand anymore, and the base compartments have longer supports now because they're paving the way to remove Terrain Deformation entirely, not just the Terraformer item.
looking at their progress: stability, polishing, optimization is an ongoing deal, as well as adding other tidbits (https://trello.com/b/yxoJrFgP/subnautica-development). seem to be interested in adding moving parts chuck it in see what happens and squash any bugs on the way. til the build becomes stable
Those were the days
About the creative removing, that was for shuttlebug.
My pixel art uses terrain modification. They can just remove the code inside the method that terraforming uses.
So if everything is prepared like the base compartments, if they just remove the code to stop terraforming, nothing bad should happen right?