February 23 Packet Optimization - Weekly Devlogs
Packet optimization and sycnrhonization continues for multiplayer.
Work on multiplayer continues. Since multiplayer is such a large and involved thing that requires significant rewrites that break things, I'll be writing devlogs weekly but uploading new updates whenever I'm able to.
This week was spent on optimizing packets to be as small as possible. It used to be that the entire world was sent from the server to the clients piece by piece, which was a massive amount of data to send. It also meant the world didn't load in until the packets were received which slowed everything down. Further, it was possible to "max out" the network data, causing pieces of the world to not load. All this was pretty unnecessary since about 99% of the world is randomly generated and only a tiny portion is generally modified by players. It's ideal to have as much as possible handed on the client-side, and only use packets to resolve synchronization issues. This required some significant rewrites of the current multiplayer code, so I was doing that.
Fortunately now everything is more or less smooth. The server browser is working and the connectivity issues and errors have been resolved so you can connect to other servers and jump around at each other. What remains now is hunting down de-synchronization spots and writing multiplayer code to resolve them, which can be kind of a long and tedious process. Thanks for your patience during these rewrites.
Shout outs: Stacey, Dragons With Jetpacks, Kingyo Senpai, John Driggers, Warren Clarida, Brian Rivers, Luke P, David Schraff, Rachel Anderson, Serafina Moon, Thomas Spence, Armand Desharnais, Trev909, Bob Goode, Josh Braden, Iofire, Caitlin W., Damon Carrington, Mario Pizzamiglio, Phil Mehl, Wesley Muncy, R., Vincent Drone, thea musing, Robert Skadsem, Matt Yates, Elisa Martinez, Ryan Flagg, Jade Arrowood, Angelo Anderson, Syn21, Dave Walker, Jonathan Lekse, JollyGamer, Tiernan Greenman, Burlyfighter, David R Abbott, Brittany DeNicholas, Amanda Kettles, Lou Bliss, Sik Makoyi, Pythor Sen, Bryson Waits, Irate The Pirate, Mark L, Siren, AstroLass, Lizzie, Michael Hamilton, Vedie V, Mylon Schroder, Nathan, Robert Rich, Jess, Zee Livezey, Kevin, Kerry Melton, SallySparrow132, Millergendraft, Federica Frezza, Nick Soucy, Jeremiah Walker, Bryan Sheairs, chris wilson, Max Hops, Sarah Holland, Joshua David Maddox, Packratt, Liz Fontain, Ray Bissonnette, Joe Dalby, Matt Price, Nicholas Zamora, ShortyMcgibble, Mr. Vinclair, mtnman1979@aol.com, KFB_Patreon, eric sun, Christopher Allbritton, Gundar Wez, Nahellion, That Video Editor Nic, bilbens baggo, Stuart, Brysen Packer, Maxwell Mayer, XMrMonkyx ., Jordan Brazeal, Kyle Clark, Jake Lane, Phillip P Torchia, Stefan Gottschalk's, Remora Jewel, Dalton Elliott, Connor, jeremy baisch, Daniel Edwards, Zealot23, Shane Andrews, Brandon Mußiq, CJMAXP, Lisa Tucker, KingHavok1217, Mx Charlie, Justin Snyder, Zachary Burgess-Hicks, Steve Rosenlund, Ezzela1891, John Nazario, Gordon Alexander Fallon, zachary gee
Their contribution stands as a beacon of hope for all adventurers!
