Early Access Update Femtiosju (57)

build id: 5FB3DC2A

nornware AB is happy to announce a new update to Space Beast Terror Fright.


NETWORKED MODE CHANGES
With the help of the gracious players over at the Space Beast Terror Fright Discord Server I have managed to reproduce and find the cause of what we believe to be the main recurring crash in networked mode. It was being caused by a number of collaborating factors (and bugs) that resulted in the game literally "running out of bullets".

I have plugged that hole by simply not allowing that many bullets to exist, which practically means that no sentries nor players will fire when the bullet pool is exhausted. Note however that via extensive testing I have found that this doesn't happen during normal play, and the crashes that have been happening are more a result of erroneous simulation (i.e. "the rapid fire bug") that occurs on the host during networked play. Rest assured that this is also a high priority bug for me to fix.

Furthermore network data has been somewhat compressed (bullets use fewer bytes), and also I'm experimenting with having the host / server push twice as much state to the client per network packet. While this will increase bandwidth usage somewhat it will not do so in a linear (2x) manner due to each packet being compressed (as before). This change is experimental, and I will be monitoring closely to see if it improves or degrades the overall network experience.


FURTHER REACTOR OVERLOAD SAFETY
Early Access Update 56 introduced a new twist to the reactor overload sequence, namely that Doors and Fences open (conceptually in my mind as a "safety feature") and may not be closed during the reactor overload. While this has been contentious in the community, I'm still not fully convinced if it should stay or go. For the time being I have continued along this line of reasoning and now Panic Room doors will also open in the same manner as Doors and Fences during reactor overload.


SENTRY AMMO BUFF
Sentries will now use the same ammo tier as players, meaning that increasing Science will upgrade sentry bullets as well - previously Sentries would always fire light ammo (albiet with different audio than player fire). Note that ammo tier fire rate variance will also affect Sentry fire rates (as with player bullets).

Note that this effectively means that Sentries become more deadly vs Space Beasts and Astro-Creeps as Science increases, while damage vs players is still the same (one upgrade or system knocked out per bullet striking a player).


MISCELLANEOUS

• BUGFIX: Network chat was missing for non-hosts when a User Plan was selected.
  
  
• BUGFIX: It is now no longer possible to wake Beasts inside Panic Rooms by firing at the Panic Room door.
  
  
• BUGFIX: The "friendly" check (for players and scientists) will no longer penetrate walls.
  

As always, thank you for your support and patience.
/nornware AB c/o johno

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