I have added network paging support to the project, using Mirror’s Custom “Interest Management” system.

This means that I can page in and out objects from the server based on their world space distance and the zone that they are in. I have integrated this with the networked AI, and it works very well.

I can now page in and out objects completely from the server, which is much more efficent than the client based system that I was using.

The next goal is to use the new networking techniques that I have learned to optimise the existing player network code, which is quite messy.

I also need to add more networking improvements and abilities, to improve the persistent and multiplayer nature of the game.

The post P0-B4: Part 1243: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have created a new concept for the terrain scanning system for the project. This system asynchronously scans for nearby objects like cities, outposts, bases, etc, etc.

The existing system is somewhat inefficient, however the new system uses async/await, which is much more powerful and should work better.

This system should also allow me to “instance” the scans, so that I can run multiple scans simultaneously, rather than queuing them.

It is not fully integrated yet, but I have tested it quite extensively, and it seems to work well. I intend to replace all of my existing code with this system as soon as possible.

The post P0-B4: Part 1242: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have made more improvements and bug fixes to the networking system. There was an issue where if an item was picked up by one player, the item would still remain on the screen of other players, effectively duplicating the item. This has now been fixed.

I also ran into an issue with world/local space position, where two players could be close together in the world, but may have a different world pos coordinate, meaning the AI sync position is not correct.

I was able to fix this by adding the global world offset vector to the AI position, meaning it is effectively in world space, so it should be the same for all connected clients.

The post P0-B4: Part 1241: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have been working on minor improvements to AI spawning. There was an issue with the AI spawning too far from the player, which meant that there were no colliders underneath them. I have made some improvements to the spawning to prevent this.

I have also made improvements to the creature AI spawn code, which allows them to be synced over the network too.

There are still some optimisations to be made here, but the AI is now basically network safe.

I have also added basic, client-side paging to the system, however the server does not yet support paging (IE, all objects are downloaded to the client, and are then paging in/out from the client, not the server). This will need to be improved soon.

The post P0-B4: Part 1240: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

The AI is mostly finished.

I am still testing and making final changes to the logic, but it is working very well.

The next goal, other than some more testing, is to allow the games animals and creatures to also be networked. Currently, only the randomly spawned enemies are networked.

Once this is done, I will continue with multiplayer testing and optimisation.

The post P0-B4: Part 1239: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

The multiplayer AI concept is going very well.

The core idea works, and my knowledge level with mirror networking has improved since I last worked on network code, so I should be able to use better, more performant, techniques.

I can then use these new techniques to optimise and improve the existing, older, code.

The basic functionality for the AI is now working, I just need to modify the core logic so that actions such as attack, etc, are all passed properly over the network. So, for example, any player or any AI can attack any other player or any other AI and all AI should be able to see each other and react appropriately.

The post P0-B4: Part 1238: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have started working on the multiplayer improvements.

The first thing that I did is smooth out the player movement, there was quite a lot of rubber-banding going on. I managed to fix this by putting the movement updates into fixedupdate() rather than update.

I will, however, need to do quite a lot of optimisation work on the existing networking system in the future.

I am now working on spawning network objects every time an AI is generated on the client.

The post P0-B4: Part 1237: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

The next goal is to allow the randomly generated AI within the project to work over the network, and be visible and interactable by other network players.

Network testing in general is something that I need to spend a lot more time on in future.

The problem with networked AI is that the Project is Client-Based, not Server based, ie, the processing for AI, etc, is all done client-side.

The solution that I intend to investigate is to create the AI as I am now doing, on the client, and sync the details of that AI to the other players. When the controlling player logs out, the AI is eithe deleted, or control is passed to another player.

This should work quite well, and will keep the processing on the client, not the server, which is important.

I have also added optimisations to the random generation systems: Trees and other ground cover will now be properly removed from around dynamically placed objects.

The post P0-B4: Part 1236: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have made some minor improvements to the guis, and to the player-facing elements of the game, to improve the player experience.

I have also fixed some more bugs with the story system.

I am now working on general testing and debugging, and adding some minor improvements that were due to be added.

The post P0-B4: Part 1235: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have fixed almost all of the remaining design flaws with the story system.

There were some issues with objects spawned by the story system being placed over water, or not being placed at the correct distance from the player, etc, these issues seem to be fine now.

I have also run several tests on the story, the multiplayer system, and other systems, and made several minor improvements and bug fixes.

The post P0-B4: Part 1234: Debugging, Improvements first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.