StarMade v0.199.459 - Major Performance Upgrade

[NaStral]

Most missiles couldn't hit me in a 760k mass ship with its AMS turned off, they were missing entirely, im not sure this is an intentional part of the update

Yep, I was observing this. The missiles were practically avoiding his ship, deliberately missing it seemed by up to 100m.

 

[Atheu]

Power Consumption on ships is a buggered up right now, I'm having my ship constantly going to full power and immediately losing all power.

 

[schema]

GenXnova had all stations on server vanish from update need hot fix ASAP to restore from back up. Already tried to restore from back up same thing happened again. Need help.

Not sure what is happening there. The test server seemed to be fine. We will look into it immediately. Please send in the server logs.

 

[Wolflaynce]

My home-base station just disappeared also after the update from today. Would be happy to send in logs, but I can't login to the Phabricator.

One thing I noticed was I looked into server-database\<worldname> folder. Found one of my stations (a warpgate only) listed in the files, but could find the home-base file (the .ent and the .smd3 file in the \Data folder). It's like whatever sector I last logged out before the update made the station disappear completely.

Unfortunately, my Steam Starmade install updated on me automatically and I was not given the option to do a backup. I just hope this is reversible, but if a file is gone, then it's gone.

 

[Az14el]

after it initially happened (homebase going poof) we respawned the base & docked everything back up assuming it was a more one off thing, that respawned base disappeared again later. Another base i logged into had the same bug.
In all 3 cases the first log in was with the base missing, all docked & turrets detached but non-physical/non-enterable.
Relog in each case would reattach all the turrets & rail docks to the ships, but base still missing.

in one case the sector seemed... broken, not able to exit to another sector (not with jump or thrust, thrust would just increase the distance counter but never reach another sector), all entities draining all their power down to 0 periodically, no weapons, inactive turrets, jamming immediately deactivates itself, wierd stuff.

 

[AndyP]

Can you send us your logs directory as zip, and the station name that vanished? Az14el
(Start a conversation here to upload)

 

[Curithwin]

I just tried to log into my single player and all there was of my station was the docked entities. The main station has gone as well.

When I first logged on I could not interact with ANY element and passed through everything in astronaut mode. Also the station, after reloading the game is GONE only the docked entities and they are NOT docked to an invisible station. I do hope my station is not gone I have spent over 100 hours on it! It is has gone this may well put Starmade on hold till I get over it. Being a parent and self-employed 100 hours is a LOT of time I really do not have.

 

[schema]

Hotfix is building. Should be up after we can confirm the bug gone. Sorry about that. We have some memory optimizations and other performance updates in the works which needed some internal refactoring, which in term caused a false positive on a check to see if a station has at least one block.

I'm really sorry about this
Please always make sure to backup your game on update.

 

[Curithwin]

Thank you for you quick reply Schema. I should back up - time just makes me forget. I will endevour to do it next time.

I'll wait now till the hot fix is in before I go in.. Again thank you.

 

[schema]

Something like this should not happen and I apologize wholeheartedly.

We always have several checks in place, and somehow it didn't happen on the test server yesterday and the whole week before. I'm still trying to figure out why none of the other checks caught it. This was Murphy's Law at its finest: if something can go wrong... it will.

 

[alterintel]

This was Murphy's Law at its finest: if something can go wrong... it will.

Who is this Murphy guy? He sounds like a real jerk. Somebody should ban him. :P

 

[Wolflaynce]

Appreciate the hard work. Thank you (for the entire team).

I'll also upload my logs from when it happened. I hope it helps.

 

[schema]

thank you. A hotfix is up. Please let me know if the problem still persists.

 

[Drakkart]

This reads to me as you guys opted for the least network traffic intense solution to prevent lag. GJ for performance update are always welcome and this reads like a really big deal su wow, good work. But does this not also leave the integrity of the game vunerable if client and server are allowed to have different data? I mean what should prevent players from installing these memory manipulators which makes the client respond like "hey all my missiles hit right after launch, server you copy, tell the other client his ships are gone..." i mean since world of warcraft chinese goldfarmers developed more and more sophisticated tools. There are manipulators which just need a patternmatching file and they will locate several values in the system memory like your hp keeping it maxed, your speed putting that to whatever you wish... pretty much rendering any game that "trusts" it's clients vunerable to manipulation. you might have to implement at least probability checks to catch cheaters before release... - well maybe wait untill the problem arises i guess...

 

[schema]

Your concern is definitely justified. And this is why we distrust clients as much as possible.

For missiles in particular, since we can definitely assert that without tinkering on the client missiles will have exactly the same path on both client and server, we only do a hit check on the server. This means that while you can manipulate your own client memory to move missiles, it would only put them there on your client. This means you would just see them there graphically while the server still has them in the original place. There is no way for the client to tell the server where missiles are or that a missile hit on the client's side. The server simply only cares about what the server "sees".

This is similar to the money cheat in multiplayer. While it will graphically appear that a client would have unlimited credits on the client, the server will still be calculating with the real amount and deny the client buying for more than he originally had. The clients aren't authorized to dictate the server how much money they have.

 

[Lancake]

any difference to anti missile systems effectiveness at shooting down incoming missiles with this process?

any difference to anti missile systems effectiveness at shooting down incoming missiles with this process?

There shouldn't be one. AMS Still managed to take down roughly the same amount of missiles as before back on the test server.
This was with a default config though although I did change the turn speed and missile/cannon speed quite a bit to see if there was any weird misses happening and there weren't.
AMS only misses when the missile is turning but that's OK, that happened before too.

 

[AtraUnam]

Woo performance update \o/
Sounds like there are a few issues with it, hopefully the get hotfixed.

 

[Curithwin]

I still do not have my station back. When it does come back will the turrets and docked vessels be redocked or should I have to have to manually redock.

Next if I have lost the station is there an entity in the server folder that I can put back in. I have looked in the server folder and in the ENTITY_SPACESTATION_ I can not see my station at all, nor in the ENTITY_SHOP_'s either.

 

[Tunk]

You'll need to restore from backup, or spawn them back in.

 

[Curithwin]

How? I have not backed up. No idea how to do that and how do I spawn it back in if I do not have a current blueprint?