Small fixes9:10 PM 1/3/2013

A small update released that should fix crashes related to full inventory. Crash dumps as well as some network logs are now saved to Corneroids folder /User/AppData/Roaming/. Thanks to your feedback I have identified a lot of bugs and will now start fixing them!

The next big update is all about space! I'm going to rework how space is implemented in Corneroids to allow bigger distances, bigger asteroids/planets and to remove the speed limit!

Mikko


Corneroids 1.2.0 released!5:42 PM 12/31/2012

Corneroids multiplayer update is finally here! Installer is not available yet so please check that you have XNA Framework redistributable 3.1 and NET framework 3.5 installed.

Old saves are not compatible, but dont delete them yet since I'm planning to create a converter to update them!

Disclaimer
Please keep in mind that this is the very first release of multiplayer mode. The game is everything but bug free so it really is an alpha release ! Here is a list of known issues:
1. Network connection fails somehow and game fails to receive any updates from other players. I haven't been able to reproduce this in a long time.
2. There is a chance that container falls out of sync if it is being used by many players simultaneously.
3. "Player * has connected" notification shows a wrong name for the new player.
4. Projectiles are not synchronized at all between client and server.

I also made some small bug fixes:
- Items are being thrown in stacks now (so it is feasible to shoot containers)
- Input is not being updated anymore if Corneroids is not active
- Unsupported characters (letters) wont crash the game anymore
- Center of mass fixed for blocks with bigger bounds than the actual model
- Beacons wont disappear anymore - Players can fit 1x1x1 areas now

Please keep sending me feedback to feedback(at)Corneroids.com! I still haven't had time to answer all emails but I will evantually do so .

Mikko


Tomorrow is the day!11:42 PM 12/30/2012

My initial goal was to release the first version of multiplayer mode this year and I'm going to keep it! So tomorrow somewhere around 18.00 (CET+02:00) I'm releasing version 1.2.0 which contains the brand new multiplayer mode and some other bug fixes.

Please keep in mind that this is the very first release and it has a lot of bugs. I did final tests today and everything went great, but it is still possible that the game will crash and you will lose hours of work!

Here is a short list of main features:

- Works exactly as the singleplayer mode but without enemies
- Custom itemsets and textures are supported. No predownloading required!
- No registeration, accounts nor active internet connection required!
- Some features such as enemies and beacons remain unimplemented in mp mode.
- Collision detection and response improved but ramming can still send you spinning around.
- No dedicated servers yet . Its not difficult for me to implement one to work in windows environment, but support for other OS requires a lot of work.
- Player cap is soft-limited to 8 players for now.
- Many known issues and bugs!

Overall I'm satisfied with the code I've written although it requires a lot of optimization. I'm mostly concerned about the memory usage and the pressure put on garbage collector since I didn't have time to implement proper data pooling. That's why I'm going to spend next few weeks fixing bugs and improving performance.

Please check out these few screenshots I took during last tests. Player model is still missing so I used that purple thingie as a placeholder .

I met few of my friends.
We gathered some materials for new space ships.
Anamana managed to build a quite good looking (but not agile) ship.
You shouldn't stare at the eyes of Jusa's ship for too long x)
Head to head collision is first thing to do of course. It didn't end up too well.
The only space battle took only few seconds...
...because Anamana gave up after few hits took out his ship's ability to rotate.


Happy new year!

Mikko