An update about updates?
We’ve been silent on our side about what we are working on, but now we are ready to tell you all what we have been up to, and we are excited to share it!
What is on the horizon?
For our next update, we got some things that you have all been looking forward to, so let’s just dive right into it.
Buildings! Yes, we have had more work done on buildings, more specifically. On how it all loads in when you restart or rejoin a server. In our internal testing, it is showing that it now successfully loads in user-buildings much more often. This means players should have much less of a problem with the red or blue “ghost” buildings upon log-in.
Beacon & Pod Signals should now work properly upon re-logging. That means you can now progress with the story as it is intended. It should start up normally when you first join the game
Another useful thing we have implemented is that the server now automatically pauses when there is nobody online. Meaning time should only move forward when there is someone logged in. This also means that the Radio Messages, Pod signals, etc. Should pause when the last online player leaves the server, and then continue when the first player to reconnect logs in again.
However, there is something to keep in mind in the story. Whoever is the furthest into the story, that is the point you will continue as a new or returning player. – If you want to play with a friend through the whole story. Make sure to log in and out together.
Something also coming with the next update. Is a Framework update, this mostly relates to how we can code easier and figure out issues faster. However, there should also be a small performance boost because of optimizations. (Server-side)
Further down the line
There are more things coming in the future, we have some things we can share about what we are working on in the long term.
We have been working on implementing the Server Password function into the client-side of things. This will give you some power to promote or kick players on your server. This means that if you don’t want other players to have the ability to spawn in items, they won’t unless they have the appropriate permissions for it. As well as the ability to need a password to join (No GUI for that yet)
Network performance & pressure (reducing Network/Bandwidth requirements) is something that we are constantly trying to figure out how to do. We have made progress on it, meaning that hopefully sync issues related to slower or lower-quality internet will be reduced.
Synchronization of the pre-flight checks of the Rocket, and the launch of it is currently being worked on, so soon you will get to blast off with your friends… Or left behind! (Don’t worry though! They will be able to rejoin again after their little space-vacation)
Some other issues we have been working on is to prevent the Aurora from exploding multiples times on reload. Hopefully there will be no more chain-explosions.
Cross-Platform?
Having all the platforms working together has always been the plan. That is why we are currently working to get a good solution to enable Windows Store, Linux, and Mac players to play together.
We have a somewhat working version for Windows Store players, though you can not Host a server with Windows Store, you can play through it. It is a bit of a complicated process to get to work, so we highly recommend going to our Discord Server to get support in doing it correctly.
Being able to play and host through Linux and Mac is something that will be worked on when we have the time for it. But we have already started to work on an Electron version of the Nitrox Launcher so that we have a cross-platform compatible launcher.
We hope that this helps solve some of your questions as well as giving you all an update to what we have been up to. We don’t quite have a date for an update yet, but we will announce it when we have it ready!
Also a big thank you for following us on our Twitter page! Make sure to follow us so that you can get informed about updates as soon as they are available!
Nitrox Team
