By day you see the whole region

· M8 · The realm under siege

The regions aren't that big, so by day there's no fog: every unit, bug and building in yours is sent to you and drawn. Through dusk the sight closes in to the night's, round your headlamp, and opens again at dawn. This closes milestone 8.

The Matriarch's nest in Slag Pockets at noon seen from far across the lava flats, the whole horde drawn, the HUD counting 27 enemies
Slag Pockets at noon from 55 cells away: the nest, the Matriarch and her horde, all told to the client.

My remark was short: by day the line of sight should be the whole region, since the zones are small. Until now a pilot saw what the fog of war allowed, by night and by day alike, and the server sent only that. That kept a hacked client from revealing anything, and it stays that way: nothing hidden by the fog ever leaves the server. What changed is what the fog allows by day.

Day, dusk, night

By day a pilot sees all of its region, every level of it, so every unit, bug and building in it is sent, the far ones in fewer snapshots than the near ones. Through dusk the sight closes in round the driven unit to the night's: half its day reach plus the headlamp's wedge, easing down by the same share at each step of the lamps' dark, over about one game hour, which is about 100 real seconds. Night is unchanged. Neighbouring regions are as before.

Measured in Prospect Landing at dusk, the half-cells a pilot sees: 55,296 at 18.0 h, 22,256 at 18.3, 5,356 at 18.5 and 618 at 19.0.

One rule followed from it. A bug that has eaten its fill and is leaving used to vanish once it was out of the pilot's interest. Now it vanishes only out of real sight or at the region's edge, so by day you watch a Lodeback carry your ore all the way home.

What it costs

The worry was bytes and frame time, so both were measured, at the two busiest places in the world.

Scene at noonUnits told beforeNowBytes a second to the client
The nest in Slag Pockets2 of 2929 of 292,022 → 3,730
The Fork, wave 10 out1 of 3535 of 352,090 → 4,103

The server's world tick stays at 0.25 ms at the 99th percentile. In the game the frame is 12.2 to 12.7 ms median with or without the daylight sight, and the GPU 11.7 to 12.2 ms, so the extra units drawn cost nothing you'd notice.

In pictures

  • The nest in Slag Pockets at noon, the horde drawn from far away, 27 enemies on the HUDNoon, before and after: the whole horde at the nest, 27 enemies counted.
  • The same view before: the nest in the distance with almost nothing drawn, 1 enemy on the HUDBefore: the same spot, one enemy told.
  • The same view at night: only the lava-lit ground near the ProspectorNight is unchanged: the headlamp and the lava.
  • The Fork at noon with wave 10 out, 34 bugs on the panel, the whole canyon drawnThe Fork at noon with wave 10 out: all 34 bugs told.
  • The Fork before: the wave panel counts 34 bugs but the canyon is emptyBefore: the panel counts 34, the eye sees one.

The pictures also fixed a testing annoyance: the Brood and Matriarch shot sets had been failing their checks because the night's six-cell sight hid the scenes they were checking. They hold noon now.

Every test suite passes: 496 core, 279 server and 91 network.