New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Finalizing_Multiplayer#2.809_Self_Optimization
This one is mostly multiplayer-focused, but it has some core speed improvements to the singleplayer simulation as well as some bugfixes that also benefit everyone (particularly those with really fast AMD processors).
This also sees a number of improvements and updates to the SirLimbo suite of mods, and Space Planes and Expatriates have gotten some solid balance adjustments from CRCGamer.
So, what of multiplayer? This release is a pretty big deal! First off, major thanks to Bummeri and abuchris and their MP groups, because this would not have been possible without them.
1. There were STILL some ghosts possible on MP clients, but those seem to be well and truly dead now from several angles.
2. There was a major amount of ship “rubber banding” happening in combat with the AI sentinels in the last couple of weeks, due to a bug I accidentally put in when optimizing bandwidth a couple of weeks ago. That’s now fixed.
3. The sync and ship-check data now uses vastly less bandwidth, and is structured so that it won’t ever flood the client with too much information. There’s now a call and response (ack, in network terms) going on, and this helps the network self-regulate to whatever its environment is. In other words, for this part of the network data, if the connection is slow and flaky, it will slow itself to compensate. If it’s a speedy lan, it will up itself to match that. Overall in most cases this results in a lot of bandwidth reduction, and even more importantly it removes cases where potentially the client could get message-logged and get a lot of command lag from that.
MP is looking a lot more reliable now, knock on wood, which is really exciting. This has been quite a journey for it.
Enjoy!
