各位道友：
为迎接《蜀山：初章》网络版即将到来的不删档测试，我们将于3月17日-3月30日开启迎接不删档测试写攻略获好礼的活动，感谢大家对我们的一直支持，具体内容如下：

【《蜀山：初章》网络版“写攻略，获好礼”】
活动奖励：限定专属（不绑定）“法相-玄武”位移特效礼包；
活动时间：“3月17日-3月30日”（我们将在活动结束后进行统计）
领奖时间：“不删档测试”开启后；
领取条件：
1)仅限参与官方本次“写攻略，获好礼”活动并最终获得资格的账号；
2)仅限参与了本次网络版终极测试的账号：以确保网络版攻略的真实有用
3)该账号无恶意利用bug或者外挂的历史
4)领奖账号需要同时满足以上条件1、2；且每个账号仅限一个角色领取激活。

【活动内容：写攻略、获好礼】
WeGame《蜀山：初章》社区发萌新攻略相关规则：WeGame的道友需要在本次活 动期间在WeGame《蜀山：初章》社区发萌新攻略贴：
1)随意在WeGame社区写一篇《蜀山：初章》网络版的小攻略;无字数、类型等限制，但必须真实有用；
2)无抄袭、无重复；按发布时间先后算归属权
3)不利用bug、不涉及外挂等
4)攻略标题需要在后面带上话题：玩家攻略标题+#网络版萌新攻略#
如下图：



在Steam《蜀山：初章》网络版社区发萌新攻略贴：Steam的道友需要本次活动期间 在Steam《蜀山：初章》网络版社区发萌新攻略贴：
1)因为steam社区有时候打不开，因此：
a)如果打不开steam社区的道友可以在Taptap社区发布
b)如果打不开steam社区的道友可以在《蜀山：初章》网络版FanBook社区发布（即将做好，下周放出方可使用）
5)随意写一篇《蜀山：初章》网络版的小攻略，无字数、类型等限制，但必须真实有用；
6)无抄袭、无重复；按发布时间先后算归属权
2)不利用bug、不涉及外挂等
3)如发布在tap社区的攻略帖子需要标注参与本次终极测试的steam账号和对应的游戏角色昵称

最后，重楼工作室再次对各位道友表示由衷的感谢！不删档，咱们不见不散！

《蜀山：初章》重楼工作室
2023年3月17日

各位道友：
非常感谢大家前来参加《蜀山：初章》网络版终极测试，为我们接下来的不删档上线做好了准备工作！同时，我们也给大家准备好了豪华礼包，测试期间完成官方活动任务获得资格的道友可以直接到《蜀山：初章》网络版的不删档测试中领取！
具体内容如下：

【《蜀山：初章》网络版终极测试将延期至3月25日】
1.我们将在终极测试结束后开启不删档测试的上线准备工作，大家敬请期待！（我们即将发布不删档正式上线时间，还请大家多多关注支持）
2.之后时间，我们还将陆续更新数个大型玩法包括大型副本、个人洞府、宗族及散修玩法的更多补充等等
3.我们将逐步放出资源测试数值合理性、养成、PVE、PVP等
4.我们将优化安全区、非安全区、PK区域以及PK规则、红名惩罚等
。。。
更多内容将在具体更新公告里展示

【《蜀山：初章》网络版终极测试大礼包】
1.与先锋测、买断版邀请终测的道友一起共享建木祭拜留名：国之大事，唯祭与戎！
2.专属绑定称号：离火神君
3.限量绑定时装“峨眉记忆”，包括：时装、发型、专属套装位移特效等
【《蜀山：初章》网络版终极测试任务&活动】
网络版终极测试活动



参与以下活动内容均可获得积分，达到90积分即可获得这次终测任务活动全部奖励


【终极测试任务&活动统计登记时间】：本次测试完成后的一周内
【奖励发放时间】：不删档测试期间发放

最后，重楼工作室再次对各位道友表示由衷的感谢！不删档，咱们不见不散！

《蜀山：初章》重楼工作室
2023年3月17日

This update adds some wonderful new portraits for infantry and cavalry units by cjprince, but if you prefer the classic ones, you can select this in the Options menu. Also new is a set of modding tools by Vanadandr. Also a number of improvements and fixes! As always, please report bugs or crashes on the Steam discussion board or on the Discord.


ADD: Set of modding tools to examine how units and portraits are used in different mods (thanks Vanagandr!)
ADD: New nation-specific infantry and cavalry unit portraits by cjprince; use of these portraits can be disabled in the game options
ADD: Full functionality for View Mode when using gamepad input
ADD: Rear MG (RMG) definition for units, this is for fixed, rear-facing MGs (thanks Vanagandr!)

CNG: Rain to-hit or to-effect penalty not longer applied if Fog is also in effect
CNG: Purple Hearts and Wound Badges now only awarded for injuries that send the crewman to the field hospital (otherwise it was just a scratch!)

FIX: T-35 definitions improved (thanks Vanagandr!)
FIX: Display of large numbers of awarded decorations will no longer overflow the screen
FIX: Air and artillery attacks that occurred during a scenario will no longer try and target units outside of the visible scenario map
FIX: Minor fixes to improve legibility of text on Steam Deck, improving tutorial slide text, replacing keyboard control prompts in controller mode
FIX: Friendly rescue units will no longer withdraw from the battlefield

Hello everyone, it's Cosmo Gatto!

Big updates for Aka!

• New: 3 saving slots
  
• New: Can scroll to change tool
  
• Update: Font change
  
• Update: The crafting panel doesn't close when crafting an item
  
• Update: Can fertilize the soil that has been watered
  
• Update: Better textures for Bamboo House.
  
• Various bug fixes include better colliders, soil glitches when changing scenes, Steam achievement (top of the mountain), and issues with moving items in the inventory with the mouse in some scenes.

Thank you,
The Aka team.

Official Twitter
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Hi engineers!

In the months following Dyson Sphere Program: Rise of the Dark Fog's showcase at TGS 2022, we received a lot of encouragement and support from our players. This has greatly motivated our team to put more effort into developing combat-related content. Let’s have a glance at the visuals we are currently working on:






During the combat system development, some optimization of existing gameplay systems was also introduced. Such as a new distribution logistics system, more advanced Chemical Plants, Splitters with storage, more convenient conveyor belt tools …

In order to maximize the team production effectiveness, we split our workflow into two branches - The Rise of the Dark Fog (combat system) branch and existing content updates. So that we can do these two parts of work at the same time, and keep the combat system info confidential. But we need to make sure to merge the changes made in the Update Branch into the Combat Branch from time to time, to ensure that the work on both sides is always in sync.



However, we also have a piece of bad news here: During the year that the combat system branch has been running separately, its content conflicts with the main branch have caused many code and resource issues. We had to put huge amounts of extra effort and time to resolve these problems every time, and sometimes we even have to deliberately avoid modifying common resources and low-level codes, which distracts us a lot from the combat system development. To speed up the progress of combat system development, we have decided to devote our full effort to the combat branch. In other words, we will still be able to debug and modify the existing game contents, but not be able to add any new features before the combat mode is grounding.

This will give us an opportunity to refactor the combat system codes and some of the low-level codes. The game’s performance bottleneck became apparent after adding abundant content in batches – my old pc (GTX660Ti) could barely run at 10 or even 9 FPS. Seeing this, we decided to overhaul some unoptimizable, inflexible codes that burden the frame rate. We have done it once, so we had experience and were willing to find out better solutions. It’s a hard process, but we have determined to reach our goal: Dyson Sphere Program must perform smoothly after the combat system is implemented.


(made some hardware upgrades as well)

There’s a saying, “designers only make requirements, and programmers implement them”, is not for us. When a performance issue comes up, it never helps if the designers say “I don’t care, it’s the programmers’ duty to solve it.” or “forget it, the tech is not there yet.” We believe that the two departments must think and work together. Their work was never separated.

In Dyson Sphere Program, players’ factory objects can easily reach millions in scale, so performance is definitely a priority. The ultimate performance limit of a game is determined during the design phase, and then it depends on the technical skills of programmers to try to reach it. That’s why we ask designers to use the remaining performance space wisely to create as many possibilities as possible during the design phase. After going through a gameplay validation, we came up with design goals. The image below shows the hypothetical comparison of combat power between players and the Dark Fog.



We know that if the Dark Fog takes up the player’s development space (and CPU computing resources), the player will want to destroy it. So the activity of the Dark Fog and the player’s factories are roughly inversely proportional, and we used it to set the following performance optimization goals:



If players choose to leave the Dark Fog alone in the latter stage of the game, then the remaining massive Dark Fog hive will be a huge burden. And at this point, the Dark Fog’s entire production system (space nests, planet bases) is insensitive to players, so it doesn’t need to update as frequently as player factories.


(Dark Fog’s expansion logic)

After consideration, we set the Dark Fog nest’s update logic to once every 60 logic frames, and all nest updates are evenly distributed across each frame as much as possible to avoid updating too much logic in one frame. For example, if a player chooses the 60-Star startup build, then each logic frame will update one planetary system’s Dark Fog nests in turn. The following are some simple load-balancing codes:



The seemingly simple idea above rises other problems: if the Dark Fog updates once every 60 frames, what about other non-building combat units and transport units in space? How to blend the animations of the Dark Fog ground buildings?


(space units’ fleet matrix)


(ground units’ group behavior)

Well, in this case, We will have to take our BIG MOVE: using GPU to process some computations.
Just like the optimization of Logistics Drones, CPU doesn’t have to calculate the curve that transports aircraft go through from point A (xA, yA, zA) to point B (xB, yB, zB) to unload cargo, or the process of body rotation, ascent and descend, how the tail flame effects change, etc. All CPU has to do is just add up a “t” value.



And GPU will take care of the more complex mathematical operations:




The following is a performance test Save of a large number of transport aircraft. Feel free to download and try it out if you are interested:
MilkyWay Download
Google Drive


(21,000 Logistics Drones update at the same time)



Since 99% of the time enemy combat units are performing wandering behavior, we can design to make their trajectories more computable by using parametric equations to represent their motion paths. This way, we can optimize most of the wandering enemies as we do with Logistics Drones.

Next, we plan to seamlessly switch between GPU and CPU calculations when they enter/exit attack mode and return to wandering.

However, this solution also poses some challenges, such as finding suitable attack targets for free-target projectile when attacking these enemies-- this indeed complicates simple problems, but compared to the performance “disaster” caused by full CPU simulation, we have to do this first and then deal with whatever comes next. Complexity cannot be eliminated, and performance optimization is about transferring runtime complexity to code complexity.

(nothing yet.jpg)

Apart from all that, we found out that when starting a new game with the highest difficulty level, the total amount of dark-fog buildings in 64 planetary systems reach 200k (just buildings). Even when we reduced the logic overhead to below 3ms, the Dark Fog still occupies about 50M of Save data.



For newly created Saves, players can’t sense the presence of the Dark Fog in other planetary systems, so they find it hard to accept such large Saves. Meanwhile, we believe far away or not, Dark Fog must develop according to certain rules, and the determinism of these rules will increasingly become important later on. Just like the consistent running logic of the “real universe” in games, leaving a planet doesn’t make factories on it lose their logical determinism.



Therefore, we have to split the logic and data of dark-fog growth into multiple deterministic LODs (Level of Details) and specify switching rules between levels.

And In order to ensure stability, we redesigned the nest growth process so that it could bake out a certain nest growth map based on fixed age and random number seeds in real-time without interference. This way, even when each nest contains up to 2000 buildings and units, we can at least transform distant nests that had not been encountered into several header data such as “age”, “random seed ”, etc. and generate relay stations and seeds simultaneously to ensure that unencountered Dark Fog can still expand outward.


(Minimalist data form)


(content in blue/red/yellow box presents three different LODs)

We are still working on refactoring the code for the combat system. We have basically finished the LODs in the blue and red boxes shown in the image above, as well as the self-replication and expansion of the Dark Fog nests. Once we finish refactoring, we will move on to optimizing the more complex aspects of combat.

For modeling, we need to improve the destruction effects for each building and the LODs for all dark-fog buildings, as well as the animations for each LOD.



For some complex effects that require a lot of rendering, we still need to use shaders to simulate them. A typical example is the hit effect of projectiles:



If we use the particle system provided by the engine directly, it will not be able to support a large number of effect instances. We need to use the method mentioned in our previous development log and convert each particle system into a shader-based simulation of these hit effects. Here is one of them:




(Take it easy, it's just a test)

At the end of this development log, we’d like to remind you again that players who prefer building and management can completely turn off the Dark Fog. In addition, players can also adjust some difficulty parameters for the Dark Fog in detail.


(The options shown above are only based on our current design and are not final.)

This is the end of the Dev log.

By the way, here's a good news: The producer couple's baby was born last month! Currently they are still in the hospital, one hand holding the baby and the other hand coding Dyson Sphere Program.

If you are interested in our previous dev log, feel free to check it out HERE!

Thank you for reading! See you next time!

This is a preparatory release for the release of Episode One later. Not much to see here :)

• Prevent a possible crash when the Steam API is not reachable
  
• Prevent a crash when quitting the game
  
• Improve soft particles rendering in VR
  
• Make sure players can always leap out of water when pressing the jump key
  
• Disable collisions with Dog if player ally collisions are disabled

Zafer Haftası Başladı!
Yakın tarihimizin en önemli savaşlarından biri olan Çanakkale Zaferi'nin yıl dönümü şerefine sizin için efsane kampanyalar ve etkinlikler hazırladık!

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Özel Fırsatlar ve Kampanyalar
Hafta Sonu boyunca Özel Fırsatlar ve Özel Kampanyalar seni bekliyor!

1. Added new content and gameplay.
2. Optimized the function experience.
3. Fixed some bugs.

ここで、私ができるだけ正直であることを望んでいます...

私は今、シリーズの全ての側面に取り組んでいる、一人の開発者として、自分にとって利用可能な限られたリソースを最大限に活用しています。一人で働いていることは非常に非常に困難ですが、ストレスがかかるときでも、何かの締め切りを設定しているときでも、奇妙に楽しいことがあります。

私は非常に若いうちから自分自身のアニメ/カートゥーンシリーズを作成し、自分自身のテレビ番組を書き、ショーランナーになることが夢でした。私はできるだけ長い間、これを練習してきました...そして、UnityからRespeecherまで、今日利用可能な技術やツールのおかげで、私はついにこれを実現し始めることができましたと、私は願っています...


「これが何であり、何でないか」
今、私にとって非常に重要なことは、これが想定外のものではないと人々が期待しないようにしたいということです。それは重要です…これは、テレビ番組のように展開する物語のゲームシリーズであり、もしゲームのジャンルを選ぶなら、ビジュアルノベルにATBバトルを加えたものに近いと思います。

それは、走り回ったり、ジャンプしたりするゲームではありません。オープンワールドではありません。複数のエンディングがあるわけでもなく、レベルアップもできません。アイテムの収集やクラフトもありません。そして、もし人々が速いアクションゲームを期待して入ると、彼らが想定しなかったものを見つけてがっかりすることになるでしょう。本質的には、ターン制のスキル駆動のボスバトルを持つ少年漫画のようなアニメシリーズです。それぞれのバトルは次のバトルとは異なる戦略でカスタマイズされ、シリーズが進むにつれて、それぞれのバトルはより困難になります。

「改善点」
まず、私はシーズン1を改善するために最善を尽くしています。ゲームプレイとストーリーのバランスをより取ることを試みていますが、これは簡単ではありません。より多くのミニゲームを追加することも検討しています。エピソード5と6にはストーリーに比べて十分なゲームプレイがないと感じたため、最近のアップデートで2つのミニゲームを追加しました。エピソード5と6は一つの長いカットシーンで、最後に一つのバトルがあるだけでした。このシリーズの意図として、バトルがより難しく、複数のパートがあることで戦略的になるため、エピソード5と6はある程度この方向性を持っていますが、エンディングのバトルが比較的短かったため、私には完全ではないように感じました。

バトルのペース調整が重要な点の一つです。私は最初、Final Fantasy 7をモデルにしていましたが、ATBバーが遅いことに気付きました。Astralojiaには1対1のバトルが多いため、そんなに遅いペースのATBバーでは、リラックスしたペースになりすぎてしまいます。私は、ダメージモッドの乗数が増加すると共に、スピードラインを追加しました。スピードラインは、バトルにより緊急感を与えるビジュアル的な効果を持ち、進行するにつれて、突然の死闘のようになります。全てのバトルをペースアップし、それぞれのバトルを再テストしたため、以前よりも素早いペースで行われるようになったはずです。

その他にも、改善が必要な部分があることは確かです。主に、改善が必要なボイスアクティングラインがいくつかあります。視覚的には、時々背景に蝶や鳥が飛び交っていてもいいかもしれません。また、一部のシーンではライティングの改善が必要です。

特に、シリーズの中で最も弱いと思われるのはエピソード1で、最も気に入っているのはエピソード7です。実際、7話はこのシリーズが何についてであるかを伝えているので、7話がパイロット版に選ばれることになるでしょう。ただし、各エピソードはシーズンの大きなクライマックスに向けて必要なエピソードとして設計されています。

エピソード1については、これからいくつかの意見を得ることを楽しみにしていますが、一般的なアイデアは自分自身に正直であり、自分の最も弱いリンクを理解することが重要であるということです。エピソード1は、プレイヤー/視聴者が最初に見る最初のエピソードであり、大幅な改善を目指すことは悪いことではありません。

「将来について」
そう言っても、この時点で人々に理解してほしいことがあります…

私はまず、シーズン1にさらなる改善を加える前に、ゲームを壊すバグでなければ、シーズン2を完成させるつもりです。シーズン2は、シリーズ全体を改善するためのもので、より多くのキャラクターが登場し、より多くのドラマが展開され、多くの謎が明らかにされます。また、マルチパートの戦闘がさらに増え、戦闘が一般的により難しくなるとともに、時間があればスキルバーを追加したいと考えています。特に、エピソード12のクライマックスについては、人々に見てほしいと強く思っています。シーズン1はシリーズの入門的な部分であり、シーズン2ではより主要なアークが展開されます。シリーズの第2のOPとED、そしてシーズン2のOST全体をリリースしたいと思っています。現時点でのシーズン2のボイスアクティングや音楽はほぼ完成しています。

シーズン2がリリースされることで、シリーズの意図が明確になり、キーとなるドラマチックな部分を押さえ、他のエピソードではリラックスしたペースを維持しながら、楽しく軽快でありながら、ドラマティックで感動的で、時には暗い部分もバランスよく描かれるシリーズを作るというアイデアを追求し続けます。戦闘に関しては、新しいメカニックが導入され、各戦闘が新鮮であるようにすることが目的です。

「最後に」
今後は、ハードコア難易度レベルなどの追加機能を導入するように努め、より多くのミニゲームを追加することで、プレイ時間を長くしたいと思っています。しかし、今のところ、私はシーズン2に取り組む必要があります。

まとめると、私は史上最高の開発者ではありませんが、できる限りの努力をして、良い物語、良い音楽、良いゲームまたはテレビ番組、またはこの何かが最大限に改善されるようにします。プレイ/視聴していただき、ありがとうございました。これからもお楽しみいただけるように、引き続き応援していただけると幸いです。