Patch #24: Delayed Mod Loading, New Music, & More Optimizations!

Patch #24

Thank you everyone for playing our game :)

I want to thank Lucas for returning to contribute more music to Whiskerwood's OST. This patch we've added a grand song which will play randomly for larger islands. You can check out the full song on Lucas's youtube:

The whole team this patch again has been focused on optimizations. Compared to last patch this batch of optimizations should be even more impactful. Our optimizations have focused on gameplay CPU logic. This does mean computers limited by rendering will not see a significant change. Meanwhile saves at high whisker populations should see a decent jump in FPS.

Daniel

Lead Programmer on Whiskerwood

Changelog

v0.6.190 Patch #24

Features

• Add new song “Rising Dominion” composed by Lucas Ricciotti. Activates for colonies with at least 100 whiskers

• Add logic to check for delayed mod downloads. Fixes mod loading on geforce now and certain PCs

Optimization

• Optimize path finding generation to speed up pathing by about 60% by improving cache coherency using purpose designed data structures for pathable state

• Optimize Whisker animations by limiting skeletal budget per frame

• Aggressively optimize high population save files by frustum culling visible skeletal meshes

• Add LOD support to Whisker skeletal meshes and reduce skinning complexity at distance

• Optimize visual positional update rates for far away Whiskers

• Optimize various buildings to reduce idle compute cost

• Optimize mine cart tick

• Reduce development tooling burden in shipping builds

• Ratelimit animation changes for heating to avoid stutter spiking when bulk heaters change state

• Optimize pathing by caching decorations with movement effects

• Reduce performance impact of navmesh updates

Bugs

• Fix tooltips not working correctly in Whisker selection lists

• Fix industry workers sometimes fetching small amounts of input multiple times before starting work

• Fix Raft Dock sometimes not showing warning when entrance is not accessible

Crash Fixes

• Fix crash after pirate bombardment when attacking a warehouse on bad timing, caused by prior optimizations

• Fix loading crash with elevators

• Fix rare crash when removing all destination platforms from an elevator shaft

Acknowledgements

• Thank you to players who reported that mod loading did not function on Nvidia Geforce Now since it only downloads mods after the game has launched

• Thank you to everyone who has been patient as we improve performance 

• Thank you to Gavin for reporting the warehouse crash over email

• Thank you to mvrck on the Discord for reporting elevator crash when deleting segments.

Steam Reviews

We'd really appreciate it if you could take a moment to share your thoughts about Whiskerwood in a Steam review. Each review helps us understand what you enjoy, what you'd like to see changed, and what you'd like to see added next. It's a powerful way for you to not only share feedback with us directly but also influence what comes next in a patch. We're carefully reading through all feedback, and your opinion matters!

Official Wiki and Beginner's Guide

We have some fantastic resources to help get you started on your colony building in Whiskerwood. Check out our beginner's guide and our official community wiki page to help get you the answers you need.

We also have a compilation of tips and tricks sourced from the community to help you out right here:

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