I've continued working on getting the simulation stable in the long term. Performance still drops but I'm pretty sure that it's from slime mold's being unbalanced now, so I'll be working on that next. I ran the simulation over night last night and found some more GC leaks, and fixed most of it today. I haven't had a chance to run it for very long, but so far memory use is noticeably lower and doesn't climb nearly as much, so I think it's a big improvement there. I'll have to run it again overnight to confirm. New in v0.2.7:
* Balance rework and fixes:
- Plasmodium network maintenance costs increased. Networks are no longer effectively immortal, overextended branches prune naturally
- Substrate nutrient generation adjusted to produce more of a patchwork with greater nutrient variation
- Explosive enzymes now deal damage at all pH levels
- Crystalline + explosive combo now deposits substrate, like crystalline base
- Reworked mutations so every gene parameter drifts by a tiny amount every reproduction cycle. Previously, every gene had an 85% chance of mutation, but only one parameter per gene could mutate at a time
- Added damage particles when cells take environmental damage
- Fixed cells skipping mitosis cytosol cost and vacuole storage not properly splitting among daughter cells. Expect reduced population explosions
- Retuned spontaneous addition/duplication rates for genes to slow organelle accumulation
* Digestive enzyme rework:
- Reduced and consolidated gene parameters for clarity and faster evolution
* Stability improvements:
- Fixed periodic stutters and improved long term session stability
- Stabilized physics at higher simulation speeds
- Increased maximum simulation speed to 10x. Testing higher simulation speeds is now possible through debug commands
* Consistency improvements:
- Fixed plasmodium buds spawning with extra branches
- Fixed colony branches becoming invisible at scale
* World creation:
- Two new sliders: nutrient grain + nutrient contrast. Grain controls the size of nutrient zones, contrast controls the differentiation
* QoL:
- Added keybind HUD (F2)
- UI input and layout fixes
v0.2.7a:
* Performance improvements
* Long-term stability cleanup
* Various bug fixes
* Fixed buffer settings being overwritten