Kingdom Crier #43: Performance, System Demands, Roadmap

Kingdom Crier #43 is here alongside Version v0.30.3 which brings improvements to Performance and decreased strain on System Resources.

Also, let's update the Roadmap!

Changes

Shadows

Shadows have been the most expensive thing to render in Noble Fates for a while now - our far view distances and the use of multiple cascades meant that most of the world was rendered multiple times each frame. Given Unity's architecture this meant that up to 1/2 of the CPU cost and GPU cost of Rendering was spent on Shadows!

We've reworked High to cut CPU and GPU cost in half by dropping to a single cascade and better utilizing the Shadow resolution. We've also retuned Shadows to minimize rendering artifacts (banding) and maximize quality.

In addition, we've added 2 new Shadow Settings. Very High will yield increased quality at the cost of System Resources. Medium strikes the middle ground between High and Low.

Portraits

Live Portraits are one of the cornerstones of the Noble Fates experience, but they have always been very expensive - coming in at ~5ms per-frame for 10. With this patch, we've been able to cut the cost by 75% - down to ~1.25ms!

To do this, we switched from rendering custom picture in picture cameras attached to rigs that follow your mortals around to batched rendering using a command buffer to capture only what we need without all of the extra overhead of Unity's camera rendering system.

In addition, this armed us to do a consistency pass across Portraits, meaning the lighting in Live Portraits and Headshots (the static Mortal images used everywhere else) now have a consistent appearance, regardless of the current lighting conditions in the world!

Footstep Decals

Footstep Decals clocked in at ~5ms on the CPU - with nearly half of this time spent re-rendering any objects that could receive Footstep Decals into a special buffer to identify the areas of the screen that could receive them.

We discovered some tricks we can play on Unity's rendering architecture to plumb through the identifying information we needed without an extra rendering step and in a more accurate way.

This allowed us to cut the cost of Footsteps in half and resolve the sorting artifacts that would occur before. In addition, this made it free to add Footsteps to Carpets!

Frame Rate Limit

Frame Rate Limits stop the Rendering side of Unity from abusing System Resources when CPU demand is low.

In our game, this can happen often - the demands on your CPU drop dramatically when the simulation is paused or when your on any one of a number of Fullscreen UI pages that continue to render the world below them. This can cause the framerate to spike unexpectedly and can cause a much greater than expected demands on the GPU.

Recently, we included the ability to set a Frame Rate Limit even when VSync was enabled. Now, we've set a default of 60fps. If you find the game asking too much of your GPU, you can drop it down to 30fps which will greatly limit the strain on your GPU.

Reachability CPU Resources

Finally, the arrival of the Reachability CPU thread increased the CPU demand of the game. That thread was allowed to run as fast as possible, exchanging CPU time for nearly no delay in updates to the Pathing System and Reachability.

This improvement took us from the 30s or so of latency prior to the Conquest Update to .25s or so (a 100x improvement!), but doubled the CPU's workload.

The reality, however, is that the sweet spot is something like a 25% increase in CPU workload in exchange for ~1s of Pathing latency (still a 30x improvement!), so we've set the default there.

This should result in imperceptible lag in Pathing updates, but if you find yourself with the occasional Unreachable error just after punching through a Wall, adding a new Bridge, or Terraforming - try cranking this setting up.

Summary

All in all, you should see a reasonable reduction in System Demands, improved FPS, and increased Quality!

As always, there's more to do here, and there's still another pass or two planned during EA.

Patch Notes

Noble Fates 0.30.3.6 Released
Minor Update

Shadows
    Cut cost of Shadows by 50% on High
    Tune existing Settings for Quality
    Add Very High Setting
    Add Medium Setting
    
Portraits
    Cut cost of rendering Live Portraits down by 75% (~3-4ms with 10)
    Make lighting consistent across Portraits
    
Footstep Decals
    Cut cost of Rendering Footstep Decals in half
    Fix bugs with Z-sorting with Footstep Decals
    Now appear on CarpetFrame Rate Limit
    Default to 60fps
    Set to 30fps if you want to limit System Resource usage further
    
Add Reachability CPU Resources Graphics Option
    Additional CPU Resources to dedicate to minimizing Reachability update latency
    Generally, 0% results in 10s of latency
        25% in 1s
        100% in .25s
    Default is 25%
    
Post Process Effects
    Cut cost of rendering Post Process Effects by 15%
    
NPC Conquest Raids
    NPC Conquest Raids are no longer all or nothing
    NPC Kingdoms can Retreat (using a higher threshold) and live on to fight another day
    NPC Kingdoms will still dissolve if everyone is Captured or Killed
    Decrease Wealth Budget for Conquest Raids
    Iterate on DialogueSend Item Concessions
    Halve the effects of Item Type Opinion on Cost/Benefit
    Add Inconvenience Premium Game Option
        Requesting high numbers of low value Items is now considered Inconvenient
        NPC Kingdoms will raise Influence Costs for Inconvenient Requests
        Tunable using "Game -> AI Kingdom Inconvenience Premium"
            Default to 0.5x in Easy
            Default to 1.5x in Hard
            
Preaching
    Fix bug that blocked Preaching if Target Jumped
    Fix bug that blocked Preaching if Preacher Jumped
    
Transporting Prisoners
    Renamed from Imprison to Transport Prisoner
    Status updated from Capturing to TransportingCells
    Allow Generic Rooms to be marked as Cells
    Allow Bunk Rooms to be marked as Cells
    
Vassals under Attack
    Add Petition that notifies you when a Vassal is under Attack
    Allows you to intervene and Negotiate for Peace on their behalf
    
Add Invert Layer Navigation Control Option
    Add "Controls -> Invert Layer Navigation" to Invert Layer NavigationHeavy Is The Crown
    Fix bug that allowed turning a Mortal into a Baby
    
Mercenaries
    Fix bugs with Ownership and Permission when a Merc arrives while you're with an Envoy
    
Localization
    Add Auto translated versions of most new strings

Restart the game and steam to pick it up!

Experimental

Updates like these arrive on the Experimental Branch first.

If you have the stomach for brief bouts of instability and want to help us out - switch to (or stay in) the Experimental Beta on Steam and participate in discussions here or on discord.

Expect occasional issues - but know that we appreciate you helping us make the game better!

Roadmap Update!

Let's take a moment to update the Roadmap and cross off a few boxes!

These days, there are 3 types of updates for Noble Fates - Hotfix Updates that address bugs and issues (including those that are listed on the Backlog and those that you Report in-game); Minor Updates that focus on reworking or expanding existing systems and filling them with additional content; and Feature Updates that add new features to the game expanding the overall breadth of what the game has to offer.

NOTE: We've replaced Content Updates with Minor Updates to better encompass the work that is being done to rework and expand on existing Systems during the march to 1.0.

Priority Progress

Progress against the Priority Fixes that we outlined in Fall 2024

We launched the Conquest Update that included expansions to Diplomacy, a number of Strategic Options, Ballistas, Save Compatibility, and also improved Reachability detection. Then we tackled Hauling and Performance with targeted updates.

Notable Changes

60 Crash Fixes - bringing total to 310+!Save Migration
    Added Save Compatibility for future Updates
   
NPC Rulers
    Added Familiarity
        How familiar they are with your Ruler
    Added Influence
        How much influence your Ruler can leverage
    Added Diplomacy Options for Player
        Send Envoy
        Declare War
        Offer Peace
        Offer/Request/Sever/Break Allegiance
        Request Support
    Added Negotiations
        Earn and Spend Influence via Concessions
    Added Surrendering
        Surrender when Defeated during Raid
        Added Judgment Moment
            Decide the Surrendered Ruler's FateDiplomatic Relationships
    Introduced Vassals and OverlordsOverworld
    Added Might Tracking
        Derived from Kingdom Strength + Allies
    Added History
    Added Territory System to Overworld
    
Cloaks
    Introduced 4 Tiers of Craftable Cloaks
    
Mortals
    Improved Mortal Visuals
    
Crafting
    Rebalanced CraftingPathing
    Threaded Reachability
        Dropped Reachability latency from ~30s to ~1s
    
Fortresses
    Used to seed NPC bases from Player bases
    
Fog of War
    Improved the appearance and performance of Fog of WarNPC Kingdoms
    Simulate WealthMercenaries
    Added Mercenaries
    
Petitions
    Iterated on Frequency
    Added Coin Rewards for Allies
    
Combat
    Added Ballistas
    Added Battering Rams
    Added Shield Toggle
    Added Friendly Fire Toggle
    Improved Ranged BehaviorHauling
    Introduced Storage v2
        All Items have a Store Command
        Added Storage Remaining UI
        Added Storage Icons
    Improved Prioritization
    
Injuries
    Added Self Treating
    Improved Micro Treatment capabilities
    
Training
    Improved Training Variety
    
Guided Experience
    Improved Flow
    
Fracture on Startup
    Limited time spent
    
Fire
    Decreased rate of Spread
    Improved Fire Fighting   Mercenaries
    Added MercenariesKingdom Size
    Excluded Prisoners and Mercenaries
    
Babies
    No longer targeted by Non-Conquest EnemiesEscapee Moment
    Improved FlowRelaxation
    Improved self preservation
    Improved behavior on Enemy Maps

Current Priorities

Some new entries here - including Fortress Mod support, Savable Mortal Presets, and allowing Buffs to exceed Skill Caps. We think these changes will better round out the whole experience as we head towards 1.0.

Feature Updates

Finally, we have the Feature Updates. As a reminder, 8 of these will arrive during Early Access. 7 have landed so far. The most recent was Feature Update 7.

Feature Update #7 - Noble Fates: Conquest!

Our biggest update to date, Noble Fates: Conquest greatly expanded on the mid to late game introducing the ability to Conquer your Island via Diplomacy or Warfare.

Feature Update #8 Status Update: In Progress

The 8th Feature Update is in progress, and we're excited to share more details soon.

Early Access Status

We're around 85% of the way through what we aim to accomplish with Early Access. Current estimates have us at 12 months or so from 1.0 with Major Update #8 landing somewhere in the middle.

We're in good shape for landing 1.0, due to your continued support. As always, you have our sincere gratitude!

Post 1.0 Plans

We plan to support the game with a series of Hotfixes and Minor Updates that ensure the game is well balanced, performs well, and has consistent usability.

From there, the game could see subsequent Major Updates in one form or another depending on where things sit when the dust settles.

Community Corner

A few shots from the DIscord over the past few weeks...

I Catapulted Myself - by killabi

jimg's latest Mountain Base - this time he's building upwards!

Kideya's Tavern in progress!

Discord

Join the Official Discord to participate in Development!

Reviews

If you like the game, please consider leaving a Review. These can help players decide that Noble Fates is worthy of their attention.

Thanks for reading and thanks for playing!
The Noble Fates Team