Performance, Stability & General Optimisation Regular Update 5.4.1

Performance, Stability & General Optimisation Update

This update focuses primarily on improving performance, reducing unnecessary background processing, shortening menu delays, and making several gameplay and interface systems more reliable.

While many of these changes happen behind the scenes, they should help the game run more smoothly and reduce unnecessary pauses, repeated checks, and background operations.

MAJOR CHANGES

Extensive script optimisation

• A large number of game scripts have been reviewed and updated so that they only perform checks when required, rather than continuously checking every frame.

Reduced unnecessary background processing

• Several systems are now event-driven or timer-based. This reduces unnecessary processor usage and allows the game to spend more time handling gameplay, rendering, physics, and interface updates.

Improved scene loading

• Several scene transitions now use more efficient loading methods to reduce freezing and delays when moving between levels and menus.

Improved Main Menu loading performance

• The amount of object scanning, setup, file access, and repeated system initialisation performed when returning to the Main Menu has been reduced.

Improved level completion detection

• Level completion now reacts more reliably when all required enemies or monsters have been defeated.

Reduced repeated object and component searches

• Frequently accessed objects, cameras, components, methods, and references are now cached where possible instead of being repeatedly searched for.

Admin system optimisation

Admin-related systems have received a full optimisation pass, reducing unnecessary searches, repeated reflection calls, background checks, and interface allocations.

MEDIUM CHANGES

Improved Steam achievement checks

• Achievement-related systems now perform timed or event-based checks instead of repeatedly checking achievement conditions every frame.

Improved score display updates

• Score interface elements now update only when the player's score changes.

Improved reset-button checks

• Reset buttons no longer repeatedly read save files every frame to determine whether they should be available.

Improved DLC detection

• Expensive DLC-related object scanning has been reduced, and repeated status checks have been removed where they were unnecessary.

Improved persistent manager handling

• Additional protections have been added to prevent duplicate persistent manager objects from being created when changing scenes.

Improved pause menu transitions

• Pause menu scene transitions have been adjusted to reduce blocking and improve responsiveness.

Improved patch notes system

• The patch notes system now avoids repeatedly scanning folders whenever the Main Menu loads.

Patch notes are now generated more gradually

• Large patch note lists can now be built across multiple frames instead of generating every interface element at the same time.

Improved controller navigation checks

• Unnecessary controller cursor and interface raycast checks have been reduced.

Improved level-flow handling

• Level-loading fallback logic has been updated to help prevent incorrect, duplicate, or overlapping scene-loading requests.

SMALL CHANGES

• Unnecessary PlayerPrefs save operations have been reduced during menu navigation and scene changes.

• Additional protections have been added to prevent multiple scene-load requests from being triggered at the same time.

• Menu text references are now cached more efficiently.

• Camera references in bird-control scripts are now cached.

• Temporary memory allocations created while displaying bird trajectories have been reduced.

• Trajectory data is now reused instead of creating new arrays during repeated aiming updates.

• Multiple bird-reset routines are prevented from running at the same time after repeated collisions.

• Repeated save-system checks during level progression have been reduced.

• Scripts now avoid running unnecessary gameplay logic while outside gameplay scenes.

• Interface-related memory allocations have been reduced across several admin screens.

• Repeated reflection-based method searches have been reduced.

• Repeated hierarchy searches for frequently used objects have been reduced.

• Duplicate GameController detection has been improved.

• Persistent-object cleanup has been improved when duplicate managers are created.

• Repeated debug output from background DLC systems has been reduced.

INSIGNIFICANT CHANGES

These changes are unlikely to be noticeable individually, but together they contribute to improved stability and reduced processing overhead.

• Several redundant frame-by-frame condition checks have been removed.

• Repeated string, component, and object lookups have been reduced.

• Small temporary allocations caused by frequently running scripts have been reduced.

• Internal references are now reused more consistently.

• Unnecessary repeated status updates have been removed.

• Unused menu processing has been reduced.

• Unnecessary file and folder checks have been reduced.

• Internal script organisation has been improved.

• Additional safety checks have been added for missing references.

• Protection against duplicate events and repeated callbacks has been improved.

• Unnecessary debug logging has been reduced.

• Handling of inactive objects during searches has been improved.

• Several older object-search methods have been replaced with more efficient Unity 6 alternatives.

• Additional static checks have been performed across all game scripts.

• Existing script filenames and class names have been preserved to maintain compatibility with existing scenes, prefabs, and saved references.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

This update is primarily focused on optimisation and stability rather than introducing new content.

Players may notice shorter delays when returning to the Main Menu, smoother menu navigation, more reliable level completion, reduced background processor usage, fewer unnecessary frame-by-frame checks, more responsive scene transitions, and more consistent behaviour from persistent game systems.

Thank you for continuing to play and support the game. Additional fixes and improvements may be released as further issues are identified if necessary.

• This update was not expected but Monster Knockout was left in an unoptimized state so we decided to give the players one big optimisation update to the game and worked hard for the last few months to do what's right for the game and players