Improved Backend (#10)

The last update is just a few weeks ago but it's already time for more information about the next update.

To make it short, I've finished migrating the first parts of the backend to the improved backend systems and get it somewhat stable. It is a lot faster and allows that connecting to another server is nearly instant (around 25ms per transaction, compared to over 300ms with the old backend). Also, updates of filesystems are much faster as well, so propagating changes on files to other players and yourself takes around 60-100ms instead of sometimes over 2 seconds. This is very important as a lot of interaction takes place on other servers' filesystem and timeouts at this part of the game are pretty frustrating. All other game-related code is still on the original backend but will eventually be migrated bit by bit since is a major change I've already planned, but I've hoped could be done much later. But the last updates especially when more than 10 players were online showed, that things could get stuck pretty easily.

Next Steps

The next phase in this major change will happen together with the people already playing. Bring it to its limits and report all the bugs which may occur. During this test, I'll work on new features again and migrate more parts to the new backend. The first chapter of the story which also functions as a tutorial is nearly finished and will be added after the next update as well, which leads us to the next announcement:

The release of the next update:

Version 0.21.0 - Monday 26.04.2021 - 7 PM CEST

The release will be followed by about 100 more invites. After a few days of bug fixing around 300 more invites will be sent out, to further stress-test the new infrastructure. During this time I will monitor performance and potential bottlenecks.

If anything changes, I'll post updates on the Discord server, so join the Discord if you haven't to stay up to date! There are also other social media channels like Twitter and Reddit where sometimes alpha-keys appear so it is a good thing to check them regularly

Also if you would like to support my work on hackero you can do this by subscribing to my Patreon! This helps me to keep the project alive, cover monthly costs.

That is all for now! Thank you for your support!