Can I offer code to improve runtime?

[Koishi]

I'm a game systems engineer by hobby and browsing through the source have noticed there's several places I can offer some decent runtime opts to and general architectural stability in the process however maintaining this in a mod wouldn't be ideal since it'd break every alpha.  So are TFP open to donated code?  In particular there's a way I can batch process zeds and improve them a fair bit such that having a few hundred shouldn't be problematic for servers or even clients.  It would help maintainability as well since it'd help pull away from excessive flag/type checking and use existence based processing which helps pull code away from the virtual tick call and instead places things inside "game systems" which is easy to maintain since you have one function working with exactly one type of data doing one type of logic without having to do a ton of state checking or jump through polymorphic hoops.  All around would make everyone's lives easier.  I don't want money or anything in return, it'd be nice to have credit for a CV but even if that can't happen for some NDA reason I'd be happy still to sign whatever just to contribute.  It'd be nice to actually see the game's runtime improve they just look like they need a bit of help.

 

If proof is required for any reason I'm working on an openworld sandbox showcase/demo right now on github called YearsOfShadow, it manages to simulate about 10k zed intelligence level NPCs with deterministic physics/logic at about 8ms though it utilizes every core in a synced threading technique which is a bit cheaty, but even single threaded it manages to do this in about 11ms just fine.

 

This genre of games can be a lot more than it is with the right skill chipping in and showing the way and would love to contribute for the sake of growing the industry.  You can find my discord server through that repo if you wish to contact me directly for any reason.  I'd love to get into contact with TFP any way possible especially and love chatting about architecture and runtime solutions and their tradeoffs.

Thank you for reading and I hope your day is awesome.

[Ripflex]

*sarcasm MODE on*

 

How dare you provide free code to improve performance in a forever Alpha game, I enjoy 35 FPS in cities and 25 FPS during massive horde nights on my awesome gaming rig that run Cyberpunk 2077 at 100 FPS with Ray Tracing on !!!

 

*sarcasm MODE off*

[Koishi]

13 hours ago, Ripflex said:

*sarcasm MODE on*

 

How dare you provide free code to improve performance in a forever Alpha game, I enjoy 35 FPS in cities and 25 FPS during massive horde nights on my awesome gaming rig that run Cyberpunk 2077 at 100 FPS with Ray Tracing on !!!

 

*sarcasm MODE off*

For the sake of transparency I've had spite in my heart about this since many years ago and it actually oddly inspired me to improve my own skillset a lot for the industry's sake.  But it's come full circle.  I want to bury the hatchet if possible and actually bridge build again and maybe find a way to help push things in a better direction.  I've had many years of experience of trying to do things with indie devs specifically, with most of them shunning any kind of desire for considering architectural implications (the thing someone in game systems engineering would specialize in).  I've come to realize at least some of the fault is in myself and how I've approached people.  And i've learned a lot since then.  And now I actually have evidence to back up ideas and have the patience to dialog properly and have come to wonder maybe the devs for this game aren't at least all the same as the ones i've had past experiences with.  I really want to contact them and see what kind of people they are.  I can sympathize and empathize with them even if the game took 10 years to get to it's current point, @%$#ups are ok.  It's just honesty that matters.  In a lot of various ways the industry as a whole is caught in a cycle of spite that needs to end.  I've tried emailing them to.  If I can't get a proper dialog i'll be stuck just doing my own project, getting it playable eventually, getting people to wonder why a single person adding features to something like that takes about the same time or less as long and why the scale is so insanely big, but without a way to bridge build even still.  Sure I can make an example and get people upset about the current bar for games in this mix of genres.  But what's really the point if it's so polarizing that it feeds the cycle of hatred.  Even best case, i could see devs jumping ship to whatever various techniques this made example and trample on previous norms entirely regardless of context and that's not healthy either.  I got tired of people shoving uncle bob's "clean code" philosophy down my throat at every turn due to the bull@%$# polarizing fanaticism he had for OOP but i'm no better if i encourage others to experience the same traumatic response i had where for a while i entirely abandoned all past conventions and had to start ground up, lost, and unable to bridge build for multiple years and see the mixed good in things.  Sorry if this was a bit of a monologue I hope am forgiven.  These past ten ish years of learning game programming generally feel to be coming to a head in a kind of spiritual journey almost.  I hope the ramblings mean something to someone if nothing else >.<

[Cr0wst0rm]

11 minutes ago, Koishi said:

For the sake of transparency I've had spite in my heart about this since many years ago and it actually oddly inspired me to improve my own skillset a lot for the industry's sake.  But it's come full circle.  I want to bury the hatchet if possible and actually bridge build again and maybe find a way to help push things in a better direction.  I've had many years of experience of trying to do things with indie devs specifically, with most of them shunning any kind of desire for considering architectural implications (the thing someone in game systems engineering would specialize in).  I've come to realize at least some of the fault is in myself and how I've approached people.  And i've learned a lot since then.  And now I actually have evidence to back up ideas and have the patience to dialog properly and have come to wonder maybe the devs for this game aren't at least all the same as the ones i've had past experiences with.  I really want to contact them and see what kind of people they are.  I can sympathize and empathize with them even if the game took 10 years to get to it's current point, @%$#ups are ok.  It's just honesty that matters.  In a lot of various ways the industry as a whole is caught in a cycle of spite that needs to end.  I've tried emailing them to.  If I can't get a proper dialog i'll be stuck just doing my own project, getting it playable eventually, getting people to wonder why a single person adding features to something like that takes about the same time or less as long and why the scale is so insanely big, but without a way to bridge build even still.  Sure I can make an example and get people upset about the current bar for games in this mix of genres.  But what's really the point if it's so polarizing that it feeds the cycle of hatred.  Even best case, i could see devs jumping ship to whatever various techniques this made example and trample on previous norms entirely regardless of context and that's not healthy either.  I got tired of people shoving uncle bob's "clean code" philosophy down my throat at every turn due to the bull@%$# polarizing fanaticism he had for OOP but i'm no better if i encourage others to experience the same traumatic response i had where for a while i entirely abandoned all past conventions and had to start ground up, lost, and unable to bridge build for multiple years and see the mixed good in things.  Sorry if this was a bit of a monologue I hope am forgiven.  These past ten ish years of learning game programming generally feel to be coming to a head in a kind of spiritual journey almost.  I hope the ramblings mean something to someone if nothing else >.<

Do you have a github repo for these?

[Koishi]

1 hour ago, Cr0wst0rm said:

Do you have a github repo for these?

Indeed I do!~  I mentioned it above but i suppose if it's against rules to link directly I can edit/remove this post later.  Am considering making this my magnum opus before leaving the industry behind depending how things go.  Discord server link inside is ideal for getting updates and it's how I can be reached.  It's here: https://github.com/redhatdragon/YearsOfShadow

 

At least as the project continues to grow it'll prove that maintainability is actually not much an issue.  There's a lot of very unconventional design decisions going on and odd goals being reached.  There should be a design doc in here to detail all that.  Yes the doc complains about some things with this game in contrast as it's meant to be a similar genre mix, and maybe I was harsh with it.  But maybe I can rectify that and still make this something to lead by example rather than be purely an act of frustration.  I welcome all walks of life.  The project may be a data oriented C++ sort of approach but I do have very skilled C# programmers in there whom share perspectives with.  It's starting to become a home for bridge building and sharing ideas.  And really that alone brought joy to my heart.  Gamers would be very surprised the amount of in fighting that goes on just on the software side of things not counting the contrast of designer vs engineer and so on that can easily crop up.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Koishi (see edit history)

[Koishi]

Also on a similar note i've been trying for months to see about encouraging various mod devs to start unifying efforts on a singular shared API/Framework so that it'll be easier to maintain/port mods between alphas but haven't gotten traction.  Maybe there's not enough large servers to justify it.  At the very least maybe now they are talking more which is good to see.

[ZehMatt]

I did a mod before that changed some of the locking around the chunks/voxels and they actually merged it, maybe if you do smaller mods there could be a chance they put it in.

[Roland]

On 10/15/2023 at 1:13 AM, Koishi said:

I'm a game systems engineer by hobby and browsing through the source have noticed there's several places I can offer some decent runtime opts to and general architectural stability in the process however maintaining this in a mod wouldn't be ideal since it'd break every alpha.  So are TFP open to donated code?  In particular there's a way I can batch process zeds and improve them a fair bit such that having a few hundred shouldn't be problematic for servers or even clients.  It would help maintainability as well since it'd help pull away from excessive flag/type checking and use existence based processing which helps pull code away from the virtual tick call and instead places things inside "game systems" which is easy to maintain since you have one function working with exactly one type of data doing one type of logic without having to do a ton of state checking or jump through polymorphic hoops.  All around would make everyone's lives easier.  I don't want money or anything in return, it'd be nice to have credit for a CV but even if that can't happen for some NDA reason I'd be happy still to sign whatever just to contribute.  It'd be nice to actually see the game's runtime improve they just look like they need a bit of help.

 

If proof is required for any reason I'm working on an openworld sandbox showcase/demo right now on github called YearsOfShadow, it manages to simulate about 10k zed intelligence level NPCs with deterministic physics/logic at about 8ms though it utilizes every core in a synced threading technique which is a bit cheaty, but even single threaded it manages to do this in about 11ms just fine.

 

This genre of games can be a lot more than it is with the right skill chipping in and showing the way and would love to contribute for the sake of growing the industry.  You can find my discord server through that repo if you wish to contact me directly for any reason.  I'd love to get into contact with TFP any way possible especially and love chatting about architecture and runtime solutions and their tradeoffs.

Thank you for reading and I hope your day is awesome.

 

Hi Koishi,

 

If you are serious about wanting to contact the developers and offer services then your best course of action is to send an email to [email protected] and include your resume and links to portfolio/ work you have done. That is your direct line to them. I'm going to close this thread simply because the responses you get here will not be from the developers and will vary greatly from support to criticism to ridicule from non-associated parties and I don't think that is your goal.

 

Good Luck! A few current and past staff members started out as simply fans of the game and regular forum users. Please also note that if a developer does read this and wants to respond they have the power to do so even though it is locked to normal users.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Roland (see edit history)