State of the Island Address #2

[Death]

I want to start by apologizing for the issues that have arisen by recent updates. I had tunnel vision and tried to push the new backend as fast as possible so that I can change gears on new features.

In doing so, I've created mayhem that has put players at an inconvenience. I am genuinely sorry, and I promise you I will be finding a better pace and more thorough testing before pushing updates live.

If you're unsure what I am referring to, our recent update has displaced quarries and pumpjacks owned by players due to an oversight in my code. If you're affected, please reach out to an admin or create a ticket at https://rustez.com/help.

 

Small Shelves

We've removed small shelves as their functionality was not worth the server performance tax they required to handle the spawning of items, stability, and decay to treat them as regular entities. They were, in fact, custom and had to be controlled entirely to appear as if it an actual item.

We are instead planning on implementing direct container stacking instead. We're unsure if we'll have stacked containers as their own item or let players stack them manually. We will have more information about this later this month.

Quarries

We plan to remove quarries from our Pure server starting in October. This has been a long outstanding change and is something that must be done to preserve the vanilla experience and keep true to community guidelines.

UPDATE: Pure will have the same quarry system as mentioned below for Scourge.

We will be significantly increasing the number of available quarries instead, ensuring there is always one available for players. This will not only reduce map clutter but improve client performance substantially, not having quarries placed everywhere.

We also plan to remove quarries on our Scourge server starting in October as well. We plan to instead make public quarries usable by multiple players at once by utilizing virtual container technology so more than one player can operate a single quarry. This will create multiple instances of the containers so other players can not access your content during operation.

If this feature is not available before October for Scourge, we will delay the removal of quarries (for Scourge) until it is implemented. Survival will not be affected by these changes as we plan to push Survival's automation features soon.

Pumpjacks

Pumpjacks will also see a few changes, starting with its placement. Instead of free placement, players will need to use survey charges to create an oil crater to place the pumpjack on, precisely how quarries are placed. The chance of an oil crater will be significant, so optimal placement can be achieved.

The reason for the placement changes is to restore the pumpjack to its original state and remove the custom placement mechanics to reduce the load on our server during peaks.

Also, the process rate of pumpjacks will double. This will not affect the production rate or fuel consumption. It will merely increase the time it takes to complete a single interaction to improve performance and decrease idle fuel production. It will increase to 20 seconds, from 10 seconds.

UPDATE: Pumpjack changes listed above will be for the November update.

Vehicle Flares

Vehicles will no longer be purchasable on the black-market; instead, a player can purchase a vehicle flare to interface with a UI of owned vehicles to spawn in. Capture vehicles will no longer give these flares. To add a vehicle to your virtual garage, they must be purchased at an NPC vendor.

When a player disconnects, the vehicle is automatically added back to their garage unless another player is occupying it. This is to ensure the vehicle does not decay or take damage while the owner is offline. Also, it will reduce the total amount of vehicles spawned in at one time to help with performance.

 

We have many more exciting reworks and new features in the works, but for now, we want to get the above changes polished before moving on to ensure we're not adding more bugs on top of others. 

[Winney]

awesome cant wait, hopefully testing comes out soon for the results of it. I wish best of luck.....

 

[[RF]ThatCakeDontBake]

Interesting changes coming up. Excited to see how this goes!

[Shiddypoop]

    Thank you for the apology and the timely response to the missing quarries. I feel like you and I butt-heads on things you do on purpose way more than the things you do on accident LOL. I think the vehicle flare changes you have on the horizon seem interesting to me as well.

    I just wanted to say... Death. I know we've had our disagreements surrounding the quarries in the past, but I'm curious to see how it plays out without personal deploy-able ones. Maybe it will be a good change after all. 

[lambroski35]

Can't wait to see the new changes! 

[DabDaddyJosh]

Thanks Dad. you tha best  

 

[WOrLdWAr2]

As someone who values performance and balance over a lot of things, especially for modded servers, I am very excited with these changes. Less is more and / or creative and technically graceful / streamlined solutions I highly appreciate and are ideal -- looking forward to upcoming developments.

Edited September 6, 2020 by WOrLdWAr2

[Vonblood]

I played on the AU Scourge alil last wipe w/o a quarry to find how much I missed mining and exploring. Having the quarry removed will be good thing overall in my book.

[Dicko A La Mode]

[aps265]

In the survival server, what is happening with the quarries? Are you slowly degrading them as well??

What are the current stats of a level five quarry of both types?

 

[Death]

On 9/6/2020 at 10:28 AM, Death said:

Survival will not be affected by these changes as we plan to push Survival's automation features soon.

@aps265

A level 5 quarry would be the output of 5 level 1 quarries.

[aps265]

Thanks for the info Death.

[Theodore Baggins]

Will public pumpjacks also get the multi-user code for public quarries? Or will they remain single-user only?

Also PS: thanks for all the work you do to make this a great community

Edited September 11, 2020 by Theodore Baggins

[Aurora]

I see the proposed changes to the quarries on servers as being a positive change, overall.

- Pure without quarries keeps the server true to the vanilla experience. 
- Survival, with the jpipe mod needs to keep player-owned (private) quarries. That was the main appeal of the server when I played it.
- On Scourge, limiting use to public/monument quarries (but using the virtual containers to prevent looting/theft on PvE server) is also a good idea.

There is no mention of player levels on the modded servers for quarries. I think the levels are great on the modded servers -- but like the chainsaw and jackhammer -- should not apply to quarries (i.e. on Survival as player-placed and Scourge as a public/virtual instance the quarry output shouldn't be modified).

The changes to pumpjacks are reasonable, given that the changes are designed to improve performance and do not impact input or output. No mention of upgrade on PJs though. The option to upgrade one PJ to level 2 (instead of placing 2 PJs) is nice.

Also, I really do miss small shelves. It's not a deal breaker but as I was one of the players (along with @Vonblood and @ScarletFox and a few others) who hounded you to have them on the modded server, I hope to see an item/function similar to this make it's way back to EZ.

[Octane]

@Shadowjacker

 

[DragonCoffee]

On 9/9/2020 at 10:28 AM, Death said:

A level 5 quarry would be the output of 5 level 1 quarries.

A level one quarry based on the way levels are set up already, or a different method of measurement? If the former does that mean people will need a minimum of two quarries (one in snow, one in desert) to mine all the different resources?

Will there still be a level cap, or will this be changed?

If these questions will be answered in the future update than no need to answer! I was just curious about what direction the changes were headed.

[Death]

@DragonCoffee best way to describe levels is imagining you're stacking them every time you level it. So, a level 2 would be to quarries. The output and fuel consumption would be no different than running 2 level 1 quarries.

The only server retaining quarries is Survival, and there are no planned changes for the leveling system any time soon.