We are definitely moving into the part of the dev cycle where we can craft the “mid game” experience of Clockwork Empires effectively. One of the issues we are currently facing with the middle game is one of performance. We have a requirement that the game perform 10 simulation ticks per second, as mandated by our AI. This means that every update to the game state needs to take place in approximately 100 msec to avoid stuttering between frames – the renderer will keep rendering, if necessary, while it waits for the game AI to catch up. If you have 100 characters to be simulated, this gives you a budget of slightly under 1 msec per character. With Revision 36, we started to see people sending us save games with functioning colonies of 70 or so colonists, where stuttering was frequently occurring, and where in general the frame took more than 100 msec to run on my PC at the office. What can be done?
A town bustling busily. What is to be done!
