Previously the StartGameNotification and MusicPlaylist traits used the IWorldLoaded interface to play an audio notification and begin music when the game started. However this interface is used by many traits to perform initial loading whilst the load screen was visible, and this loading can take time. Since the traits could run in any order, then audio notification might fire before another trait with a long loading time. This is not ideal as we want the time between the audio notification occurring and the player being able to interact to be as short and reliable as possible.
Now, we introduce a new IPostWorldLoaded which runs after all other loading activity, and we switch StartGameNotification and MusicPlaylist to use it. This allows timing sensitive traits that want to run right at the end of loading to fire reliably and with minimal delay. The player perception of hearing the notification and being able to interact is now much snappier.
As the `touched` cell layer uses Boolean values, Array.IndexOf is able to use a fast vectorised search. Most values in the array are false, so the search is able to significantly improve the performance of finding the next true value in the array.
When handling the Nodes collection in MiniYaml, individual nodes are located via one of two methods:
// Lookup a single key with linear search.
var node = yaml.Nodes.FirstOrDefault(n => n.Key == "SomeKey");
// Convert to dictionary, expecting many key lookups.
var dict = nodes.ToDictionary();
// Lookup a single key in the dictionary.
var node = dict["SomeKey"];
To simplify lookup of individual keys via linear search, provide helper methods NodeWithKeyOrDefault and NodeWithKey. These helpers do the equivalent of Single{OrDefault} searches. Whilst this requires checking the whole list, it provides a useful correctness check. Two duplicated keys in TS yaml are fixed as a result. We can also optimize the helpers to not use LINQ, avoiding allocation of the delegate to search for a key.
Adjust existing code to use either lnear searches or dictionary lookups based on whether it will be resolving many keys. Resolving few keys can be done with linear searches to avoid building a dictionary. Resolving many keys should be done with a dictionary to avoid quaradtic runtime from repeated linear searches.
This changeset is motivated by a simple concept - get rid of the MiniYaml.Clone and MiniYamlNode.Clone methods to avoid deep copying yaml trees during merging. MiniYaml becoming immutable allows the merge function to reuse existing yaml trees rather than cloning them, saving on memory and improving merge performance. On initial loading the YAML for all maps is processed, so this provides a small reduction in initial loading time.
The rest of the changeset is dealing with the change in the exposed API surface. Some With* helper methods are introduced to allow creating new YAML from existing YAML. Areas of code that generated small amounts of YAML are able to transition directly to the immutable model without too much ceremony. Some use cases are far less ergonomic even with these helper methods and so a MiniYamlBuilder is introduced to retain mutable creation functionality. This allows those areas to continue to use the old mutable structures. The main users are the update rules and linting capabilities.
- Add prefixes to all message keys to provide context
- Use messages with attributes for some UI elements (dropdowns, dialogs, checkboxes, menus)
- Rename some class fields for consistency with translation keys
By tracking updates on the ActorMap the HierarchicalPathFinder can be aware of actors moving around the map. We track a subset of immovable actors that always block. These actors can be treated as impassable obstacles just like terrain. When a path needs to be found the abstract path will guide the search around this subset of immovable actors just like it can guide the search around impassable terrain. For path searches that were previously imperformant because some immovable actors created a bottleneck that needed to be routed around, these will now be performant instead. Path searches with bottlenecks created by items such as trees, walls and buildings should see a performance improvement. Bottlenecks created by other units will not benefit.
We now maintain two sets of HPFs. One is aware of immovable actors and will be used for path searches that request BlockedByActor.Immovable, BlockedByActor.Stationary and BlockedByActor.All to guide that around the immovable obstacles. The other is aware of terrain only and will be used for searches that request BlockedByActor.None, or if an ignoreActor is provided. A new UI dropdown when using the `/hpf` command will allow switching between the visuals of the two sets.
When this cheat is used by notifying of shroud changes we invoke the usual logic that would occur if the visibility had been granted by units. Without this change any cached information about the visibility is not refreshed. Without this refresh actors with different visibility may not act correctly.
One aspect this improves is frozen actors. Using the visibility cheat will show up all actors on the map. If the cheat is then disabled than frozen actors will appear in their place. Prior to this change a frozen actor would fail to appear if the cheat had caused it to be revealed. Healthbars and selection boxes are also made consistent for similar reasons.
Since bbf5970bc1 we update frozen actors only when required.
In 8339c6843e a regression was fixed where actors created in line of sight would be invisible.
Here, we fix a related regression where cloaked units that are revealed, and then frozen when you move out of line of sight would lack tooltips.
The fix centers around the setting of the Hidden flag. In the old code this used CanBeViewedByPlayer which checks for visibility modifiers and then uses the default visibility. The bug with this code is that when a visibility modifier was not hiding the actor, then we would report the default visibility state instead. However the frozen visibility state applies here which means if the frozen actor is visible, then we consider the actor to be hidden and therefore tooltips will not appear. In the fixed version we only consider the modifiers. This means a visibility modifier such as Cloak can hide the frozen actor tooltips. But otherwise we do not consider the frozen actor to be hidden. This prevents a frozen actor from hiding its own tooltips in some unintended circular logic. Hidden now becomes just a flag to indicate if the visibility modifiers are overriding things, as intended.
Requires<T> means that trait of type T will be initialized first, and asserts that at least one exists. The new NotBefore<T> means that trait of type T will be initialized first, but allows no traits.
This allows traits to control initialization order for optional dependencies. They want to be initialized second so they can rely on the dependencies having been initialized. But if the dependencies are optional then to not throw if none are present.
We apply this to Locomotor which was previously using AddFrameEndTask to work around trait order initialization. This improves the user experience as the initialization is applied whilst the loading screen is still visible, rather than the game starting and creating jank by performing initialization on the first tick.
