I do the same as KMnO4 and I think I have never received an email to a random address that I haven't shared before. Currently the biggest volume of spam is coming to adobe@ and github@ (along with some dating sites).
Actually, I did receive one, from my friend who typed the entire message in the name before the @ and left the body and subject empty :D
I do the same and I did receive a few, to some addresses that looked like UUIDs. It was just a handful of addresses, so they were easy enough to block.
Game dev here. The reason is simple - performance. Unlike Java, C# has zero-overhead structs (custom primitive types if you will), so say a Vector3f is just 3 floats in memory, 12 bytes, no object overhead, no pointer indirection. This is a BIG deal. Array of vectors can be just raw data in C#, not an array of pointers like in Java. You can fairly easily map C# structs to C/C++ structs that GPU drivers need. C# even allows fixing struct fields to certain offsets to ensure identical memory layout with other languages.
Other features are also critical to performance such as true generics. Say List<Vector3f> in C# is specialized for that type, no overhead from objects, no extra pointers, no casting.
In C#, if you are very careful, you can get close to the performance of C++. I don't think the same can be said about Java, because the language does not give you the tools to achieve that.
Yeah, Java's reply to performance was "let's make the GC better", C#'s was "let's make the GC optional". I don't think it was a strictly conscious decision (generics were reified long before XNA was even an idea), but for low-level game development it is imperative to have predictable memory usage and control.
Yes! Nuclear reactor needs enriched fuel and produces heat. You connect water and it will turn it to steam that you can pipe to do what you want. Usually you want to use it in turbines for electricity production, but you can also use it for desalination, or in oil refinery.
If you don't supply water to the operational reactor, it overheats, and you know what that means... Just kidding, no explosions (yet), it just gets damaged and you loose all loaded fuel.
Steam has regional pricing and we can set a price in local currency for each country separately. They also provide price suggestions. Argentina is one of the cheapest regions so you can definitely pickup cheaper games there.
Thanks! We don't have imminent plans to release on different stores, sorry! Each store comes with non-trivial overhead of management, different build system, community interaction, update posting, patch notes, etc, and currently we are just too small team for that.
Thanks! I'd say that the most important "resource" is dedication. Anything else is just matter of doing it until it works. We've been chipping away for so many years without an end in sight and if just one of us gave up, that would be probably the end of it.
Of course my degree in computer science and computer graphics helps, but with dedication and you can just search your way through most problems.
I'd also recommend to limit the scope as much as possible. We might have been a little too ambitious. Don't design features that you cant make. For example, in one iteration we had a vision of global economy where you can buy/sell materials, competing with AI players. On paper, that's great. When we started coding, we had no idea how to make this all work, and after a few months of failed attempts we completely scratched it.
Multiplayer is a big topic and it is obviously on our minds. The big questions is what type of multiplayer would be the best for this kind of game?
Would it be coop where each player would start on their corner of the map? Or would it be shared factory? Of maybe each player with its own island + trading?
Also, it is technically very challenging, since the entire simulation must be perfectly deterministic. We actually have most of the things deterministic, maybe like 95%, fixing the last 5% is a lot of work.
Leave it up to the player. If they want to build a shared factory, so be it. If they want to build on separate corners of the map, that's cool too.
Just place the players in the same game world.
With regards to trickiness of determinism and what not, just make it so there's an authoritative server running the simulation, and the other players/clients just get their source of truth from the server.
The server could be an actual dedicated server program that has no frontend, or it could be one of the clients in the game.
I always wanted to try a game where you join an economy and your supply impacts the demand of others and changes the price, etc.
When playing Minecraft as a kid I always envisioned getting specialized in finding certain minerals or making certain items and selling them but I guess it was too early in the game and that wasn’t an option. There might be a mod now that allows for thag
