October 2025 Devlog

I started renting a better server, going from 10-15 fps to a stable 60+ fps on the server side. I also fixed an issue with fixed updates throttling logic, cars are now full speed again.

A limited time Halloween event has been taking place, with a new vendor to buy pre-carved pumpkins and plain ones that you can "carve" yourself that light up in the dark.

They will be available to purchase for a little while longer, probably removed by the end of next week.

Buyers have gotten a speech bubble that shows current speech and the item they want.

The NPC cashier can now be upgraded via professions to make them serve NPC buyers. This only works while a player with the unlock is online.

An RF alarm has been added, it detects NPC thieves. Making it detect stolen items for players is a bit harder, so that may come at a later point.

A few containers have gotten keypad support, which can be added by buying a keypad and slapping it on. Currently the freezer and small cooler works.

There is also a keypad cracker which is slow and noisy, use it if you forget your PIN.

You can now permanently place down interior walls with the designer mode, braces no longer required.

Materials can be changed on the interior walls too, with more objects coming in the future.

Business binding can also be toggled quickly.

There is now a highlight outline to make it easier to see what object is being hovered.

Laylad posted some help about the new ControlJoint so I could implement it for the grabbing, it's now more similar to the Sandbox physgun, unlikely to be able to push things through walls.

Letters/packages and cash money can now be interacted with in the inventory.

I made tooltips much cleaner, now based on panels instead of just a tooltip string list. Better formatting with easier separation of contents.

Some inventory objects now support showing items contained within, making it a little bit easier to see at a glance what your fridge contains.

A very destructive bug related to object references was fixed, finally avoiding the consumption of consumables cross-inventory

The real estate view now previews most apartments and businesses, making it easier to pick out the place you want. With this came a full UI redesign for this NPC.

You can now see all recipes in the game available to you and where to use them, in the compendium.

I added a rotating pie background to the radial menu, making it a bit easier to see the selected item. There are now settings for extending the hover area and showing hotkeys.

I experimented some with a food shader which adds a mold overlay, it's pretty bad and doesn't update properly yet, but it's something at least.

Cars have a new camera now, which should feel less stiff. I still have to add back the first person toggle.

Some high voltage outlets over the past few months have hinted of commercial equipment. A griddle has now been added, which needs a certification to operate.

A few places around the map got automatic sliding doors, making entrances look less bare. I'll have to add some sort of synced remote lock for these as interacting them from close up isn't very user friendly.

Facepunch added the verlet ropes from Sandbox into the base engine, I replaced my own implementation with these, power cables now look really fancy.

This devlog had a lot of stuff in it, took a few days to write up and collect commits for - I'm sure I missed something cool. I'm almost a year into developing this iteration now, clocking in over 6000 hours in s&box. Looks like it's coming along.

Performance is still a big issue. On the main server I only get like 30-50 fps depending on the area, and that's not great for being a very low population game. I've been micro-optimizing stuff myself, but I think it's up to Facepunch now to do more things low level.