I figured out why Neon Tanks runs so slow: On the map “laser” I have 675 wall block objects, and over 6400 polies for said block objects. Needless to say, I need to rethink my methods of wall creation for this game. I’d developed one in the last 15 minutes (heh) and will be implementing the 3d version into the NT sometime soon.

I’ve also started work on a theoretical replacement for the respawn screen that will be more properly stylized and in a more reasonable location on the screen.

For those interested in the technical details, my old method used basic block objects placed in a 2d level editor, which constituted a simple and easy method for creating levels, but this is horridly optimised for the massive scale of my current levels. The new method uses node-based wall spires, with walls connecting the nodes. This will allow for a magnitude fewer polygons, and greater map detail while actually increasing perfomance overall. Crazy that I didn’t do this earlier, and I’ll be updating when this optimization is done, as it should increase performance on all counts. I’ll post screenies of the new wall method if anyone wants me to.